Joe Higgins
Question:1. Deputy Joe Higgins asked the Taoiseach the Cabinet sub-committees that have met since the adjournment of Dáil Éireann in July; and the number of times each has met. [39141/13]
Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed)
Cabinet Committee Meetings
I have chaired 14 Cabinet committee meetings since the Dáil summer recess. The Cabinet committees on health and mortgage arrears and credit availability have met three times. The Cabinet committees on social policy and economic recovery and jobs have met twice and the Cabinet committees on Irish and the Gaeltacht, economic infrastructure, public service reform and European affairs have met once. A sub-committee of the Cabinet committee on economic recovery and jobs, dealing specifically with Pathways to Work, has also met once since the summer recess. The Economic Management Council, EMC, which has the status of a Cabinet committee, has met 11 times since the summer recess.
How many questions is the Taoiseach taking together?
I call Deputy Higgins.
Eleven.
Is the Taoiseach taking Questions Nos. 1 to 11?
Which committee met 11 times?
I am sorry. No. I am taking Question No. 1. This is a problem for everyone. I am responding to Question No. 1 because people say one should break up the questions. I note that Questions Nos. 2 to 12 are all related to Question No. 1 because they are about individual Cabinet sub-committees. Deputies may take it whatever way they want.
Is the Taoiseach answering just Question No. 1?
I am answering just Question No. 1.
That is fine.
I call Deputy Higgins.
What was the last committee to which the Taoiseach referred met 11 times?
Gabh mo leithscéal.
How many times did the Economic Management Council meet?
It met 11 times since the summer recess.
How often did the Cabinet committee on health meet?
The Cabinet committee on health and the Cabinet committee on mortgage arrears and credit availability met three times.
How many times did the Cabinet committee on climate change and the green economy meet?
I am sorry but I have called Deputy Higgins. It is his question.
I saw Deputy Boyd Barrett's posters in Dún Laoghaire the other day when I walked the pier.
Is the Taoiseach coming to the meeting?
I might.
The Taoiseach might learn something.
I might tell Deputy Boyd Barrett something.
I call Deputy Higgins.
The final sentence in the reply speaks volumes. The Economic Management Council, which is composed of the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform met 11 times, which is a multiple of many of the other committees. Is it the case that in this Government, Cabinet committees are surplus to requirement because the EMC has assumed such dictatorial powers? It appears that it is frog-marching the Government in whatever direction it wishes. Is that not obvious from what happened in 2011 when the president of the European Central Bank, Mr. Trichet, screamed at the Taoiseach and dictated that he would not burn bondholders in Anglo Irish Bank or that an economic bomb would go off under him in Dublin? The Taoiseach capitulated in an hour without reference to the Cabinet, which apparently had agreed that such burning of bondholders would take place. What is the purpose of the committees when any decisions or reports they make to the Cabinet can be apparently overturned by a very short meeting, perhaps even in the corridor, of the Economic Management Council? Where does that leave any role for the democratic input of elected representatives in this country?
When I was elected as Taoiseach I examined the issue and I found that Cabinet sub-committees used to meet on an irregular basis perhaps once a quarter. Given the state of affairs in a number of areas I felt it was appropriate that we should devote one day in the month exclusively to Cabinet sub-committees. I do that on a Monday from 8.30 a.m. right through until 6 p.m. I find it is a very effective way to focus on a number of issues in regard to the remit of any of the Cabinet sub-committees. I find they are more valued now than they ever have been because people are subject to timelines and therefore focused on particular issues to move them along and not let them drift, as might happen if they meet only on an irregular basis.
The answer to Deputy Higgins’s question is that Cabinet sub-committees are more important than ever from my point of view and we devote a particular focus to issues relevant to each of them on one Monday every month. I could not do it effectively, given the proceedings of the Dáil, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. I find the sub-committees very effective in terms of being able to move issues along.
The EMC is not a dictatorship. It is a facility whereby the Tánaiste, the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and I consider emerging issues that need to be dealt with. If we make a recommendation, we bring it to the Cabinet to make a full formal decision, if appropriate.
Cabinet Committee Meetings
Micheál Martin
Question:2. Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on social policy last met. [39242/13]
Joe Higgins
Question:3. Deputy Joe Higgins asked the Taoiseach the number of times the Cabinet committee on social policy has met since the summer recess. [45919/13]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 2 and 3 together.
The Cabinet committee on social policy has met on two occasions since the Dáil summer recess, on 22 July and, most recently, on 30 September.
I thank the Taoiseach for his reply. That the social policy committee has met only twice sums up the orientation of Government policy. The social policy committee exists to oversee the broad thrust of the Government's decisions in this area. An objective assessment of the past three budgets by the ESRI and others clearly demonstrates that they have been weighted against the weaker sections of society, including those on the lowest incomes and the most vulnerable. The budgets have been fundamentally regressive and unfair. That the committee has met only twice is a factor in all this.
