The housing crisis continues, leaving workers, families and young people unable to put an affordable roof over their heads. Budget 2024 does nothing to change that reality. Housing affordability has been shredded on the Government's watch. The Simon Community Locked Out report published today shows that even with assistance payments, renting is completely unaffordable, while the latest CSO figures show house prices are still sky high and far beyond the reach of ordinary people. The housing crisis is now firmly embedded in rural Ireland, with soaring rents and evictions a common feature for families in towns and villages. Housing is the great failure of the Government. For 12 long years, Fine Gael has presided over this failure. When will the Taoiseach accept that the Government is getting it wrong?
Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
I thank the Deputy. I do not agree with her remark. The budget contains a number of things that help on housing, such as extending and increasing the rent credit to help renters, extending help to buy to help people buy their first home and a budget of over €5 billion, meaning that we will build records amounts of public housing next year, including social and cost rental housing.
Today, the CSO released its new dwelling completion figures for quarter three of 2023. That shows the number of new homes built in the past three months is up 14% on last year, which means that the rolling yearly completions number is now running ahead of 31,000.
That is very encouraging. I am now increasingly confident that we will beat our housing target for this year. Where have we come from? When my party took office in 2011, only 7000 new homes were built. When I became Taoiseach for the first time in 2017, it was up to 14,000. It is now heading for 31,000 or 32,000. I wish we could do it faster, but that is a more than fourfold increase in the number of new homes being built every year.
On the subject of housing, it is easy to feel like a broken record in this Chamber from time to time. We in the Labour Party have been repeating the same mantra, that the Government needs to build more houses and it needs to raise its targets for housing because they are too low.
Yesterday I pointed out the mystery of the missing billions with the absence of any indication as to where the Land Development Agency or the lame duck agency is to get the necessary funding to be able to deliver the housing that is so badly needed.
Today I want to raise the issue of targets that are set to low. We have called for more ambitious targets to be set by the Government. Today, if more evidence were needed, it is clear from the report that Dr. Ronan Lyons from Trinity College is going to be pointing out at a conference of Engineers Ireland that the Government must double the target of 33,000 new homes per year. Dr. Lyons says 74,000 new homes per year are needed, based on demographic demand.
We also hear from Simon Communities about an abject shortage of properties for those on housing assistance payment, HAP. When will we see the necessary revision of the targets the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is now saying are under review and how will we solve the mystery of the missing billions?
The Deputy will see the new targets in the early New Year. We will take account of Dr. Lyons's research and the advice of the Housing Commission. We will also take account of other work being done the ESRI and we will increase the housing targets in the new year. However, we need to be realistic. Housing construction can only be scaled up so quickly. We definitely do not want to cut corners or go back to jerry-built houses and apartments like we had during the Celtic Tiger period.
We have gone from 7,000 new homes in 2011 to double that, 14,000 new homes, in 2017, and it looks like it will be more than 30,000 this year. That is a fourfold increase in the number of new homes being built since 2011. This is very significant, but we will need to go much higher than 30,000 per year.
Last week I raised with the Taoiseach the issue of the impasse at Castletown House about the vehicular access from the M4. The Taoiseach's response to me was:
I am aware of the situation and I have spoken to the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, about it. Conversations ongoing with the landowner. We are keen to resolve that if we can, but it is a negotiation.
Yesterday, the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, said on KFM radio that negotiations were under way but could not discuss them because they are at a commercial level. This morning I picked up the phone to the landowner and asked him if there were negotiations about the land or the M4 access. He categorically told me there are no negotiations under way. He could not have been clearer and was astounded to hear the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, on the radio yesterday.
This is a major tourist attraction. It had 957,000 visitors last year. The house is of international significance. It cannot properly function without viable vehicular access. I feel that I and my constituents are being misled. Is the Taoiseach being misled? I ask him to ask the Minister of State to engage with the Deputies about this access today.
I will have to double-check with the Minister of State during the course of the day. My understanding is there is contact between the Government and the landowner. Whether this constitutes negotiations or not, I do not know, but there is certainly contact. I will ask the Minister of State to speak to the north Kildare Deputies about it. My understanding is the Government is willing to pay the developer what he paid for the land. As is the nature of these things, the current owner is looking for much more than that. I hope we will be able to come to a conclusion on it. I agree it would be to everyone's advantage to bring that land into public ownership to enhance the amenity around Celbridge and the wider area, including Leixlip, Straffan and the rest of north Kildare.
