I want to return to the situation in our emergency departments. As the Taoiseach knows, hospitals have not been able to sustain the figures that we saw over the Christmas break. They have really struggled. They have cut activity in hospitals to try to manage the situation, but we know that this could not last forever. This morning, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation reported 654 people on trolleys. The Irish Examiner, as was alluded to, reported that an 87-year-old man spent 100 hours waiting at University Hospital Limerick. Another 90-year-old was on a trolley for five days in the emergency department. The simple fact is that our hospitals are short-staffed and we are currently short 1,000 beds. In the budget for this year the Government did not just fail to address that issue, but it made a deliberate decision to underfund the health service and restrict recruitment. Can the Taoiseach reverse this decision? All of the evidence is before our eyes and we need an intervention now.
Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
There were just under 500 people on trolleys in our hospitals this morning, which is a high number and is not acceptable. It has a significant impact on their patient experience and also makes things very difficult for staff. Thankfully, most of those patients will be in beds by this evening. The level of overcrowding we have seen in our hospitals this January, thankfully, is considerably lower than was the case in previous Januarys, in part because of the additional resources provided by the Government, including beds and staff. The budget for the health service has increased substantially for this year. The HSE will be able to hire 2,000 extra staff on top of the number of staff it had last year.
I want to raise a housing issue which my Labour Party colleagues, Senator Moynihan and Councillor Darragh Moriarty, have been highlighting locally. I refer to the shocking findings by Trinity College recently that residents of Oliver Bond, the oldest and largest social housing complex in the State, have worse health outcomes than their neighbours in Dublin 8 due to the conditions of social housing there. There is a regeneration project, but people living in Oliver Bond will be waiting ten to 15 years before that will be resolved. One resident said five of them are living in a two-bed flat full of mould. It is very serious. I know the issue was raised yesterday. The Taoiseach told the House then that this is primarily a matter for Dublin City Council, and cited other areas where regeneration has been desperately slow, but he did say that the issue of Oliver Bond has came up at the housing subcommittee and that he will raise the conditions there with Dublin City Council's new CEO. Can the Taoiseach commit to ensuring that the regeneration of Oliver Bond will proceed more swiftly, and that sufficient funding will be provided to empower local authorities to regenerate existing social housing stock in other complexes across the country?
I will certainly commit to engage with Dublin City Council alongside the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, in good faith on this. Living in Dublin city, as the Deputy does, I see how slow regeneration has been, whether it is in Dolphin, Donore Road, Emmet Road,-----
Pearse Street.
-----Pearse Street or Oliver Bond. It is a good example of why the State does not always do things better. Sometimes it takes longer and costs more. If it was done by the private sector, these would all have been built a long time ago. I know it is not as simple as that. I will commit, in good faith, to engage with the new city council CEO on it.
I want to raise the issue of many of our restaurants and cafés around the country that are closing their doors. Many more are at tipping point. A restaurant near me, Budds of Ballydehob, put out a post about this on social media, and the outpouring of support was immense. As the Taoiseach knows, in towns and villages in Cork South-West the café might be the heart of the community where people gather. It provides employment. There are so many benefits outside of it being a café that are difficult to put into words. The impact on our towns and villages when these places close is absolutely devastating. That was evident during the crash, when our main streets were left desolate and hollowed-out. Opportunities for local employment really vanished with that. Some towns never recovered, although the hospitality sector was key in our recovery from the crash in general. We just cannot see a repeat of this. I know that the Government allocated €1.2 billion to the temporary business energy support scheme, but only €145 million of that was spent. What measures is the Government looking into to address this issue?
The cost of doing business in Ireland is very high and it is rising. We acknowledge that. Some of that is down to increased labour costs, increased energy costs, the increased cost of supplies and also the withdrawal of some temporary supports for businesses that simply cannot go on forever.
There are things the Government can do to help. We will inject over €250 million in the form of grants into small businesses between now and 31 March to help them with cashflow. We are also looking at what we can do around tax warehousing to give businesses a little more time to pay their taxes. They do have to pay their taxes, but this is to give them a little more time to do so. The Deputy makes a very valid point. Where a business may be the only café in a town or small village, is more than just a business competing with other businesses and has a particular social value, we need to look at our social enterprise model there in order to make sure we can help those businesses in a different way. It is a different story if it is three or four pubs competing in a town and one closes. When there an enterprise is the only enterprise in the town and is a gathering point and a community hub, that is quite different.
