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Cabinet Committee Meetings

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 February 2019

Tuesday, 26 February 2019

Questions (10, 11, 12, 13)

Michael Moynihan

Question:

10. Deputy Michael Moynihan asked the Taoiseach the number and type of Cabinet committees held since January 2019. [8460/19]

View answer

Mary Lou McDonald

Question:

11. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach the number and type of Cabinet committee meetings held since January 2019. [9290/19]

View answer

Richard Boyd Barrett

Question:

12. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach the number and type of Cabinet committees held since January 2019. [9305/19]

View answer

Brendan Howlin

Question:

13. Deputy Brendan Howlin asked the Taoiseach the number and type of Cabinet committee meetings held since January 2019. [9514/19]

View answer

Oral answers (20 contributions)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 10 to 13, inclusive, together.

I chaired a meeting of Cabinet committee D, which deals with infrastructure, on 31 January and a meeting of Cabinet committee B, social policy and public services, on 21 February.

Cabinet committee D works to ensure a coordinated approach to the delivery of work and the ongoing development of policy across the areas of infrastructure investment and delivery, housing and climate action. It also provides political oversight on Project Ireland 2040. Significant work is underway across each of these areas through Departments and agencies and a range of interdepartmental groups such as the climate action high level steering group and the Project Ireland 2040 delivery board.

Cabinet committee B covers social policy and public services including education, children, social inclusion; Irish language, arts and culture; and continued improvements and reform of public services.

In addition, these matters are regularly considered at meetings of the Government itself.

The Taoiseach will remember that in 2017 he informed the House he was reorganising the Cabinet committee structures so they would become more active. A pattern has since emerged of Cabinet committees being, at best, marginal to the issues they are supposed to be handling. The facts demonstrate that in areas such as health, housing, Brexit, Northern Ireland and other areas of public concern, the Cabinet sub-committees have made irregularly. The Taoiseach recently justified this by stating he preferred to have the discussions at a full Cabinet meeting. The implication of that stance is that he prefers to have the discussion without the detail of advanced work circulated to Departments, without key officials present and as part of much fuller agendas and limited time.

These discussions are also sometimes held without putting them on the agenda. That at least is what is implied by the failure of his staff to note these discussions when explaining the Cabinet agenda in different contexts. That includes the press briefings on Tuesday afternoons. Turning to the infrastructure committee, which I think met in January, it is clear it is not on top of the national plan at all or has very little relationship with it. That is evident from the massive overspend on the national children’s hospital, for example. That overspend will have an impact on the wider national development plan and the capacity to deliver other projects is undermined.

This recurs repeatedly with different committees which seem very much out of touch with various crises in different Departments. Will the Taoiseach explain why he thinks it is better, overall, not to have detailed advanced staff work done or key officials present when discussing these important issues? What used to happen at Cabinet sub-committees was a more intensive and specific look at issues. It was not just a case of a glance during a plenary session of the Cabinet.

If I have understood the Taoiseach's response correctly, there has been no Cabinet committee discussion or meeting on health so far in 2019. I am sure the Taoiseach is aware that the Euro Health Consumer Index, EHCI, 2018 was published yesterday. It again found that we have the worst hospital waiting lists in Europe. This is consistent with the latest figures published by National Treatment Purchase Fund earlier this month. Those figures show that hospital waiting lists have reached record levels. More than 523,000 patients were waiting for an outpatient consultation and more than 72,000 waiting for an inpatient procedure.

The situation regarding hospital waiting lists is out of control. The Taoiseach’s Government and his Minister for Health continue with flawed and failed plans. We need sustained intelligent investment in the public health system to tackle these waiting lists. That needs to be done through the full implementation of Sláintecare to ensure there are significant financial and health benefits for the State and patients in the long term. Is the Taoiseach’s Department still involved in the delivery of Sláintecare? What precise role does his Department have?

