Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 25 Oct 2023

Vol. 1044 No. 5

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

Why did the Taoiseach's Government take the decision to drastically underfund the health service in budget 2024? It is a health service that is already under enormous pressure, with record treatment waiting lists, a year-round trolley emergency and an ever-worsening recruitment and retention crisis. Against that backdrop, the Government chose, with its eyes wide open, to blow a massive €1.3 billion hole in funding for the health services people rely on. At the Joint Committee on Health yesterday, the head of the HSE, Bernard Gloster, described the Government's underfunding of the health service as highly unusual. I think Mr. Gloster was being very diplomatic. I would describe the Government's decision as mind-boggling. Incredibly, at a time of record hospital overcrowding, the Government's budget does not provide one additional red cent to fund even one additional hospital bed. Perhaps the most shocking thing is what its decision means for major clinical programmes and national health strategies.

How much new money has been given to the new national stroke strategy? The answer is zero. How much new money has been given to fund new medicines for patients fighting cancer? Zero. How much money has been given to improve our maternity services? Zero. ADHD clinics that were promised two years ago still have not been opened. How are they going to be funded, and what does the Taoiseach say to those who are waiting for those clinics to open? The Government’s decision will have a real impact on families who face some of the biggest challenges of their lives, families who need the Government to fund major improvements in the health service. Instead, it chooses to make things even worse. The recruitment embargo means thousands of vital front-line posts that were supposed to come online will not be filled - junior doctors, healthcare assistants, home help workers. Seven thousand vital posts that are needed for the winter ahead have already been scrapped and the consequences for people will be very real. Make no mistake: the Taoiseach makes this choice in full knowledge of the consequences, guaranteeing that the crisis in our health service will continue, that chronic waiting lists will continue and that overcrowding will continue. People see very clearly now a Government that has thrown in the towel on health.

So, when a child with scoliosis is told they have to wait even longer in pain for surgery, when a sick grandmother is left even longer on a hospital trolley, when a cancer patient cannot get the new drug that could change their lives, people will then remember the Taoiseach's catastrophic decision. Tá an Taoiseach tar éis éirí as an tseirbhís sláinte a shocrú. Is tubaiste é cinneadh an Rialtais gan mhaoiniú a dhéanamh ar an seirbhís sláinte agus caithfear é sin a réiteach. The Government delivered its budget two weeks ago, and now a health service plan will be presented with a deficit of €1.3 billion built in. It is now widely accepted it underfunded the health service, so we need clarity now as to who made this decision. Whose bright idea was this? Was it the Taoiseach’s? Was it the idea of the Minister for Health, of the Minister for Finance or, perhaps, of the man sitting next to the Taoiseach, the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform? Somebody in government pushed for this, and patients and people who will suffer as a result have a right to know whose decision it was. Will the Taoiseach tell us, please, who made this disastrous call?

The Taoiseach

The answer to the Deputy's question is that the Government makes these decisions. The Government acts collectively, signed off on the budget as a collective and accepts collective responsibility for the budget, including the health dimension of it, and ultimately, of course, it is a decision of the Dáil because it is the Dáil that votes on Estimates and it is the only body that allocates money to the health service, at least from a political point of view.

The health budget is always a challenge and that is not something that is unique to Ireland by any means. Health services all over the world struggle to come in on budget, and in Ireland that is no different. It has always been a challenge. Long before I was a TD, the health budget was a challenge for governments. No matter how much is allocated, there will always be calls for more. Whether the increase on an annual basis is a big one or a small one, there will almost always be a requirement for a supplementary. The years 2023 and 2024 are not going to be any different, but I do need to set out some of the facts because a lot of what the Deputy said was, characteristically, misleading.