Before Christmas and after the House had shut down, the results of a competition none of us, I think, knew about were released. Indeed, the people who had applied for it did not know until they had sent in the applications that it was a competition. It was for grants in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, education. There were over 2,700 applications from schools around the country. That is a great thing. It indicates both the enthusiasm of the teachers and the relevance of those subjects in today's world.
According to one principal from my constituency who contacted me, the applicants had no idea they were applying for a grant on the basis of a competition. In other words, schools were pitted against each other. When the announcement was made, it turned out 19% of the total number of applicants made up the funding allocated and 27% of that went to DEIS schools. Could we not look at a system where DEIS schools would get positive discrimination in the areas where there are fewer chances for people to develop their knowledge in the areas of science, technology, engineering and maths?
I am familiar with the issue. I remember it coming up before Christmas. I do not have an up-to-date note on it, so I will ask the Minister for Education's people to get in touch with more detail.
School bus transport is a very important issue, especially in rural Ireland. It is very important for families. It is also important when we are talking about carbon emissions and everything else. There are two big problems in this area. One is that people over 70 are not allowed to drive school buses, even if they are medically fit. This has been raised here by me and many other people for the past two years. It would be a simple measure to allow people, where they have been certified by a doctor, to continue working, because it is an issue of ageism and everything else.
The other issue is that the Government gave out free bus tickets after Covid. Many of those were not used. Seats on buses are empty while people cannot get places for their children on the same buses. This needs tweaking and joined-up thinking, and those two small measures would have a huge impact and help many families who are struggling to get access to school transport.
The school transport review will be coming to the Cabinet shortly and will contain proposals to improve the situation. I know this is a major issue around the country, particularly in August, when TDs from all over the country get on to me about it. I will look again into the issue of drivers not being allowed to continue driving up to the age of 72. We allow people to be GPs and do all sorts of other things until they are 72, so I am not sure why that is not the case for drivers if they are medically fit. I do not have a good answer to that question but I will look into it again.
On the same issue, this is the third time I have raised a question in this Dáil regarding school bus drivers. I have raised it with the Taoiseach on two occasions and with the Tánaiste on one. The situation is continually getting worse, with some school runs not able to operate due to the inability to recruit drivers. In my county of Galway, more than 40 children attending St. Paul's school in Oughterard have been without a service since 17 October last year. The private bus companies contracted by Bus Éireann to operate these services are facing a huge problem finding drivers. There is a serious problem with the transport system whereby people who drive school buses have to retire at 70 years of age but, theoretically, can still drive commercial buses until they are 100 because there is no upper age limit in place. Bus drivers should be able to drive school buses at least until they are 75. Even if that means they have to do a medical examination every year, so be it. I am asking the Taoiseach to give a commitment that this change will be implemented. I do not want to hear about a review or what the Department will look at. We need action now to address this chronic problem, which is being faced by school bus operators around the country.
I will check into it again. I know this is not the first time it has been raised in the House. What has been suggested might be part of the solution to the driver shortage. If I remember correctly, the last time I looked into the matter, I discovered it is not actually a Government rule but a CIÉ rule linked to terms and conditions within that agency, which might then be linked to pensions issues and so on. When it gets into that, it gets very complicated. However, I do promise to take it up again and see if we can make it part of the solution.
We need a solution.
One of the reasons put forward for replacing Article 41.2 of the Constitution is that it offers very little by way of concrete legal protection to women, as evidenced by the lack of reported cases where it was cited. I have learned, however, that cases have been taken against the State and that those cases were settled with confidentiality clauses in place in order to prevent them becoming a precedent. I do not know how many cases there were. There may have been very few or there may have been many. I do not know; that is within the Government's means of knowledge. In order to make sure we have accuracy during the debate on this matter, will the Taoiseach ask the Attorney General's office and the Department of Social Protection, which, I believe, was involved in some instances, how many such cases exist? That might inform how strong or weak the legal protection is.
I am not familiar with those cases or how many there were but I will certainly look into it. I know there are cases that were litigated and it was found the existing article did offer very little protection to women in the home. The main purpose, however, of the change we are making is to recognise care in our Constitution. At the moment, care is not recognised. The duty of women in the home is recognised in our Constitution but carers, male and female, within the family do not have recognition and do not have protection. Regardless of the answer to the question in that regard, it is still going to be a positive change because we are extending a gender-specific right that only applies to women in the home to carers who are male or female within the wider family, and that will require the Government to strive to support them.
