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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 19 Sep 2018

Vol. 972 No. 2

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions

Is the Minister, Deputy Ross, taking Leaders' Questions?

I do not think so.

He definitely will.

Not on this occasion.

He is not allowed.

A man for all seasons.

He would chance his arm.

He has nothing else to be doing.

I welcome the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection.

This morning, the country took a bit of a battering. We think of all of those who are out working - gardaí, local authority staff and service workers. As a House, we also send our sympathies to the family of the lady who was killed this morning in a storm-related incident. We wish safety to everyone else.

Among those responding to this weather challenge are members of the Defence Forces. They will do so with dedication and commitment, as they do in everything. The country is rightly proud of our Defence Forces, how they serve and protect us and our world and how they have contributed over many years - 60 years was marked earlier this year - in Lebanon, Syria and the Golan Heights, to mention but a few. Irish soldiers, naval forces and Air Corps personnel are valued across the globe, and we all admire them for their work at home as well as their dedication and expertise. We remember with pride their participation in the centenary of the 1916 Rising, particularly given what that participation brought to the occasion.

However, compliments and commendations do not put meals on tables. Despite many debates in the Dáil and a report commissioned by the University of Limerick on the Defence Forces, little to nothing has been done by the Government about the concerns affecting them. Members of the Defence Forces are men and women who have the same costs as the rest of us but are now finding it impossible to rear families, get mortgages and tackle day-to-day costs because they are serving our country. A large proportion of Defence Forces members have had to sign up for family income supplement, or the working family payment as it is now known.

Defence Forces personnel are leaving on a weekly basis. Expertise is being lost to the State and colleagues are losing colleagues because the private sector is putting much better offers on the table. The current numbers in the Defence Forces are the lowest in the history of the State at just over 9,000, which is 490 below the agreed strength. In her response, the Minister will say that a recruitment campaign is under way, but she will not say how many are leaving on a weekly or monthly basis and therefore nullifying the recruitment campaign. The exodus has been under way since 2012. The number of Army officers has dropped by 15% from 966 to 817.

At every level in our Defence Forces, there is a crisis. It has grown so large that there will be a parade to this House today so that attention can once again focus on the challenges facing our Defence Forces. Former members of the Defence Forces, including some very senior personnel who have given world service, and family members of current personnel have had to mobilise to draw the Government's attention to their plight.

Does the Minister accept that numbers in our Defence Forces are unacceptable and that the exodus of personnel and expertise has to be stopped? What engagement has the Taoiseach, who is apparently the Minister for Defence, or the Minister of State, Deputy Kehoe, had with the Defence Forces to address their concerns? What is the Government's response to today's parade?

On behalf of everyone in the House, including the Government, I offer my sincere condolences to the family and friends of the lady who passed away this morning due to the adverse weather conditions in Galway.

I agree with much of what the Deputy said. At home and overseas, the men and women of our Defence Forces serve Ireland with absolute distinction. The Defence Forces are part of a bedrock underpinning the safety and security of every person in this country and others further afield. It would be understating it to say that the Government values each and every member and the roles he or she carries out, be it peacekeeping or supporting other State agencies at home. For example, the Defence Forces are today helping the ESB because of the adverse weather conditions.

It is for these reasons that the Government has tasked the Public Service Pay Commission, PSPC, to examine the question of recruitment that the Deputy mentioned as well as retention issues in the Defence Forces, of which I will say we are well aware just in case the Deputy thinks we are not. The process is under way, submissions have been made and the commission is engaging with individual serving members. This is just one element of the efforts to improve Defence Forces members' pay and conditions. As with other areas of our public services, members of the Defence Forces are benefitting from pay increases due under the pay agreements and revised pay scales for post-2013 recruits. These have already been implemented. Those increases range from approximately 6.2% to 7.4%. They are also benefitting from the restoration to pre-FEMPI levels for everyone earning under €70,000. The first 1% increase became payable on 1 January 2018. The second increase is due to be applied on 1 October. The 5% in allowances that were cut by FEMPI legislation because of the economic and financial position that the State was in during the precarious years from 2010 until very recently are scheduled to be recovered soon.