First, the budget for 2024 is the biggest ever, at €22.5 billion. To put that in perspective, it is more than €4,000 for every man, woman and child in the State going to the HSE. It is a considerable amount of money. The waiting list initiative is fully funded, the emergency department programme is fully funded and, far from there being a recruitment embargo, the HSE will be allowed to hire 2,000 extra staff, in addition to replacements, throughout the course of 2024. When I was Minister for Health, not all that long ago, the budget for health was €14 billion or €15 billion, and an increase in any one year of €500 million would have been something I would have given my left hand for, quite frankly. Since then, we have seen the health budget increase by somewhere between 60% and 70%. Yes, our population has grown, it has got older and there is medical inflation, but not to that extent.

These are real increases and they have made a real difference, by the way. Our life expectancy is now one of the best in the entire world. Despite the Deputy's misleading comment, waiting lists peaked after Covid and have fallen by about 20% since then, which is not the case in most European countries, where waiting lists are still rising. That is not to say people are not waiting too long - they are, in their hundreds of thousands - but waiting lists have peaked and fallen 20% from the peak. Patient outcomes are better than ever before, particularly in areas like stroke, cancer and cardiovascular disease, and at the moment, while we experience overcrowding in too many of our hospitals too much of the time, generally speaking, if we take any day this week, roughly 100 or 120 fewer patients are waiting for a bed than would have been the case this time last year. Medicines are less expensive, free GP care has been extended to the majority of the population, we have abolished hospital charges, we are ending the public-private mix in our public hospitals with the new Sláintecare contract, contraception is free for women under 31 and State-funded IVF is now available. These are real changes for the better, done by this Government, done under the leadership of the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, and that extra money is making a difference.

In terms of recruitment, as I said, while we do have recruitment and retention challenges in some parts of the health service, what we have actually seen in the past three years is a recruitment surge. More than 22,000 extra staff are working in our health service, roughly the equivalent of the entire population of Longford. That is how many people have been hired and added to our health service in the past three years, and it includes 6,000 more nurses and midwives and 2,000 more doctors. There is capacity for the HSE to hire another 2,000 people next year, in addition to replacing everyone who retires or resigns, but it cannot just hire without approval and that has to change.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

Not alone is there a recruitment embargo but industrial action is under way on foot of that. Those who actually run the health service have confirmed for everybody that there is a recruitment embargo and that is going to have real effects in terms of junior doctors, home help workers and so on. There are also 200,000 people on diagnostics waiting lists, 200,000 people on community waiting lists and 600,000 on the acute waiting lists. That is 1 million people, or just shy of it. I do not know what form of delusion the Taoiseach is labouring under but, I have to tell him, nobody else is.

What I want to know is this: did the Minister for Health ask for adequate funding? I have to imagine he did. I do not believe for one second that the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, came up with the bright idea to underfund the HSE to the tune of €1.3 billion. I have my criticisms of the Minister, but I do not believe he did anything as reckless as that. I would like to know whose bright idea that was, within Government. Was it the Minister for Finance? Was it the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform? The least the Taoiseach owes the House and the people is clarity on that point.

The Taoiseach

Every Minister around the Cabinet table looked for more in the budget package - whether on the tax side or the spending side. The Head of the Government - the Taoiseach - looked for more in the budget package than was possible. That is the reality of putting a budget together. Every agency, every Department and every Minister including the Department of the Taoiseach and the Taoiseach-----

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

I am asking about health.

The Taoiseach

The answer is "Yes." The answer is that was the case for every agency, every Department, every Minister and every Minister of State in the entire Government. That has always been the case. That is how budgets are done. People make a bid for a large amount of money, and they only get a fraction of what they ask for.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

So the Minister asked for sufficient funding and got nothing.

The Taoiseach

That is how budgets are done. The Deputy's use of the words "recruitment embargo" is deliberately misleading. As always, she is misleading the public.

Deputy Stephen Donnelly

Absolutely.

Deputy David Cullinane

It is a fact.

The Taoiseach

An embargo is a ban on recruitment. There is no ban on recruitment.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

There is.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae

You said there was.