But you will get an answer to the question.
The Department of Education has spent over €10 million in six years posting payslips. This figure does not even account for printing. Optional digital payslips were introduced last year but there has not been a really high take-up, and that is because it is on an opt-in rather than an opt-out basis. Posting payslips is totally out of touch with society and out of kilter with how most people are paid and it is not environmentally friendly. We are all aware postage prices have increased - in fact, they have doubled in almost three years - and despite this, over 100,000 people in the Department of Education are still getting payslips in the post. Meanwhile, in my constituency we are facing a school places crisis, school buildings are waiting for the go-ahead for extensions and new builds - Sadhbh, a transition year student in one of those schools, is with me in the House today - and students do not know where they are going to go to secondary school this September. I have raised this repeatedly in the Chamber. Will the Taoiseach look at whether that system for payslips can be changed from opt-out to opt-in to save money and whether that money can be ring-fenced into the school building programme to accelerate much-needed school places for communities such as mine?
I absolutely concur with the Deputy. There are better ways to spend €3 million of the education budget than by sending out payslips to teachers and staff. Whether it could be repurposed for school buildings, special needs or other things, that is not for me to decide here, but the Deputy's basic point is fundamentally correct. This is something the Minister, Deputy Foley, will want to engage with the teachers' unions on.
In respect of the energy upgrade for schools and the pathfinder programme, a further 14 schools were announced for inclusion. When will those schools be notified that they are part of that programme? Obviously, the free solar panels we are putting onto schools throughout the country are beneficial in the context of their energy requirements, but the energy retrofits will be quite important as well in order that children will be in warm, energy-efficient classrooms. This will help facilitate children's education. It will also help schools when it comes to energy bills.
I do not know the position, but I will find out and get back to the Deputy with some more detail. We both agree that we want to see solar panels on the roof of every school, if not every public building, in the country. That can only help to reduce energy costs and emissions. It will be really powerful at winning hearts and minds in favour of investing in solar energy.
As the Taoiseach is aware, assessments for child and adult psychology services are taking far too long. This is causing major problems for the people involved and loading major stress on their families and siblings. For instance, there is no psychologist in Wexford General Hospital in my constituency, which means that people who are often in an immediate mental health crisis or who have suicidal ideation tendencies are referred to Waterford. This is adding hours - often vital hours - to the process whereby people receive diagnoses. Will the Taoiseach, under the programme for Government, commit to extending the remit of the National Treatment Purchase Fund to allow it to secure timely psychological assessments for children and adults? Will the Government assess the possibility of filling the psychologist post at Wexford General Hospital?
I thank the Deputy very much for his question. There were two parts to it. We have seen increasing waiting lists for young people with mental health difficulties who need psychology supports. We have been running a waiting list initiative over the past three years that has proven very successful. We have targeted children who have been waiting in excess of 12 months. We have also looked at making sure that the waiting list is accurate.
In the context of the National Treatment Purchase Fund, there is a commitment in the programme for Government to look at this matter. However, the situation is very complicated when it comes to psychology or counselling supports. The purchase under the National Treatment Purchase Fund is that if there is a stand-alone issue that needs to be dealt with, such as a cataract or a hip replacement, it is easy to buy the service and pay for it afterwards. When it comes to counselling services, you will not actually be sure what you are buying. For example, it could be four, six or eight sessions. We have looked at it and it is proving very problematic, but we will continue this year with the initiative to reduce the waiting list psychological services.
The regulations relating to wind energy were put in place in 2006, which is more than 17 years ago. About four years ago, there was a commitment that they would be reviewed. The regulations deal with noise levels, shadow flicker, set-back systems and community obligation. We have not seen new regulations or guidelines. In a reply to a parliamentary question I tabled in October, the Minister advised that they would be published by the quarter 4 of 2023. However, they have not been published. Four years have passed since it was officially agreed that the regulations needed to be reviewed.
I refer to wind farms in rural areas. The whole focus now is on the production of energy by using wind turbines at sea. Why there has been such a delay in the production of the guidelines? When will they be made available?
I thank the Deputy. I am not entirely sure. The matter has been over and back between the different Departments involved. There are some outstanding issues to be resolved. I will check with the responsible Ministers and come back to the Deputy with a further reply.