Given the unique and demanding nature of military life, we accept that the turnover rate within the Defence Forces is probably going to be higher than in some of our other agencies. I hope I will surprise the Deputy by saying that I acknowledge the figure of 8% is too high. For that reason, we have organised recruitment and retention measures to be implemented, for example, addressing the work-life balance, conducting a comprehensive skills gap analysis across the Defence Forces, reviewing the contract of services for enlisted personnel in the context of capability requirements and appropriate age profiles, and developing and expanding the options for the direct entry of specialists and the re-entry of former members with the required skill sets.

I thank the Minister. She stated the Government "values each and every member". Platitudes do not put food on the table. The pay structure of the Defence Forces is unique, in that allowances are a key part, but these have not been restored. Our Defence Forces do not get overtime. Defence Forces personnel on duty for the papal visit were given a paltry amount compared with others who did overtime. This is why there is a parade today. They do not have confidence in the PSPC or the initiatives that the Minister outlined because they have been on the waiting list and put on the long finger for too long. The exodus of personnel has been happening since 2012.

When one reads the words of someone who has served the State across the world, ex-Brigadier General Gerald Aherne, who has said that the bond between the Defence Forces and State has been broken, then that is the reality. It is the feeling among personnel at every level in the Defence Forces, including senior personnel. That is why there is a parade today. When members of our Defence Forces - Óglaigh na hÉireann, to whom we owe so much respect - are dependent on the working family payment to supplement their wages, it is an indictment of the Government.

I am not interested in platitudes and I hope I do not engage in them for the most part. Rather, I am interested in the substance of the actions that have been taken by the Minister for Defence and, by extension, the Government. The significant improvements in pay under the Lansdowne Road agreement and the further increases over the lifetime of the public service stability agreement from 2018 to 2020 are not platitudes. They constitute a substantial action taken by the Government, and we have only been able to take it thanks to the recovering economy.

The Public Service Pay Commission has been tasked with providing a detailed and objective analysis of recruitment and retention in the defence sector. That is not a platitude. It is a tangible target and project for the agency and will reap dividends. The Government has increased the number serving overseas by an additional 100 personnel to be deployed shortly to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL. That is also not a platitude but a tangible, substantial increase in confidence in our ability to defend other nations overseas. We are not interested in platitudes. I am sorry that people are parading outside today. It gives an opportunity to me, Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh and everybody else in this House to talk about the pride we have in the Defence Forces and instilling a recruitment and retention process to make sure the numbers will be up to what we expect and to also talk about a recovering economy in providing the proper pay and conditions every single part of the public service should be enjoying but which were depleted because of the actions of previous Governments in recent years.

I too extend solidarity to the families and former members of the Defence Forces who are currently parading through the streets of Dublin and making their way towards Leinster House. Members of the Defence Forces and their representative organisations have consistently been sidelined in public service pay negotiations and are excluded from trade union membership or affiliation to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU. They are legally prevented from engaging in public demonstrations or protests about their terms and conditions, which is why they have to rely on their representative organisations to raise the issues, or their family members and former members to parade through this city. The Government has taken full advantage of their loyalty, as a former brigadier general has said. He has outlined that the bond between members of the Defence Forces and the State has been broken. I recently met the representative organisations of the Defence Forces. They confirmed to me that there was chaos in the Defence Forces, which are haemorrhaging members, not just long-serving members but also many new recruits. This is exerting extra pressure on morale which is already low. Morale is a foundation any army, navy or air corps has to have. The Government is well aware of this and was made aware of it before the University of Limerick report in 2017.

Recently the Permanent Defence Force Other Ranks Representative Association, PDFORRA, was forced to go to the High Court to vindicate the rights of members of the Defence Forces in the context of the provisions of the working time directive. They were forced to go to the European Committee on Social Rights to vindicate the right to engage in collective bargaining on working terms and conditions. That members of the Defence Forces have had to fight the Government tooth and nail, both at home and elsewhere in Europe, to have basic rights ensured is a disgrace. It is even more disgraceful that the Government has still not taken action to implement court decisions. The Defence Forces are expected to lose another 700 members this year, with many moving to the private sector for better pay and working conditions. Since members of the Defence Forces are unappreciated by this and the last Government, the State has had to outsource many services and some of work that was done, for example, by the air ambulance service, which is penny wise and pound foolish.

