Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 22 Jan 2015

Vol. 864 No. 3

Leaders' Questions

Deputy Billy Kelleher

Over the past few months we have seen the nursing organisations express great concern at the increase in the retention fee by the nursing board, from €100 to €150. This has been an ongoing situation for some time and has been highlighted by political parties, advocacy groups, patient groups and the nursing organisations. A 50% increase in any fee is an extraordinary demand, particularly when coupled with the fact that payment is mandatory for registration. The fee is payable to the registration board and under law nurses must register with the board. Therefore, nurses have no choice. If they want to practice in this country, they must register with the board. No reason or rationale was provided for the increase in the fee, other than that the board says it must continue with significant changes in the fitness to practise area, which include the introduction of a new preliminary proceedings committee, and the fact that it needs to upgrade its systems as continuing professional development will become a mandatory requirement for nurses and midwives. This is the only reason the board has give for increasing the registration fee from €100 to €150.

We all know that people on front-line services are under extraordinary pressure in delivering health care to patients. The least that should happen is that there should be engagement between the board and the organisations representing the nurses to ensure we have a registration system that is fair, professional and affordable. It is unacceptable that any fee could be increased by 50% without reason.

Our straight talking Minister for Health claims he "says it as he sees it". On this occasion, he wrote to the board asking it to engage with the nursing organisations. However, there has been no activity from either the Minister or the board in an effort to provide engagement. Will the Tánaiste therefore take up the cudgel for the nursing organisations and ask the board to engage in a meaningful way with them?

The Tánaiste

On 17 September 2014, the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland, NMBI, voted to increase the annual registration fee for nurses and midwives, from €100 to €150 for 2015. I agree this is a large increase, particularly at a time when the danger to the eurozone is not inflation but the risk of deflation.

The staff associations have undertaken a campaign against paying the new fee and have advised members to pay the old fee of €100. Potentially, nurses who do not pay the appropriate fee will be removed from the register. As the Deputy said, in order to resolve this issue we need negotiation, discussion and consultation so as to reach an agreement. I know and have spoken with nurses who have found this a significant increase, in particular in a situation where their budgets are stretched.

Officials from the Department of Health have written to and met the president of the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland on a number of occasions - two meetings took place in December 2014 - and they expressed concern about the possible implications for the health services and patient safety if this situation should lead to some form of industrial dispute which would have an impact on patients. The board met the staff associations and the matter was discussed at board meetings. However, I am conscious the issue has not yet been satisfactorily resolved. The Minister for Health continues to monitor the situation closely and has asked the board and staff associations to continue discussion. I cannot report a satisfactory outcome to the Deputy as yet.

Deputy Finian McGrath

There is a crisis in our health services as well.

Deputy Billy Kelleher

The problem is that the Minister for Health merely monitors what is happening. This seems to be his forte. He monitors waiting lists and trolley counts, but we need activity in this situation. We do not need the Minister to monitor further. We need him to ensure that the board engages with the nursing organisations to ensure we have an affordable retention fee so that nurses can register and be allowed practise in our public health system. The nurses are threatening to pay just the previous fee of €100. If they do, we will then have a situation where our nurses will no longer be employed by the health services. That is the situation we face.

I suggest it would be easy for the Minister to ensure there is positive engagement between the board, which has unilaterally decided to increase the fee by 50%, and the nursing associations. The board has increased the fee without a meaningful need to do so, other than a bland statement saying it must do so for fitness to practise reasons. Is it that in moving from Fitzwilliam out to Blackrock the nursing board got caught up in the property bubble? We cannot expect nurses who are already under financial pressure to now pay a mandatory increase of 50% on their registration fee. They are not given a choice. If they want to work, they must pay this. It is a form of tax. There is nothing voluntary about the fee and nurses must pay it.

I suggest the Tánaiste should ask her constituency and Cabinet colleague to roll up his sleeves and ask the board to engage meaningfully over the coming weekend in order to bring this issue to a satisfactory conclusion.

The Tánaiste

The establishment of registration bodies for different groups of professional workers is one that all of the groups have by and large welcomed.

This has been debated from time to time both in this Dáil and previous Dáileanna and Members have been positive towards it. I refer to the registration of teachers and professionals in the social work sector

Deputy Dara Calleary

Are wafflers registered?

