I am grateful for this opportunity to express my concerns in this area. I wish to share my time with Deputy Lynch, who also has such concerns.
Adjournment Debate.
Decentralisation Programme.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
When the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, made his Budget Statement in December 2003 outlining the Government's decentralisation programme, most of what was being proposed was the relocation of Government offices from Dublin to various parts of the country. One exception was a decision to move the district veterinary office from Cork city to Macroom. Other offices of the Department of Agriculture and Food, the Model Farm Road laboratories, were not mentioned or included in that Budget Statement. Subsequently, it was decided on foot of the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Parlon, going through a trawl of Office of Public Works properties to sell the site at Model Farm Road from which the road gets its name for affordable but not social housing. That undermining of one Department by another meant that those working in the laboratories were subsequently being asked to move to Macroom. Those in the district veterinary office, who had been told they would go to Macroom, are now being told that they will go to Fermoy.
At the same time, a Progressive Democrats candidate in the Macroom Town Council elections was able to say in the local media that he had been informed by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, that a property bought by the Office of Public Works to house asylum seekers and refugees, the Lynch's Inn Hotel, which has been vacant and cost the State more than €5 million, would be used for the purposes of the Department of Agriculture and Food. That was denied by officials of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Of the Department of Agriculture officials working in Cork, more than 90% live within 6 km. of their place of employment. By moving to either Macroom or Fermoy, they would not only incur additional expense but the inconvenience of additional commuter traffic. What Government decentralisation project has any sort of logic when that is what is happening?
Such attempts to solve several problems at once — this "nod and wink" approach to politics — are what we have come to expect from the senior party in Government, Fianna Fáil, but the fingerprints all over this issue, from the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Parlon, to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, to the Progressive Democrats candidate in Macroom, seem to suggest that the junior partners in this Government are no slouches either in getting their own way regardless of the effect that it has on the lives and livelihoods of workers who give their all in the service of this State. I challenge the Government to justify this decision and say how it resembles decentralisation in any way, explaining the logic of moving people doing such a job on behalf of this country.
I am not going to go over the ground laid out by Deputy Boyle as regards this blatant politicisation of a group of workers in the Cork area, except to say they feel hurt, upset and abandoned. They know well that they are being used as political pawns in this whole adventure, because that is what it is. They tell me they have not been consulted. Their union has not been consulted and they are not certain whether they are going to Macroom or Fermoy. The two towns are a distance apart. They tell me as well that they have put down roots. They are working and living in a community in Cork city. They are quite happy where they are and they are doing an excellent job. However, this Government has pressed ahead without let or hindrance, without consulting the workers' representatives to indicate this was being planned and to request that they be consulted. That is not the way to treat people who work in the public service. It is not the way to treat people who do a service to the State, but it would appear that this Government is prepared to treat workers as they do other matters, with scant regard.
These people now find themselves in a position in which they do not know where they are going. They have not been consulted and they feel as if they are being abused. The crowning issue in this regard is that they are still not certain about their futures. To them their futures are all they have. They have made certain plans to do with their employment, yet now find themselves as pawns in a political game. It is disgraceful for the Government to behave in this way.
The decision to further develop our Department's decentralisation programme for Cork and the Munster region was announced by the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Deputy Walsh, on 22 April last. This followed a review of the Department's laboratory services for the southern region and the local office service for Cork in the context of the decentralisation implementation programme and the decision to allocate land at Model Farm Road in Cork for the affordable housing initiative.
Deputies will recall that it had initially been intended to locate our Department's local office for Cork north and east in Macroom. On consideration of the issues arising from the decentralisation decision and the need to vacate the premises on the Model Farm Road, the question of the overall office services for Cork and the laboratory services for the Munster region was considered. Following consultation with the managements of our Department and the Department of Finance, the Cabinet sub-committee on decentralisation decided that Fermoy would be a more appropriate location for the Cork offices and that the existing laboratories in Cork city and Limerick should be relocated to Macroom.
The decision to establish a new regional laboratory facility for Munster in Macroom will involve the amalgamation of the three existing laboratories at present located in the Model Farm Road, Cork, and in Limerick into a modern facility in Macroom, employing up to 100 staff. It provides our Department with an ideal opportunity to develop a modern facility to meet the changing needs of the agriculture and agrifood industry in this region. With the ever-increasing need to ensure food safety for consumers and the importance of maintaining the highest animal health status, it is essential that we develop the most modern facilities. It is also important for us to bring our office services to locations that best suit the needs of the majority of our farming customers.