Will the Minister explain the reason for the delay in the Department making a submission to the Public Service Pay Commission? Is there a dispute between the Department and the military authorities on the content of the submission? Will the Minister explain when the Government intends to give effect to the rights of members of the Defence Forces under the working time directive? Will she provide for collective bargaining rights for members of the Defence Forces?

The Minister of State engages regularly with the two representative bodies the Deputy has just described and hears loudly and clearly not only the concerns but sometimes the objections members of the Defence Forces raise with us. We take them very seriously, as we take the pride in the Defence Forces. I will again say what I said to Deputy Dara Calleary. The Defence Forces are the bedrock which underpins the safety and security of both society and the nation. I cannot overemphasise that point which is evidently true. That is why the Government has taken significant actions in the past few years, through improvements in pay under the Lansdowne Road agreement; further increases over the lifetime of the Public Service Stability Agreement 2018-2020; the Public Service Pay Commission being tasked with providing a retention and recruitment action plan to make sure the concerns that have been raised by those who remain in the Defence Forces will be addressed; and recruitment to bring numbers which have been depleted by 470, as Deputy Dara Calleary said, back up to make sure we will have a full complement of men and women who provide for the security and safety of people both in this country and abroad. The Minister of State will accept the submission from the organisers of today's parade. We will look at it very carefully and respond once the submission's objectives or recommendations have been analysed.

There is no delay in making the submission. It is being worked on and, when it is finished, will be presented to the body. I will have to come back to the Deputy on the working time directive because I do not have a response about it. It is fundamental that every single man, woman and child in this country has pride in the Defence Forces and what they do to protect peace and provide for the safety and security of Irish people both here and abroad. We have had difficulties with pay in the past few years but not without good reason. Every single public and civil servant had his or her pay cut for a number of years because of the economic crash. Thankfully, we are in a position where we are able to unravel the cuts and bring forward new pay and stability agreements for the years ahead. It is because the economy is recovering that we can do this and it is because we value and want to retain personnel in the Defence Forces that we have an action plan for retention and recruitment to ensure they will be at full capacity.

I agree with the Minister on the pride Irish society has in the Defence Forces, but this is not just about pride. It does not put food on the table and a roof over the heads of those young recruits who have to sleep in cars because they have been rostered for duties in barracks or far from their homes and it is not feasible to drive home and then back again. Current recruitment levels will not fill the vacancies. The vacancies are causing a huge increase in the workload of remaining members, which means extra shifts, longer hours, not seeing their families, not enough hours between rosters, having to sleep in tents in the rain, as we saw in the Phoenix Park when personnel of other emergency services were being appreciated and able to go home or accommodated in safe and secure accommodation. Why would anybody join the Defence Forces knowing they would face the prospect of having to sleep in a car outside the barracks? Why would one volunteer for duty overseas when one would have to take suspect medication which has left colleagues debilitated or when one cannot afford a home or rent, despite the fact that one is doing one of most dangerous jobs in the State? Why would one join to become a bomb disposal expert, for instance, when one could be faced with 120 hours on duty because of the flood of soldiers leaving the Defence Forces? Why is there a delay in the making of a submission to the Public Service Pay Commission? Will the Minister look again at the issue of a supplementary pension to bring the Defence Forces into line with other public service workers? Will she assure the House and those who are parading outside that measures to be taken in the budget this year will appreciate properly, once and for all, the members of the Defence Forces?

The Deputy asked on a number of occasions why anybody would join the Defence Forces. He has listed a litany of things he thinks are wrong, yet people have joined and are joining the Defence Forces.

They are leaving.

The reason they have joined and are joining the Defence Forces is they have a grá for public service-----

Yet the Minister is taking advantage of them.

-----and take pride in the security they provide for every man and woman who safely go to bed at night in this country.

Please respect the Minister.

That is why people join the Defence Forces. In case I was not clear, I will reiterate the substantive actions we have taken in recent months and will continue to take. We are benefiting in the Defence Forces from the increase in pay, ranging from 6.2% to 7.4%, following the cuts made because of the economic crash in recent years. Members of the Defence Forces are benefiting from pay restoration. Under the FEMPI legislation, there was a cut of 5% in their allowances.

