The Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, is very welcome to the House.
Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters
Covid-19 Pandemic
I thank the Minister of State for being here to take this important Commencement matter. As a father of young kids, he will understand the concerns I have for young parents and mothers going through maternity services.
Most of my contribution is about maternity services throughout the country but, in particular, in Tipperary University Hospital, Clonmel. The first thing to acknowledge is the work the staff there have done, particularly over the past three years, during Covid. The maternity ward has played a key role in that. That has to be acknowledged, and I thank the staff for that.
The reason I tabled this matter is a concern that there does not seem to be a standardised, universal approach to how maternity services work with regard to visitation. Some hospitals continue to impose restrictions on maternity services, citing Covid as the reason. Given the recent announcement by the World Health Organization, the pandemic should no longer impact maternity care. Women in pregnancy should always have an advocate for them there while they are going through the maternity ward. The problem we have is that every hospital is treating maternity services differently, whether we look at visiting hours or people who are allowed in. For example, in Tipperary University Hospital the visiting hours on maternity wards are from 8 a.m. until 9 p.m; in Cork, they are from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m; and in Clonmel, a patient is allowed to have only one visitor. That is a problem because that is not the way it used to be before Covid. Some hospitals have not gone back to the way things were pre-Covid. The concern I have is that a great many women go into maternity wards and end up having to get a C-section. That means they are in hospital for a long period, normally four nights, so they could be four nights and five days in hospital getting excellent care, but many people have young kids and young families whom they then do not see for the four or five days.
There is something special about bringing one's full family in to see a newborn child. When Covid restrictions are finished and the WHO has said that it is not a pandemic any more, the very least we can allow is for a mother to bring her other child or children in to see a newborn. It is a really important stage in life to be able to have family come together when a newborn baby is in hospital. It is not the same just coming home with the baby. There is something special about bringing them in. There are hospitals doing that but there are other hospitals that are not. That is not particularly fair. Obviously, there will be points where there is a Covid outbreak and new measures have to be brought into place. I have no problem with that. What I am talking about is the set, standard visiting restrictions that are in place, regardless of whether there is a Covid outbreak. I have had loads of parents come into my office concerned and upset that they are not receiving the sort of opportunity that others across the country are.
The real concern I have is that expectant mothers and parents now know that the visiting restrictions are not the same in Clonmel as they are in, say, Cork or Limerick and they are choosing other hospitals to have their babies in. That has a detrimental effect on our hospital in Clonmel, and I do not want that to happen. I, therefore, ask that the Department give some sort of indication or guidance as to what should be allowed post Covid in respect of restrictions on visiting hours for all family members, including kids, to be able to come in and see a newborn.
I thank the Senator for raising this very important issue. I know he has been a very strong advocate for maternity services right through the pandemic in consistently raising this issue.
Limitations on partners accessing maternity services have been an issue of huge concern for women and their families, and I fully appreciate that such access limitations were very difficult for everyone during the Covid-19 pandemic. In that regard, it is important to emphasise that all access restrictions that were introduced for support partners during the Covid-19 pandemic have now been removed. The HSE recently advised that access for support partners has been restored, including for antenatal appointments, routine scanning, labour, delivery and time spent on antenatal and postnatal wards.
The underlying aim throughout the pandemic was to keep maternity services as safe as possible, to support women throughout pregnancy and to ensure access for support partners. Maternity services were remarkably successful in protecting women and staff during the Covid-19 pandemic while remaining focused on maximising access for support partners. In that context, the clinical advice remains in respect of the potential for infection to spread in maternity services, and limited exceptions to partner access may be introduced at times based on local infection control and health and safety measures.
We are all aware of the variations that exist right across our maternity services, including the number of births, the complexity of care provided and, in particular, the infrastructure of each service. Those variables all feed into decisions that are made locally as regards infection prevention and control risks. Each maternity service must, on that basis, assess its own ability to accommodate access. For example, in light of the recent fire in Wexford General Hospital, while support partners can attend all antenatal appointments, they are requested to wait outside until their pregnant partner is called for her appointment.
The HSE fully recognises the important role that support partners play in supporting a person using maternity services, as well as the right of the support partner to be present and to participate in the care process to the greatest practical degree. It is, therefore, vital that, should any limitations on access for partners be introduced in a hospital for a specific reason, they should be the very minimum required. The HSE has advised maternity services of this and has stipulated that, when introduced, limitations must be clearly explained and applied with consideration for individual circumstances and needs.
