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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 19 Jun 2014

Vol. 844 No. 3

Leaders' Questions

Before the Minister, Deputy Pat Rabbitte, arrived in the Chamber, I thought we were going to be left, for the second time today, with a Minister of State instead of a Minister. At Question Time this morning-----

I remind the Deputy that he has only two minutes.

I am aware of that. This morning we had the last Question Time involving questions to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine before the summer recess, but the Minister was not here. It is very significant that this happened-----

This is Leaders' Questions. We are not talking about whether or not Ministers were in the Chamber earlier. Leaders' Questions is an opportunity for the Deputy to raise a serious topical issue.

This is a very serious topical issue.

That is fine, but I remind the Deputy that he can raise only one subject.

Shall I continue?

The Deputy has one minute and ten seconds remaining.

The issue I wish to raise is the collapse in beef prices, a serious issue for the 80,000 dry stock farmers in this country. Prices are down 20% since last year, with farmers now getting €200 to €300 less per head. This is happening because of labelling issues that have not been dealt with by the Minister, the new slaughter criteria that were introduced and price manipulation by processors. What does the Government intend to do about it, other than setting up talk shops and fora to produce reports? When does the Minister intend to sit down with his Northern Ireland counterpart, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Michelle O'Neill, and the British Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to resolve the labelling issue? Irish beef is sold off the shelves in Britain at the same price as British beef but there is a huge difficulty in selling cattle from this jurisdiction into the North. What action, rather than talk, will the Government take to deal with this crisis, which is affecting so many families across the country and is pushing farmers over the edge?

As the Deputy knows, having come through an extremely difficult period of recession in the past six years, it has, more recently, been an especially good time for farming and agriculture generally in this country. The Deputy is absolutely correct that there is an immediate problem in the beef sector, and he understands the reasons for it, particularly in respect of bull beef. He also understands that far from the allegation that the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine is not attending to the matter, he is, in fact, actively working to address it. The Minister has, for instance, allocated more funding to Bord Bia to see what that agency can do to continue to promote Irish beef. In regard to the situation in the North, the Deputy is aware that the Minister has regular contact with his opposite number, Michelle O'Neill. In fact, I understand a meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council will take place tomorrow week. The Deputy is further aware that the Minister has just returned from a ministerial meeting in Luxembourg where he had discussions arising from this issue.

The Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, should ask farmers whether they are having an especially good time. In fact, as we speak, the Irish Farmers Association is conducting a protest - the second in recent weeks - outside the office of the Minister, Deputy Coveney. Those farmers are deeply unhappy with his performance. The Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, can say what he wants in this House but he is not fooling the people. Direct payments to farmers have decreased by 10% in the past three years. It is not a particularly good time for farmers.

I asked the Minister what specifically the Minister, Deputy Coveney, is doing on the labelling issue. The problem is that cattle reared here and finished in the North are now considered to be nomadic cattle, neither Irish nor British. This is causing a huge problem because supermarkets are not buying beef unless it is reared and slaughtered in the same country. It is time the three Ministers got together and resolved the issue. There was always a trade between the two parts of this island - indeed, it would be extraordinary if there was not - with large numbers of cattle, particularly on the west coast, taken to the North for slaughter. The person sitting beside the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, will be able to tell him exactly how this issue is affecting farmers seeking to sell their cattle.

Will the Minister indicate what the Government is doing to deal with the labelling issue? Second, when will the legislation on the producer organisations be brought to the House by the Minister, Deputy Coveney? That legislation would be a major help to beef producers, livestock producers in general and liquid milk producers who need producer organisations to be allowed legally to protect their interests.

It seems to me that the difficulty as to whether a beast is Irish or Northern Irish has its roots deep in Irish history. For the Deputy to say that, relatively speaking, it has not been a good time for Irish farming is simply incorrect. Ever since we held the Presidency of the European Union, when the Minister, Deputy Coveney, used that opportunity to bring the budgetary situation and reform of the Common Agricultural Policy to a conclusion, it has been a very positive period for agriculture in this country. There is a particular problem, as I have conceded, in the matter of beef, including a labelling issue. In Spain, for example, it has been possible to come together under a single label to promote Irish beef. It is a question of getting the producers to come together here. The Minister is actively attending to the issue and actively engaging with his opposite number in Northern Ireland. If it were as simple as the Deputy suggests, it would already have been resolved. The Minister intends to bring the matter to a conclusion, but the market conditions for beef have changed. That is an aspect of this problem that cannot be changed by any magic wand.

We are in the midst of a housing crisis, as the Minister is well aware. Tens of thousands of householders are in mortgage distress, almost 100,000 people are on social housing lists, 78,000 are in receipt of rent supplement and 5,000 are designated as homeless.