The Tánaiste

Similarly, nursing is a graduate profession which involves significant training and investment by the State and the individuals involved in their education and training. There is strong underlying support for the principle of professional registration, but when the professional registration structures were put in place, it was made clear that the board would be independent and that it would deal with the safeguarding of the professional practice of nurses which has an enormous impact on patient health, safety and the delivery of services.

The Deputy referred to the board having some difficulties-----

Deputy Timmy Dooley

It is amazing that the Labour Party takes such a blasé approach to industrial relations.

The Tánaiste

-----but following discussions with the Department of Health in 2013, it was agreed that a one-off sum of €1.6 million would be granted by the Department to cover costs in 2013-14 on the basis that the board would review its overheads and increase its income in 2015 to meet its commitments under the legislation. The board has, therefore, been significantly assisted by the Department and the Government in addressing the financial issue referred to by the Deputy, but at this point the only way it will be resolved is by further discussions between the parties and them sitting down to resolve it. For the nurses who are working in the health service or who travel abroad to work in other health services, it is important that the registration fee be fair and that the dispute be resolved as soon as possible.

Deputy Billy Kelleher

Is the Tánaiste calling on the board to engage directly with nurses?

Deputy Finian McGrath

The Government is cheesing off nurses and teachers.

Deputy Billy Kelleher

Will the Tánaiste ask the board to engage directly with nurses?

The Tánaiste

This issue can be resolved by further discussions and negotiations.

Deputy Billy Kelleher

Therefore, Paul Gallagher should engage with them.

The Tánaiste

That is the appropriate thing to do because the principle of registration is important.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

Secondary school teachers throughout the State have today embarked on their second day of strike action on the issue of junior cycle reform with the prospect of a third day of industrial action looming large. I am sure the Tánaiste will agree that this causes huge disruption for families, students and teachers. She will also appreciate that the mock leaving and junior certificate examinations are not far away and that this will, undoubtedly, add pressure to students and teachers. The current situation is testament to the Government's failure to engage constructively and positively with teachers on the issue of junior cycle reform. There is consensus that reform needs to happen and that a model of continuous assessment needs to be adopted, but the disagreement revolves around the Government's insistence that teachers mark and grade their own students. I cannot understand the Government parties' insistence on this when teachers who are the professionals and experts in the sector have told them clearly about the difficulties to which this will give rise. If they persist, teachers say the current situation risks damaging their relationship with their students, but, perhaps more importantly, it also runs the serious risk of damaging the credibility of the State examinations and qualifications. Why is the Government being so unreasonable? Why has it not sorted out this matter? Why will it not heed the concerns and insights of the teaching profession?

The Tánaiste

For a long period I was a member of the TUI because I taught for a lengthy number of years as a senior lecturer in Dublin Institute of Technology. As somebody who set and marked my own examinations-----

Deputy Dara Calleary

Look where it got the Tánaiste.

The Tánaiste

-----and also took part in administering the examination structures of a number of the professional accounting bodies, notwithstanding the Deputy's welcome commitment to reform, Deputy Mary Lou McDonald is mistaken on this issue.

Deputy Finian McGrath

She is not.

The Tánaiste

As a country, if we are to progress and get all of the people who lost their jobs back to work-----

Deputy Finian McGrath

The Government did this two weeks ago in the primary sector. The sector was assessed independently. The Tánaiste is codding the people.

The Tánaiste

-----one of the essential ingredients will be to give children the best education we can provide. That means implementing critical reforms which bring into the classroom at second level collaboration and work both by the individual and class groups that will allow children to be creative, participants and leaders in their own learning process.

Deputy Dara Calleary

The Tánaiste will have them marking their own examinations next.

Deputy Finian McGrath

The performance of children has been poorer under the Government. The Tánaiste should read today's newspapers.

The Tánaiste

The Deputy was previously a principal. Book and rote learning had an essential part to play in education, but it is not the only way for people to get an education and develop educationally. When Deputy Ruairí Quinn became Minister for Education and Skills, he set out to improve literacy and numeracy in primary schools.

Deputy Timmy Dooley

We saw what the Tánaiste did to him.

The Tánaiste

He introduced reform which was not popular with everybody.

Deputy Finian McGrath

The primary sector is assessed independently by outsiders. The Tánaiste is missing the point.

Deputy Timmy Dooley

She got rid of the Minister who had done all of the good work.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Leaders' Questions are between party leaders and the Tánaiste.

The Tánaiste

It was assessed in the recent publication of the results of that reform. Anybody who has the opportunity, as I do all the time, to go into wonderful new and older schools that have been refurbished by the Government throughout the country-----

Deputy Dara Calleary

Thanks to Brian Lenihan.