In recent weeks, the Taoiseach and the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, launched a media campaign to present themselves as the leaders of a clampdown on welfare abuse. The Taoiseach published a major article on this. He said he personally was driving forward this agenda. While everybody supports attempts to deal with fraud in the social welfare system, we should be honest and realise this campaign is more about politics than substance.
That is a separate question entirely from the one on the Order Paper.
It is a distraction from the mean and petty cuts to health and social supports. In this regard, one should bear in mind what has happened in the budget in the areas of health and social policy, and the lack of any proofing of the budget's measures affecting single or separated parents, for example. The tax credit allowance was taken, which can impose a hit on families in the order of €2,500 to €3,000. This is a very severe hit on top of other welfare cuts.
That is all very interesting but we are talking about the number of times the Cabinet committee on social protection met, not the actual policy. The policy is a matter for the Minister.
This place is becoming increasingly less functional as a place of accountability.
The Ceann Comhairle is intervening a bit too much. I am asking a basic question.
The Deputy should table the right question.
The Ceann Comhairle takes out the right questions. How many questions are being disallowed? Numerous questions are disallowed continually.
Any questions that are disallowed are disallowed in accordance with the Standing Orders.
Of course. Standing Orders seem to be framed by this Government with a view to suppressing any meaningful articulation of viewpoints.
The Standing Orders are in place for years.
No. They were voted through last week again.
No, not in regard to parliamentary questions.
Yes, they were.
The Deputy should please stick to the question.
I will do that and will be very effective. By the way, Standing Orders did affect questions last week very substantially, as the Ceann Comhairle knows. Deputies are already complaining about the limitation on time now. It is all designed to give the Government pre-eminence in the Chamber and to reduce accountability. That is the key point. I am referring to social policy. The committee meets only twice. Fine Gael is operating according to an old-school Tory strategy, which is basically to attack those on low incomes. That the deputy leader of the Labour Party is a party to it is a problem.
Has the Cabinet committee prepared for publication the poverty impact assessment of the budget? This was deliberately not published in the budget papers. Has it been prepared? Will it be published? Has the social policy committee considered that?
That is a separate question. The actual question asks the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on social policy last met. That is all I have to deal with.
The Cabinet committee on social policy met on six occasions this year, namely 11 February, 12 February, 15 April, 24 June, 22 July and 30 September. It is due to meet again on 25 November, this month.
The Deputy may well ask the role of the Cabinet committee on social policy. It provides a basis for cross-departmental co-ordination in the areas of social inclusion, poverty reduction and service delivery. There is a sense of coherence across various Departments in that they are not all individual entities. The committee has the key task of driving social policy commitments in the programme for Government. Essentially, the committee focuses on the fairness objectives and the social policy priorities in Government for National Recovery 2011–2016. It assesses and presents Government options or alternative measures to achieve better outcomes and to address barriers to achieving social policy priorities. It guides the development and management of cross-departmental activities and prioritises service delivery in a range of areas.
Through the social policy committee recommendations, the Government has protected the primary weekly social welfare rates, put in place a proactive approach for people who are unemployed through the provision of a radically transformed system for employment services, Intreo. This amalgamates staffs from community welfare offices, social welfare offices and FÁS. If one visits any of the services - in Dundalk or Sligo or in the others to follow - one will note a remarkable transformation in the way people on the live register are engaged with, both individually and as groups. A social inclusion clause is now required for so many capital works approved to take people off the live register who are capable of doing a very good job. This is demonstrated by a drop, over 16 consecutive months, in the number on the live register, which is now below 400,000.
There was analysis in the run-in to the referendum on children's rights. Child protection was strengthened through the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act 2012 and the Criminal Justice (Withholding of Information on Offences against Children and Vulnerable Adults) Act 2012. That was processed through the social policy committee. It published the national implementation framework of the value for money and policy review of the disability services programme. It committed €2.5 million through its recommendation to fund a new area-based approach to child poverty. It completed 43 surveys on school patronage, launched new junior cycle reforms and increased time spent on literacy and numeracy in all primary schools. It launched a comprehensive action plan on bullying and ended the practice of sending 16-year-olds to St. Patrick's institution. It was behind a new combined community service programme and commenced a strategic review of penal policy. Eighty-one citizenship ceremonies were held, at which 42,275 applicants were granted a certificate of naturalisation. People will recall that a person who qualified for naturalisation used to have to attend at the District Court or Circuit Court and could have had his or her application processed in the middle of cases taken for various misdemeanours. That has all changed. The committee published National Positive Ageing Strategy, a very important document given the ageing population. It published the national disability strategy implementation plan and announced a package of measures to address alcohol misuse arising from the report of the substance misuse strategy group. That report will be debated in the Dáil on Friday. The present discussion-----
What about the poverty impact assessment of the budget?
