Mary Lou McDonald
Question:16. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach the groups chaired by the Secretary General of his Department. [3188/22]
View answerWednesday, 2 February 2022
Questions (16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
Dara Calleary
Question:17. Deputy Dara Calleary asked the Taoiseach the groups chaired by the Secretary General of his Department. [4634/22]
View answer
Cian O'Callaghan
Question:18. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach the groups chaired by the Secretary General of his Department. [4706/22]
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Peadar Tóibín
Question:19. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Taoiseach if a list of the groups which are chaired by the Secretary General of his Department will be provided. [4715/22]
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Alan Kelly
Question:20. Deputy Alan Kelly asked the Taoiseach the groups chaired by the Secretary General of his Department. [4806/22]
View answerOral answers (11 contributions)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 16 to 20, inclusive, together.
The Secretary General of my Department has responsibility for the effective management and functioning of the Department which operates at the centre of Government. The core activities of the Department are set out in the statement of strategy and include delivering the executive functions of the Taoiseach and Government and supporting me as Head of Government to carry out my duties and implement the Government's priorities over the coming period.
My Department engages with the formulation and implementation of Government policy, especially through the Cabinet committee structure and ten such committees have been established by this Government to reflect the full range of policy areas that it will work on during its lifetime. In carrying out the responsibilities associated with his role, the Secretary General of my Department may also attend a range of cross-government groups, including the ten Cabinet committees established by the Government.
The groups currently chaired by the Secretary General of my Department include the Secretary General post-Cabinet briefing; Civil Service management board; climate action delivery board which is co-chaired with the Secretary General of the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications; Housing for All delivery group; Secretary General Brexit group; Covid-19 oversight group; high-level steering board on policing reform; national security committee; north-east inner city oversight group; senior officials group on commemorations; senior officials group on the Creative Ireland programme; cross-government group on the creation of a national memorial and records centre; and national economic and social council. The Secretary General also chairs regular meetings of the Department's management board.
The Taoiseach notes the Secretary General's work on the national memorial and records centre. This is an important commitment by the Government and its delivery will ensure that Ireland meets its moral and human rights obligations to the women and children who endured institutional abuse overseen by the State. The Government's action plan for mother and baby home survivors commits funding to support this process. Will the Taoiseach confirm the budget allocated for this year and next? Will he state when he expects the Secretary General to conclude his work on what role the Oireachtas will have in this process?
I also want to raise the views of the special rapporteur on child protection on the final report of the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes. Professor Conor O'Mahony advises that:
Any redress scheme which excludes children who were subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, forced labour [or] medical experimentation in [through] non-consensual vaccine trials would be inherently defective and a denial of the right to an effective remedy.
Yet, this is precisely what the Government has done by applying an arbitrary timeframe to enable access to the scheme. The special rapporteur recommends that:
redress for rights violations in foster homes should not be confined to children who were [boarded out] as an exit pathway from Mother and Baby Homes or County Homes, but should encompass all children who experienced ill-treatment or forced labour in foster homes.
Has the Taoiseach considered extending access to the redress scheme, following publication of the Annual Report of the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection?
The Taoiseach has outlined part of the role of the Secretary General. I acknowledge the service of the incumbent who I know will move on to a different position. Does the Taoiseach have any plans to review the responsibilities of the position? Will he outline the recruitment process for the new person to fulfil the role?
I will ask the Taoiseach about the Stardust inquest. The families who lost their loved ones in the Stardust have been waiting almost 41 years for truth and justice. It is completely unacceptable that their grief and trauma has been compounded by uncertainties and delays around the inquest. No venue is confirmed for when the inquest will take place and no arrangements are in place to ensure there will be a jury for it. When will a venue for the inquest be confirmed? Will the Juries Act 1976 be amended to ensure a jury will be in place for the inquest?
There have been many requests, including those I have made, that the Taoiseach's Department take responsibility for an area that crosses many departmental demarcations as a result of which there is no proper integrated and cohesive approach, namely, disability. The Taoiseach has to look at this again. I will give him a simple example.
I have raised ACTS with him a few times, the door-to-door transport service for people in wheelchairs and with disabilities in my area. It could go under at the end of this month for the lack of €50,000 and the replacement of some of its buses. That voluntary-run, door-to-door service is advertised on Transport for Ireland as a service available for people with mobility problems who cannot use the normal transport system. It does not get one cent from the Department of Transport and is about to collapse, because it is voluntary run, for the lack of €50,000 for running costs and money to replace some of its buses for some of the most vulnerable people.
Why on earth is there no joined-up thinking between transport and disability, for example, to maintain an absolutely critical service for such vulnerable people? That is an example of why we need the Taoiseach's Department to spearhead the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, and a cohesive approach to disability services.
Last week, the Taoiseach warned here about the danger of spiralling wage costs and a wage price upward spiral. Does that include Secretaries General under this Government? One such civil servant has now got two pay rises in the past four months. His wages have jumped more than €80,000 to almost €300,000, which is almost as much as those of the President of the United States. He got a 36% raise, while low-paid public sector workers are told to make do with 1% and private sector workers have to gear up for industrial action, just to fight for a raise above the rate of inflation. How can the Taoiseach justify this gross inequality? Will he act to cut the bloated salaries of those at the very top of the Civil Service or, at the very least, will he support similar rises for ordinary workers across both the public and private sectors?