In all circumstances a person-centred approach should be adopted to ensure the context in which the need for a support person to be present is taken into consideration.
To conclude, I assure the House that any access limitations individual hospitals may implement from time to time are at the minimum necessary in terms of infection prevention and control. I reiterate that decisions to limit access are taken locally by clinicians and hospital management who know their own circumstances intimately and are best placed to respond to local developments. The HSE has assured the Department that every effort continues to be made to maximise access for support partners during their pregnant partner’s maternity care.
I recognise that, and Wexford General Hospital is a good example of a hospital where measures had to be brought in because of circumstances that arose. That is not the point I am making, however. The HSE states that restrictions have no longer applied since Covid but that is not the case in some hospitals. They have not gone back to pre-Covid visiting measures. There is a feeling among parents and families that it is almost as though some hospitals do not want visitors coming in at all. The arrival of a newborn is an important stage in someone's life. I know people are allowed one partner in to visit but the immediate family, including children, want to come in to hospital and see the newborn child. I totally get that we put measures in place and that local management has the authority to make decisions based on Covid outbreaks. That happened in Clonmel only recently. That is fine and I have no issue with it but what I am talking about is visiting restrictions that apply when everything is normal. Tipperary University Hospital has not returned to what was normal pre-Covid. I am asking the HSE to intervene to make sure the mothers of newborns get the service they got before Covid.
Again, I acknowledge the great work Senator Ahearn had done on this area during the pandemic and since. As a father, I wholly understand the need for support partners to be present in maternity services and that the newborn's siblings get that unique, once in a lifetime opportunity, to see their newborn sibling in hospital. I will raise the Senator's concerns with the Minister for Health and ask him to come back to the Senator directly.
Home Care Packages
I thank the Minister of State for attending to discuss this important issue, which is also health related and involves home care packages. People are not getting enough hours every day or week and there is a shortage of carers and trained people available to help. During Covid especially, we saw that keeping people in their own homes adds to longevity and that people survive better when they are in their own surroundings. What is the Government doing to extend care? What training will carers be given and how will they be recruited?
Again, I apologise for the Minister’s absence. I thank Senator Byrne for raising this very important issue.
Improving access to home support is a priority for the Government. Since budget 2021, we have provided an additional €228 million in funding. In 2023, the overall home care budget is €723 million. The HSE national service plan sets a target to provide 23.9 million home support hours and the dementia-specific proportion of new hours will increase from 5% in 2021 to 15% in 2023, valued at €5.2 million.
Delivery of home support hours in communities is increasing in line with enhanced investment. Last year, almost 20.8 million hours of home support were provided across the country. A further 109,240 hours were provided as part of a pilot testing the statutory home support scheme. Preliminary data as of 31 March 2023 outline that 5.2 million hours have been provided in this year to date. This is an increase of approximately 250,000 hours compared with the same period in 2022. In addition, some 56.980 people were receiving home support and 3,524 new applicants were approved for funding and waiting for supports.
Delivering this enhanced capacity requires substantial recruitment and strategic workforce challenges are in evidence in the sector. This is not a funding issue. Recruitment takes time and actions are being taken to attract more carers into the workforce. In order to examine the significant workforce challenges in the home support and nursing home sectors in Ireland, in March 2022 the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, established a cross-departmental strategic workforce advisory group. It was charged with identifying strategic workforce challenges in publicly and privately provided front-line carer roles in home support and nursing homes and with developing recommendations. The group was chaired by the Department of Health, and examined issues such as the recruitment, retention, training, career development, pay and conditions and barriers to employment for front-line carers in these sectors.
The report was published in October 2022, with 16 recommendations across the areas of recruitment, pay and conditions of employment, barriers to employment, training and professional development, sectoral reform and monitoring and implementation. The recommendations are being progressed through a dedicated implementation group. The Department of Health is engaging with recommendation owners in order to define an implementation plan. It is intended to publish a detailed implementation plan containing the steps involved in delivering the recommendations in the coming months. The implementation group will meet quarterly and the Department of Health will publish progress reports against this plan after these meetings take place.
Recommendation 9 has already been implemented. The statutory instrument authorising the issuance of 1,000 employment permits for home care workers was signed on 16 December 2022. To date, 17 organisations have availed of and utilised the process. At the same time, the HSE is also recruiting more people to deliver home support directly. The HSE continues to advertise on an ongoing basis for healthcare support assistants and recruits as many suitable candidates as possible.
