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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 29 Mar 2017

Vol. 944 No. 3

Leaders' Questions

We will now take Leaders' Questions. I appeal to everyone to have regard to the allocated times, please.

We are now into the sixth day without Bus Éireann services throughout the country. People are angry about the loss of services. The workers are very angry about the race to the bottom to a low wage and low cost public transport model with a draconian reduction in their overall take-home income. People in the regions have no access to public transport. Towns that are already in deep trouble are dying on their feet, so to speak, without this connectivity. Students are having huge issues in getting to universities, institutes of technology and various colleges. There are sick people who are having great difficulty in making their hospital appointments. Notwithstanding that, we still have inertia and paralysis in the reaction of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, and of the Government to this. There are 110,000 regular passengers who are being discommoded, and 2,500 workers who are in a very deeply anxious and worrying state.

I put it if this was Dublin Bus or if it was affecting the capital city, the issue would have been resolved much earlier. It is interesting that the Luas dispute was resolved, the Dublin Bus dispute was resolved and the Garda pay issue was resolved. The Minister was involved in that and it broke the Lansdowne Road agreement. However, this situation cannot get resolved. Not only is it not getting resolved, no attempt is being made, not even behind the scenes, to try to sort this out. One senses a hidden agenda that is determined to undermine the very concept of a public transport company. I have a real, deep sense of that. It is a view that accords with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport's own personal ideology and philosophy. It is something I reject and do not support it in any shape of or form because we need a public transport company. That is a policy position.

It is important to point out that there were options in advance of this dispute taking place. We pointed out the room for manoeuvre regarding the free travel issue and whether Bus Éireann was getting enough funds for that. We have made the point about the public service obligation. The Minister also has the additional facility of cross-subsidisation from reasonable profit, which the EU obliges and facilitates the companies to engage in. Dublin Bus did extraordinarily well out of that facility last year. Bus Éireann got about €400,000 from that. The point is that policy-wise there were opportunities to create the conditions to facilitate a resolution of the situation. There was precedent in 2013 when the then Government facilitated intervention of two facilitators to enable actions to be taken to get it back into the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC. This idea that we will not get involved at all does not hold water in respect of precedents. I put it to the Minister that the inertia is not good enough and people are being discommoded unreasonably.

Deputy Martin is absolutely correct that previous cases of transport disputes such as those at Dublin Bus and Irish Rail have been resolved. They were resolved in the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, and in the Labour Court. It was Government policy to support part of our State that had a proven track record of dealing with industrial relations issues. That approach was used in relation to previous disputes and industrial activity within the CIE group. Since it played a positive and valuable role then, that is why it is essential that the same approach be used now. Let us bear in mind the track record of the organisation the Government is supporting and which is an agency of the State. This organisation has, over the recent period, been involved in 1,400 cases of industrial activity or dispute. The WRC has played a successful role in 85% of those instances. The Deputy is right to say there have been industrial relations difficulties in the CIE group. What is missing in his analysis is the very forum and mechanism that played a role in bringing those disputes to an end, which was the Workplace Relations Commission. This is why the Government is standing behind the WRC and the Labour Court and the only forums in which this can be done again.

On the Deputy's allegations about Bus Éireann, I as the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and the entire Government support the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, in this and are absolutely committed to the concept and role of public transport and are absolutely committed to the viability of Bus Éireann. This is the very reason €263 million was made available in 2017 to support public bus and rail transport in the State. It is the very reason why over the past two years we have seen an increase in excess of 10% in the support put in by the taxpayer to the CIE group to support public transport and the sustainability of Bus Éireann which we know plays a vital role in allowing communities outside of Dublin to have access to their places of work and study.

It is because the Labour Court and the Workplace Relations Commission have played a leading role in dealing with industrial relations difficulties in the CIE group that they are the only forums within which this issue can now be dealt with.

The Minister is being disingenuous. The point I am making is that in 2013, when all of that broke down, the Government at the time took the decision to appoint two experienced facilitators to get people back into facilitation. Nothing has happened on this occasion by the Government and nothing has happened for all of 2015 and right through to 2016 because it is not in the Minister's own backyard.

The proof of the pudding, Taoiseach, sorry, Minister-----

(Interruptions).

He is delighted.

The proof of the pudding is in an e-mail that was sent to the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, on 23 December 2015, when he was the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, by Graham Doyle, alerting him to the fact that the unions were very concerned about possible measures in Bus Éireann. The Minister's official said, "However, we do not detect any immediate action on that front. They are likely to take a hard line, judging from comments being made. A lot of blame is being attributed to the NTA issuing licences to other operators." What was the Minister's response? He said, "We will have to get together in early January to refine how we all handle this. It will obviously heat up going into the elections." The Minister cynically did absolutely nothing-----

Show him the report.