Deputy McDonald raised a number of key issues in terms of memorialisation. There has been considerable engagement with survivors and former residents. Memorialisation is considered a very important part of the healing process for those affected and the State should progress the national memorial records centre. The Secretary General has chaired that group and funding has been secured. I intend to bring a memo to Government in the coming weeks in respect of this, with an overarching vision and a proposed approach for the creation of a national centre.
There will be other aspects to that as well. I hope to have further details for the House in relation to that. It will be a significant investment but it has to be done right as well, obviously in consultation with all involved. That work has been progressing and it is fairly advanced. We intend to bring that to Government.
In respect of the report of the rapporteur, there is a significant process involved in the redress scheme. The Minister went beyond the recommendations of the commission. There was an interdepartmental group. The Minister went beyond that also in recommending to Government that we extend the range of the redress scheme.
In respect of children who were boarded out, that is very challenging. The Minister is looking at further means of trying to develop a better analysis in respect of children who were boarded out because it was not really central to the commission's report. It is also a more challenging area in terms of records and so on. It is a piece of work the Minister is looking at.
The redress legislation is before the House. The Minister is engaging with Members and will continue to do that. The redress scheme is extensive and is allied to all of the other initiatives that were taken. The Minister will engage with the House and Members as the legislation goes through in respect of it.
On the Stardust inquiry, there had been a venue, as Deputy Cian O'Callaghan will be aware. It was through no fault of the Minister for Justice that it fell through. I think it was in the RDS. Every effort is being made to secure premises as quickly as we possibly can. I will come back to the Deputy in respect of the Juries Act.
Deputy Calleary spoke of-----
I was next.
I am sorry. On disability, I agree with the need for a more singular focus on disability. The Government took a decision to move disability out of the Department of Health and over to the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth because it was felt that health was such an enormous area that disability was perhaps not getting a co-ordinated focus. The view was that we would move it.
Disability is wide-ranging. I was involved in the area for many years as Minister for Education and Science and we did a lot of good stuff. We were able to do it much quicker in the education system, in terms of special needs assistants, etc. I am of a view - there have been pilots on this - that therapists being in the classroom may be a faster way of getting access for children to occupational therapy and speech and language therapy. We have provided additional funding this year for more therapists in the health service through the progressing disability programme but that has created its own problems in terms of how it is being developed and progressed.
I hear what the Deputy is saying in terms of the Department of the Taoiseach co-ordinating this, and I will look at that. However, the Deputy will see from the list that the Department of the Taoiseach has been expanding over the years in terms of that co-ordinating role. He can see it in the range of issues involved, from policing reform to climate change co-ordination. The trend seems to be in that direction whereas, under the Constitution, we have functioning Departments whose primary responsibility is the delivery of services that fall within their remit. That is something the Oireachtas needs to reflect on too, as the Government is also doing.
We can keep on expanding. I notice now, for example, that an Oireachtas committee may produce a report and then non-governmental organisations will come forward on specific policy areas and all of them will recommend that the Department of the Taoiseach do this or that. The bandwidth or operational capacity is not there within the Department of the Taoiseach to do all of that. However, it can do so effectively on some key areas. In housing, there is a strong delivery mechanism chaired by the Secretary General of my Department which works with the Secretaries General of the Departments of Finance, Housing, Local Government and Heritage, and Public Expenditure and Reform to make sure there is a full-on public service response to housing across all Departments. Those delivery mechanisms can work. It worked spectacularly in the late 1980s for financial services in which there are now between 30,000 and 40,000 people working. That took a delivery focus. Likewise with climate change, it has to happen in terms of delivery focus. The key issue for Government to deliver is that cross-departmental co-ordinated piece. Departments should not work in silos but in a non-territorial way, if I may use that phrase, and just get things done. That is my constant agenda. I hear what the Deputy is saying in relation to disability and I will come back to him on that.
To respond to Deputy Calleary, there will be an expression of interest sought for the post in question when it becomes vacant in the public service, along with the traditional way that this post has been filled. I hear the Deputy's acknowledgement of the public service the current incumbent has performed over many years in different capacities within the public service on issues of key national importance, as well as international importance, for example, Europe, Brexit and Northern Ireland, the economy and, not least, Covid-19. We have a good public service in this country overall. It has its weaknesses and its challenges, but the public servants in this country work in a committed way for the benefit of the country. I want to put that on the record. It is important.
Deputy Paul Murphy raised the issue of a wage-price spiral. Wages have increased. As I said last week, if wages increase in line with productivity, that is okay. Those comments were made in the context of the cost-of-living crisis. The Government has to look at ways to protect people against what is undoubtedly a very serious issue now in terms of cost-of-living increases and do so in a way that is not inflationary but protects people's disposable incomes, particularly their access to the necessities of life.
In relation to the Department of Health and the Secretary General, I have been clear about this. The Executive took a decision on this from a different perspective, and looking at it through a different prism. The health arena needs absolute focus and significant reforms right across all layers. Of all Departments, it oversees an enormous budget and a range of other issues.
Thank you, Taoiseach. We are over time.
Apart from the firefighting on a lot of issues that arise every day, there needs to be a fundamental paradigm shift in health. The Deputy and I can agree or disagree. The approach taken in relation to the HSE was the correct one; likewise with the Garda Commissioner and so on.
Is féidir teacht ar Cheisteanna Scríofa ar www.oireachtas.ie.
Written Answers are published on the Oireachtas website.
Cuireadh an Dáil ar fionraí ag 1.58 p.m. agus cuireadh tús leis arís ag 2.58 p.m.
Sitting suspended at 1.58 p.m. and resumed at 2.58 p.m.