I cannot answer that for the Deputy now but will revert to the Deputy on when it is expected to be available for publication.
Committee priorities concluded advancing the work on publishing the strategy dealing with dementia, which is so important. It continued to advance legislation for the Child and Family Support Agency, which will take over the responsibilities from the HSE on 1 January and progress the legislation to put Children First guidance on a statutory basis. Another objective is making progress on the implementation of the early actions on the national literacy strategy, including the appointment of literacy and numeracy advisers to support teachers and the development of the new education passport to alert schools where a student requires additional supports on having transferred from another school. This has been around for a while.
In respect of alcohol misuse, the Government approved the drafting of the legislation in the form of the Public Health (Alcohol) Bill to provide for minimum unit pricing for retailing of alcohol products.
That cannot come into effect until the court case currently before the European Commission, taken as a result of a decision by the Scottish Assembly, is dealt with. Other areas relate to the advertising and marketing of alcohol, with the intention of limiting advertising of alcohol on television to evening hours from 2016 and so forth. We are also dealing with the regulation of sports sponsorship - specifically, devising a way to place the existing voluntary code on sports sponsorship on a statutory footing. The Department of the Taoiseach is chairing a group which will discuss and report within 12 months on the question of sports sponsorship in the longer term.
These are just some of the issues that the Cabinet committee on social policy has engaged with recently. Clearly, the committee deals with a volume of complex and sometimes sensitive work. It is certainly much more effective than it used to be, when meetings were held on a very irregular basis, with no real focus or requirement to get things done.
Does the Taoiseach agree that it would seem extraordinary to most people that the social policy committee has met only once since the recess, particularly in the context of a draconian budget that had severe effects, with further cuts to those dependent on social protection payments? In that regard and against a background of just under 400,000 people who are unemployed or seriously underemployed, with many living in very difficult circumstances, it betokens very little concern for that segment of our people. Is it not the case that the Minister for Health is a member of the social policy committee? Is it not incredible, with the crisis facing tens of thousands of people whose medical cards have been withdrawn, that this matter has not been deemed sufficient to call an emergency meeting of the committee, if this committee is worthy of its name and really dealing with social policy? The reality is that the troika, as an agent for the European financial markets, has far more input into social policy in this country than any social committee of the Cabinet which is supposed to represent the elected Government of this country. That is the reality and is manifest in the savage cuts the Government has made to young people's jobseeker's allowance, to maternity benefit and so forth.
I ask the Taoiseach to stop repeating the mendacious statement that core rates of social welfare have not been cut or hit by this Government. For young people aged between 22 and 25, the small amount they receive in jobseeker's allowance is very much a core payment. It gives them a life that is far from that of a Cabinet Minister in terms of income and lifestyle, but that is the reality and the cut is a savage blow. Similarly, there is the cut to maternity benefit, which is a core payment for young women who are expecting children and trying to survive in the face of the plethora of taxes and cuts this Government and the previous one under Fianna Fáil and the Green Party have imposed on them. The same is true of the cut to rent supplement. The Taoiseach should at least do us the favour of explaining how language has changed suddenly to allow him to make such statements and square them with the reality of what people are experiencing due to the austerity his Government is inflicting upon them.
Deputy Higgins is right to refer to those aged between 22 and 25, but what do they want? They want an opportunity to have a decent job, to better themselves and get to a different place if they are unemployed. The fact is that the number on the live register, which was almost at 500,000 when this Government took office, has now gone below 400,000. This year, 113,000 people left the live register and while many were replaced by others, that illustrates the extent of movement in the labour market.
Most of them are moving away.
They are getting on the boat.
Unfortunately for Deputy Higgins, core payment rates in social protection have been protected. In the recent budget, the Minister for Finance provided €500 million in incentives for small businesses to improve and develop opportunities to take on extra staff.
Today the Minister for Education and Skills attended the first meeting of SOLAS, which replaces FÁS. I like to think we can engage in a very different way with young people. That is why incentives have been put in place specifically for unemployed young people who might want to start their own businesses. They will have the opportunity to claim back up to €40,000 in income tax paid in previous years. It is also important to ask what the economy will be built on in the future. It will be built on small and medium-sized enterprises. It is a lot easier to have 50 small firms take on 20 extra staff apiece than to continuously attempt to land big companies with 1,000 jobs, welcome though they are. In that sense, the budget was unashamedly focused on the opportunity for job creation. Those young people about whom Deputy Higgins rightly speaks deserve to be engaged with properly and not just seen as a statistic on the live register. We should not just say to them, "Come in and sign for your dole and then go away." It is different now because there is an engagement with them. They are asked what is their experience, what it is they would like to do, what course they would like to follow-----
Yes, and now we have qualified teachers working for €50 per week.
