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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 21 Jun 2018

Vol. 970 No. 6

Leaders' Questions

There is a crisis across the country in child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, and the Government is asleep at the wheel as it unfolds. According to figures supplied to my colleague, Deputy James Browne, Fianna Fáil's spokesperson on mental health, 6,181 children were waiting for primary care psychology appointments at the end of January, of whom 1,635 had been waiting for over a year to see somebody. Time is of the essence in dealing with children and teenagers. There is a very narrow window for assisting them, treating their conditions and putting them on a path to recovery. That window has been made even narrower for 1,635 children who have been deprived of opportunities that should have been made available to them. As a direct consequence, unfortunately, 81 children were admitted to adult mental health units across the country in 2017. Such settings are utterly and completely unsuitable for their needs and care programmes.

There are major difficulties in attracting staff to work in CAMHS. A staff complement of 1,237 is required for a full community-based CAMHS service, but figures supplied to Deputy James Browne show that just 657 staff were in place in 2017. If current recruitment trends continue, the full complement will not be in place until 2030,which is 12 years away. The futures of children are being put at risk, while the HSE dawdles. How many more thousands of children will lose out on treatment? How many more thousands of parents will have to endure intolerable stress? This is a nationwide problem. Every Deputy has dealt with the issue in his or her constituency office. I deal with it in my constituency of Mayo. It has been highlighted in counties Wexford and Waterford in recent weeks following Dr. Kieran Moore's decision to resign from his post as a specialist paediatric consultant. As he explained to the Joint Committee on the Future of Mental Health Care:

I am resigning from Wexford because it is untenable and unsafe. Two of my colleagues are doing the same.

Such a damning indictment by a hugely respected professional should serve as a wake-up call for the Tánaiste and his Government colleagues on the reality of CAMHS. What actions are being taken by the Government to address the crisis in it? What specific recruitment plans are in place to address the shortfall in the service? What does the Tánaiste say to the 6,181 children who are languishing on the CAMHS waiting lists and to their parents?

I thank the Deputy for observing the time limit. I ask all Deputies to do likewise, especially because we started five minutes late owing to the lack of a quorum.

I thank Deputy Dara Calleary for raising this issue. The Minister for Health and his Government colleagues are aware that it is serious. Timely access to care is essential as part of good health provision, particularly in CAMHS. The Government has shown its commitment to achieving this by increasing funding for mental health services by over €200 million since 2012, as well as the number of staff. Additional staff are badly needed. The Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, has scheduled a round-table meeting of all CAMHS service providers in the coming weeks. While there is no doubt that recruitment in this area is difficult, it is being addressed on a continuous basis. The HSE is operating a national and international recruitment campaign for CAMHS consultant psychiatrists. The recruitment of 114 assistant psychologists and 22 psychologists for primary care child psychology services has been completed, with 111 assistant psychologists and 20 psychologists in their posts. Improvements are being made to children's counselling services. The development of new Jigsaw sites in Cork, Dublin and Limerick will bring the total to 13 sites nationally. I am more than aware of the number of children on waiting lists to receive the treatment and diagnosis they need. There is a sense of urgency within the Government. Recruitment in this area is not easy, but there is a very active national and international recruitment campaign to try to deal with the shortfall in staff.

The Tánaiste has said recruitment is not easy, but there has been a substantial number of resignations. I have referred to Dr. Kieran Moore's comment that the system is "untenable and unsafe". The current president of the College of Psychiatrists in Ireland, Dr. John Hillery, worked with the HSE until earlier this year. He has resigned from it because of his pure frustration at its inability to deal with this issue and lack of interest in doing so. He has said doctors are facing the "moral distress" of not being able to access the resources or care needed to help their patients. He has suggested doctors are finding themselves in "ethically compromising situations" on a regular basis in a system where bureaucracy has "gone mad". The Tánaiste has referred to the difficulties in recruiting consultant psychiatrists and psychologists, but there seems to be no difficulty in recruiting managers. In his evidence to the Joint Committee on the Future of Mental Health Care Dr. Moore said that even though he was a front-line professional, he did not understand the role of managers in counties Waterford and Wexford. It seems that, despite the Tánaiste's words and undoubted personal commitment, the 6,181 children to whom I have referred are facing a stark reality. The prospect of getting them off the waiting lists seems to be very remote. Is bureaucracy more important than treating children? What reassurance can the Tánaiste provide for parents in counties Waterford and Wexford who have not yet been given any information by the HSE on their children's care paths in the coming weeks and months?

The Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, met HSE officials and CAMHS HSE local representatives this week to discuss the specific actions that needed to be taken in the south east where I know there are specific pressures, as the decisions taken by consultants certainly confirm. Their frustration has led to resignations. The response from the Government needs to be the delivery of services. If we are to do this, we need to recruit more specialist staff. We certainly need to recruit from abroad. In the medium term we need to ensure we will produce more undergraduates in this area and that they will stay in Ireland.

Improvements in consultant recruitment are taking place. In urgent cases, consultants may be recruited at the ninth point of the payscale. In summation, the Government through the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, with a sense of urgency recognises there is a staffing shortfall here. It is more acute in some parts of the country than others. We are actively ensuring that a recruitment campaign delivers the numbers needed to fill those gaps. I assure the Deputy there are no funding restrictions in respect of doing that.

Yesterday, David Drumm, the former chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank, was sentenced to six years for conspiracy to defraud and false accounting. It might have taken nearly ten years but the Irish people, who suffered immeasurably as a result of the actions of reckless bankers, finally have some sense of justice delivered. The damage done to the State by Anglo Irish Bank in particular was catastrophic. We should not forget that we are still paying the price of that damage because of the promissory notes and the IBRC liquidation and we will be paying for it for many decades to come. However, we cannot pretend that the conviction of David Drumm yesterday marks some sort of watershed moment. That just four people have been convicted for their roles in the banking crisis ten years after the event is hardly a ringing endorsement of the justice system when it comes to tackling white-collar crime, which continues to go unpunished and, in many cases, is unpunishable to this day. Over the next few months, we will all reflect on the tenth anniversary of the banking crisis. I do not believe many will feel any sense of real closure when that anniversary comes and goes.

There is a mountain of work for all of us in these Houses to do to ensure this scandal never happens again and to hold those responsible to account for their actions. Urgent action is required from this Dáil and from the Government. One of the reasons for the delay in securing the prosecution of Mr. Drumm, we are told, was the scale and complexity of the case. The Garda has said it requires additional powers to investigate white-collar crime. Will the Government be taking that recommendation on board? The Central Bank has also made a number of recommendations in respect of white-collar crime, including the setting up of a dedicated division within an existing criminal agency to investigate it and for a specialised prosecution unit to be established. They have called for implementing rules in order that senior individuals in financial institutions must provide the Central Bank with a document outlining what they are in charge of. Then, if a crime takes place, that senior-level individual can be held to account for the areas for which he or she was responsible. The Central Bank has also called for making reckless lending and reckless management a crime, as is the case across the water.

White-collar crime is not victimless. Along with the Central Bank and the Garda, which is calling for additional powers and resources, Sinn Féin has also added to the suite of actions that need to be taken. For example, Deputy Ó Laoghaire and I have sponsored the Multi-Party Actions Bill 2017, which is similar in fashion to the US-style class action suits whereby a number of victims can work together to take on a corporate entity in court. We have produced legislation that would make it a crime for bankers to lie to the Central Bank and which provides that they could be imprisoned as a result of so doing. Will the Government consider these proposals from the Garda, the Central Bank and Sinn Féin in order that white-collar crime can be dealt with robustly for once and for all and so we will not have to wait another ten years to see people held to account?

I certainly hope everybody in this House shares the view that we need to be dealing robustly with white-collar crime. We need to learn lessons from a banking crisis that has caused so much difficulty for so many families and businesses across the country. The conviction of David Drumm and his sentencing yesterday were, on one level, a recognition of the seriousness of the crimes that have been committed.