The Taoiseach

The HSE will allowed to increase its total number of staff next year by 2,000. Where there is a restriction it is only where the HSE has already hired the number of people it is allowed to hire for a grade.

Deputy David Cullinane

The reps are getting that.

The Taoiseach

When we allocate money for therapists, psychologists and consultants I do not want to see that money being diverted to hire extra managers, administrators and doctors who are underqualified. That has to stop.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

I am talking about genuine doctors. We are not talking about managers.

Deputy David Cullinane

That is misleading.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

We are talking about front-line workers.

Deputy Holly Cairns

Business owners in Midleton are meeting this morning to try to plan for the future. Last week one month's worth of rain fell in the town in the space of 24 hours, causing utter devastation. I welcome that the Government has moved quickly to put in place an enhanced scheme for businesses, with up to €100,000 in support now available. Work needs to be done to ensure these funds can be drawn down quickly and that red tape is eliminated. I am concerned about the relatively low level of support available for homeowners, many of whom have lost everything in these floods. Residents in Beechwood Drive told the Irish Examiner they feel abandoned. They do not know how they can rebuild and move on from this disaster, when they do not have insurance cover or access to State support. Yesterday, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, announced an additional €3 million in support for homeowners, but it is doubtful whether this will be enough to meet the huge need that exists following this disaster. Many homeowners in counties Cork and Waterford are utterly confused about the qualifying criteria. They have received no information about how they can apply for support or what they are entitled to. The grim reality of climate change is that the number of extreme weather events is going to increase. We are completely unprepared for that inevitability. The people of Midleton have been waiting almost a decade for a flood defence scheme. It could be another decade before it is in place. The scheme has not even gone to planning yet. There are other things the Government could be doing. Natural flood defences can be installed in tandem with necessary engineering solutions. Unfortunately, because of shortsighted decision-making in recent decades, rivers have been stripped of their natural defences. Planning has been granted for building on floodplains. Ditches, culverts, hedgerows and tree cover have been removed, peat bogs have been drained and poorly planned concrete flood defences have been installed. All of these simply push flooding downstream at top speed. Restoring these natural flood defences, which help the land store water and slow the course of rivers upstream, is absolutely essential if we want to minimise the risk of flood damage.

I have three questions for the Taoiseach. Can the Government guarantee that the enhanced scheme for businesses and homeowners in flood impacted areas will be easily accessible and adequately funded? What is the realistic timeline for the completion of flood defence works in Midleton? Does the Taoiseach think it is time to come up with a national land use plan? Will the Government, in doing that, incentivise landowners, and how does it plan to do so? Does it recognise the need to do that as opposed to just putting in place piecemeal, massive, concrete flood infrastructure without an overall plan for the flow of water?

The Taoiseach

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue, which is of enormous importance to people in counties Cork and Waterford and the other parts of the country affected by flooding, not just in the past few weeks but also in recent years. I had the chance to visit Midleton last week, which is a town I know well. I have seen a lot of flood damage in my time, but this at a different scale. The floodwaters were up to my arm. It was not just water. There was dirt, mud and sewage. A huge amount of damage was done. I have seen other floods where people in houses or shops could save their belongings or stock by bringing it upstairs or putting it up high. That was just not possible for a large number of people because of the scale and speed of the flood, which in some cases broke the glass windows of shopfronts. That is something I had not seen before. That is why the Government responded with its decision on Tuesday to put in place a business scheme under which people will get €5,000 upfront to help with the immediate costs of clean up and repair. There is then a scheme of as much as €20,000, up to €100,000 in some cases, where people have lost their stock. This is of course for businesses that tried to get flood insurance, but despite their best efforts could not because of where their premises are located. Homeowners will get the help they need. This also applies to rental properties, which is a change we made on Tuesday. It is means tested, but the means test has been relaxed. It is important to bear in mind that if you are over the means test amount - roughly €50,000 for a single person and €90,000 for a couple - it will not be the case that you get nothing. You get 100% if you are under that amount. If you are above the means test amount, you have to make a contribution. Even people on very good incomes will get some help with repairs to their properties and the replacement of white goods and so on. We will make it as simple as possible. Staff from the Department of Social Protection and community welfare officers have already gone door to door. They have already paid the first additional grants to a lot of residents. The Irish Red Cross will be doing the same. That will all be up and running this week. On the social protection side, it was up and running right away. We will try to make it as simple as possible, but there have to be checks and balances. This is ultimately taxpayers' money. As we sadly learned even during the pandemic, there were irregularities with the temporary wage subsidy scheme and the pandemic unemployment payment. We have to bear in mind that this is taxpayers' money and make sure there are some checks and balances. However, we will try to minimise that as much as possible.