They are asked what they would like to do in terms of an internship to better themselves.
Are they asked how they will pay for the stamps for their job applications?
Why is it that all that people such as Deputy Higgins and Deputy Boyd Barrett want to do is to keep people on the unemployed lists?
That is not true.
I never hear a constructive suggestion from either Deputy.
Hear, hear.
Instead, they speak about austerity and cutbacks and the fact that there is no hope. Has either Deputy ever given a constructive suggestion other than to crucify those who earn higher salaries?
Yes, we have.
They simply suggest that by some magic formula the country will function. I would like to hear the Deputies engage with young people aged between 22 and 25 and give them their views on opportunities for them. What are those opportunities? As far as the Government is concerned, we want to engage with those people, look at where their talent or flair lies and where their contribution can be-----
And then cut their money.
-----and provide the opportunity for them to follow their dreams and to better themselves. The vast majority of those people want to work, want to contribute and want to be doing things.
Of course they do.
The Government is providing Michael McDowell-style incentivisation.
They want to make a difference, but all I ever hear from the two Deputies opposite is that we should keep the dole queues the way they are and let them wallow in disillusionment and uncertainty.
The Taoiseach should get off the stage.
As far as I am concerned, we need to break out of that field, get inside the minds of those young people, find out what they want to do and see if we can help them, through employers or State agencies.
There are 32 applicants for every vacancy.
Five hundred million euro was provided in this budget to assist small businesses in making progress in that regard.
I do not accept the same old assertions from Deputies Higgins and Boyd Barrett. We have listened to the gramophone record until it is played out. They never have any constructive suggestion of any description. I invite them to demonstrate where 100, 50 or even ten jobs could be created for young people, as distinct from the rant that they normally go on with and their illusion about huge wealth taxes sorting out the problems that this Government inherited. We are not afraid of those problems and are making steady progress in the right direction, although we still have a long way to go. A constructive contribution from the two gentlemen would be very welcome and very well received.
Hit the working class and let the wealthy off scot free. That is the Taoiseach's motto.
It is striking and defines the Government that the social policy committee met just twice in April and September in the key run-up period to the budget.
It met three times.
The Economic Management Council met 11 times.
Yes.
In other words, we are witnessing the marginalisation of the social policy committee and dimension in the budgetary programme. It is very much a Fine Gael orthodoxy which is moving more to the right day by day. The extraordinary point is that the Labour Party is poodling along with this orientation. The Government has a right-wing approach. The Taoiseach may smile, but it is a fact.
I heard the Deputy on about the Tories the other day.
I am astounded by this. If the social policy committee had met more often, the budget would not have been unfair to old people or disproportionately and dramatically unfair to single parents. The hit the latter group will take on tax credits is extraordinary and shows that there was no poverty-proofing by any social policy committee. The savings of €666 million to €1 billion in the health sector were not proofed by the social policy committee. Policy on discretionary medical cards was changed in the budget, meaning that people with multiple conditions, some with motor neuron disease, have to obtain letters from professors in various clinics to get their medical cards back. Even last week, people were still getting letters informing them their medical cards were to be withdrawn. The taxing of maternity benefit would not have happened either if there had been a strong social policy dimension informing and poverty-proofing the budget. Where was the social policy committee of the Cabinet when all of these decisions were being made?
I hold no brief for any other Deputy in the House. However, more honest language would be more appropriate. Taking €44 from young people is not about creating jobs. The majority of young people want to work. However, the Taoiseach said in his earlier replies to Deputies that they really did not want work and that the only way to get them a job was to take €44 from them. In the budget this measure was described as a new rate that would apply to 18 to 21 year olds and it was stated it would now apply to those over 21 years. It is insulting of the Government to tell people that it does not believe they want a job and cut their social welfare rate by €44. What the Government is actually doing is trying to raise revenue. It would be better if the Taoiseach were more honest and admitted that this was what it was about. However, dressing it up as a job activation measure is dishonest.
Will the social policy committee be meeting more often? The one big fact which blows a hole in the Taoiseach’s proposition of the so-called youth guarantee is that there are only about 18,000 places available through it when there are 66,000 young people unemployed. It is very dishonest and insulting to young people to tell them that their welfare payment is being cut by €44 to get them working when there are insufficient job placements or social welfare inspectors to assist them in these placements. It is all a mirage, rhetoric and spin.
A question, please.
The favourite tactic of the Taoiseach is to demonise his opponents and attack them because he does not have the substance of a decent response or the capacity to respond to the hard fact that he has just reduced young people’s income on the dole. Please, will he call it this and not anything else? Will he not dress it up as something to do with job activation when it patently has nothing to do with this? If he was more honest and upfront with people about the decisions the Government has made, he might get more respect. Will the social policy committee meet more frequently to give a stronger social dimension to the budget proposals that have been emerging and ensure the next budget will not be as regressive and unfair as the past three have been? Everyone involved in the social policy area, including the ESRI, has said the past three budgets have been regressive and unfair.