Have any of the Cabinet sub-committees discussed the issue of the plan to impose a VAT rate of 23% on food supplements? That plan led people to protest outside the Dáil again this morning. Deputy Gino Kenny and I challenged the Minister on this issue a couple of weeks ago. The response was that it was nothing to do with the Government. It was an issue for the Revenue Commissioners. I suggest to the Taoiseach that is nonsense. An EU directive states that food supplements are food. The Revenue has, however, now made a distinction between food and food supplements. After years of applying a 0% VAT rate, it has decided to lash a rate of 23% on those supplements. That will put many people out of business. It will also ensure that those supplements, which the EU considers as food and which are very important for the health of ordinary people, will now be out of the reach of many people.

It is important to state that less well-off people will be hit hardest by this. Rich people will be able to absorb a 23% increase and still buy their supplements. Less well-off people will not be able to access these supplements. The Government is standing back as if to say that this has nothing to do with it. Actually, it does have something to do with it. This is about people's health and about fairness. This is a frankly fairly bizarre interpretation on the part of Revenue. There is a clear directive from Europe stating that food supplements are food. As a result, they should not be the subject of this 23% increase.

I have already raised the issue of food supplements. I have raised it at least three times and, notwithstanding what he stated earlier, I ask the Taoiseach to reflect on this matter further. Fundamental tax policy should not be made by Revenue as if it was not the purview of the Government or this House. I ask the Taoiseach to reflect on that again.

I wish to ask a specific question about the operation of Cabinet sub-committees. The Taoiseach has redesigned the latter from those with which I was familiar during my time in government. Is he satisfied that they are working? The Taoiseach likes a catch-all phrase and, obviously, a catch-all Government website. However, I question the notion that the Government can deal with health or housing or can drive the Garda reform agenda via a general committee. The former practice took a lot of time virtually every Monday, with a long time spent on issues by specific committees. I happen to be an ex officio member of all the Cabinet sub-committees. All the key officials were there and the Government was able to deal with issues. Obviously, experimentation is a good thing, but is the Taoiseach satisfied that the new general committee, in which a number of different topics are amalgamated, are working?

If I heard the Taoiseach correctly, there was one Cabinet sub-committee meeting in January and one in February. This means that, allowing for a month off in August, there are a maximum of 11 Cabinet sub-committee meetings each year. The Taoiseach has told us about his dislike of the system of Cabinet sub-committees. That may be an explanation for some of the matters in respect of which there are real holes in this Government's performance. I put it to the Taoiseach that perhaps he is not getting the kind of detailed information he, as leader of the Government, requires and which the other members of his Cabinet also need. For example, how many Cabinet sub-committees on average does the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, attend? How many are he, the leader of the other party in government, and the two Independents entitled to attend? The Taoiseach presumably meets his Fine Gael colleagues quite a lot. How does he arrange to meet the other Government partners, namely, Deputy Ross's party and the two Independent Ministers? Perhaps the Taoiseach arranges to meet them privately, but he is very busy and I doubt he has that much time to do all of that. This could be the explanation for the problem in housing. Perhaps this is why there is such a blind spot regarding matters such as social and affordable housing, notwithstanding the increases in other forms of housing. We are all genuinely perplexed. This Government has a lot of resources and came into a very good situation. Its failure to deliver on housing, health and an number of other issues is pretty disappointing.

I thank the Deputies for their questions. There are a lot of Cabinet meetings. I very much believe in Cabinet Government, collective responsibility and including all Ministers in decision-making.

What about officials?

That is the best way, particularly when there is only a small number of Independents at the table. The best way to include them in decision-making is to make all the big decisions at Cabinet meetings when they are present.

There are no officials to interrogate ideas.

They would not all be present at every Cabinet meeting. The best way to ensure a cohesive Government - with everyone present when the big decisions are made - is to make them at Cabinet meetings when every Minister is present. I really did not like the Economic Management Council, EMC, system which operated under the previous Government. I appreciate that two former members of the EMC are here and they are perhaps protective of that system.

It was an economic crisis. They were different times.

I very much disliked it because it created an inner Cabinet made up of members who made decisions. They bounced them at the last minute on the whole Cabinet, without an opportunity for due consideration. Documents of 20 or 30 pages would often arrive in front of Ministers at 1.10 p.m. on a Tuesday. That is no longer the practice in this Government.

It stopped us from learning about policy in The Sunday Business Post.