The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, had a good meeting yesterday with Cork County Council on flood relief scheme. I am due to receive the report on that today. It is still intended to get the flood relief scheme into planning next year, but these are complex schemes that take a lot of time and are often challenged and opposed at An Bord Pleanála and in court. We have 50 done and they have worked. There are 90 in the pipeline. We are getting these done.

I agree with the Deputy that we need a land use plan for Ireland. We are working on that at the moment. It is being led by the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Senator Hackett. Other Departments are also involved in that.

Deputy Holly Cairns

Based on his reply, I think the Taoiseach understands the impact on the community in Midleton. Bearing that in mind, he can also understand how stressful and anxiety inducing it is to know that might happen again and again. They are waiting a decade for flood relief works and it will be another decade before they are introduced. A lot of impacts go with that. I know from my own constituency that if you cannot get insurance, there is not only the fear of not being able to afford to rebuild your home or life, but you might also not be able to get finance to build an extension. It has a massive and far-reaching impact. I am glad the Taoiseach has said he is looking at a national land use plan. Ultimately, what we have with regard to climate change is that the tap is on. The approach so far has been to keep mopping the water off the floor when the tap is running. Maybe we replace the floor and build a wall around the sink. We do not actually turn the tap off, however, which is what we need to do. We have had so many developments built on floodplains, consistent deforestation. Our agriculture policy is driving the opposite of what the Taoiseach is talking about in terms of addressing what is happening. There has been no attempt to move towards this. Will the Taoiseach please acknowledge that all of those things have to change in order to reassure communities like Midleton and other places in counties Cork and Waterford? Will he acknowledge that the overall approach of Government has to change in order to address climate change, because it is here?

The Taoiseach

I was struck by some of the people I met, who told me they were affected by the floods in 2015.

Nobody could give them a guarantee it would not happen again in a few months' or a few years' time, long before the flood relief scheme is in place. We will push that as quickly as we can. We have 50 done. They worked in Bandon, Douglas, Togher and in the Tolka in Dublin. We know they work, and we have about 90 more in train.

I agree with the Deputy’s basic point. We have to look at this in the round. It is not just about flood barriers. We have to consider the impact inappropriate land use can have on flooding and drainage, as well as coastal protections. A memo went to Government yesterday from the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, around how we will manage the change that is happening to our coastline. Some of it has been happening for millennia, while some is linked to climate change. I agree we will all have to have a greater focus on adaptation as part of climate action. Climate change is a reality. Even if the world reaches net zero by 2050 - and it might not – there is much more climate change to come. It is baked in. It is going to get worse and there is going to be more of it. While reducing our emissions will make a small contribution to slowing down climate change, the most effective thing we can do to protect our people, property and infrastructure is adaptation. We will need a greater focus on that in the time ahead.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Enough time has passed to point out that is a silent phone. Not looking at any particular side of the House, but I would appreciate if Deputies could remember to put their phones on silent. Go raibh maith agaibh.