From a Government perspective, our job is to make sure we learn lessons from the past and put legislative measures and policy in place to ensure they are not repeated in the future. We will listen to everybody who has a sensible contribution to make in that regard. The Government published a suite of measures last November aimed at enhancing corporate governance, increasing transparency and strengthening Ireland's response to white-collar crime. Among the actions in the package is a criminal procedure Bill which, among other things, streamlines criminal procedures to enhance the efficiency of criminal trials. The Criminal Justice (Corruption Offences) Bill 2017 includes provision for recommendations arising from the Mahon tribunal and will substantially advance meeting Ireland's obligations under a number of international anti-corruption instruments. This major modernisation of corruption offences law will repeal and replace the seven previous Prevention of Corruption Acts of 1889 to 2010. Work on the development of the legislative framework for the establishment of the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement as an agency has commenced and it is expected that the scheme of the Bill will give effect to this decision. It will be published in line with the delivery timelines the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, has outlined.

The Companies (Statutory Audits) Bill 2017 was published on 6 November 2017. The markets in financial instruments directive, MiFID II, has been implemented and, as of 3 May, the Bill is before the Dáil on Second Stage. The Criminal Justice (Corruption Offences) Bill was published and is progressing on schedule. The statutory review of the Protected Disclosures Act is well under way and will be published shortly. There is no shortage of legislative response coming from Government.

We will, of course, always listen to An Garda Síochána, the Central Bank and Opposition parties that have pragmatic and sensible approaches to providing a more comprehensive suite of legislation to respond to the modern challenges of white-collar crime.

This is not the first time I have raised this. I have raised it with the current Taoiseach and his predecessor. We have been arguing the case that we need to bring in a suite of measures to tackle white-collar crime, particularly in the financial institutions, for many years. The previous Governor of the Central Bank wrote to the former Minister for Finance asking him to legislate to make it an offence to lie to the Central Bank. Years later, the Government still has not dealt with that issue but is blocking the Bill that passed Second Stage in this House because of a money message. After his dodgy dealings with the €7.2 billion and when that bank continued to lend, David Drumm could not be charged with reckless lending because, unlike in the North or Britain and even after what we went through, reckless lending is not a crime. The Central Bank has been calling for it to be made a crime for many years. David Drumm could not be convicted of lying to the Central Bank because it is not a crime. In Britain, there is a need for senior bankers to identity the areas for which they are responsible in order that they cannot use the excuse of plausible deniability. However, that can be used by bankers in this jurisdiction.

We heard today that more than 170 people are taking cases to the Financial Services Ombudsman against one bank, AIB, because of the tracker scandal. If they want to see justice in court, they must take their cases individually because the Government is refusing to support the class actions Bill we have brought forward, which would allow for them to club together and take on these elites in society.

Will the Tánaiste agree with the proposal to set up a dedicated unit within an existing criminal agency for investigation and prosecution to deal with white-collar crime, as has been called for by the Central Bank of Ireland?

The Deputy called for a suite of measures; that is exactly what is happening. Last year, the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, introduced a suite of measures in November and he has added to it since then. There is a whole series of legislative responses which I have spoken about. The Deputy, like everybody else, will have an opportunity to raise specific issues he would like to see addressed through that legislation and he will get a response from the Minister, Deputy Flanagan. I am not going to get into what the content of individual legislative items will be without testing that and I am not going to give the Deputy an answer on the hoof.

What I will say is that the Government wants a comprehensive suite of measures to respond robustly to white-collar crime to make sure we protect consumers and do not allow the kind of banking decisions that were made in the past that virtually bankrupted this country. We are absolutely committed to that. This party wants to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated, that boom-bust cycles do not happen in the future and that we do not allow a banking system to dominate an economy in a negative way such as happened in the past. As I said previously, if the Deputy has suggestions to make in the context of the debates that are happening - be it legislation coming from Sinn Féin or the Government - there will be more than ample opportunity to discuss the detail of those proposals in this House.