-----because of the general election and the onset of it. Many problems were sown as a result of that. That complete stand-off has caused the current crisis in Bus Éireann. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, has said that he is not getting involved in any circumstances and is not even going to appoint facilitators.

I thank the Deputy. His time is up.

This is not just a pay dispute. It is not just an industrial relations dispute. It is a fundamental issue about structural change to Bus Éireann.

Thank you, Deputy.

That is why it needs different inputs in addition to the industrial relations input and the Minister has been severely lacking in addressing this particular issue.

I hope that, at some point in Deputy Martin's analysis, he will point to the fact that I was the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport who began the process of increasing investment in the CIE group after many years of that not being possible.

Deputy Donohoe might be Taoiseach.

He sat on the report.

I was the Minister who played a role in the bus fleet being renewed for Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus.

What about all the workers?

The reason all of that happened is precisely because of the recognition that I and the then Government had in respect of the role of Bus Éireann and the CIE group.

What did the Deputy do with that report?

That was the case then and it is the case now. In all of the other issues to which Deputy Martin referred in respect of industrial relations difficulties, I, as Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport and my predecessor were determined to make sure we could have as efficient a public transport service as possible and a CIE group that is sustainable. That was the action the Government took then-----

There was inaction for 12 months.

As I have said, the very industrial relations mechanisms that played a role in resolving those issues must be allowed to do their work now.

As the Minister knows, the Tory Government in London under Theresa May will trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty today, before we finish this session of the Dáil. The process of Britain leaving the European Union has begun; the clock is now ticking on Brexit. The intention of the British Government is also to drag the North of Ireland out of the European Union, in spite of the democratically expressed will of the people of that part of our island. This will have a profound effect on all sections of our people, the economy, and on agreements, particularly the Good Friday Agreement. As the Minister will also know, the people in the North rejected Brexit last June when they voted in the referendum to remain within the European Union. He may also know that they rejected the politics of English Toryism in the recent Assembly elections. The Conservative Party received just 2,399 votes. Although that was 2,399 votes more than Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil received, the English Tories have no mandate in Ireland.

Brexit is not just an issue for the North. It is a serious threat to the island as a whole, to the shopkeeper in Derry, the small farmer in Louth, the businessperson in Dublin, the fishing communities along our coast, the multinationals, and the college student down in Cork. It is clear, however, that the North of Ireland could and must be assigned special designated status within the European Union. It is a very thoughtful proposition and the only option that provides for the intricacies of the problem and will also ensure that the democratically-expressed wishes of the people are respected. It will allow communities to flourish, businesses to continue to trade freely, workers to cross the Border and, crucially, the rights of EU citizens in the North to be fully upheld.

There can be no hardening of the Border in any way - not physically, fiscally or psychologically. Up to 30,000 workers are cross-Border, while 7% of employees in the North are drawn from the European Economic Area. Our agrifood industry is almost completely integrated across the island. This special designated status is not just the position of Sinn Féin. The Dáil supports it. The majority of the parties returned to the Assembly in the North support it. Crucially, it would allow the whole of the island to remain in the EU together, which surely must be the aim of everyone in this Chamber. I put it to the Minister that the Taoiseach must enter any forthcoming negotiations to defend the democratic mandate of the people in the North to remain within the EU, and that he must act in Ireland's national interest. Will the Government commit to adopting this negotiating position of designated special status within the European Union?

I thank the Deputy. It is important to reflect on what a profoundly significant moment today is. In this Chamber in 1972, when the Dáil and the Government made the decision to hold a referendum to enter what was then the EEC, the then Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, said the following: "I am confident that the decision we take will reflect our people's faith in their capacity to help fashion for themselves and for future generations of Irish men and women a better Ireland in a better Europe." The then Leader of the Opposition, Liam Cosgrave, said that he believed Irish people "generally subscribe to the idea of European unity, to the aims and objectives of bringing the countries of Europe closer together and of trying to eliminate the dissensions and causes of conflict that have bedevilled and affected Europe". My contention is that if those views were relevant then, they are even more so now. The Irish Government's view on the decision of the British Government to leave the European Union is very clear. We believe it is a decision that is bad for the EU and the United Kingdom. However, the British people have made their mind up and this process is now under way.