The children's disability network teams are sometimes made up of staff who are HSE employees and other times involve workers from Enable Ireland. The latter are section 39 workers and are on lesser pay and conditions than the former. There is a big impact as a consequence of that because teams that are staffed by section 39 workers are having much more difficulty in recruiting people as a result of the fact that inferior pay and conditions apply. This is having serious consequences.
To give the Taoiseach an example, Ciaran is now eight years old. He was told that he needed a key worker and specialist professional support for his autism in 2018. He only got his key worker this year and he still has not received any services because the team does not have the staff. This issue needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
I thank the Deputy. As he will be aware, people who work for section 39 bodies are not public servants. They are not Government employees-----
They are doing the same job.
-----so they do have different terms and conditions, even when they are doing the same job. As we know from the hospices, we have successfully brought a number of hospices from section 39 to section 38 status. When you do that, it turns out to be much more complicated than people think. While some people may have lesser terms and conditions, others will have better terms and conditions. There are also different pension arrangements. It is never quite as straightforward as it may seem. Removing the autonomy from those bodies and requiring them to apply public service pay scales and pension rules means that there are winners and losers. That is one of the complications of moving the section 39 bodies into the section 38 space.
What are we going to do about it?
I want to raise the issue of a constituent named Aoibh. She is two years old. She was born with a rare and complex condition which has a profound impact on her mobility. She has been under Children's Health Ireland Temple Street since birth. She was reviewed by a consultant orthopaedic surgeon last August and a plan was put in place for surgery. Since then, that surgeon has been suspended and Aoibh and hundreds of other children like her have been left in limbo. Some of them are in pain and some have restricted lives. Aoibh's mother does not believe that she will be available to start preschool in September, so her life is already being impacted. What plan does the Government have in place to address the urgent needs of hundreds of children who require orthopaedic surgery? There does not appear to be orthopaedic surgeon available at the moment to carry out the relevant procedures. Children have had their surgeries delayed and this has had severe consequences.
I appreciate that many children have been waiting a long time for orthopaedic surgery. There is considerable investment in this area. Money has been set aside by the Government specifically for investment in orthopaedic services. Additional theatres have been provided and a whole new hospital will be handed over to the State and in commission next year. That will make a huge difference. Additional consultants are being hired too. I will ask the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, to come back to the Deputy with a more detailed reply setting out the position.
I want to appeal to the Taoiseach's better nature on the means test relating to family carers, carer's allowance and half-rate carer's allowance. Statistics from Family Carers Ireland show that carers save the State €20 billion per annum. We are about to put a referendum to the people that lauds carers, and yet we are means testing 95,000 of them. We do not know what the cost of that is in man hours to the Department. However, it does, according to the Secretary General of the Department, save the country €700 million. The HSE would not function without carers who save the country €20 billion per annum. That equates almost to the total budget of the HSE. It is time we took cognisance of what carers do for their families and the country. I appeal to the Taoiseach to abolish the need to means test carer's allowance and half-rate carer's allowance.
It is worth pointing out that the carer's support grant is in place as well. That is not means tested. The carer's allowance is means tested. We have relaxed the means test and are changing the pension rules in order that carers who are in receipt of the allowance can receive the full State pension. We are going in the right direction. The referendum, if passed, will protect all of that because there will be constitutional protection for carers for the first time. It will also put an onus on the Government to continue to climb the ladder and make improvements for carers. That is another very good reason why they are calling for a "Yes" vote.
It is important to put on the record of the House that carer's allowance is a social welfare payment for people who would otherwise not qualify for jobseeker's allowance because they cannot engage in full-time work. If it were to become an employment payment, that would become a very different thing. There would have to be qualifications, regulations and an application process for people to get payment. That would be a very different proposition.
Can we make CPR training mandatory in secondary schools? CPR doubles and sometimes trebles the chances of survival in the case of cardiac arrest. Every ten minutes that go by without CPR reduces the chance of survival by 10%. Amazingly in Ireland, which has a population of more than 5 million, only about 80,000 individuals are trained in or know CPR. It is proven that bystander CPR saves lives. Some 70% of cardiac arrests happen in the home, so it is vital that we train teenagers in our schools with the skills necessary to save lives. We can train up the new lifesavers. When I was in transition year, which is more than 20 years ago now, CPR was optional. That is still the case as far as I know. We need to make it mandatory. We need to introduce refresher courses in order that more people will be confident enough to perform CPR and, importantly, save lives.