Deputy Matt Shanahan

It may be somewhat harsh but possibly fair to say the Government is not particularly loved or cherished by the people. Most, I suppose, are not. I recently went back to review the relevant Fine Gael manifesto, remembering the deep sense of political change I hoped for when there was a change of Government in 2011. It is the document of a party that spent a long time wondering what it would do when in power. It is loaded with brave, fresh ideas to remake the country. It has to be said it has an awful bang of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party off it-----

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

That is a new one.

Deputy Matt Shanahan

-----particularly Enda Kenny’s opening comments that the pre-existing political culture had abandoned the principles underpinning the Republic that Fine Gael founded in 1949, had distorted the power and resources of the State for the benefit of the few, not the many, and had allowed the interests of citizens to be pushed behind those of powerful elites. Those are strong words which speak to ethics, ambition and hope. Was this just the stuff politicians say to win elections? It certainly worked in the south east, winning Fine Gael seven of the 14 available seats. A decade later, two seats are left.

I was in the House yesterday for the Taoiseach’s somewhat dismissive exchange with Deputy Harkin at Leaders' Questions. The Deputy presented cold, hard, irrefutable facts that show the economic disparity in the north west, just like the Border, midlands and south east. The Taoiseach’s response to those fact-based points was to throw out anecdotes. I have seen that playbook in action before; it is the one I get when I make the economic disparity case for Waterford and the south east in this House. However, the facts are clear. The Government continues to ignore its own national planning framework along with its Ireland 2040 plan. It stuffs every game-changing project into Cork and Dublin, both now severely bloated and suffering from what can only be diagnosed as chronic economic affluenza.

The 2011 promises to the south east have turned to dust. The M24 motorway has vanished; inserted in its stead are the new M28 Ringaskiddy motorway and the outlandish €400 million Dunkettle roundabout, both proceeding at pace. Hundreds of millions has been spent to provide state aid and subsidies to regional airports, but Waterford Airport is constructively shuttered. The provision of 24-7 cardiac care is consistently frustrated against a backdrop of ivory backscratchers in the national children’s hospital. There have been no new courses or buildings for Waterford’s university after Fine Gael being in power for 12 years. Nowhere does the manifesto say to spend a disproportionate amount of public money in Dublin or Cork, but that is what has been done.

If the Government wants the support of the common man, it needs to live its political ethics, ideals and history, and to stop acting like the government of Ballymagash. The Government is letting entire regions stew in their anger. It is likely, when served, these dishes will be best served cold.

The Taoiseach

In my 20 years in politics, I have often been compared with a particular British politician, but Jeremy Corbyn is not the one.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

It is a first.

The Taoiseach

This is the first time I have been compared with or aligned to him, as a politician. I know I have moved to the centre in my middle age. I did not think I had moved quite that far left, but I thank the Deputy for giving us something to ponder.

The Deputy is right to say my party has been in office in various coalitions since 2011. We have not achieved everything we sought to achieve, but on the basis of any objective analysis, our country is a much better place that it was back then. We have gone from mass unemployment and mass youth unemployment to full employment. We have gone from a situation where representatives from the IMF was staying in the Merrion Hotel and calling the shots to one where we are in charge of our own affairs again and can make choices. Our public finances are in good order. Educational attainment for children and young people has never been better. Our life expectancy has never been longer. I hope we all agree the UN does not vote for Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil or the Green Party and is objective. The UN consistently rates us as one of the top ten countries in the world in terms of human development. That is not to diminish in any way the very real challenges we have, particularly in relation to the housing shortage and access to healthcare.

I responded to some valid and correct facts Deputy Harkin put forward with facts that were also correct. There is a tendency in this House for people to choose their facts. I think it is okay to respond with other things. So long as they are facts and not opinions, we should be able to share them. You get a better picture if you look at them in the round, rather than at one set of facts that is put out there to support a particular argument.

I do not think Deputy Shanahan was here, but Deputy Howlin was and I could see him nodding when I made the point that, while Deputy Harkin made an articulate case for greater investment in the north west, which she feels is the region that has been particularly neglected, there were Deputies here from the south east who would make the same case for their region. I had Deputy Shanahan and all the Deputies from the south east in mind, because everyone makes the case for their own region.