Within all of that, we are absolutely clear on what is the Irish national interest. This has been enunciated by the Taoiseach on many occasions. At the core of it has been our recognition of the Good Friday Agreement, of no return to the hard Border of the past, and of the deep value of the freedom of movement of people between Ireland and the United Kingdom. It is precisely because of the work the Government has done that we are now seeing those values and aims being recognised, for example, in the recent statements of Prime Minister May on the matter. It is precisely because of this work that we are seeing Michel Barnier, who will be leading the separation negotiations on behalf of the European Union, give particular recognition to the role of the Border and Northern Ireland as an element that he wants to see resolved in the first cluster of negotiations to take place following the triggering of Article 50. The Government is absolutely clear on the need to recognise the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland and the need for the Good Friday Agreement to be structured into any future relationships, and it is acting accordingly.

For the record, when parties in the Dáil were speaking about joining Europe, the position of Sinn Féin at that point was "Ireland free, no EEC."

The Minister was not even born then.

It is welcome to hear Deputy Adams now talk positively about a construct and a political union which he has spent so long criticising.

I remember well the campaign in the 1970s for this State to go into the EEC. I campaigned against it. I think that was the right position. We have changed our position over the years to one of critical engagement. The Minister's Government has been compliant. It is a Government which pays private bankers' debt, created by the crowd now on the Opposition benches, of €65 billion to the EU, and which oversaw the destruction of our fishing industry and so on. We remain critically engaged with the European Union.

The Government's position is for a special designated status for the North, but it should be within the European Union. That is the rub. The Minister avoided my question. Why can we not have the position which is the only solution to this problem? It is meaningless to talk about friction-free borders and no return to the Border of the past. When the land frontier between the European state and the British State is on this island, it will be a hard economic border and that will be the Government's fault because it did not engage properly on the only solution applicable, which is special designated status for the North within the European Union.

It is precisely because of the engagement of the Taoiseach, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and other Cabinet Ministers, that the unique needs in respect of Northern Ireland and the Border are being recognised by the European Union. We have been at the fore of emphasising this point to leaders within the European Union and, obviously, to the British Government. That has been recognised in their communications to date and, as I said to the Deputy, he cannot have it both ways. He has been on his feet for decades criticising everything the European Union stands for and is only lately recognising its values. At the rate he is going, he will be campaigning in favour of water charges at some point. Given that his party already supports them in the North, perhaps that will not be as a big a journey as we think.

The greatest contribution Sinn Féin could make to all of this, which is lamentably absent in our current environment, is the speedy formation of an Executive in Northern Ireland, whereby we would have an Administration in which Sinn Féin could play a leading role in representing the interests of that community. That is why it is so important to see those institutions, in which Deputy Adams can play a unique role, speedily put in place.

May I ask for the Dáil record to be corrected? There are no domestic water charges in the North. They were stopped by Sinn Féin.

While the Government says it still has support for the Garda Commissioner, mayhem prevails in An Garda Síochána.

The Commissioner became caretaker Commissioner in March 2014. The Minister, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, became Minister for Justice and Equality on 8 May 2014. It just so happened that, on that very same day, Garda Nick Keogh made allegations and started off an investigation into the conspiracy to supply heroin on the part of a garda. Three years later, he has not been arrested, nor has the woman involved who was dealing in the drugs. A garda went to the Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, back in 2012 and warned him about promoting a certain officer, who, unfortunately, was promoted and has wreaked havoc since. That same garda was recently charged with careless driving after tipping into a tractor and trailer which had no tax or insurance. He won his case, and what has the Garda done? It has gone looking for a judicial review to be taken, which will cost more than €20,000.

This morning we met two gardaí. At 2.30 p.m. today, in a car park out on the Naas Road, a female garda will collect yet another set of discipline papers as part of an ongoing campaign by senior Garda management. This is about an incident that happened 17 years ago. She has been condemned, judged and isolated. The Government says the Commissioner should not be, but members of the force are when the authorities see fit. She has been put through the wringer. She has spent more than 60 days in court, at great cost to the taxpayer. Despite being found unanimously not guilty on all counts in a criminal trial, she is still subject to an ongoing campaign of internal disciplinary inquiries. Two internal inquiries are completed and three are ongoing.

From 2016, I have a decision of the Commissioner, signed by the Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner Michael Finn. They recommend that this garda should retire or resign as an alternative to dismissal. These are the same people who have accepted in excess of 14,000 errors last week. That is bigger than the population of Wexford town. This woman is to be fired out of the force, and for what? It is for failing to put on PULSE a crime that was reported, and she also got the very same charge for failing to secure a statement.

There is mayhem. The force is in bits. It is falling down around our ears. The only one in the whole country that is supporting her is the Government. When is this going to change?

I am not going to comment on an individual set of circumstances that the Deputy has raised. It would not be appropriate for me to do so, particularly as I am becoming aware of them for the first time.