As regards the concerns of staff, the decentralisation programme is based on the premise that it is entirely voluntary. There will be full consultation with the workers and their unions. Indeed, the departmental council established under the conciliation and arbitration scheme for the Civil Service, met this morning and this matter and the decentralisation of the headquarters to Portlaoise were discussed comprehensively. The various concerns of the unions will be considered by our Department in the context of our detailed plans for the decentralisation process. The House is no doubt aware that the central application facility for the decentralisation programme was launched today. This enables public servants to indicate their preferences for locations throughout the country. There are large numbers of staff on transfer lists who have been anxiously awaiting the opportunity to decentralise from Dublin, or to relocate from one existing decentralised office to another in provincial Ireland.
The final number of volunteers for the Fermoy and Macroom locations will not be known for some weeks. However, a preliminary survey conducted in our Department some time ago indicated that nearly 70 staff would move to Macroom as soon as possible.
It was not done in Model Farm Road.
I am sure all Members of this House are satisfied that the decentralisation programme is a welcome development for this country as a whole and that the voluntary policy ensures that it can be delivered for the benefit of the wider community, while safeguarding the interest of all of the staff. It is a win win for Cork, Cork city, the country and the people.
Schools Building Projects.
I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to raise this, because it has been a long-running sore. It is extraordinary that children are now coming into sixth class in Gaelscoil Cholmcille, who will never have seen the inside of a school building throughout their whole career in primary school. At this stage it is a school of 230 pupils. It has the gamut of classes from junior infants right through to sixth class. The school has been built up over a long period and is currently located in a football club, with extremely cramped conditions. There are narrow corridors and stairs that are wholly inappropriate for a primary school. The carpark is shared with club members who are coming and going. It is an unsafe place for children to be playing; it is their playground.
The reality is that this has dragged on and on and highly motivated teachers, parents and indeed pupils have been working hard to try to get a site for this school. We are now on our fifth site without the support from the Department of Education and Science to approve any of them and proceed to purchase. Dublin City Council set aside a site. It is waiting, in an area that is going to be developed. It is ideally located. The Department has signed off on it as being appropriate, but it will not budge on the question of paying the money to buy the site and to start the process rolling. It is difficult. Parents have reached breaking point and there will be a demonstration on the site.
I hope the Minister of State will give some good news so that parents, teachers and children will not have to give up a working day in order to lodge their protest over the way this has been neglected. The sort of answers we have been getting from the Minister is that it would be "commercially sensitive" to release information as to whether the Department is going to buy this site or not. Who is the Government fooling? This is a city council site and it is negotiating with the Department of Education and Science. There is no commercial sensitivity. This is a word processor answer that has been churned out by the Department of Education and Science.
We have to get down to basics. Where the Department is paying a rent, if that is capitalised a school could be built and there would be money to spare. Rent is being paid, dead money, and parents and children are being frustrated to the extent that they will take to the streets to demonstrate.
The latest letter I received from the Department really broke my heart. The new line is, "We are now looking at other options." What that means I do not know. No one on the school's board of management, no parent, teacher or pupil, knows what other options might be on the table. We know the ethos of gaelscoileanna requires schools to have sites of their own where they can develop. That has been the policy of the Department. What other options are being introduced at what is now well beyond the 11th hour. This is the fifth site we have considered. The Minister of State must come up with a response and give commitments as to when the Department will buy and when it will build.
I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this issue. I am happy to share it with Deputy Richard Bruton because a number of Dáil constituencies on the north side of Dublin have been involved in this. There is concern across a number of parties in all those constituencies about the shoddy treatment that Gaelscoil Cholmcille is receiving from the Department of Education and Science. As has been said, this is a remarkably successful school. It started in 1996 and is now up to full capacity. It has a full stream right through the school.
The school is exceptionally popular and provides a high quality of education. However, the accommodation it currently occupies is entirely and utterly unsuitable and does a serious disservice to the children and staff who experience great difficulty in trying to endure the conditions as they exist.
As Deputy Bruton said, the conditions in the school which is situated in St. Kevin's football club are entirely inappropriate. Conditions are cramped and unsafe. There are considerable health and safety issues because of the completely inadequate building.
Additional prefabs have had to be provided in the grounds of the club. They in turn are not suitable for the students and are causing congestion around the area, making things difficult for the club as well as for the school. The level of education provided in the school is exceptionally high and that is why it is so successful despite its poor condition.