I disagree with the Deputy. The situation left for the Government to deal with was like climbing the Cliffs of Moher in the dark. We hope on 15 December to exit the bailout programme, but we still have many challenges ahead.
In my earlier reply I stated the health committee had met three times to deal with the confusion that had arisen from the centralising of the assessment system for medical cards. The health committee called in the Health Service Executive.
This language is driving people mad. Does the Taoiseach understand this?
It is not.
It is not about confusion. Why can the Taoiseach just not say he took medical cards from people?
There are other questions on the Order Paper that I can move on to.
It is very frustrating to have to listen to this day in, day out.
The Deputy never listened to anyone.
I listen to the Taoiseach all the time, but nothing comes out of him, only drivel.
I am sorry, Deputies. I might start to stick rigidly to the rules at Question Time. As the Taoiseach had drifted, I allowed supplementary questions which do not really have much to do with the original question. If Members cannot order matters themselves, I have to step in as an independent chairperson. Will the Taoiseach complete his answer?
The health committee met three times to deal with health issues and actually called in the HSE to ask it about the position on dealing with the exceptional cases of refusals of medical cards and appliances as highlighted on television and radio and in the newspapers. It asked how it would sort out a system that would work effectively and in a caring way for those who needed medical cards.
In 2013 the social policy committee met six times and is due to meet again on 27 November. It will continue to meet in the new year and beyond.
Everyone recognises that a system in which young men and women leave secondary school and get on to the conveyor belt of unemployment assistance only to be left there is not healthy for society or the young people in question. When Deputy Martin is going around the country, he should pay a visit to an Intreo office to see how it engages with people now. Those on the live register are asked what job they would like to do, what experience they have and what courses or apprenticeships they would like to take. Supports are then provided for them accordingly.
The numbers of young people in work have increased in the past 12 months. It is not all down to emigration, as some claim all the time. We are now in a happier position, with in excess of 3,000 jobs a month being created in the private sector. Last week at the Dublin web summit I noted the energy coming from the young people and companies in attendance. Some will fail, but some will succeed to an enormous extent. Owing to the fact there has been an increase of 30,000 people in employment since we launched An Action Plan for Jobs, I want to see the Government in 2014 focus relentlessly on what else can we do to create employment. We need to ensure small and medium-sized enterprises, the indigenous economy, know what State agency supports are available to them and the incentive for them to take people off the live register. I have great faith in the measure introduced by the Minister for Finance for the reconstruction sector. Many qualified tradesmen and smaller contractors, over 100,000 of whom were unemployed in the past few years, will be able to find work with a tax credit over two years. This will also assist those householders who want to avail of energy conservation retrofitting. This measure will pay dividends across the country.
Employers told us the tax relief scheme for taking on workers from the live register was far too bureaucratic and filled with red tape; therefore, we scrapped it.
Now, if one employs somebody who has been out of work for 12 months there is a direct injection of €7,500, and one receives €10,000 for a person who has been out of work for two years. It helps cashflow, is very simple and operates well. That, together with the other programmes such as Momentum, JobBridge and JobsPlus, give people the opportunity to get into something they might be interested in and that, hopefully, might lead to a more permanent position.
One would like to wave a wand and put everybody back to work, but that is impossible. However, so many opportunities are building up that if we achieve the 2% growth rates projected by the Government - others have forecast higher rates and it remains to be seen what 2014 will bring - we will be out of the programme with whatever decision the Government makes. The rest of Europe will make its own decisions. If the eurozone can rise it will be important for us as exporters and suppliers of indigenous elements of services.
It is a case of not lying down under this challenge. We do not have all the answers by any means, but elements of those answers come from engaging with people. The ideas and proposals that come from people are listened to and if they are worthwhile they should be implemented. There is an element of challenge for the Government to make employers and potential employers aware of what is available. We need to work on that constantly.
I met with Connect Ireland representatives 18 months ago and they said there are Irish people working in companies all over the world - in Australia, South America or wherever - from receptionist to chief executive. Many of those companies may want to expand into Europe. Some company representatives may never have heard of Ireland. All we say is, "If you are going to invest in Europe, think of Ireland." That pipeline is very busy. When one gets ten jobs in Kinvara or 80 in Portarlington, or other places around the country where the IDA, with due respect to it, may not have a particular focus, that is important. I would like to think we could have a full pipeline of such investment coming through and follow it with our indigenous economy where the support the Government puts in will help employers take on two or three more employees. That is why it is important to be able to say with some degree of certainty that there will be no income tax or VAT increases for the next period, so they can plan within that range how they might improve the situation.