Of course, that is the very reason we have organisations like the Policing Authority and Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, GSOC, in place, namely, so they can handle and respond to issues that are of public concern. The Government has been crystal clear, as have the Taoiseach and Tánaiste, across yesterday afternoon and last night in a two-hour debate in this Chamber, in recognising that the allegations and issues that have been raised, especially in regard to the scale of discrepancy between the numbers of breathalysers that were used across recent years, are of profound concern to the Government, as they are of profound concern to a public that depends on An Garda Síochána to be able to implement the rule of law impartially and fairly. That is why the Government yesterday decided on a set of actions to respond to this latest issue. More broadly, what we will be doing now, and the Oireachtas needs to play a role in this, is engaging in looking at the Garda modernisation agenda, looking at the role of GSOC, looking at the template that was laid out by Mr. Olson in the Garda Síochána Inspectorate, which forms part of the modernisation agenda the Garda is committed to, and looking at how this needs to be supported and driven further.

The Government has made very clear that, as part of this, what will be needed is a thorough and overall review of the structure of and the culture within An Garda Síochána that builds on the thinking that has been done to date but acknowledges that, because of the scale of concern that is being raised, a fresh approach is needed in this regard. This is what the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and all in the Government are committed to doing. We support the Commissioner. We support her in her efforts to deal with the issues that are being described. For my part, as disturbed as I am by these facts that have now emerged, what is crucial now is that they are in the public domain and that they can be looked at in a transparent manner. What is finally necessary, and this will happen, is that the Government will put in place a thorough and proportionate response to an issue that we know is causing such disquiet throughout the country.

I do not know whether the Minister is innocently supporting her in this case; I do not know how much he knows. The Minister for Justice and Equality knows plenty about what I have just said.

Does the Minister think it is appropriate for former Commissioner Callinan to have been in Phoenix Park headquarters on several days last week? Does he think it is appropriate that the former Commissioner and the present Commissioner would have access to the whole apparatus of An Garda Síochána, a pleasure that will not be afforded to Sergeant Maurice McCabe and Superintendent David Taylor?

She has set up a team, a serious team, including Detective Superintendent Tony Howard, and the Minister for Justice and Equality has been written to about reservations about that individual. She has brought back retired Assistant Commissioner Mick O'Sullivan and former Chief Superintendent Brendan Mangan. The Minister should ask the Commissioner whether she consulted John Barrett at human resources before she made appointments to her special unit to deal with the Charleton inquiry. John Barrett wrote a letter to the head of legal affairs, Ken Ruane, pointing out the corporate risk to An Garda Síochána in setting up this unit, staffed with personal friends and associates. He suggested a firm of outside solicitors should be brought in to act as a conduit between An Garda Síochána and the Charleton inquiry, but he was ignored.

She is a law unto herself. Does the Minister know why? It is because the Government let her be so. She will remain a law unto herself and the Garda Síochána force is secondary to her interests and concerns. The Government is allowing it to happen. The Government will eventually get rid of her but it will be too late and too much damage will be done.

The Deputy in his initial question raised a set of circumstances to me that I responded to as not being aware of them. What I am very clear on, and the Government is clear on, is that our overwhelming prerogative is the integrity and reputation of An Garda Síochána. It is part of the glue that holds any society together - the respect for and independence of a police force. That is the very reason that, over recent years, in response to many difficulties that have emerged, we have put in place bodies like the Policing Authority. It is the very reason we are now in a situation where the Policing Authority itself is the body that makes appointments at senior level. It is the very reason we have GSOC, and the Government is now engaged in consultation with GSOC regarding whether further powers are merited for that organisation to respond to the cultural change we know is needed. All of this is driven by our acknowledgement of the need for a strong, respected An Garda Síochána that has no shadows or clouds over it.

Yesterday I attended a briefing hosted by the Public Banking Forum of Ireland. Its analysis demonstrated that Irish commercial banks, which are so-called pillar banks, hold a market share of roughly 95% of the Irish market while their German counterparts, commercial banks which include Deutsche Bank and others, hold a mere 12.5% share of the German banking market. That might be little to worry about if the banks in this State did not insist on maintaining their stranglehold on the creation of credit and insist on operating from principles directly opposed to the public and the common good.

Serious concerns are now being raised about the completely dysfunctional nature of our banks and the blasé attitude of the Central Bank and, indeed, senior Department of Finance officials. They are simply not working and when is the Government going to wake up to this? Why, for example, do privately owned commercial banks hold a monopoly on credit creation? Why do these same banks also have monopoly control over the repayments systems? These are structural issues that further subordinate our credit unions and post offices and make it almost impossible for them to expand their range of activities. One of the most serious questions, however, is why Irish SMEs and small family businesses have to pay Irish banks almost double or treble the average European interest rates, which are 2% in Germany and 6% to 7% here. If a person is pushed onto an overdraft, which many are, it is up to 15% or 16%.