The European Conservatives and Reformists party is due to hold what it calls a cultural festival next weekend in Ireland. I would describe it as a hate fest. This group is made up of people like those in Giorgia Meloni's party, which is currently restricting the rights of gay parents to have full rights over their children and is waging war with NGOs that try to rescue people from the Mediterranean. The group includes the Bulgarian wing of a far-right party that is trying to bring a constitutional amendment to ban people who do not have certain academic qualifications from voting. It also includes Viktor Orbán's party, which is notoriously ultranationalist and far right, and the Greek Solution, which advocates shutting down NGOs, describing them as trafficking companies
We do not control what hotels or pubs these people visit, but they are due to visit this House on 3 November. We will not be here but I would like the Taoiseach to join me in saying these people should not be welcomed. Far-right extremists who shut down the rights of individuals, collectives and migrants should not be welcomed to Leinster House on 3 November.
I think the far right is capable of a lot of hate. Some of them are consumed and motivated by it. I think the same goes for a lot of the far left. Both groups are very much capable of hate. They are often motivated by it and often driven by it.
The Taoiseach has some neck. He is always doing this.
It is a fact Deputy. We have free speech in this country.
It is not a fact. I defend the Taoiseach's right to be a gay man, to get married and have children. These people are shutting down that right.
Deputy, please.
I do not need to detail or document for the Deputy the level of hatred that is directed by the far left towards many people for many different reasons.
Like whom? Detail it. I would like to hear the Taoiseach is talking about.
Deputy, please. Let the Taoiseach speak.
I will send the Deputy some examples.
The Taoiseach did not answer my question. Does he think they should be welcome in this House?
That is not a matter for me. That is a matter for the Ceann Comhairle.
Should it be a be a matter for us?
I am moving on to the Regional Group and Deputy Verona Murphy.
Wexford has been rocked over recent days by the announcement of the closure of the Ford Counselling and Psychotherapy Centre. It is to close its doors after 30 years of providing individuals and families in Wexford with access to affordable counselling and therapy. The closure will be an immense loss for the community. The Ford centre provided services the State failed to provide. The loss of another vital service reflects a complete lack of comprehension by the HSE and the Department of Health of the valuable and often life-saving services of voluntary and charity support services. Government multi-annual funding must be recognised and accepted as a necessity for organisations such as the Ford centre. There is a mental health epidemic in Ireland. Mental health services are on the floor and now another service has closed in County Wexford.
I am asking the Taoiseach if the funding previously allocated by the HSE to the Ford centre, although totally inadequate, will remain in Wexford. Is there is to be a rescue package for the Ford Centre? I ask for consideration for the 130 service users so that provision can be made elsewhere for them.
The Ford centre was mentioned to me the very first time yesterday evening by one of the Deputy's colleagues while I was dining. I am glad the Deputy has raised the issue today. There has been no correspondence with the Department. I am not sure whether there was correspondence with community healthcare organisation, CHO, 5 but I am prepared to look into it. As I said, there has been no direct correspondence with me about the Ford centre
I am glad the Taoiseach and Ministers were able to visit Midleton and other areas. This problem is going to keep going on. I totally sympathise with the business people for the devastation they faced. We have flood defences in Clonmel. I salute my former colleague, Martin Mansergh, who played a big role in obtaining these defences. They are 90% successful.
We keep building flood defences and planning them but we refuse to clean - dredge - our waterways, rivers and ports. The port of Waterford into which the Suir flows used to be cleaned every second year. It is utter folly to be trying to build up defences. Every bit of dirt from this roof and every other roof ends up in the streams and rivers and watercourses. The sooner we cop on to ourselves, excavate and clean the rivers, the better. When I was a boy, every pond, small watercourse and stream was physically cleaned with horses and carts. Now we have every kind of equipment and we can barely take a bush out of the rivers. It is ridiculous what is going on with drainage schemes. It is utter madness. Rivers will not contain the water unless we clean them.
I might have to come back to the Deputy with a more comprehensive reply because I am not fully au fait with these issues. My understanding is we do still clean rivers and ports. Obviously, we have to take account of wildlife and other factors.
I want to raise again the mess that is University Hospital Limerick. This morning, day surgeries were cancelled in Ennis because no patients arrived. It appears that nobody told the surgical team though.
The urology surgical team, anaesthetists and nurses were all waiting for patients but none arrived. It seems to be an incredibly bad use of scarce resources. It is not unique, unfortunately. During the Covid pandemic the hospital at Ennis had many more cancellations of services than happened at Nenagh, St. John's or University Hospital Limerick. University Hospital Limerick should not be a surprise but the other should be on a par with Ennis. The most recent figures that I got for early 2022 equally show that the hospital in Ennis is less utilised. At least the Taoiseach visited Limerick unlike his predecessor and he has an interest in the matter, but an interest is not enough. Will he come to Ennis to see the solutions the hospital offers in the short term in terms of an increase in the local injuries unit capacity, the medical assessment unit capacity and in the longer term an increase in the capacity for day surgery it can offer for the UL Hospitals Group? More importantly will he make sure that the hospital at Ennis is adequately utilised and not disregarded in the fashion it is today as regularly?