It is good that there are 1,000 extra carers in the system but there are still people who need more hours. Some people are getting half an hour of home care a day. Others only get care on a certain number of days each week. They do not get care on seven days, and some of them are badly in need of it. This puts pressure on family members and in some cases there are no family members and people end up in a nursing home.
While the Government is moving on work permits, the matter needs to be escalated. I look forward to seeing the report when it comes out. What I see does not reflect those figures but the results remain to be seen.
I acknowledge all the work Senator Maria Byrne does in this area. She is right. Local clinics show the huge demand for hours that is not being met. As the Minister pointed out in his response, the money is available. Care is a very challenging recruitment area and he has put in place the implementation process to try to deliver as many home care hours as possible in the community. As the Senator rightly noted, the benefit of keeping people in their own home living independently is huge for society generally.
Office of Public Works
The Minister of State is more than welcome. It is great to have him in the Chamber again. I compliment his work in the Seanad. It is always great to see him here taking these Commencement Matter debates.
The issue I raise relates to Desmond Castle in Kinsale. It is a unique structure which has been closed due to structural issues since 2018. The castle's history is unique. It goes back to the 1500s and is a classic urban tower, three storeys high. It was once a prison which held prisoners from Spain, Portugal, Holland and all the way across to America. It was also used as a French prison. Across the centuries, it has also been put to other uses. It was originally a custom house. Since it was closed in 2018, we have been trying to find a pathway to get the Office of Public Works, OPW, to carry out the required conservation works so we can reopen this important part of Kinsale's heritage.
Kinsale is a unique tourist location.
We have a lot to offer. Kinsale is the gourmet capital of Ireland without a shadow of a doubt. We have been blessed in many ways by the hand of history and by the hand of geography. We have an OPW site called Charles Fort with more than 100,000 visitors every year. The key issue is to build capacity in the sector in order that Kinsale can have an offering that can cover all eventualities. As this site is an indoor site, it works well with the other sites we have. When one looks at what we also have to offer, it includes the Battle of Kinsale from 1601, which is an important part of our history. We need to see a timeline as to when the conservation works will begin. There have been continuous reports and talk about reports on the site itself. I realise and appreciate that the pandemic slowed down works, particularly during the two years of the pandemic. However this site has effectively been closed for five years. We need to find a pathway to getting boots on the ground, get the conservation report done, and off the back of that get something to happen on the site.
That is my second ask. We need to make sure that when we re-open the site, we have a real and meaningful consultation with the local community. There is a view within the local community that this site should be a Battle of Kinsale exhibition centre, which would look and feel very well for the people of Kinsale. We must have movement. It does not work unless we get a pathway where the Minister of State ensures that the OPW finishes the report it is proposing to do and gets boots on the ground. If he can, will the Minister of State inform the House of how, when and where this will happen so there can be some major movement on the ground?
I thank Senator Lombard for raising this very important issue for his community, which I am answering on behalf of the Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, Deputy O'Donovan, who has asked me to pass on his apologies as unfortunately, he is taking oral parliamentary questions in the Dáil Chamber this morning. Desmond Castle in Kinsale, also known as the French prison, is one of more than 700 national monuments throughout the country that are conserved, maintained and managed by the Office of Public Works. When it was open for visitors, the castle operated as a town centre seasonal site during the summer months and was managed by OPW staff in conjunction with other major national monuments and with Charles Fort, Kinsale. As the latter attracts approximately 100,000 visitors each year, the importance of these locations to the local community, and the local economy, is recognised. Desmond Castle was built by the Earl of Desmond in or around the year 1500 and is a fine example of an urban tower house with a three-storey keep and storehouses to the rear. It had many uses over the years. It was originally built as a custom house to meet the international trade coming into Kinsale by sea. It also served as a prison for some time in the 18th century and was an ordnance and service store supplying the local English garrison in Charles Fort during the Battle of Kinsale of 1601. It then served as a local workhouse during the Great Famine of the mid-1840s. By the early decades of the 20th century, however, the castle had fallen into decay before it was taken over by the Commissioners of Public Works and declared a national monument in 1938.
As the Senator is aware, the site is currently closed, as extensive conservation works are required and the castle was considered a risk to visitors if kept open. Due to penetration issues, the building requires a full programme of fabric repair and refurbishment works. Several surveys have been completed on the building, including mechanical and electrical, a digital survey of the castle, and a full building fabric report. The works needed to deal with the water penetration issues have also been identified. This is a multi-phased and complex repair project and the OPW is now seeking to appoint an external conservation architect for the entire repair and refurbishment programme, from preliminary design through to handover.