I wish to God none of those cuts had been made, as I am sure every single person in this House does, but they were made. Now the country is in a position financially to be able to restore pay and to look forward to a new stability process of pay agreements between 2018 and 2020. We are lucky as a country that we can recognise with pride the people in our Defence Forces and are able to pay them effectively. In addition, the Government is investing in capital equipment and platforms, including those that increase the force's protection, such as armoured personnel carriers and in the building of infrastructure. Projects worth €35 million are at various stages of implementation, ranging from design to construction, and €14.2 million has been provided for the delivery of the infrastructural development projects between now and 2018.

There was a debate in the House last night on the closure of more than 159 post offices in rural communities. Throughout the country there have been large, angry meetings in response to the proposals as communities are opposed to the closures. Similarly, in Dublin city and the greater Dublin region there have been meetings in response to the proposed BusConnects project, which has been aptly renamed, "BusDisconnects". The meetings have not been called by the National Transport Authority, NTA. They have been called by residents' associations, councillors and Deputies. More than 400 people attended meetings in Crumlin and Swords. More than 300 people attended a meeting in Drimnagh. The Greenhills residents' association also called a meeting. Last night there was a meeting in Perrystown where more than 150 people attended. Residents' associations in Terenure Road and Whitehall also called meetings.

The existing cross-city bus service has evolved over decades. It goes into estates and there is excellent connectivity across the city. I accept buses might meander a bit around estates but they connect communities, which is the crucial point. It is a public service. This so-called plan for the bus service is a disaster. In the constituency I represent, there will be a withdrawal from estates of the following routes: 18, 17, 150, 123, 122, 68, 69, 13, 9 and 15A. Hospitals are losing connectivity. The 27B and 17A have been withdrawn from Beaumont Hospital. The 123 is being withdrawn from St. James's Hospital and the 47 will no longer go by St. Vincent's University Hospital. The changes will affect older citizens in particular, as well as the disabled and schoolgoing children. One community has calculated that it will take three buses to get their children to St. Louis school in Rathmines. People with health concerns involving their knees, heart, lungs and visual impairment will be affected.

It was said that no one would be more than 400 m away from a bus stop, yet after a public meeting in Drimnagh on Thursday night we worked out that up to 43% of residents would not be within the specified 400 m range. There is a need for a review of public transport in the city and outer suburbs. The aim of the review should be to increase not decrease services for local communities. At a very minimum we should maintain existing services. The reality is the Dublin Bus fleet has been cut from 1,160 to 1,000 in the past ten years and buses now carry 27 million extra passengers. This review must be done with proper consultation with service users. There should be full consultation with those who provide the service, rather than management, as they know the service. They are the people who will make sensible suggestions as to how the service could be made more efficient and more suited to the needs of communities.

The privatisation of 10% of bus services will go ahead even though Dublin Bus tendered 5% less. A new tendering process will be put in place. There is a belief that the seven new transport spines will be used to tender out the services to private operators. Private bus services do not want to know about routes going through estates with ten people on them.

I thank the Deputy.

I will finish on this point. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, or the Government, have the power to scrap the process. That is what should be done. If the Government does not stop the process then thousands of people will be on the streets protesting as they are very angry and members of the Government will get it in the neck.

BusConnects is one of the flagship investments that will be delivered by Project 2040, the ten-year national development plan that was launched by the Government earlier this year. Reports show that approximately 70% of people travelling into Dublin city each morning do so by sustainable transport and public transport, which is very welcome. More than half of public transport trips are by bus and there are 136 million passenger journeys every single year. All the NTA is proposing to do is to improve those services to allow people to spend more time with their families, learn a foreign language or do whatever it is people choose to do in their spare time instead of spending hours on public transport.