I do not know exactly what happened in Ennis today, why surgery was cancelled and why the surgical team was not informed. They would usually to be the first to know in my experience in the health service, but that may not always be the case. I definitely agree with the Deputy that part of the solution to the problems experienced in University Hospital Limerick is the greater use of the hospitals in Ennis and Nenagh. That is happening to an extent but not to the extent that I would like to see. I look forward to visiting the hospital again as soon as I can.
It is said that a picture paints a thousand words and that is very true with the flooding which Deputy Mattie McGrath just mentioned across the southern part of the country and in particular in Cork and west Waterford in recent days. I will not elaborate on the damage there, which has been well documented across news and social media. I welcome that the Taoiseach, the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, the Tánaiste and the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, have visited various affected areas. I welcome the humanitarian assistance scheme and the broadening of the scheme over the last 24 hours. I specifically highlight the Glashaboy River flood-relief scheme in Glanmire. We have met the contractors on that site, Sorensen Civil Engineering, along with representatives of the OPW and Cork City Council. Discussions are taking place at present about rejigging the workload schedule because it will take about 28 months for that programme to unfold. We are discussing bringing contractors to the worst affected areas to prevent further incidents in the next two years. I ask the Taoiseach to use his good offices to help reprioritise that scheme to address the worst-affected areas.
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I know from what he has said to me before and what Deputy Colm Burke and others have told me that the situation in Glanmire particularly affecting Sarsfields is very serious and we are keen to help out there. I believe the flood-defence works, which are under way, helped, but they need to be completed. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, had a very good meeting with Cork County Council just yesterday which he very briefly briefed me on. It looked at what could be done to speed up projects or what interim works could be carried out to reduce the risk of future flooding. I will ask him to speak directly to the Deputy about that because he will be able provide more details on what we might be able to do.
With the Citizens' Assembly on Drugs Use completing its deliberations recently, it prompts two questions. First, how we can ensure that the very good work our citizens' assemblies are producing are not just reports that are idly left on a shelf and that the recommendations are actually implemented in a meaningful way? Second, another citizens' assembly promised in the programme for Government is one to look at the future of education, ensuring that the voices of young people and those being educated are central to that. I also mention the work that needs to be done on a comprehensive policy for the Irish language from pre-primary education to teacher education. When will that citizens' assembly be convened and set about its work?
I think it is fair to say that many of recommendations from the various citizens' assemblies have been introduced and have been realised, but it is not a requirement that the Government or the Oireachtas necessarily accept every recommendation. We need to consider them though and that is why the first step is always to refer the report to the relevant joint Oireachtas committee to tease it out in a bit more detail. A citizens' assembly on education is the next one on the list to do. It is a programme for Government commitment. I anticipate it will be up and running in the first half of next year.
The Minister is washing his hands of rural water and Irish Water is becoming more unaccountable. As we speak some communities in Mayo are going without a reliable supply of drinking water, communities like Downpatrick Head, Aghinish, Murrisk, Clearagh, and Enagh Beg. Uisce Éireann is just not co-operating with the local authorities. The sureties are being wrongly charged. Other community water schemes have been left in limbo for years, such as Aghadoon, Carn, Crimlin-Ross, Foxpoint, Lecarrow, Pullathomish, Newtownwhite, Derreens, Crumpaun, Ballysakeery, Ballyholan and Castlereagh. Debt builds up in these water schemes all the time. That debt is used by Irish Water as an excuse not to take the schemes in charge. Years are going by and no progress is being made. The Minister needs to stop blaming the group water schemes. The unaccountability of Irish Water is completely unacceptable.
I appreciate the Deputy is raising very important issues of real interest to the communities she mentioned. I do not know enough about the individual schemes to give her a detailed reply. I will certainly advise the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, that she has raised it in the Dáil and ask him to come back to her directly.