In due course the people will decide whom they wish to elect, but we will strive with all our might and main to open those doors in the period ahead. I hope that when we exit the bailout, put up the shutters behind us and move on in a different way, we will send a signal to our people that we are never going back to that sort of culture and that we will move forward by sending signals to the markets internationally that this country is on the move and that we see an opportunity for brighter days ahead. That is the challenge of politics and everybody here contributes to that in their individual ways.
I thank the Ceann Comhairle for letting me speak. The Taoiseach itemised, among other elements, that the Cabinet sub-committee on social policy had a responsibility for poverty reduction and social inclusion. Then he gave us a long litany of measures, some of them perhaps very commendable, but he was not able to tell us whether the sub-committee had dealt with the need for a poverty impact report on the budget. Sinn Féin has long argued for equality-proofing. That happens in the North and it is quite effective. There is a need to assess the social impact of different measures brought in by the Government. The European Commission has criticised the Government for not doing this, so this is not just a Sinn Féin criticism. It acknowledges that this is done in a limited way after a budget but it argues for such assessment to be broadened and done before a budget.
The Commission also criticised the fact that budgetary measures on health or education, and the impact of indirect taxes, are not assessed. That is a fundamental element that is missing from the report the Taoiseach has given us today. Will the Cabinet sub-committee commission a piece of work on the implications of last month's budget? What would the Government's attitude be to that? If such a report called for these measures to be reversed or changed because of the social impact, in keeping with the committee's remit of poverty reduction and social inclusion, one would think there would be an onus on the Government to follow it through.
I ask the Taoiseach to refrain in these debates from ridiculing people who may have a different perspective from him. It is not helpful to the discussion.
This is not a debate. This is Question Time.
In his response to questions, I ask the Taoiseach to refrain from trying to ridicule the questioners instead of taking their questions seriously. It is preposterous to suggest that anybody in here wants to leave people on the dole.
We want to move on, because Deputy Boyd Barrett has a question in the next block.
It is a red herring which means the Taoiseach is not taking the debate seriously. The Cabinet sub-committee on social policy meets far less frequently than the Economic Management Council, which is the committee for inflicting pain and the priorities of the troika on people and the economy. Does that not reflect the bad priorities of this Government in dealing with such issues as job creation? How can the Taoiseach say that reducing the social welfare entitlement of jobseekers from €188 to €100 will help them find a job? Very evidently, it will drive them into poverty. When seeking a job one needs resources to do it, such as a computer, Internet access and bus fares. One needs to interact with other human beings who might be in a position to give one a job. That costs money. How does impoverishing jobseekers support them in seeking jobs? It self-evidently does not.
Is the sub-committee examining emigration as a social policy issue? The facts make it clear that the consequence of the Government's policies of attacking young people and its failure to provide jobs for them is creating an incentive for young people to leave. Is the real subtext of the Government's policy to create pan-European flexibility and drive young people out of the country because that is what Europe wants? They do not have enough young people in Germany, so we will drive them out of Ireland to Germany or somewhere else in Europe. Is that the real policy - to impoverish people such that they have no choice but to leave the country?
Could Deputy Boyd Barrett stick to the questions?
Deputy Adams raised the question of a poverty impact report. I will ask the Minister for Social Protection to carry out such an exercise. We will publish it in due course and debate it here. In the last year there has been an increase of 33,800 in the number of people in employment and of 20,000 in the number of people in full-time employment. Many of those people are on social protection of some sort or another. When one speaks to them one cannot put a price on their joy at having the opportunity to do a full-time job and thereby better their circumstances. They feel the dignity of employment and an opportunity to work and, maybe, change direction through that.
The best way to deal with and reduce poverty is to create employment and opportunities for jobs. If we had not taken the initiatives we took in the budget to provide for businesses, employment, access to credit and employers to take people off the live register, we would not have done our duty. Some 113,000 people came off the live register, although they were replaced by others. This shows the extent of movement in the labour market.
Where are they gone?
This issue must have the relentless focus of the Government for 2014. We will have the local and European elections in 2014, but there is no referendum planned for 2014. I would like to see every Department and agency focus on employment opportunities for 2014. For many years, the people who occupied these benches operated in a kind of individual tunnel and there was no collective focus of the Government on dealing with unemployment. This is an issue on which the House should show encouragement.
I, for one, am prepared to listen to constructive suggestions from people on employment. I do not intend to denigrate or ridicule Deputy Boyd Barrett in any way. However, the Deputy constantly repeats the same argument.
So does the Taoiseach.
I would like to think the Deputy would come in here some day and say he had three proposals to put forward that would impact on employment.
I will do that with the next question.
Has the Deputy ever suggested that the reconstruction of houses would be good so as to get tradespeople back working or asked what incentives would encourage that? The Government has done that.
