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National Economic and Social Council

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 1 March 2022

Tuesday, 1 March 2022

Questions (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)

Mary Lou McDonald

Question:

2. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the National Economic and Social Council, an agency under the aegis of his Department. [7524/22]

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Alan Kelly

Question:

3. Deputy Alan Kelly asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the National Economic and Social Council. [9492/22]

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Mick Barry

Question:

4. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the National Economic and Social Council. [9694/22]

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Cian O'Callaghan

Question:

5. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the National Economic and Social Council. [9764/22]

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John Lahart

Question:

6. Deputy John Lahart asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the National Economic and Social Council. [10084/22]

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Cormac Devlin

Question:

7. Deputy Cormac Devlin asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the National Economic and Social Council. [10086/22]

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James O'Connor

Question:

8. Deputy James O'Connor asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the National Economic and Social Council. [10088/22]

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Richard Boyd Barrett

Question:

9. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the National Economic and Social Council an agency under the aegis of his Department. [11431/22]

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Paul Murphy

Question:

10. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the National Economic and Social Council, an agency under the aegis of his Department. [11434/22]

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Cian O'Callaghan

Question:

11. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the National Economic and Social Council. [11571/22]

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Oral answers (10 contributions)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 2 to 11, inclusive, together.

The National Economic and Social Council, NESC, advises me on strategic policy issues relating to sustainable economic, social and environmental development in Ireland. The NESC work programme in 2022 includes five main areas. It will carry out a major piece of research and consultation on climate, biodiversity and how to achieve a just transition in agriculture. It will continue to help us deepen our understanding of how to deliver more affordable and sustainable housing systems, drawing on international and national experience, including ongoing work in Ireland on cost rental.

NESC is supporting work on Ireland's well-being framework by examining how well-being frameworks are implemented in practice. It has undertaken an extensive programme of research and consultation to support the shared island initiative. It will produce a report on the shared island in quarter 1 of 2022, which will make recommendations in five key areas, namely, economy and infrastructural investment; social policy; climate and biodiversity; well-being frameworks; and data co-ordination. It will examine aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic to help identify strategic lessons about public governance and how Government can be supported to arrange and manage its activity to deliver the best results for society.

The council published five reports in 2021; Grounding the Recovery in Sustainable Development: A Statement from the Council, report No. 152; Shared Island: Projects, Progress & Policy Scoping Paper, report No. 153; Digital Inclusion in Ireland: Connectivity, Devices & Skills, report No. 154; Ireland's Well-Being Framework: Consultation Report, report No. 155 and Collaboration on Climate and Biodiversity: Shared Island as a Catalyst for Renewed Ambition & Action, report No. 156. As reports are finalised in the relevant areas, they are brought to Government for approval in advance of publication.

The council's shared island perspective on mental health, published a few weeks ago, concludes that "there is scope for development, and much value to be found, in increased cross-border co-operation". The research finds that "many aspects of mental health services and promotion are well-suited to cross-border working, such as [for example,] ... on-line supports, mental health promotion, and training and education". Increased cross-Border work is viewed by stakeholders as "positive and desirable" and it was found that specific areas of co-operation, such as suicide prevention or the treatment of eating disorders, would add a very significant value to care. As other research commissioned by the shared island unit has found, community and voluntary organisations are already informally working on a cross-Border basis and, as a result, there is a real appetite to formalise these arrangements, to have processes and bodies that can continuously support such co-operation.

Existing co-operation on mental health has played a crucial role in establishing connections and maintaining co-operation and interaction between the health services, North and South. Does the Taoiseach agree with the council's recommendation that Government should build on this progress and that a more specific and formalised mental health cross-Border structure should be established? Will the Taoiseach confirm the next steps from the shared island unit to advance the council's paper on mental health?

Climate breakdown is accelerating rapidly. That is the conclusion of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, report, which notes "Human-induced climate change is causing dangerous and widespread disruption in nature" and is affecting the lives of more than 3 billion people. It is fair to say that this report reckons that the situation is more severe than previously reckoned. Moreover, it flows from that reckoning that COP26 and the Government's commitments fall short of what is needed. I am in favour of democratic public ownership of the big corporations and the wealth in society in order that we can plan for the needs of people rather than profit and for a sustainable future. I do not expect the Taoiseach to support that position.