The recent flooding experience in Cork and Waterford was absolutely horrendous and the impact will be felt for a long time to come. That displacement from home, that destruction of property, the loss of livelihood and the fear of what the future looks like takes an unimaginable toll on people. Those affected by the recurring nightmare of flooding along the River Shannon, those who farm from Athlone to Meelick, know only too well of that impact. They have experienced it repeatedly and they are living with the consequences of it still today. I want to reiterate their plight to the Taoiseach. They have no silage, no grazing due to continuous summer flooding, increased by the lack of action between the three Government agencies: the OPW, Waterways Ireland and the ESB. I understand that again this morning the Taoiseach has been invited to come down to this area to see the impact still being experienced today caused by summer flooding. Will the Taoiseach come down and meet the Save Our Shannon group? Will he outline to them the plans the Government has to address this?
I have not seen that invitation but as is the case with all invitations that come in, I will give it consideration. It will not be soon; I will be in Brussels for the next two days and out of the country next week but I will certainly take up the invitation and reply to it.
The budget did not include much of benefit for small businesses which are suffering greatly in the current climate. The one exception is the increased cost of business scheme, which apparently will be available to 130,000 small businesses across the country. All we really know about it at this stage is that it will be equivalent to 50% of the relevant commercial rights. Is it a rate reduction or a grant payable to businesses? I believe that would be a measure of the success of the scheme. Does a business need to be up to date with its rates to qualify for it?
I think €250 million is a lot of help for small business. The amount allocated to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is roughly double what was spent on the temporary business energy support scheme, TBESS. That gives an indication of the level of support being provided to small business. It is grant and not a rate rebate, rate reduction or rate pause. However, there is a linkage to the rate payable by the business because that is how we know size and scale of a business. The Minister, Deputy Coveney, and the Minister of State, Deputy Calleary, are very keen to have that scheme ready and have answers to all those questions and have the money paid out early in the new year.
Vitamin season is upon us as we approach the winter and we all try to boost our immunity against colds and flus. I ask the Government to launch a vitamin D public awareness campaign because we know vitamin D works. Six separate Irish studies over the past two years have shown a connection between vitamin D and improved immunity against Covid-19 which, as we know, is still circulating in our communities. That is on top of the benefits in boosting our immunity against colds and flus and protecting our bones. We know that over half of the population in Ireland is deficient in vitamin D. There is a deficiency of 94% in our black, Asian and ethnic minority communities here. We also know that vitamin D can help protect people from viruses and boost immunity. Will the Government help get that message out to people? Dr. Daniel McCartney, a constituent of mine, and Professor Roseanne Kenny have led a huge amount of research in this area. The Covit-D Consortium has strongly suggested that a public awareness campaign on vitamin D supplementation would be great for us as a State.
I thank the Deputy for raising a very important issue. I will touch base with the Department of Health and the Chief Medical Officer to see if something can be done in that regard.
Many people in Ireland would benefit from vitamin D supplementation, which is very different from some supplements people take that are of no health benefit whatsoever. Vitamin D is one that can benefit people. I know a lot of work has been done with neonates and young children, and maybe not so much with older people or middle-aged people. I will check it out with the Department of Health and come back to the Deputy.
Last week I hosted a meeting in Tallaght for parents of children with disabilities and additional needs. We had campaigners, activists and lawyers present. The room was packed with parents telling heartbreaking stories: stories of being on long waiting lists for assessments of need, stories of waiting more than a year for therapies, stories of waiting for mental health supports, stories of waiting for respite and stories of waiting for appropriate school places. It is not only heartbreaking but also maddening and infuriating that this State continues to fail children with additional needs and their families to such a degree as is currently the case. It is ultimately a political choice. Not only was it reflected in the budget but it is also reflected in the failure to ratify the optional protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities because it would give these families the right to take action against this State.
I do not accept it is a political choice. To the extent that it is, we now have a record budget for special education, a dedicated Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, and a record budget for disability services. The real struggle, we tend to find, is in hiring the appropriately qualified staff as well as a court decision that requires a huge amount of resources to be used on very complicated assessments of need that may not be needed. We are working on that and trying to resolve it.
Flooding is causing hardship nationwide, and that has to be recognised in any compensation package. I wish to make a point about the lack of maintenance and cleaning of our rivers. I was in three houses in my constituency which suffered flooding over the weekend. The only reason they have been flooded is lack of maintenance of nearby rivers and streams. The policy at the moment is not to maintain or clean streams. We will have increasing frequency of flooding of residences and businesses if we do not reverse that decision. I also urge the Government to grant aid floodgates for residential and business premises, which would help to alleviate the danger of flooding for those premises.
On the issue of maintenance, which I think Deputy McGrath raised as well, it is important that consent processes have to be gone through. As regards the broader issue of the increased number of rainfall events we are having at the moment, we need to look and are looking at this through the land use plan, which is critical. There are some good agriculture schemes in place, such as the agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES, that support landowners to look at a catchment management approach. We will have out shortly a new river basin plan, which will look at catchment management approaches. Critically, we need to look to nature for solutions in trying to address these problems. The point the Deputy raised about trying to put flood defences into individual properties is a very good one. It can certainly prevent inundation on small scales in some properties and it is worth looking at.