The truth is that achieving balanced regional development is difficult. Austria has similar challenges with Vienna. Denmark has a similar challenge with Copenhagen. Having one big city of international scale and other large cities while trying to achieve balanced regional development is a dilemma and struggle for any small country with a big city in it. You see that all over the world. For Britain, for example, the exact same dilemmas and difficulties arise in respect of London. However, we have a programme that I believe is achieving much more balanced regional development. It includes: the national broadband plan, which is the biggest single capital investment in the history of the State; the roads programme, which is almost all outside of Dublin and Cork, certainly outside of Dublin; and the technological universities, which I am committed to and which are making a difference in many regions.

Deputy Matt Shanahan

The Taoiseach may that when Deputy Micheál Martin was first nominated for Taoiseach, I said I would not support the nomination as a protest against the lack of 24-7 cardiac care. I did say I looked forward to engaging with the Government in a programme that showed equity and transparency at its core.

The south east has 11% of this nation’s population. I challenge the Taoiseach to show me any year from 2011 to today when 11% of State capital funding has come into the region. I would even challenge him to show me when 5% came in. There is no doubt there is a significant disparity. What Deputy Harkin highlighted yesterday I highlighted to the Tánaiste last week, showing discretionary spend for the south east was 40% lower than for the east coast and south west. Those are international, irrefutable facts.

When the current corporation tax feeding frenzy is over, what will the south east have in terms of strategic infrastructural delivery to point to? I see nothing spent on the N24 and N25. There is talk of action in respect of the university but nothing spent has been spent on it. Not a building will be constructed there in five years to either accommodate students or facilitate them being taught. Our model 4 regional hospital is not funded like its peers. There are no demonstrated improvements to our agricultural sector, which will suffer extremely badly in the next couple of years. Our fledgling aviation sector has received no support. The Taoiseach visited Waterford in 2017. At that stage, the Government could have funded it for a quarter of the current price. That is the cost of not delivering.

The Taoiseach

When you look at Government spending, you cannot just look at capital expenditure; you also have to look at current expenditure. That covers areas like social protection, education and healthcare. Most of our spending is current, not capital. When you look at capital projects, you cannot just look at the ones valued at more than €200 million. You have to look at them in the round.

Of course, the smaller projects go to the more rural counties and we cannot discount them.

To answer the question on what I think the south east will have in the next five or ten years, it will have much better roads. I was in the south-east yesterday and travelled on some of the roads. They have already improved dramatically - just look at Enniscorthy and New Ross. There is more road investment to come. There will be much better jobs, which we see happening already, in particular in Waterford city with increased investment from multinationals. That will be a real positive. The university will be expanded. As the Deputy knows, we are in negotiations to secure the Waterford Crystal site. We are nearly there. There will be a new engineering building and on-campus accommodation. We will do our best to make sure that we can get the airport operating again, willing to provide matching finance for that, and that still stands. Of course, implementation of the national broadband plan will bring high-speed fibre to every home, farm and business in every county in the south east and everywhere in Ireland and that will be transformative. We are probably one of only three countries in the world that will achieve that.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae

I wish to raise with the Taoiseach the matter of excessive numbers of deer roaming our roads in Kerry. Road safety is paramount. These deer are compromising people's safety.

I want to mention the large number of deaths on our roads in north Kerry especially and to sympathise with the families who have lost loved ones. We all feel for those people. Deer have caused many deaths in our county. They have left many cars and vehicles in smithereens and many people are not covered by insurance. We in Kerry cannot carry on with the increased number of deer. They are everywhere, in droves. They are on every road in the county. They are even coming into towns and villages.