Given that the castle is a national monument, the consent of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage will be required for all repair and conservation works. The OPW expects that the repair works contract will be carried out by external contractors, with particular conservation elements undertaken by the OPW’s own skilled workforce. The target is to have the full design process under way and potentially completed this year. The OPW's Mallow district carried out window repairs at the castle in 2022 and some additional masonry repairs to windows are currently being carried out. The completion of the design phase of the project was also impacted by the pandemic as the OPW’s internal resources had to be redirected to meet other demands on the heritage service and as a result, time has been lost on the project. However, the OPW sees an opportunity here to consider the site afresh, interpreting its varied history to bring it to the attention of more visitors to the region. The design phase of the project therefore will bring a new focus on the history of the property with perhaps the 1601 rebellion being a central theme that could be explored.
While there are no immediate plans to open the site to the public, as more work needs to be carried out to develop the interpretation programme for the site, the OPW is a stakeholder in the Fáilte Ireland west Cork coast destination and experience development plan group and it looks forward to working with other stakeholders in the development of the plan as it pertains to Desmond Castle and Kinsale.
I thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive response. The frustration of the community is the biggest issue. This site closed very abruptly in 2018 and has not reopened five years later. We need to build our tourism offering in Kinsale. It is the really significant site for us, right in the heart of the town. It is an indoor complex that can deliver so much for us. I believe the works that are happening are important but we need to have a definitive timeline, number one on when the works will be finished. Moreover, regarding the 1601 rebellion theme proposal, we need to have a real debate in the town about that. We need to ensure all stakeholders are on board. I hope the Minister of State and his officials will have the opportunity to meet me to discuss this issue in due course and to go through it in detail to ensure we can provide the tourism offering Kinsale requires, which is a timeline and the offering regarding the theme itself.
I thank Senator Lombard for raising this very important issue and outlining the huge benefits of the site to the wider local economy and the tourism potential of the site. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, has asked me to inform Senator Lombard directly that he and his officials are wiling to meet him and will contact him at the earliest opportunity to progress this matter.
Research and Development
Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. The Minister of State will be aware that modern Irish economic policy has been based on two things, namely, tax and talent. The emphasis on tax has become less important in recent times. Ireland is a talent-driven economy and society. We know the key economic and social driver for this country into the future is investment in talent. In fact the reason we set up the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science was a recognition that this was not just about breaking away from the Department of Education to form a new administrative Department, it was about preparing this country for the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century.
The issue I raise today is about talent and those incredibly talented researchers within our higher education institutions and other research institutes. There are broader questions around the stipend and the level of grant support to individual PhD students. The Government has also embarked on addressing some of the shortfalls in core funding for universities, and there are also the big grants that come from Science Foundation Ireland, SFI. I want to talk about the basic tools researchers need to carry out their work in our universities. Quite frankly, the tools are not there. When the Irish Universities Association carried out an audit of research equipment last summer in member universities around the country, it found that 30% of the equipment being used by researchers was more than 15 years old, and 52% of the research equipment was more than ten years old. If the Minister of State thinks about his job and the equipment he is using, if the mobile phone in front of him was more than ten years old it would be impossible to try to do our work.
I will give one specific example of a case in a university.
In 2011, an automated microscope was purchased for the sum of €242,000 as part of an EU-wide security project that was looking at individuals' exposure to radioactivity after an accident. It is a very useful piece of equipment. It allows for an experiment to be carried out by a PhD student, or otherwise, in 17 minutes. If the equipment was not there it could take them, using traditional methods, up to five days. That was 2011, we are now 12 years later and they are still relying on that equipment. There are 45 PhD students and a number of other researchers who are relying on it. It was used for more than 1,200 hours last year. If that piece of equipment breaks down, rather than taking them 17 minutes to conduct the experiment it will take them five days. There are countless other examples I can use.
Given what is happening there is a danger we will lose some of our top talent to other countries within the European Union and more widely, simply because the other universities have the basic equipment for those researchers to carry out their research. When Irish companies look to partner with Irish universities, the universities cannot carry out the experiment or the work as quickly as universities in other countries. It is not that the talent is not there, because we have extraordinary talent; it is just that the basic equipment is not there. With the research, it is akin to asking the best baker in the country to make a cake but we ration their supplies to flour and eggs and expect them to work with an oven that regularly breaks down. If we are going to create the best little country in the world in which to be creative, innovative and imaginative and to be a researcher, we must invest in basic core equipment. As part of the Government's priority for the budget, I ask the Minister of State to set out that this would be the case and that we invest in core research equipment.