It is a very good idea that every student in transition year, fifth or sixth year would be trained not just in first aid but also basic life support. That can be done in one day and would certainly save lives and reduce the impact of injuries. I know what will be said to me if I discuss the matter with the Department of Education and the Minister, Deputy Foley.
I will be informed that there is a long list of many things that people want to add to the curriculum and have children do at school. The contents of that list range from coding to Internet safety training to driving tests - you name it. They always ask me what I am going to do and whether I am going to cut something or extend school hours? That is the direction in which the conversation goes. It is something that we might talk about again.
Businesses in great towns like Killarney and Killorglin are suffering a great deal at present as a result of the increase in the minimum wage and high energy costs. Why anyone would think that this is a good time to re-rate buildings, I will never understand. The rates on some premises have doubled. The input costs are so enormous that business owners are literally closing their doors. Many of these businesses are in prime locations on Main Street, College Street and New Street in Killarney. Cafes and restaurants in Killarney and Killorglin are closing. I compliment the Government on one thing. Many of the businesses in question would not have survived until now were it not for what the Government did during the pandemic. I thank the it for that. The Government kept the doors of those businesses open. I ask that the Government do what it did previously, namely, stand up for small businesses and for the people who are creating jobs for themselves and others. I beg the Government to do all it can to allow these people to keep their doors open.
I thank the Deputy very much. I take the opportunity to again acknowledge that the cost of business in Ireland is very high and is rising. That is due to a number of factors, namely, higher labour costs, the energy crisis, the costs of supplies and materials and the withdrawal of temporary Government supports. The latter have to be withdrawn at some point and cannot go on forever. Businesses are closing, but others are also opening. The closure rate, at about 50 per 10,000, is around the long-term average. We have to monitor this very closely, particularly to see whether employment levels may fall in any sector. That would be a very serious alarm bell.
Notwithstanding that, we are going to help. Businesses will receive €250 million in grants between now and the end of March. That will help significantly with cashflow. We are going to make some changes to tax warehousing in order to give businesses more time to pay their taxes, but they do have to pay those taxes. Energy prices are coming down. Hopefully, interest rates will fall throughout the course of the year. "e do need to very closely monitor developments because there are additional costs coming the way of businesses in the context of additional leave, pension contributions and further increases in the minimum wage. We have to do all of that at a pace that is affordable for everyone.
I warmly welcome the decision by the Government yesterday to hold a referendum in June on the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court. I am told that this could result in added value to the economy of €1.6 billion per annum. When does the Taoiseach he expects the legislation to enable this referendum to go ahead to be published?
That is a good question. It will have to be pretty soon. In order to have the referendum in the first ten days of June, we will have to publish the legislation soon. I think there is a draft floating around, so I would say it will happen in the next week or two.
I raise with the Taoiseach the lack of gardaí in rural areas right across my constituency of Meath West. We have ten Garda stations located in Navan, Trim, Athboy, Enfield, Ballivor, Longwood, Oldcastle, Summerhill, Castlepollard and Delvin. Of those, only two are manned on a full-time basis. In 2013, the Fine Gael Government closed 95 Garda stations in rural Ireland. Those that were left are manned on a part-time basis. Antisocial behaviour, robberies and openly visible drug dealing on our streets are happening every day. The people I represent figure that the Garda Síochána has given up on small-time drug dealing because it does not have the resources to devote to combating the problem. It is disheartening to hear from gardaí based in rural stations that new recruits are being disproportionately assigned to larger towns, which means that rural Ireland is being neglected and forgotten. What is the Government going to do about this matter?
Unfortunately, as Deputies will be aware, we have a shortage of gardaí all over the country. I was in Blanchardstown Garda station in my constituency in recent days. Blanchardstown station is located in the very big Dublin metropolitan region, DMR, west district, which as approximately 50 or 60 fewer gardaí than it had when Garda numbers peaked in 2020. Those numbers fell off when Templemore was closed during the pandemic. We would have 1,000 more gardaí today if that had not been the case. We are recruiting again and we will see Garda numbers increase, which is encouraging. Civilian Garda staff are being brought in to free up gardaí to carry out more front-line duties. New technology is also being brought in also to facilitate the more efficient use of Garda.
On 10 February last year, I received an answer to a parliamentary question which indicated that the plans for a referendum on the ownership of Irish Water were well advanced. Almost 12 months have passed. I would like to know if the Cabinet has given consideration to the holding of this referendum and has a date been selected for it?
We do not yet have a date set for that.