In the domain in Killarney they are knocking over rubbish bins. They are emanating from the national park and forests, many of which are State owned. The number of deer has resulted in a rise in Lyme disease because they are carriers. Many people do not report accidents. Farmers' crops and grasses have been ravaged by these fellows. Given the cost of fertiliser, life is unbearable for many farmers.

Councillor Johnny Healy-Rae raised this matter at a full meeting of Kerry County Council last week. He pointed out that hardly a day goes by that Kerry County Council does not have to take deer off the Kilgarvan road. They are roaming everywhere, on the Bunane Road, Lauragh, Tuosist, Moll's Gap, Sneem, south and east Kerry and the N22 in Killarney. My son made smithereens of his car on the N22 travelling from Killarney at Ballydowney. They are in Kilcummin, Gneevgullia, Scart, Rathmore and Castleisland. Along with the carnage on our roads, they have farmers cleaned out.

The late Terence Casey, a former south Kerry coroner, launched a fierce attack on the National Park and Wildlife Service, NPWS, in 2016. This followed an inquest into the death of a Killorglin mother, Susan von der Geest. It was claimed she had swerved to avoid a deer and lost her life. She left three children after her when she hit a tree. Mr. Casey said in 2016 when he visited the area to see the deer for himself that if another fatal accident happened blame would be apportioned to the NPWS. I call for a serious cull of the deer population like they are supposed to be doing in Wicklow.

The roads in Kerry need to be made safe for all of the people who use them. Maybe the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, does not want people on our roads. He has suggested that we have wolves as well. We have enough problems with deer. I ask the Taoiseach to organise a serious, proper cull.

The Taoiseach

I agree that road safety has to be of paramount concern for all of us. I am shocked at the number of lives that have been lost on our roads so far this year. I extend my condolences to the families and communities affected. There are many aspects to road safety, including car safety, the quality of roads, speeding, behaviour and education. I accept that animals on the road can be a road safety risk. The constituency I represent is very different to that of Deputy Healy-Rae, but we have a significant number of deer in the Phoenix Park. They sometimes get out and cause road safety issues. I can understand how deer that are not enclosed could cause road safety concerns and potentially result in very real problems around the country.

We have a deer management forum that works between the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the NPWS. So far, 5,500 licences have been issued by the NPWS for deer hunting. The NPWS culls deer in national parks and there is a section 42 system for landowners. We do not believe that a national cull programme is needed, but the forum will report on this shortly and will make further recommendations.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae

I thank the Taoiseach. I am not happy with his response. He does not seem to be really concerned about it. In Kerry we have lost many lives, through people swerving and hitting trees. That is a fact. Large stags have landed on bonnets. Roads in Kerry are not safe, morning, noon or night. Deer are even going down into Valentia Island, Gneevgullia and Scartaglen. At any hour of the day or night people cannot travel on the roads. I am calling for a serious and immediate cull.

The Government is talking about increasing penalty points and reducing speed limits, but we have to deal with this threat on our roads. After all, Sika deer are only vermin and that is the truth of it. We like our red deer and do our best to maintain that herd. Sika deer are encroaching on their space.

In light of all that has gone on and all of the lives that have been lost this year alone, including the lives lost in Kerry, I ask the Taoiseach to ensure that a proper cull takes place. If there are 5,500 licences, it is not nearly enough. We need more like 100,000 licences in order to get rid of the deer that are in droves all over the county. It is not fair. Our roads need to be made safe for the people who are travelling on them. They are doing their level best and what is being allowed to happen on our roads is not fair. If a farmer let a calf onto a road, his house would be claimed from him if he did not have insurance to cover the animal. That is the God's gospel truth.

The Taoiseach

I thank the Deputy. I might ask the Minister of State, Deputy Malcolm Noonan, to engage with the Deputy directly during the week. As he knows, the Minister of State has responsibility for nature, heritage and electoral reform and holds the pen on this issue. He has advised me that we need to cull significant numbers of deer over and above the 60,000 deer which have already been culled. I might ask him to speak to the Deputy later in the week and elaborate on that.