However, will he comment on the following point? The Government's position on data centres is clearly now insufficient. A ban on more data centres is needed. A carbon tax is needed on the big polluters, as opposed to on the shoulders of ordinary people. In addition, the Government's retrofit policy is insufficient. How can the council tenants avail? How can renters avail? How can those who cannot afford to match the State funds avail? A new scheme is needed, which provides for the needs of everybody and not just a section of society.

I thank the Taoiseach for his update on work of the National Economic and Social Council, NESC, particularly with regard to climate and biodiversity, housing and the shared island initiative. Like all Deputies across this House, I have been appalled by the war of aggression being waged by Russia and now, it would appear, Belarus, against the people of Ukraine.

News last week that the Irish visa requirements will be lifted is very welcome, as is the €10 million relief fund. Families in my constituency of Dún Laoghaire are making arrangements to host friends and family from Ukraine. Will the Taoiseach provide an update on Ireland's short- and medium-term plans to accommodate people fleeing Ukraine? Will he appoint a Minister to co-ordinate efforts?

I thank An Taoiseach for his update to the House with regard to the NESC. I wish to ask about the issue of housing, which was an important part of the body's work. In the context of the upcoming mortgage rules review by the Central Bank, I encourage the NESC to undertake a body of work to do analysis for long-term renters in our society, of whom tens of thousands of young working professionals are in that category, about how it may be able to lend money under a more sustainable economic policy from the Central Bank which, of course, is independent of much oversight from the Government through legislation that was brought in in the past. It would be appropriate for this unit, under the remit of the Department of the Taoiseach, to carry out analysis of this particular area ahead of the review, which will be finalised later in the year 2022.

The Taoiseach referred to the NESC report No. 28, which came out in December. One of the things to which that report referred was the issue of incorporating social and economic rights into policymaking. Today, the Minister referred the issue of housing to the Housing Commission in respect of a possible referendum.

I want to pin the Taoiseach down as to what his view is on this issue. People Before Profit put forward a constitutional amendment Bill, which was passed by the Dáil, seeking to incorporate the right to secure, affordable housing into the Constitution, and for the State to prioritise resources towards the vindication of the right to housing in the midst of an absolutely dire housing crisis.

That would then give protection to tenants facing evictions by vulture funds or would give us the power to take over vacant properties that could be used to house people affected by the housing crisis which, arguably, the Constitution currently prevents although, frankly, that is an issue of dispute. It would allow us to bring in rent controls without any threat of legal action.

Is that what the Government is actually going to do now? In fact, the aforementioned Bill that was passed by the Dáil would achieve this. Is the Taoiseach in favour of putting the right to secure, affordable housing into the Constitution to vindicate that right?

It is nine months since the Dáil endorsed our Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution (Right to Housing) Bill 2020 to which Deputy Boyd Barrett referred. The Dáil agreed to call a referendum to insert the right to a home into the Irish Constitution.

Nine months on, we have no date for this referendum. No progress has been made on that but we heard reports today that the Cabinet is discussing it. We need to know what wording is going to be proposed by the Government. There has been much vagueness about that. It is in the programme for Government in a very vague way. What is the timing?

At the root of the housing crisis is that housing in Ireland and most countries around the world is seen as an investment, a commodity and a way to make money rather than a fundamental human right. Basically, the rights of cuckoo funds, real estate investment trusts, REITs, and developers to profit takes precedence over the rights of tenants and people seeking to have access to their own homes.

When will the Taoiseach set the date? What will the wording be? Will he guarantee that this will happen while he is still Taoiseach rather than being yet another Taoiseach who fails to deliver on the right to housing for people?

I thank all the Deputies for raising these issues. In the first instance, I support NESC's work with regard to the shared island unit and the work it has done in terms of greater potential for cross-Border co-operation projects, particularly in respect of health, which has been one of the more effective cross-Border areas over a long time and, in particular, in respect of paediatric health and cardiovascular health in paediatrics. The one cardiac surgical centre on the island enjoyed political support across the island irrespective of political background.

That scope and potential also exists for mental health. The shared island unit stands ready to financially support any cross-Border project that is developed by respective mental health agencies, North or South. I would be very keen to progress that whether it is in a variety of areas under the mental health umbrella or otherwise. That is something we will continue to work practically towards realising.