The Department has treated this school community very badly. It was advised to find a site. It spent considerable time doing that and eventually located the ideal site on Oscar Traynor Road which was owned by Dublin City Council. It went through the normal procedures, submitted the details to the Department and had it checked by the Office of Public Works. The Department agreed that the site was perfect in terms of location, size and so on. The city council has reserved the site for the school. It was told a decision would be taken, but still there is no word.
A meeting took place a couple of weeks ago between the school authorities and the Department but no information has emerged from that meeting. Will the Minister of State inform us, in fairness to everyone involved, if the Department will sanction the purchase of this site? I am concerned about rumours circulating and information coming from some of the Fianna Fáil Deputies on the north side of Dublin that an alternative arrangement is being examined, namely, the possibility of a sharing arrangement with another school. This idea has been rejected by the staff and parents of Gaelscoil Cholmcille because they want to preserve their own ethos and want a fresh start on a greenfield site where they can build a school to their own specifications to meet their needs.
Either way, these people deserve to be told exactly what is proposed. They have been strung along for long enough. The Minister needs to stop the prevarication and let us know exactly what is happening. The people deserve no less than that.
Is cúis áthais dom a bheith anseo chun freagra cruinn beacht a thabhairt ar an ábhar atá faoi bhráid na Dála. I thank the Deputies for raising this matter in this House as it provides, me with an opportunity on behalf of the Minister for Education and Science to outline to the House the overall strategy of the Department of Education and Science to address the permanent accommodation needs of Gaelscoil Cholmcille, Santry, Dublin 9.
The school is a co-educational primary one operating on the north side of Dublin city. It opened in September 1996 and enrolments have grown steadily over the past eight years. The school has an enrolment of 210 pupils and a staffing of a principal and eight mainstream class teachers. It is accommodated in premises owned by St. Kevin's boys' club. An annual rental of €88,050 has been sanctioned for 95% grant aid by the Department of Education and Science. A recent application for an increase in rent is the subject of correspondence between the school planning section of the Department and the school's management authority. Central to the Department's long-term strategy is the need to house the school in permanent accommodation. In this regard, consideration is being given to acquiring a site. The property management section of the OPW is acting on behalf of the Department of Education and Science in site acquisitions generally and has been instructed to pursue the issue of a site for the provision of a new school. The Deputies will, however, appreciate that due to the commercial sensitivities surrounding site acquisitions——
What commercial sensitivities?
Would Deputy Richard Bruton please let me finish? It is not possible to comment on specific site purchase issues. Can one imagine if we were to disclose the figures under negotiation how other site prices would escalate?
That is nonsense.
Is the Minister buying the site?
Additionally, the Department is exploring other options that may provide a solution to the accommodation needs of Gaelscoil Cholmcille. These explorations are at a preliminary stage and, accordingly, it would be inappropriate to elaborate on this option at this time.
On the general issue of new and refurbished school accommodation, the Department's strategy will be grounded in capital investment based on multi-annual allocations. Officials from the Department are reviewing all projects which were not authorised to proceed to construction as part of the 2004 school building programme with a view to including them as part of a multi-annual school building programme from 2005——
The Department cannot do that until it buys the site.
——and they expect to be in a position to make further announcements on this matter in the course of the year ahead, which is a positive affirmation. Permanent accommodation for Gaelscoil Cholmcille will be considered as part of this review process. I thank the Deputies once again for raising this matter in the House and assure them that a decision will be made quan celerimme.
I thank the Minister of State for nothing.
Child Care Services.
I thank the Ceann Comhairle and am glad to have the opportunity of raising this important matter on the Adjournment debate. This concerns the abolition of crèche support grants for parents who have returned to third level education. It is one of the 16 savage cuts in the budget. We all recall the cutback on allowances for widows and widowers and the campaign conducted by the public and in this House and the media which forced the Minister for Social and Family Affairs and the Government to make a U-turn. On this occasion the Minister may not make a U-turn because it involves a smaller group and one that is probably less important in the opinion of the Minister and the Government.
On 24 December 2003, circular 05/03 was issued from the Minister's Department to health boards. Paragraph 8.1 stated:
New applications for crèche supplements should not be approved after 1 January 2004. The objective of this measure is to discontinue the provision of long-term supports to crèches through the SWA scheme in favour of more sustainable funding through more appropriate sources.
"More sustainable funding through more appropriate sources" is not available to most people. I do not want the Minister to tell me that this can be funded through the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform because that funding is available only to community-based crèches and therefore is not available to most people.