I wish to raise how the Government expects to entice people to use public transport as an alternative to their cars when it does not make any attempt to make it attractive to people. In particular, I raise this in light of what can only be described as Transport Infrastructure Ireland's opposition to installing bus shelters. Take my town of Cashel, which more than 400,000 people visit every year. I know they do not all use buses, but we have buses going to Cork, Dublin and Limerick and now Local Link. We expect people to get out of their cars and stand in the pouring rain. To the best of my knowledge - I may be wrong - in County Tipperary there are only seven bus shelters. Ours is the largest inland county, and there are only that many bus shelters there. To the best of my knowledge, there are none in Cashel, none in Nenagh, none in Templemore and none in Roscrea. If we are to be serious about people on public transport, we need to start providing shelters in order that, when people go on public transport, at least they are not standing out in poor weather. We have had people in Cashel going into shops just to get out of the weather. Will the Government put pressure on the National Transport Authority, NTA, to carry out an audit of these towns-----
You are way over time. Deputy.
-----and to install shelters there?
"Yes" is the answer to the Deputy's question. We are putting pressure on the NTA on the back of an incredible change in rural transport in particular. We are launching a new public transport service in rural Ireland every week, and the numbers are incredible. People are flocking to it. There was a 112% increase year on year last year, particularly among younger people in part because for anyone under 26 there is now an effective 60% reduction in fares. Because of that huge increase in the number of routes, the number of buses and the amount of demand, yes, we are looking at the issue of bus stops not only to make sure everyone knows where the buses are stopping but also to provide the sort of shelter the Deputy seeks. I expect the NTA will start responding to that, and we will support it with a programme of installing bus stops and shelters.
In 2009, 24-hour accident and emergency departments were closed in Ennis and Nenagh. At the time it was said this would lead to centres of excellence. Fourteen years on, that simply has never been the case, and it is a falsehood for some to say that it led to any centre of excellence. It was quite the opposite. The problem has been funding, with so many people through one 24-hour accident and emergency system. We saw on Monday that the number of patients on trolleys in University Hospital Limerick, UHL, again reached 130. We are now at record levels in UHL. The answer to this is to reopen an additional 24-hour accident and emergency department in the region. We have good medical assessment units and local injury units, but the analysis about opening another 24-hour accident and emergency department was done about four or five years ago. May I ask just one simple question? Will the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health look for a new analysis, if the mid-west can sustain it and if it can be funded and opened, of an additional 24-hour accident and emergency department to ease all this incessant pressure?
I appreciate that there is an ongoing and very severe problem with overcrowding in University Hospital Limerick. I point out for the record of the House that the number of people waiting for a bed in our hospitals today is 60 lower than was the case this time last year. That is a reflection of the additional beds and resources that have been put into the system. I would have to refer the Deputy's question to the Minister, Deputy Donnelly. I do not want to raise expectations in this regard. I absolutely appreciate where Deputy Crowe is coming from, but the very solid advice we get from emergency department consultants, who are the ones on the front line dealing with the sickest patients, is not that we need more emergency departments but that we need further consolidation of the existing ones.
The Changing Lives Initiative is a community-based, cross-Border project creating a better understanding of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, and providing an intervention programme for families with children between three and seven years of age experiencing behaviours consistent with ADHD. Since 2023, it has been available in Louth and Meath, and I know there are further plans. We need to make sure the funding is available to expand this pilot. The real benefit of this project is the fact that kids do not need a diagnosis to participate and it has been shown to have a hugely positive impact on the children and those families. I know that myself from families I have spoken to. I needed to bring this up on the basis that, at the moment, in the audiovisual room, there is a presentation ongoing from the Changing Lives Initiative, and my wife, Annemarie, is one of those people who are presenting, so I think I have my job done. This is one of the vital interventions that are required, and I ask that we look at this and at expanding this pilot so it can provide some interventions for kids and families across Ireland.
I thank the Deputy for raising the issue of ADHD and the pilot programme to which he referred. I engage consistently with Ken Kilbride of ADHD Ireland. It is important to note that approximately 35% to 40% of children who present to child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, do so with ADHD. We are open to looking at any of the pilot projects to see how well they are doing. It is important to note also that previously we did not have any ADHD teams for adults. ADHD does not stop at 18. We now have five teams in place. If the Deputy wants to send me on some information, we can look at it.