This week, the world expressed its horror, revulsion and outrage at the barbaric treatment of children by the Trump Administration at the US-Mexico border and the horrific practice of separating thousands of minors from their parents. It seems that the revulsion both in the US and across the world, including from this House, has forced President Trump to make something of a U-turn, although as thousands of children still remain in custody we will see what happens and I still will attend the protest at the US embassy this evening.

My question, and I am glad the Tánaiste is here to respond, is whether we are going to be consistent in expressing our outrage and revulsion at abuse and barbaric treatment of children because, of course, the place where this has gone on year in and year out for at least the past 20 years and which is probably the most dangerous place in the world to be a child is Gaza and the Palestinian territories, where the facts of the abuse, murder and imprisonment of children and the denial of basic rights, resources and supports by Israel in a cruel, calculated and deliberate way is simply shocking beyond belief. One Palestinian child has been killed every three days on average for the past 18 years by members of the Israeli military. In the past few weeks, 14 children have been killed and more than 1,000 injured by the Israeli military in Gaza. There are approximately 350 children in prison at present, some of whom have received sentences of up to ten years. The horror just goes on. The Save the Children organisation says that about 90% of children in Gaza are suffering psychological trauma as a result of the various Israeli offensives over the past number of years and that about 78% of children in Gaza cannot sleep at night properly because of a fear of attacks by the Israeli military and war planes.

At what point do we express outrage and revulsion at this and do something about it? Nelson Mandela's grandson recently said that Israel's apartheid was worse than that practised in South Africa and called for the boycott of Israel, as did his grandfather, Nelson Mandela, and Desmond Tutu. What are we going to do about the barbaric treatment of children by Israel? Will we join in the call to at the very least boycott the Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv next year in order that we do not give legitimacy to a regime that treats children in such a barbaric fashion using the ultimate form of separation, namely, killing and imprisoning children and denying them the most basic rights and entitlements?

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I welcome the fact that the President of the United States signed an order last night to ensure there would no longer be separation of children from their parents on the border with Mexico. Approximately 2,300 children are still separated from their parents in holding centres and I hope the debate that is taking place in Congress today can deal with that issue comprehensively. I understand two items of legislation are being brought forward. I do not know whether they will be passed but certainly there is an active political debate trying to deal comprehensively with this issue following the outrage of many in the US and around the world who were dismayed by the images they saw in recent days of thousands of young children in very vulnerable and distressing circumstances.

As the Deputy knows, I have a real interest in the Middle East peace process. I have been there three times in the past year. I visited Gaza in January. I have been very vocal in this House in my criticism of the Israeli response, particularly on the Gaza border, and the tragedy and bloodshed that has happened there in recent weeks. My focus as a politician and senior Minister in government is on trying to ensure that Ireland can be as influential as possible in trying to bring an end to that. Ultimately, the only way we can provide long-term solutions for Palestinians is to make progress on a broader political peace deal for which Ireland is actively agitating. That is what colours all the decisions I make. What can Ireland do as a country and what can we do as a Government to advance the cause of a two-state solution that can allow Palestinians to aspire to having their own state living in peace with their neighbour, Israel? This seems like a long way away right now given the tragedies we have seen in recent weeks and the tension that remains. I was in Ramallah, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Jordan and Cyprus talking about these issues only a couple of weeks ago. We will continue to do that, just as we will continue to advocate for funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA, which looks after some of the most vulnerable people in Gaza and the West Bank and indeed Palestinian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon.

I do not believe that we are advancing the cause of Palestinians by calling for or supporting a boycott right now. That would polarise things even further. I am not sure we can legally do that anyway because trade policy is the competence of the EU as a collective. I need to remain an influential and vocal advocate for positive change in Israel and Palestine within the EU and among the countries that have influence on getting results in that regard. That is why I follow the course of action I have been following.