It is a vast improvement on what we had in the previous Government where collective decision-making is concerned. Everyone is actually involved in making the decision. People get papers before the meeting happens rather than big decisions being made at the last minute, often following a diktat from the EMC and its members.

Cabinet meets once a week, sometimes more frequently. We will have two meetings next week and possibly a third. That is the way I like to run things. There are also lots of Cabinet sub-committees. We have one nearly every week. It depends on the issues arising. The Brexit committee now almost never meets because we discuss Brexit at every single Cabinet meeting. There is also a separate officials' group. Brexit affects everyone and I want everyone around the table. We spent the best part of an hour on it today and will do so again next week.

There are often areas that do not involve everyone but do involve several Departments, and that is where the Cabinet sub-committees come in very useful. Deputy Howlin mentioned the Garda reform programme. Our response to the O'Toole commission's recommendations went to the Cabinet sub-committee before it went to the full Cabinet, because that did not involve everyone but it did involve a critical mass of Ministers. Last week, the Cabinet sub-committee on infrastructure focused on the inter-agency report on homelessness. That did not impact on everyone but it did impact on four or five Departments which were represented, including the Departments of Health, Justice and Equality and Employment Affairs and Social Protection. We also discussed the advances that the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, is making on realising the affordable childcare scheme at a Cabinet sub-committee meeting last week.

Different mechanisms are available. Everyone is present at Cabinet; all the politicians who hold ministerial office are around the table with the Secretary General of the Government. Cabinet sub-committees can also come in useful but there is a downside to them. With so many Ministers on each committee plus their officials and advisers, these are meetings of 30 or 40 people. Anyone who attends meetings knows the difference between getting things done at a meeting of ten people and a meeting of 40 people. I also meet Ministers bilaterally. I am in the process of meeting Ministers individually, along with their Secretaries General and their main advisers, in order to review progress and work in the various Departments.

Deputy McDonald mentioned the Euro Health Consumer Index, which was released in the last few days. She neglected to mention that the ranking of the quality of our health services went up by two points. It is major news when we go down but when we go up it barely makes the news at all. It is important to take these things with a pinch of salt. It is a private company based in Sweden. It is not the World Health Organization or The Lancet, but it is still an interesting index.

In regard to waiting lists, the Deputy is quite right. That is an area where we have not made sufficient progress. However there are different waiting lists. The waiting lists for operations and procedures is very much going in the right direction. As of the end of last year, the number of patients waiting for an operation or a procedure-----

That is because of a Fianna Fáil initiative.

-----on a hip, an eye or a cataract or for a knee replacement was at a four-year or five-year low. It went up in January as a consequence of the time lost around the nurses' strike and it will go up in February too for the same reason. In March, it will once again be on a downward trajectory. That means that most public patients waiting for an operation or procedure in Ireland now wait between three and six months, which is a significant improvement on where we were not too long ago. We are not making much progress on outpatients and we need a new approach there. Approximately, 300,000 people have been waiting for more than 12 weeks. I refer to the period of 12 weeks because that is the Sláintecare target. The headline figures on waiting lists often include people who have been waiting for one, two or six weeks. There will always be people waiting one, two or six weeks, but the Sláintecare figure refers to those waiting for more than 12 weeks and that is the figure I always look out for. There are now roughly 300,000 people who have been waiting for more than 12 weeks to see a specialist, but 500,000 appointments are no-shows.

There is a real problem there in terms of planning and efficiency that we have not got on top of. There are potential solutions but many of them are IT-based and other things need to be done too.

The implementation of Sláintecare is run out of the Sláintecare implementation office, which is in the Department of Health, but I will put some officials on that. In the same way as I have officials designated to monitor the implementation of the Garda reform package and the justice reform package, I will assign officials to do the same with Sláintecare.

On the question of VAT on supplements, I answered questions on that earlier during Questions on Promised Legislation so I will not repeat myself-----

I challenged the Taoiseach's answer.

-----but, to summarise, this is a Revenue determination. The policy is that for oral medicines and for fresh food the VAT rate is 0% but for processed food VAT does apply.

That concludes Taoiseach's questions.

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