Deputy Timmy Dooley

The last time the Government parties went among the people, it did not work out so well.

The Tánaiste

-----will see at primary level the excitement in learning and developing and learning to reason and critique, not simply learn for an examination.

Deputy Peter Mathews

Get real. What about ordinary English?

The Tánaiste

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald's vision for education would lead to poorer outcomes. The country needs educational reform.

Deputy Finian McGrath

We all support reform.

The Tánaiste

The teacher unions need to engage in discussions. The Minister has said it will be a two part system - 60% will be addressed through the traditional examination which Sinn Féin wants to see as the cornerstone of the system, while 40% will take into account what we have all learned will stand to children when they come out of primary and secondary school and enter the wider world. The teacher unions need to pause and think again about what is best for our precious children.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

I am interested to hear the Tánaiste's exposition to teachers and me, presumably as a parent, on what is best for our precious children.

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

The National Parents Council is in favour of this reform.

Deputy Finian McGrath

The council did not consult parents.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

The Tánaiste is making a false argument and, perhaps unsurprisingly, addressing the wrong issue. There is no dissent on the need for reform, continuous assessment and creativity, participation and so on among all children at primary, second and third level. The issue concerns marking, grading and accreditation. Teachers are saying - many parents and students agree with them - that in grading junior cycle achievement we have to be sure the system is objective, standardised, fair and credible.

That is the great beauty of external assessment. The teachers argued that point. I trust teachers absolutely and I trust their judgment on this matter. For all the flaws it has and all the arguments people have with it, the leaving certificate has always been justifiably recognised for one sterling quality, which is its objectivity. People, teachers, students and parents value that. We need the reform. Why is the Government holding it up by a stubborn refusal to listen to teachers who say that they are for all of that but insist that it is externally graded and accredited?

The Tánaiste should not try to make a comparison between a third-level institution where students come from every corner of the country and beyond to be taught and a school in a rural area or even an urban area where teachers live and where relationships are very strong. It is a very different dynamic. The teachers make a fair call for external grading and assessment to ensure the credibility of the junior cycle, learning and learning achievements. Why can the Government not listen to that and do the reasonable thing?

The Tánaiste

I have had the privilege of visiting one to two schools per week - not just in my current job but since I became a Deputy - because one of my abiding interests is education. I go into very well-off schools - fee-paying schools. Deputy McDonald would be familiar with them. What I find is that the students have a collaborative learning experience. Often when I go into a poorer community, I find that many children drop out of secondary school around the age of 15 and 16. Through the school completion programme, we are keeping a huge number of children in school until their leaving certificate but the reason many children drop out is because the current curriculum does not meet their needs or interests. The junior certificate reform is part of a vital reform to make the school experience positive for many children and help them to complete it successfully.

All around the world, teachers at first, second and third level set, mark and assess their own pupils. It is accepted as being key in all of the best-performing countries in the world in terms of education. In respect of our children studying history, English or mathematics, Deputy McDonald wants everything to depend on a book-led examination rather than collaborative learning. I think she is wrong. I hope that teachers return to the negotiations. I noticed that Sinn Féin's spokesperson on education has spoken very well about being in favour of reform. Deputy McDonald is like St. Augustine, "Lord, make me reform but not just yet."

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

I start by sending the full support of the Anti-Austerity Alliance to the secondary school teachers today.

I do not feel I have any choice but to raise with the Tánaiste the disaster of the housing crisis. All the signs are that the Government's housing strategy is a bumbling disaster. Even if its myriad plans ever emerge, it will take years for houses to actually be built. The top management in Dublin City Council has confirmed to me that no serious amount of houses will be built for at least two years. Fingal County Council, which is the Tánaiste's own local authority, has a staggering figure of 38 new builds planned so the figures just do not stack up. In fact, the Tánaiste seems to be oblivious to a housing crisis in her own area of Dublin 15 and Dublin West. Families in Dublin West are becoming homeless for a second time. Not a single new council house is planned for the greater Blanchardstown area, which is in the Tánaiste's constituency.

While the Government is sweeping rough sleepers off the streets and putting them indoors, whole family homelessness is continuing unabated. The mix will be added to by a crackdown by the banks to repossess homes, including buy-to-lets, with no protection for tenants in those properties. Since families cannot expect a home any time soon from this Government, can the Tánaiste tell us what it is going to do in the meantime?