As part of this Government's solution to that housing crisis, we will today conclude the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014, which will see the introduction of a housing assistance payment. The housing assistance payment is the most profound change in policy in regard to housing in a generation. It not only changes the way in which people will receive rent supplement, but it will transfer responsibility for providing housing to the private market on a scale never seen before. People in receipt of rent supplement for 18 months or more will be transferred to this new payment and, as a result, will be removed from council housing lists.

Some 78,000 households are in receipt of rent supplement and 50,000 of them have been in receipt of it for 18 months or more. Fine Gael and the Labour Party, by passing this Bill, will condemn those families to a future of insecurity. They are denying them a real home. They will be left at the mercy of the market. I do not know whether the Minister understands the full consequences of what will happen to those 50,000 families if this Bill is passed. Is he so out of touch that he thinks it will be anything other than a contract to reduce social housing waiting numbers?

It is no surprise that Fine Gael is in favour of such a Bill because it has no interest in social housing, and that has long been established in this House. It has very little interest in the people who live in them, given the austerity it has imposed on those families. However, for a Labour Party Minister to lead this charge is truly shocking and I am very disappointed in the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan. Given that 50,000 families will lose their place on housing lists and the immense distress which will be caused to those families, will the Labour Party finally stand up and be the watchdog of Fine Gael rather than the lap-dog it has become in recent years and stop this Bill from passing today?

Every single party welcomed the Bill on Second Stage.

In fairness, that is a pretty hackneyed cliché. Sometimes I am completely taken aback by how conservative Sinn Féin is. It seems to want to retain the status quo. For the period of time I have been in government, I have heard Deputies opposite, including, prominently, Sinn Féin, whingeing about the housing rental supplement and how it assists poverty traps and prevented people from going back to work. Although it is not my area, to my knowledge, nobody in this House has opposed the housing assistance payment being transferred to the local authorities from the Department of Social Protection. Everybody has supported that. What the Deputy alleges is wrong. I suspect that after him being involved in the debate and having welcomed the Bill on Second Stage, the bevy of advisers got at him and they then started to construct mischievous amendments. He knows people who will be in receipt of the housing assistance payment will not lose their priority in terms of alternative-----

They will not.

(Interruptions).

Sorry, would you mind-----

(Interruptions).

Would you allow the Minister to-----

(Interruptions).

Deputies, would please allow the Minister his time? Deputy O'Brien can come back in. He has a minute to reply. Would Deputy Shortall-----

(Interruptions).

I do not think Deputy Shortall should enter this. Her decision on the centralisation of medical cards has caused enough difficulties in this country.

(Interruptions).

Deputy O'Brien is right that it is the most fundamental reform for a generation - a reform for which this House has argued for the past number of years. I am sorry it has taken as long as it has to give effect to it. I know there are different provisions in different local authorities but it is a real measure to assist people who are in receipt of this housing supplement to go back to work if they can do that and retain the housing supplement. That is a major advance on where we were. People will not lose their access to social housing in the normal way.

I can assure the Minister a bevy of advisers did not get a hold of me. It is quite clear that a bevy of Fine Gaelers got a hold of the Minister, along with his colleagues in Cabinet who represent the Labour Party, and stripped them of every principle and moral they had.

Would you put your supplementary question, please?

At a recent committee meeting, officials from the Department stated that people would be removed from council housing lists and would be put on a transfer list. Some councils do not even operate a transfer list. In the case of some of the councils which operate a transfer list, one is only entitled to a transfer on medical grounds, so it is not true to say-----

That is not true.

(Interruptions).

Many of us have sat on councils which-----

The Deputy needs to get his local councillors to change that.

-----have transfer lists.

There is no doubt that this is the most profound change in housing policy.

It is a positive change.

It is not a positive change, as Deputy Stagg might like to spin it. This will condemn people-----

Scaremongering.

-----who have no choice but to accept a housing assistance payment. They will be taken off a council housing list and will be left at the mercy of private landlords and the private market. It is an absolute disgrace.

I still encourage the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, and her Labour Party colleagues, to finally stand up-----

(Interruptions).

Sorry, would you please-----

Scaremongering.

I call on the Minister to respond. Would you please stop shouting across the Chamber?

There was not one Labour Party-----

That applies to you, Deputy Coppinger. I know you are a new Deputy but there are standards in the Chamber. You are not in the county council now.

There is no basis in the legislation being passed for the charges being made by Deputy O'Brien.

Frankly, I am surprised-----

(Interruptions).

Hold on a minute. Allow the Minister to respond to the allegations.