The one point on which I agree with Deputy Joan Collins is that there is a need for a review. That is exactly what is intended. We have a need for full public consultation, which is exactly what is planned. In June, the NTA published a discussion document that focused on some 230 km of continuous bus lanes across 16 core corridors or bus routes. That is expected to achieve time savings of between 40% and 50% on journeys. It is also the case that the routes and options are indicative at this stage. It is up to the NTA to conduct public consultation meetings following the publication of the public consultation report in July, and consultation meetings are being held the length and breadth of the city and in my area of County Meath where Dublin Bus looks after some residents. The purpose of the consultation meetings is to hear the objections, concerns or praise for what the NTA is trying to do but, more important, the NTA can feed the information back into what will ultimately be the end design. The end design may not be remotely like the initial public consultation document.

It is vital that all of the views raised at the public meetings described by Deputy Joan Collins are brought to the attention of the NTA so that when we get a final draft document to appraise and approve, collectively and publicly, we will have a better infrastructure for the public transport network in order that people spend much less time going to and from work, college or school every single day and that people will have a better work-life balance because they will be spending more of their free time doing what they want, as opposed to sitting on a bus in traffic.

When the Minister drills down into "BusDisconnects" she will see that is not what is happening. Communities are being cannibalised by the loss of routes. One example I heard about involved a person standing at a bus stop in Wellington Lane for one hour. There were three 54As, four 15As and four 150s, which is a total of 11 buses. With BusConnects there would be a combination of F1s, F2s and D4s, giving a total of eight buses for an area where it has been proposed to halve the routes. The NTA has not carried out a proper consultation. Meetings have not been advertised widely. Public representatives such as councillors and Deputies have advertised the proposed changes. There has been no consultation in Raheny or Drimnagh and that is the case across the city. I urge the Government to scrap the proposal. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport should do that. He has the power under section 26. There should be proper consultation. Bus drivers were not consulted by Jarrett Walker who came up with the proposals. The NTA's remit has been presented to the people. The plan should not be accepted. Money should be invested to ensure proper bus services and to develop the existing service. The proposal should not be accepted and it should be scrapped.

With the height of respect to Deputy Joan Collins, she said there was no public consultation and she concluded by saying that we presented proposals to the people for their consideration. There is a meeting for four hours in Dublin tomorrow and there is a meeting for five hours in Dunboyne in County Meath on Friday.

Who knows about those meetings?

There have been meetings day after day in recent weeks. First, the discussion document was issued in June and the consultation process report was issued in July. That is what the meetings are about. All Deputy Collins has to do is look back through the local newspapers in Dublin and see the notices of the public consultation that has been happening. The purpose of the project is to improve the public bus service that people relied on for 136 million journeys last year and to make it better and more efficient and to make more people value the fact that they can get on and off a bus in the quickest time to get to and from work or wherever they are going. The input from Deputy Collins is entirely valuable and wanted and that is why we are carrying out a public consultation process. The end game may be nowhere close to the beginning, but that is why our input is relied upon and is needed.

I want to raise very serious concerns about Kerry University Hospital and health services in general in County Kerry. As the Minister may be aware, since the first week in June of this year all scheduled operations at Kerry University Hospital have been cancelled. The only operations that take place are emergency operations. To put it simply, if a person is waiting for a hip or knee operation, or any other scheduled operation, he or she must continue to wait.

That is a disgrace at a time when I am very worried about the future status of the hospital, in spite of assurances given at a meeting last week that it would retain its university hospital status. The departure of an ever-increasing number of consultants and what I consider to be the continuous downgrading by HSE management of the hospital leave me extremely worried.

I take the opportunity to compliment the hard-working staff in the emergency department and the hospital wards who do everything they can to help their patients. Those who avail of the services provided in the hospital are grateful to and thankful for the individuals working in it. However, I have marched with nurses and doctors working in emergency departments who have stated they want the Government to wake up and realise the pressure they are under. I have been in such departments late at night and early in the morning. During the summer recess I spent a lot of time in the departments because I wanted to have first-hand knowledge of what was going on in them. I have a perfect understanding of the difficulties and pressures the staff are under. Does the Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, have such an understanding?