I thank Senator Byrne for raising this very important issue. I will provide an update on behalf of the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Simon Harris, with regard to the current condition of research infrastructure and equipment in Irish universities.
The Minister would wish to state at the outset that higher education institutions are autonomous bodies and are responsible for their own day-to-day management and operational affairs, including the management of academic affairs. All capital projects advanced by publicly funded higher education institutions must comply with the provisions of the public spending code.
The revised national development plan, NDP, provides for Exchequer investment of nearly €2.9 billion in further and higher education infrastructure, research and innovation over the five-year period from 2021 to 2025. There is €633 million available to the Department in 2023 in capital funding. This comprises the NDP capital allocation for 2023 of €578 million, in addition to the carryover of moneys from 2022 of €55 million. The general areas that will benefit from this capital funding break down as follows: research and innovation, €297 million; higher education capital, €234 million; further education and training capital, €60 million; higher education public private partnerships, €40 million; Higher Education Authority capital, €1 million; and corporate, €1 million.
While these substantial sums are being invested in our further and higher education sectors, I recognise that there are challenges to be addressed. The Department is aware of concerns expressed by the Irish Universities Association, IUA, in relation to the current condition of our research infrastructure and equipment. This matter was raised by the IUA on Tuesday during a meeting of the joint Oireachtas committee. The IUA considers that more than 50% of the equipment among its members is more than ten years old while one third of it is 15 years old. The overarching objective of Impact 2030 is to ensure that Ireland’s collective research and innovation investments and activities make as big a difference as possible to as many people as possible. If our support for research infrastructure is to reflect the need to attract and retain researchers of the highest calibre, we must ensure they have the tools required for their research with access to modern infrastructure and equipment.
The SFI research infrastructure programme supports the research community in building and sustaining the required infrastructure capacity to accomplish high-quality, high-impact and innovative research in areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics that enhance and support enterprise, competitiveness and sectoral development in Ireland. This recognises the need for continued investment in cutting-edge research equipment and infrastructure in areas of national priority. SFI holds periodic infrastructure calls. There were three calls over the period from 2015 to 2021. There was a total of 76 awardees over the period from 2015 to 2020, with a total awarded of €127 million and an average award value of €1.7 million. Funding of €53.3 million across 33 awards was made under the 2021 programme. The Minister is aware of the concerns raised by the IUA and will continue to monitor this issue within the confines of available resources and competing needs.
I thank the Minister of State for his answer. In his EU affairs brief, he will be aware of the importance of European Research Council, ERC, grants, how competitive they are, and how wonderful it is when researchers in Ireland are able to access them. If our researchers do not have the basic equipment with which to work, they can move with those ERC grants to anywhere within the EU. For us to continue to be competitive on the research space, in Europe and globally, we must have the basic equipment. It is about providing our researchers with the basic tools. Yes the SFI grants are wonderful and very important for the big shiny tools, if you like, but for the basics in the laboratories and in the areas of research, we must provide those tools. Whether it is through funding directed through the Higher Education Authority or whatever, we must look at providing the basic resources. We are really approaching a crisis situation here where there is a difficulty in attracting and retaining top researchers in Ireland. I ask the Minister of State, Deputy Burke, to take the issue to the Minister, Deputy Harris, as a priority that we address this challenge.
I thank Senator Byrne again for raising this very important issue. The Senator is absolutely quite right that we need to ensure our higher education sector is equipped with the resources it needs to make the State competitive and to put Ireland at the forefront and at the cutting edge of innovation. Obviously, with regard to the €2.9 billion that I referred to, there is a huge amount of funding there in relation to research and innovation that needs to be spent. That is a critical component of the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. The new title includes the word "delivery". We need to get that delivery into universities and third level institutions to ensure they are equipped with the best possible tools.
I will also raise with the Minister the further issues the Senator brought up on the floor of the House and I will ask him to revert back to the Senator directly.
Cuireadh an Seanad ar fionraí ar 10.08 a.m. agus cuireadh tús leis arís ar 10.31 a.m.
Sitting suspended at 10.08 a.m. and resumed at 10.31 a.m.