This week the Western Health Board has informed 200 parents in Galway city and county that, from the next term on, they will no longer receive their crèche grant. Most of these people are single mothers who are trying to improve their situation and that of their families by going back into education. The Minister's cruel action will force many of them to give up their courses next year because the crèche grant will not be available to them. The average charge for crèches in Galway city and country ranges from €65 to more than €120 per week. How can someone receiving a lone parent allowance afford that?
Last week the Minister praised herself for the great work she was doing for the underprivileged. On behalf of these underprivileged people, I appeal to her to restore this important grant aid to a vital section of people in the community who have no one to fight for them. They do not have time to lobby because they have enough to do to mind themselves and their families. It is especially insensitive to make the announcement this week when they are beginning their exams. They are in despair and do not know whether to sit the exams because they do not know if they can continue in their back to education scheme next term. This is a cruel decision for the sake of 1,600 applications costing approximately €2 million.
The Minister has allowed herself be bulldozed by her officials or by the Minister for Finance. She is not a heartless person but I am quite sure that the civil servants or perhaps the Minister for Finance have taken advantage of her inexperience in the Department by instructing her to cut back by a certain amount. She fell for this and made 16 savage cutbacks in the budget of which this is one of the most savage affecting a vulnerable section of people trying to improve their status. Some are returning to education ten or 12 years after leaving school. Putting their children in a crèche and receiving a grant to do that has enabled them to do this.
No matter what the Minister says in her prepared reply, I am telling her that I have researched this and in most cases it does not suit many of those parents to place their children in community-based crèches because these are not always available to these parents. Besides, they would receive only a part of the grant for such crèches and would have to pay a supplement. I urge the Minister to reverse this decision in the same way as she reversed the decision regarding widows. How can I return to Galway and tell these people that the Government has squandered €52 million on electronic voting and it cannot give a crèche grant for those who have returned to education.
The matter raised by the Deputy concerns a change introduced in the supplementary welfare allowance scheme with effect from January 2004.
Subject to certain conditions, a person whose means are insufficient to meet his or her basic needs and the needs of any adult or child dependant may be entitled to assistance under the terms of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme administered on behalf of my Department by the health boards.
The objective of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme is to meet immediate, short-term income maintenance needs. The scheme is not intended to be a long-term solution in any individual case. The crèche supplement was introduced with the intention of providing assistance to a parent in need of short-term emergency support. This could arise, for example, where, without assistance with child minding, a parent would not be able to avail of necessary supports such as counselling services or addiction treatment programmes. It was never intended to be an ongoing or long-term support for people returning to full-time education.
When the change was announced in November 2003, 1,738 crèche supplements were being paid. This figure represented an increase of almost 150% in less than three years from January 2001 when approximately 700 people were in receipt of a crèche supplement. Payment of crèche supplements were increasingly being made for reasons which were clearly outside the scope of the original intentions of the scheme.
An analysis of crèche supplements showed that 35% of supplements had been in payment for more than eight months, 20% for more than one year and approximately 10% for more than two years. The fact that supplements were in payment for long a duration in many cases indicates that they had become a long-term child care support rather than the short-term social welfare which was originally intended. In effect, long-term child care needs were being provided through a short-term emergency provision scheme. This is not an appropriate way to meet the needs of the people in question. However, crèche supplements in payment prior to 1 January 2004 were allowed to continue for a limited period.
While the total amount spent on crèche supplements is significant, with some €2.1 million spent in 2003, funding crèches in this manner is administratively inefficient as it requires parents to apply individually for a weekly payment. The cost of administration represents a high proportion of the value of the funds provided to the crèches.
The Deputy may be aware that the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform has introduced an equal opportunities child care programme to fund the development of child care in Ireland while seeking to ensure that existing child care services are not displaced by the introduction of other initiatives in this area.
It only applies to community-based crèches.
One of the main aims of the programme is to provide child care facilities which will allow parents to avail of educational, training and employment opportunities. In this regard, the equal opportunities child care programme is the more appropriate vehicle to address the needs of the people identified by the Deputy.
I met officials from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Department of Health and Children, in addition to officials from some health boards, to try to ensure that more appropriate arrangements are put in place by those agencies. The discussions are ongoing.
In the meantime, the changes I introduced in the supplementary welfare allowance scheme do not affect the discretion available to health boards to provide assistance in emergency cases under an exceptional needs payment.
The Dáil adjourned at 9.15 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 13 May 2004.