The one tiny measure it took to prevent homelessness was to set up a Threshold emergency helpline to negotiate rent supplement increases behind closed doors. The Government could have allowed community welfare officers to do this anyway but they do not have any power to keep people in their homes in the case of repossession or eviction. Interestingly, 47% of calls to the Threshold line come from north county Dublin, which includes the Tánaiste's constituency.

The Tánaiste and her Department must take major blame for the homelessness crisis. They are relying on the private sector to house council tenants and those waiting on homes. Between the Government and its Fianna Fáil predecessors, rent supplement has been cut by 28%. The top ups that we know most people must pay have gone up by 67%. That is through a combination of increasing the minimum amount a family must pay and reducing the maximum rent limits. Is it any wonder there are a million people on the breadline, which has been confirmed in surveys today?

The Tánaiste stated in 2012 that there would be no incidence of homelessness from rent supplement decreases. She actually said they were a positive move. Obviously, she is not going to listen to the Anti-Austerity Alliance and the housing action groups that are out there but for how long will she stubbornly ignore what housing agencies are telling her from the front line? Focus Ireland and Threshold categorically say that rent supplement is one of the immediate cases of the sharp rise in family homelessness. They have called the rent limits in Dublin a fiction. Some of these people are long-time members of the Labour Party so would the Taoiseach not listen to them?

While people wait for the Government's illusory houses, will it at least agree to put a bandage on the haemorrhage of homelessness? Number one, will it reverse the rent supplement cuts and revise the limits, particularly in Dublin where the crisis is most acute? Will it stop dithering and introduce rent controls, which are so obviously needed and are called for by all the agencies? There is nothing unconstitutional about them. Will it direct the banks to stop repossessions which result in evictions of families from their homes and instead agree to keep those families in their homes renting, which they would like to do? If the Government will not agree to do this, would it agree that the next step is what county managers are calling modular housing - shanty towns, container homes and prefabs?

The Tánaiste

Social housing is a key priority for this Government. We have set out an additional €2.2 billion in the budget for 2015 and the next three years to provide social housing. As the Deputy may be aware, particularly in Dublin West, housing construction has actually recommenced. This will help huge numbers of people interested in buying a starter family home on an affordable mortgage basis to find a home as opposed to what has been happening since the banking collapse, namely, many families being forced to rent in a market where rents have certainly increased in recent times.

Rents have increased significantly, as we know from various reports. The commitment of €2.2 billion in the budget to provide for social housing is probably the most radical and largest investment in providing social homes for families who need to be housed. It is a key priority for the Labour Party and Fine Gael. As Deputy Coppinger was a member of a Dublin local authority for a significant period of time, she will be aware that some time around 2000, under the previous Government, for reasons that have not been fully explored the local authorities basically stopped building social housing.

Deputy Seán Ó Fearghaíl

That is not true.

The Tánaiste

We are now commencing-----

Deputy Finian McGrath

The Labour Party controlled Dublin City Council for the last five years.

Deputy Seán Ó Fearghaíl

She is misleading the House.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Ó Fearghaíl, please.

The Tánaiste

We are now commencing a very ambitious social housing programme.

Deputy Billy Kelleher

She already misled the people.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Tánaiste has the floor.

The Tánaiste

That social housing programme will make significant provision for new housing units over the year. In addition, particularly in Dublin City Council but also to a lesser extent in the other local authorities in Dublin, Cork and Limerick, local authorities adopted the unfortunate practice of boarding up houses and flats whenever vacancies occurred.

Deputy Dara Calleary

Dublin City Council was controlled by the Labour Party.

The Tánaiste

A crash programme is now under way, and is bearing fruit as I speak, to reopen those houses, which should never have been boarded up in the first place.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

The Government starved Dublin City Council of funds.

The Tánaiste

That is going to add significantly to the supply of housing over this year.

Deputy Seán Ó Fearghaíl

On a point of order-----

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

There are no points of order during Leaders' Questions.

Deputy Seán Ó Fearghaíl

-----the Tánaiste is misleading the House, and not for the first time, on this matter.

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

Fianna Fáil gave people private sector shoe boxes under Part V.

Deputy Billy Kelleher

They are sleeping in cars under this Government.

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

The Galway tent.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I ask Members to desist.

The Tánaiste

History will show-----

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

There were many ways for developers to get around Part V because they wrote Fianna Fáil's housing plan.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order, please.