Politics, two-state solutions, one-state solutions, engagement - blah, blah, blah - we are talking about children. These are innocent children who are in prison; who are being killed, maimed or shot, who do not have proper schools and who cannot sleep because of fear of Israeli assaults. This goes beyond any of that other stuff. The world set aside politics when it came to the treatment of children in the past few weeks in the US and said we are not accepting this. The same has to happen with Israel. We have had 22 years of engagement with Israel since the Oslo Accords and its treatment of children and denial of rights has got worse, not better. Engagement has not worked.

I have a simple question for the Tánaiste. Was the world right to boycott apartheid-era South Africa? Is there a time when it is right to boycott an apartheid state? If it was right and if Nelson Mandela, the world, the Dunnes Stores strikers and this country were right to do it in the case of South Africa, how is it not right to do it to a state that is behaving in a worse fashion than apartheid-era South Africa? As even Nelson Mandela's grandson says that Israeli apartheid is worse than that practised in South Africa, should we not heed his call, as someone who knows, to at least boycott the Eurovision Song Contest?

Sometimes when I hear the Deputy speak, he seems to suggest that he is coming from a higher moral ground than the Government on these issues. He is not. We care about this issue. That is why I am engaging as much as I am on it. I have probably spent more time on the Middle East peace process than on anything else other than Brexit and our relationships in Europe and Washington. That is because we are trying to ensure that Ireland can maximise its leverage and influence in terms of the politics of this issue, which, ultimately, will be the issue that will protect children, many of whom I have met in schools and health centres in places like Gaza and the West Bank.

We do not actually disagree on the outcome we want. What we disagree on is the method of getting us there. I do not believe boycotts and protests alone will solve this issue.

It worked in South Africa.

It worked in South Africa but this is a very different case, if one looks at the politics of the Middle East right now. We are using the information, the judgment and the advice we have, as a Government, to prioritise this issue and to try to bring about political solutions. I do not believe advocating for a boycott will help in that effort.

Mar is eol don Tánaiste is cathair álainn dhátheangach í cathair na Gaillimhe atá ar thairseach na Gaeltachta is mó sa tír. Tá stádas mar Phríomhchathair Chultúir na hEorpa bainte amach aici. Tá réimse leathan ócáidí leagtha amach don bhliain sin agus tá an t-uafás airgid poiblí geallta nó, ar ndóigh, caite chun an stádas sin a chur chun críche. It has, of course, two third level institutions embedded within the life of the city and a world class tech cluster. I mention only some of the positive advantages, many of which are outlined in the national planning framework, which I will come to shortly.

Notwithstanding that it is a vibrant, beautiful and bilingual city, one I am very proud of and want to see develop, it faces the most acute challenges in regard to the housing crisis, affordable and public housing and the lack of student accommodation, together with serious traffic congestion, as a direct result of the failure to build housing and the lack of planning. I draw this matter to the attention of the Tánaiste. I am glad he is here because I also drew this to his attention on 17 January of this year when I pointed out that Galway not alone faces these challenges but there is no master plan. The Tánaiste surprised me on that occasion by telling me that while he often disagrees with me, he agreed with virtually everything I said and he did not believe in leaving things to the vagaries of the market. Since then, the national planning framework has been published and, notwithstanding any problems around its publicity, it uses the terms "sustainable development" and "regional development", and refers to the development of five cities in particular, including Galway.

To focus on sustainable development, there is no reason Galway should have the problems it has and which have become chronic. We have any amount of public land at the docks, at Ceannt Station, on the Dyke Road and at the airport, but we have no master plan. The framework development plan the Government has published states that the five cities, including Galway, will grow by 50% and that most of that development will have to be within the footprint of the city. Almost six months after I first asked him, I ask the Tánaiste again to please take a hands-on approach in regard to Galway. We need a master plan for the common good, not for the developer. As we speak, parts of the docks and parts of Ceannt Station are being developed and other land is sitting idle, while we have a serious housing crisis.