We are blue in the face putting forward suggestions, and how to finance them as well.
I would like to think the Deputy might come up with an initiative like the living city initiative, for places like Dún Laoghaire with older houses in need of reconstruction, that would provide employment. The Deputy makes a point that is a red herring about us wanting to keep people on the dole and I understand him doing that.
When Fine Gael had its annual think-in, I was speaking to a young woman working in the hotel who told me that there were ten people from her village in Spain working in the same locality as her in Ireland. She said there was nobody of her age left in her village because they had all emigrated. Nobody wants to see people leave our country. In my county, there is not a household without a family member in other lands because of emigration. There is no subtext for having some sort of pan-European flexibility, as the Deputy terms it, to drive people out of the country. It is a fact that when one goes to Munich now, there is a shortage of 150,000 workers. In Bavaria, there is a shortage of 200,000 workers now - engineers, technicians and trades people. There are signs outside the towns saying they need 100 mechanics or whatever.
Unfortunately, we are not in that position in Ireland. Until we get our economy into good shape and our public finances back in order, we cannot have that economy. We must take it step by step and that is the reason I believe it is important to have a business focus in the budget that engages with the social policy committee, through the Intreo offices. Deputy Boyd Barrett made the point that a young person needs access to the Internet. That is what happens in the Intreo offices. Young unemployed men and women who come to Intreo offices are interviewed individually and are also met in groups and access to information and the Internet is available to them.
How do they pay for their lunch when they are there?
Genuine assistance is offered to them to help them get to the next step or level. This is being done completely differently from how it was done before. We recognise that everybody has a contribution to make and that many of these young people have a talent or flair in a particular area. Some of them have considerable experience, but have lost out. It is a case of providing motivation and incentives to get them back into the system so that employers can see they are bright people and will take them on. The fact that 20,000 people got full-time employment in the past 12 months and that 33,000 jobs were created is positive.
When I look at companies like Glanbia, Kerry Group and others who are exporting increasing amounts and when I see investments such as that in Naas by the Kerrry Group of €100 million, and the new opportunities coming from Bord Bia in cheese making and in providing new flavours to other countries, I see the opportunities are enormous. These opportunities are for young people across the country in many walks of life. We do not have all the answers. I do not ridicule anything the Deputy says, but I would be very happy to hear any constructive suggestions the Deputy has for employment, based on his experience in his constituency. That applies to Deputy Higgins also.
I can give the Taoiseach some now.
Cabinet Committee Meetings
Micheál Martin
Question:4. Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on climate change and the green economy last met. [39243/13]
Richard Boyd Barrett
Question:5. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on climate change and the green economy will next meet. [42214/13]
Joe Higgins
Question:6. Deputy Joe Higgins asked the Taoiseach the number of times the Cabinet committee on climate change and the green economy has met since the summer recess. [45918/13]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 4 to 6, inclusive, together.
The Cabinet committee on climate change and the green economy last met on 5 November 2012. At this meeting, the Cabinet committee considered an extensive work programme that has been under way during 2013 and which included work on preparing the climate action and low carbon development Bill; preparation of national and sectoral low-carbon roadmaps to 2050; preparation of Ireland's input to international climate change negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; and implementation of a range of actions to support jobs and growth in the green economy.
This work programme is overseen by senior officials from a number of Departments who meet on a regular basis. The Cabinet committee is scheduled to meet again later this month, on 25 November, when I expect it will consider the progress that has been made on the extensive work programme, and any issues arising.
We have just over six minutes left and have three people with questions.
Is the Ceann Comhairle going to take each question and response individually?
No, we will take the questions from each Deputy and then allow the Taoiseach to respond.
The Taoiseach's response sums it up. The Cabinet committee on climate change and the green economy has met only once in 12 months. The last time this committee met was on 5 November 2012, over a year ago. In the meantime, we have had major work by the UN and the climate change panel and definitive conclusions in terms of human responsibility for a dramatically changing planet, with grave consequences for agriculture, food production and so on. The impact of climate change already being felt in many countries across the globe is devastating. We have seen changes in climate, drought in Africa, wars arising from drought and so forth.
In the Irish context, much as I regret to say it, it seems the Government will be known as the one that cared least about climate change in recent times. There is no sense that the Government has a climate change agenda. It is as if this is something we can dismiss and put to one side. This is reflected in the Climate Change Bill. The failure to include strategic targets for 2050 is a further exposure of failure on the part of the Minister, Deputy Hogan, to rise to the challenge of climate change. I accept the fact that climate change is a challenging issue, but the fact the committee has only met once speaks for itself.
People have roundly condemned the Climate Change Bill, but I do not know whether the committee will meet to discuss it again. The previous Government published a far more ambitious Bill, into which many people had an input, in 2010. When the Labour Party was in opposition in 2009, it produced legislation with clear targets and argued strongly for legislation that would include objectives, targets and goals.