What has happened to the European Single Market? Where are our friends?

Is it any wonder that Prime Minister May has pulled the trigger today on Article 50 and we have Brexit? Why have successive Irish Governments discriminated against the credit unions and post offices through a host of restrictions on the products and services they can offer? It is happening even today. We are told that we can apply for passports online, which takes away business from the post offices as well.

During the talks on the programme for Government, my Rural Independent Group colleagues and I insisted that there be a commitment to examine the possibility of introducing a public banking model in Ireland. So far, there has been only lip-service and total inaction by the Government. The Minister is not Taoiseach yet, as Deputy Micheál Martin said, but he is one of the senior Ministers and he has done nothing about it only rub his hands with glee. ISME has stated that access to finance and credit is among the top three concerns for SMEs. It has done untold damage to the real economy every day of the week and is creating absolute torture for small businesses, farm families and all of the individuals with mortgages who simply cannot get access to credit or increase their cash flows. As I said, interest rates in Germany are at 2% but in Ireland are at 5%, 6% or 7%.

The banking model in this State needs a root-and-branch reform. The good people who produced yesterday's report made a good stab at this. I really appreciate that. They are volunteers and not paid officials of the Department or of anybody else or hired guns. We simply cannot allow the punitive monopoly of the pillar banks to continue. Will the Minister commit to introducing the public banking model along the lines of those that operate to the huge benefit of communities in Germany, Europe's largest economy, where public banking and community banks have a 70% market share?

What I do agree with the Deputy on is that we need more competition in Irish banking. The Government is very clear that we want to see very healthy competition between Irish and international banks within our jurisdiction to ensure that credit is offered at competitive prices to businesses, farmers and to small and large companies that need it. What I disagree strongly with the Deputy on is that this is the fault of the European Union. It appears to me that one of the reasons the European Union is in the difficulty it has been in is because it is blamed for issues that it has little to do with. We need to see more competition within our banking market. The Government is looking at all options for this. Alongside this, we are also supporting our pillar banks in putting in place measures that allow them to be able to make credit available to Irish companies at more competitive rates. This is why we have had intervention, for example, through the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, which has worked with Irish pillar banks to come up with models whereby the State can play a role in facilitating lower rates of interest to Irish companies that need credit to allow them to compete at home and abroad. That work is under way.

I have not seen the report that the Deputy has referred to, but I would be more than happy to have a look at it and see what considerations or recommendations might be implemented. We need more competition within our market and more banks that are able to compete to ensure that better services are offered to Irish consumers and companies.

The Minister and the Government are in charge. His Ministry was part of the favourite four during the previous Government's term. They are in charge of the banks and lending. Small farmers and self-employed builders who want to build houses for the housing crisis cannot get a bob - not a shilling. They are not working. We need banks that are community focused and financially viable. We put €69 billion into the banks. What did we get back? Two fingers every day of the week. They are not lending a penny. The Minister, the Minister for Finance, senior officials and the Central Bank are in charge. They are allowing the banks to absolutely run riot and to terrorise and torture people who, by their sweat and blood, had €69 billion taken off them and continued to be taken off them. We get sweet - I will not say what I should say - off them in return. It is not funny. It is so serious. The Minister said that he is not aware of the problems. A blind person could see the problems. The banks are not working, they are not lending and they have aggressive policies of hauling people before the courts where there are willing and able county registrars. It is a whole charade of terrorising people, creating sickness, suicide and, God knows, a trail of destruction. It is time the Minister woke up and smelt the coffee, or he will never be Taoiseach.

I never said in my response to the Deputy that I was not aware of any difficulties. Of course I am aware of the difficulties and problems that our citizens and companies face. I was very clear, however, in outlining what I believe to be the best approach to it, which the Government is in the process of implementing. That involves proper competition within our banking market to ensure that there is a variety of services available to consumers and companies and the Government playing an interventionist role, where necessary, to support pillar banks to make credit available to Irish companies at a competitive price.

They are codding the Government all the way.

We have done that and it is under way. We will not be undermining the role of the Central Bank. The Central Bank is an independent organisation-----

It is in control.

-----that is at the heart of being able to regulate our banking sector.

We have all seen, to our great cost, what happens when that regulation is not in place and not implemented. The Government remains fully committed to putting in place measures to regain as much as possible of all of the investment that was put in place to support our pillar banks.

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