Frankly, I am surprised that people who argued for the change that has been brought in by the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, now want to scaremonger against it. I am especially surprised that it is coming from the normally mild-mannered Deputy O'Brien who does not customarily go in for the prima donna performances given from those benches.

The Minister would know all about prima donnas.

(Interruptions).

Minister, I am going to move on because nobody is interested in listening to the reply. I call Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan.

It is a very good reform and we should agree to welcome it.

I want to acknowledge the work done by and the commitment of the local community development projects and the range of services they have been providing throughout the country over many years. There are services for children, including crèches, after school and homework clubs, one-to-one tuition and back to education. There is a range of services for older people, including meals, activities and transport. They have also been a support in terms of advocacy for people having difficulties, whether with housing or welfare, and they have played a major role in employment and in back to employment. They are community services but there is also the work done in community development.

Over the years a vast range of experience, skills and insight has been built up. It has led to people from and living in communities addressing the problems in their communities and being able to solve them. It is all part of participatory democracy. It is an area which has seen cuts of 38% to date. There is a professional relationship with Pobal when it comes to transparency, oversight and tracking outcomes and that overall aim to tackle poverty and social exclusion through partnership has been progressing.

Recently, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government conducted an interim review on the local community development programme. It found it exceeded its targets in areas of high priority for Government, namely, education, training and employment.

The Minister knows from his community what disadvantage is like and he knows what community programmes have done to tackle disadvantage and to give hope and provide motivation. I acknowledge the big role he played in the establishment of the drugs task forces. What is now happening is that the programme and projects are being put out to public tender and to a procurement process. That could mean all the experience, insight and knowledge might be lost and, conceivably, a company could bid and win a contract for community development without having set foot in the community or having a base there. There is no guarantee that current services will continue. We do not know what will happen the infrastructure or employees. My question is why Ireland is the only country in the European Union that has decided to privatise community development.

That is common sense.

It is unusual to get an Opposition question that is balanced and that acknowledges that on the one hand the provision of community services in the State are comparable to anything in any member state in Europe and on the other hand-----

Why is the Government destroying them then?

-----as Deputy O'Sullivan said, that community development has been a focus of public policy under successive Governments in this country for a very long time. A decision has not been made to privatise community development in Ireland.

There is a very limited area where for reasons of efficiency and value for money a minor aspect of the fabric of community development in this country will be procured from outside. The existing programmes will continue, including the programme to which Deputy O'Sullivan referred - the drugs task forces which I established 20 years ago -that have contributed significantly in the areas worst ravaged by that problem, including Deputy O'Sullivan's constituency and mine. I would appreciate a note from her to inform what programmes in particular she is concerned about that are being procured from outside-----

The Minister should ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan.

Would you stay quiet?

Fine, Mattie, I will.

Deputy McGrath should allow the person who is representing his group to hear the reply.

I am just giving the Minister a bit of help.

At the moment I would like to hear from the questioner what particular programmes she is concerned about.

If what the Minister said was valid then concern and stress would not be caused to community development groups and communities around the country. I wish to focus on two groups in particular, one of which is the group in the north inner city, which is at a particular disadvantage because it does not have a partnership. A total of 16 of the projects have come together in a loose alliance and they are very much afraid of what the process will do to them. The other group of concern is island communities because as far as they are concerned the change will completely destroy what they have achieved. Currently, funding goes directly to the islanders and to the group in the north inner city and funding will now go from the communities which means all those years of working could be totally undermined by the new process. The projects are being tendered to for-profit companies. Up to now that has not been the ethos of community development groups. The buzzword now is social inclusion and a community activation programme but it does not address the needs of the communities involved.

It appears that the process is justified by Directive 2004/18/EC. However, my understanding is the directive has been replaced by Directive 2014/24/EU, which is the current law on public procurement. There are two preambles - 7 and 14 - which seem to suggest that agencies and public authorities in member states are free to organise social services in such a way that it does not entail such contracts. Will the Government at least delay the process and check the preambles to see whether the tendering process is necessary? I seek a delay to check the new directives.

I will, but perhaps the partnership areas are different from what Deputy O'Sullivan described in the north inner city. My understanding is that the partnerships, for example, can themselves bid in cases where the contract is put out to tender.

In terms of the islands, as it happens I am visiting such a situation next week - Arranmore off Donegal - in respect of an inclusion programme run by my Department to facilitate inclusion by people who have not had the opportunity to familiarise themselves with digital literacy. A particular programme is being run by the islands in that regard. I will raise the particular aspect Deputy O'Sullivan has raised with me. It may be different in the non-partnership areas. I will certainly look at the situation in the north inner city.

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