Deputy Timmy Dooley

Give the Tánaiste the opportunity to withdraw her remarks

The Tánaiste

With this investment, we will have an enormous increase in the number of houses being made available. Deputy Coppinger referred to the Threshold protocol, which was established by my Department in the middle of June. I am sure she is aware that the protocol has worked very well. Where families have been approached by landlords in regard to a threatened increase in the rent, through the combined offices of my Department, Threshold and other housing associations we have been ensuring those families can stay in their homes and, more importantly, we are dealing with families on a case-by-case basis. I want to send a message in this regard.

Deputy Timmy Dooley

Is it a truthful one?

The Tánaiste

If a family in receipt of rent supplement has a difficulty with a landlord who is increasing the rent, I want them to use the protocol because it has worked reasonably well for those families who have used it. Deputies should acknowledge the work done by the staff of my Department in the homelessness unit and of voluntary organisations like Threshold. The protocol is working well and is being extended around the country as we speak.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

It is amazing, when the thrust of my question was about rent allowance and rent supplement, that the Tánaiste failed to mention those words even once in her reply. These are issues over which her Department has control. She is the person in charge of rent supplement and imposing rent limits, which are adding to the homeless crisis. She did not answer my question but I hope the Leas-Cheann Comhairle allows her additional time to do so.

The Tánaiste has been dithering on the question of rent controls for a long time. We were told that the proverbial committee was looking into the issue. Does she agree there is no other solution to preventing the escalation of rents in Dublin in particular, and in other cities? Threshold now has to print out the telephone numbers of Deputies to hand them out to people who seek its advice. They are being sent to my door but that is okay because I will send them to the Tánaiste's door from now on.

With regard to house building, I ask the Tánaiste to table a debate on housing in this House. No time has been set aside to allow us to question her figures. We would love to see houses being built but the problem is that the Government is relying on public-private partnerships, Part V arrangements and landlords. Very few new builds are coming on stream but even if we see more construction, what is going to happen during the two years we will be waiting for the houses to be completed? Where in Dublin West has housing construction restarted? Nobody has seen a building worker or a crane in Dublin West for the last five years.

The Tánaiste said one untrue thing. I was on Fingal County Council for 11 years. Council building projects have decreased since her Government came to power.

Deputy Finian McGrath

That is correct.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

I can give her the figures. The situation was better under Fianna Fáil than under the current Government.

Deputy Billy Kelleher

That is an endorsement.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

This Government allowed fewer than 300 houses to be built last year, while allowing 500 council houses to be sold off. Council housing stock has actually decreased under the Labour Party.

Deputy Dara Calleary

The truth hurts.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I ask the Deputy to frame a question.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

If the Tánaiste is really confident about her figures, she might table a debate so that she and the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government can show us where the houses are being built.

The Tánaiste

Given that we are having an exchange of questions and views, perhaps the Deputy can explain why the people associated with her party who sit on the local authority of which she was once a member voted against a social housing development before Christmas.

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

In Fingal.

The Tánaiste

She might find out because one of the issues is that parties such as the Deputy's have to persuade their representatives on local authorities to be positive in terms of allowing social housing to be constructed.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

Will the Tánaiste answer my question on rent allowance?

The Tánaiste

Perhaps the Deputy should investigate the issues arising and whether they could have been resolved. I do not know what drove the opposition but it would be interesting to find out. The Deputy made a comment about local authorities selling houses to council tenants. Since 1973 there is a long-standing policy, which I understood was supported by most parties in this House, that people who held long-term tenancies in local authority houses could be in a position to apply to purchase their homes at a certain point. I heard the Deputy condemn the right of people who live in local authority estates.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

What is the Tánaiste talking about?

The Tánaiste

By implication, she is condemning the local authorities for selling houses to tenants on a tenant purchase scheme.

Deputy Robert Troy

That scheme has been discontinued.

Deputy Billy Kelleher

Social mobility is a good thing.

The Tánaiste

She is wrong in that regard.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

My question was on rent supplement.

The Tánaiste

The newly appointed Fingal county manager has brought forward an extremely ambitious programme, starting with the identification of the sites and areas in Swords, Blanchardstown and the wider Dublin 15 area where new social housing can be built. That is a positive development which will result in many thousands of families getting the homes they want.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

What about rent supplement?

The Tánaiste

Rent supplement is a critical support for 75,000 individuals and families who are housed through the scheme. The protocol established last June is working very well on a case-by-case basis.

Deputy Brian Stanley

It is not working.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, can I get an answer to my question?