In addition to housing, practically every day in this Chamber we hear about climate change, on which Ireland was ranked second last in Europe in the latest report. We hear the Tánaiste, the Taoiseach and the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport talk about taking cars off the road. It is time to look at light rail for Galway. Some 22,000 people signed a petition that I was in charge of in Galway over an eight-week period. They are way ahead of us with regard to sustainable solutions and in their realisation that we have to do something to reduce carbon emissions.

To conclude, my question is whether we will have a master plan and, included within that, at least a study in regard to light rail.

I do not disagree with the Deputy on those calls, although we sometimes disagree on policy. I know she has raised social housing concerns in Galway over and over again, understandably so, given there are huge pressures in that regard in Galway city. There are currently ten local authority construction schemes in the pipeline which will deliver 365 units when completed - I can name them if the Deputy wants. However, that is not really what she is asking today, to be fair. She is asking where is the overarching plan for what the city will look like in ten and 20 years' time.

I have taken a strong interest in my own city in terms of what it will look like then. We are talking about light rail. We have a very clear picture of where new housing will be built and where the higher density, higher buildings will be built. We are trying to build a collective vision across parties for how Cork city, for example, will facilitate an extra 120,000 people in the next two decades, and not simply by extending boundaries. Project Ireland 2040 is very clear in terms of its plan for existing cities outside of Dublin. We want a 50% population growth target and, while we do not want the cities to be limited by that, it is the target. We want plans from local authorities that can deliver this in a sustainable way and that can focus on quality of life issues and work-life balance. We want to ensure that climate change and emissions management are a big part of that in terms of public transport delivery, which is why we are committing to spend hundreds of millions of euro on much smarter BusConnects systems and also light rail, where appropriate.

The onus is on local decision making. The people who understand Galway best have to come forward with the detailed plans. What will happen now is that there will be regional plans to set the guidelines for planning the projects contained in Project Ireland 2040. However, the actual detail of that within individual cities has to come from those cities and the local governance structures within them.

I appreciate the Tánaiste's positive comments. However, Galway's population is destined to grow from 80,000 to 120,000. With regard to development within the footprint of the city, the Tánaiste would have to accept that allowing that to happen without a master plan for the common good is simply madness.

I appreciate the Government's commitments on climate change and the reduction of carbon emissions, although it is not meeting them. However, in Galway we are planning another road with more cars that the city cannot cope with in the foreseeable future. We need to look at an alternative model. Light rail would fit in to the idea of intensive development within the city but that will not happen without a push from the Government. I was there when we looked at an outer bypass that went nowhere but down a cul-de-sac. That was difficult enough to watch but, at the same time, there was no commitment to sustainable transport. In 2005 we put park and ride in the city development plan, and I had the privilege of being mayor when that happened. We fought tooth and nail to put it in against management, who thought it was premature. As a result of their view that it was premature, we still do not have park and ride in 2018 and there is serious traffic congestion.

More roads is not the answer. We need a master plan and to consider light rail. I do not believe Cork asked for light rail yet it will be considered, whereas Galway has been begging for it through its people. More than 22,000 people from a population of just under 80,000 have asked for light rail.

I believe Galway does need some new roads. There is a ring road system around Galway city that needs to be completed to provide the kind of free-flowing traffic movements that are necessary. Traffic congestion in Galway city is a significant issue and a significant problem in terms of future growth and investment. That being said, I believe we will see a much bigger emphasis in urban environments on public transport provision and higher density, but also higher quality of residential property. That is what needs to happen.

Of course, this needs to happen under an overall city development plan. The Deputy can call it a master plan or a county and city development plan - whatever she wants to call it. Ultimately, however, the whole point of having a national planning framework is that planning in the future is not development-led but is plan-led in terms of trying to socially engineer, if one likes, how and where people live in the interests of the environment and quality of life. The idea that we have tens of thousands of people travelling into Dublin from more than an hour away every morning and making the same journey back in the evening is an example of the kind of planning we do not want to see in the future. Galway has an opportunity to give leadership on that, as do the other cities. I hope they will take that opportunity.

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