Will the Taoiseach confirm that the committee will meet far more often in the coming 12 months and that the Government will become far more engaged than it has been with the climate change agenda? An attempt has been made to demonise people involved in the climate change and green agenda generally in the past 12 to 15 months, to which the Government has been a party, as has the Minister. The fact that the committee has met only once speaks volumes for the Government's lack of commitment to tackling this very serious issue.
The Taoiseach's answer that the committee on climate change and the green economy has met only once gives the lie to the claims he made earlier about the Government's commitment to employment creation because clearly when it comes to doing the practical work to deliver on promises the Taoiseach made in the programme for Government about the potential to create a huge number of jobs in the renewable energy sector, the green economy and through NewERA - a figure of 100,000 jobs was mentioned - the committee is not even meeting on a regular basis to discuss how the Government can deliver on them. Contrary to the Taoiseach's earlier suggestions, some of us on this side of the House have been very specific in making suggestions on how the Government could deliver on its own promises to deliver jobs in the green economy. During the debate on the Private Members' motion I tabled on forestry we argued about the huge potential to create tens of thousands of jobs if we delivered on our own agreed targets for afforestation, a public works programme in this regard, provided for investment through semi-State companies in areas such as renewable energy and afforestation. The Government speaks about the pay-as-you-save scheme, but it has not rolled it out. Many jobs could be created through a major installation programme and it could contribute to meeting our climate change targets for 2020 and 2050 which the EPA now believes we will not do because the Government is not taking it seriously as an environmental issue or an area in which we could generate desperately needed employment. The hope that it will arrive from the heavens in the form of foreign direct investment if we are nice and do not ask companies to pay any tax is not materialising. We have told the Taoiseach that we need to use semi-State companies as major vehicles for public investment in public works programmes in strategic areas of industry, particularly the green economy. The Government is failing to do this and even failing to meet to discuss it. This is useless.
This is appalling in view of all that has happened in the past six to 12 months with regard to climate change and all the signs that urgent action is needed to control and modify the effects of industrial capitalism and the hunt for profit at the expense of our environment and resources. We need to curb, control and change this, yet the committee has met only once. Is it not the reality that just about the only policy the Government could trot out on climate change was to increase the price of petrol? That sums it up. Is this not lazy and unimaginative and imposing hardship on people who need their cars for work? Is it not clear that we need proactive policies and investment to structurally reduce emissions and pollution in the economy? I suggest to the Taoiseach, notwithstanding his attempt to deride rather than to answer serious points from the socialists in Parliament, that a programme of retrofitting homes throughout the country with regard to energy saving insulation and water saving measures should be undertaken to be financed by a 1% emergency tax on the wealthiest 1% or 5% which would raise €2.9 billion. This could create 60,000 to 70,000 jobs for such projects. Is this not a constructive proposal, but one which the Taoiseach will not entertain because it would affect the wealthy supporters of his party and his ideology and he will not afflict them as opposed to afflicting the working class and the poor?
Cabinet committees generally meet if an issue will arise before the Government. We have already dealt with the climate change Bill and rather than having specific targets which will lead to one being in court on a regular basis if they are not achieved and given that the target date is 2050, it is better to set principles and objectives at which a Government can aim. The Minister published the outline heads of the climate action and low carbon development Bill. He is co-ordinating the development of national and sectoral low carbon road maps and much work is ongoing at interdepartmental level with the United Nations in respect of the Warsaw conference due to take place later this month.
We are all cognisant of the scientific response on new commercial waterways being opened in the Arctic because of melting, changes to the jetstream, the fluctuations in temperature in the Atlantic, the beginning of a European and US response to a study of the ocean, the movement of waters, the management of stocks, the fluctuations on the seabed and mortality rates among fish. All of these issues are important.
I agree with Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett for once. The pay-as-you-save scheme is not as simple as it looks. The Government made available €35 million to the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources for the scheme, but it is not as simple to implement it in reality as was originally intended. Water saving is an issue. On the Continent people have had to install collection tanks for rainwater for many years as part of the normal planning process. One will find it happening here too to a far greater extent as time passes. Water meters are being installed, a process which will employ 5,000 people and have consequences.
When we speak about the €7 billion bill for the importation of fossil fuels, people always tell me that they want jobs by the thousand throughout the country, but we have a marked reluctance to deal with the importation of gas and the provision of pylons and turbines. People have every right, of course, and there must be sensitivity for the environment, but there must also be practicality in the sense that one cannot provide power without cables and we will not have the jobs and prosperity we need unless we invest in infrastructure and facilities to deal with this investment. It is a case of having a good compromise worked out in everybody's interests. I will raise this issue at the next meeting of the Cabinet committee on climate change which is due to meet on 25 November.
Written Answers follow Adjournment.