The notion which originated in this House many years ago that the Minister for Health does not have responsibility for the health service is rubbish. The buck stops with the Minister and the Government, not the HSE. The hiding behind layers of bureaucracy must end. People must take responsibility. The Minister for Health must take responsibility for the fact that people are endlessly waiting for operations. He must sit down with the heads of other Departments and discuss what can be done to tackle the problem. I wish to give an example. Why is it that a person waiting for a tonsillectomy must wait three years for the procedure to be carried out in this State and that I can arrange for the procedure to be carried out for a person who presents today with that requirement in Belfast in the first couple of weeks of November? For God's sake, this is not Outer Mongolia or some such place when it comes to health services. We should not be telling people that their tonsils will be fixed in three years time. Anyone who knows how uncomfortable it is to have such a problem will know that it is ridiculous for such a person to be told that there is a three-year wait. Why is this being allowed to happen on the Government's watch?

Another esteemed Deputy from County Kerry yesterday raised the issue of University Hospital Kerry and was invited by the Taoiseach who did not yesterday have specific information on that hospital to meet him to discuss the issue. I do not have specific information on the hospital, but on behalf of the Taoiseach extend an invitation to the Deputy to join his brother, Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, and meet the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, on the issue.

In general terms, I mentioned earlier that we were in a recovering economy, which is a good place to be. It is because of that that the Government is investing in health services and focusing on meeting needs, building capacity, investing in infrastructure, implementing the new GP contract and delivering a ten-year reform programme based on the Sláintecare report of the all-party committee. We are building new major infrastructure, including the national children's hospital and the new maternity hospital. Such facilities will be the hallmarks of a modern health system. The national development plan commits capital funding to deliver 2,600 additional hospital beds, 4,500 additional community care beds, as recommended in the capacity review, and three new elective hospitals. Some or many of these measures will feed into the county Deputy Michael Healy-Rae represents and improve outcomes for patients and those living in it. I reiterate that the invitation of the Taoiseach stands. I ask that the Deputy bring specific details of the issues he has raised in regard to University Hospital Kerry to the attention of the Minister and the Taoiseach who I am sure will be happy to discuss the matter with him.

The responses given by the Minister and the Taoiseach are outdated. I have already brought the problems to the attention of the Minister for Health. I have brought specialists from County Kerry to sit down with the Minister and outline the problems. However, to date, the Minister, the Department and the Government have failed to do what they are supposed to do, which is to take care of sick people. The Government is not taking care of people who are in distress and awaiting knee or hip replacement operations; rather, it is telling them that they have to wait endlessly. Were it not for the great service provided under the treatment abroad scheme, many people would go blind. Last weekend I arranged for 14 people to travel in a bus to the North to undergo cataract operations. It is ridiculous to have to do this. It is great that the service is available. However, rather than it only being necessary to avail of it to undergo cataract surgery, people will have to travel abroad for todnsillectomies and hip and knee replacement operations. For God's sake, are we going to tell people not to get sick in Ireland because they will have to travel to hospitals in the North for treatment? It is absolutely ridiculous. It is being allowed to happen by the Government and its Ministers. They must wake up to the problems on the ground and, please, do something to help those who are ill.

National statistics compiled from information from hospitals such as those in County Kerry indicate that the waiting list for cataract treatment has reduced by 2,734 in the past year and, in particular, that there has been a reduction of 3,000 in the category waiting over nine months.

They have all gone to Belfast.

Some 400 new beds were introduced in the system between 2013 and 2017, while 240 were introduced last year. An extra €1.35 million has been allocated to the Healthy Ireland fund to enable and encourage people to take care of their health. The Deputy facetiously referred to expecting people not to become sick. However, the Healthy Ireland programme aims to empower people to look after their good health to ensure they will not get sick. An additional €7.1 million has been allocated to improve ambulance services. The GP training intake rose by 194, in particular in rural GP practices. All of this indicates that we are planning for and investing in the future. With respect, all we can do is ensure the funding, programme and management are present in the HSE to provide for citizens. That is what Sláintecare is doing. That is what the money and personnel that will be invested to produce the roadmap for Sláintecare will do.

With respect, the Minister has not answered any of my questions.

The Minister has not answered my questions.

I have answered the Deputy's questions. I will conclude by saying if he has specific concerns about Galway hospital-----

-----I invite him to attend the meeting with his brother and the Taoiseach.

I am not from Galway.

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