In respect of Deputy Barry's points on climate change, I accept the conclusions of the IPCC report but we need to start matching the rhetoric with reality. Any time the Government proposes anything, it gets opposed. In his contribution, the Deputy said he wants data centres banned, retrofit spread more widely and carbon tax abolished. I simply do not know how he is going to do all that.

We will be including council tenants and council houses will be retrofitted. There is a separate programme for that and a programme under the retrofit scheme for low-income families in respect of energy efficiency. An unprecedented allocation of funding has been provided under the retrofit programme. In fact, we aim to do in ten years what we did in the last 20 years. We want to double the numbers we did since the year 2000 over the next ten years. We also will be providing substantial grants to people to insulate attics and walls and so forth and then to do a deeper retrofit.

The resources we are providing are extraordinary but they have to be raised for the scheme to be sustainable over the ten-year period. That is why we put the carbon tax into law, which gets attacked all the time. Whatever measure we bring in to deal with climate gets attacked or undermined, which leads me to believe that people want to keep delaying dealing with climate change. That is the biggest danger we face in this country and all over the world. People want to keep delaying the action that is necessary and that will involve a bit of pain and readjustment. People want to keep on delaying it; we can no longer do so. People may attack our targets and say they are not ambitious enough, but God knows they are quite ambitious, and they will be very challenging over the next five years.

Whatever chance we have, however, we need co-operation and everybody on board because they are extraordinarily challenging. All sectors will have to play their part in respect of climate change. The NESC has pointed all this out in its reports. Likewise, the most recent report is quite depressing in terms of where the world is heading in respect of climate change and biodiversity. We must make very strong efforts around biodiversity.

I was in Fota Wildlife Park at the weekend to meet the executives there in terms of their plans. The work they are doing in biodiversity is quite extraordinary-----

Tell Coillte to stop selling the forests.

-----and quite effective in terms of European wild bison, for example. A programme is being led from the wildlife park in terms of various species of toads. We need to be funding organisations like Fota Wildlife Park, Dublin Zoo and those which are involved in global interbreeding, breeding programmes around wildlife and protecting endangered species. That is what we need to be doing more of but we need resources to do that. We need a re-engineering of our economy towards the green economy and also the decarbonised economy.

We have to change how data centres are developed in terms of back-up generation but also in terms of renewables being used by those who wish to construct them, and offsetting technologies being deployed by such companies. We have, therefore, a twin-track approach on the economy, which incorporates digitalisation. Digital transformation will happen but all that has to be borne along with the green economy. NESC has reported on all those issues.

Deputy Devlin raised a key point. He summed it up when he said that we have to do things differently this time in respect of the human trauma and crisis that will emerge as a result of the appalling assault on the Ukrainian people. The Deputy referred to families in his constituency who would gladly house people. We will need that in addition to what the State can do in order to deal with the sheer numbers that could come into the EU and, by extension, Ireland. We have to play our part as an EU member state in sharing the burden and by being generous and open. We have to talk to our educational partners and stakeholders to facilitate children to attend our schools. There is also the social protection aspect.

Deputy O'Connor raised a matter that I will ask NESC about. He made a very good point about long-term renters in Ireland, as well as what are the correct policy frameworks to deal with them. NESC has done some work on this already. I will ask NESC about a more comprehensive approach to that issue. I appreciate the Deputy’s interest in it.

Deputy Boyd Barrett referred to the Housing Commission, which earlier announced details of the referendum sub-committee that will examine the complex constitutional issues around housing rights. The Housing Commission will propose appropriate wording to the Government for a referendum on this matter. The sub-committee is being chaired by Dr. Ailbhe O'Neill, who is a barrister with extensive practical experience in constitutional law, a former adviser to two referendum commissions and a member of the school of law at Trinity College Dublin. She is joined on the sub-committee by Sorcha Edwards, secretary general of Housing Europe, Pat Doyle, CEO of the Peter McVerry Trust, and Patricia King, general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. In addition to these four members of the Housing Commission, the sub-committee has been supplemented by external members, including Mr. Justice Frank Clarke, the former Chief Justice and a former referendum commissioner, Gerard Whyte, professor of law at Trinity College Dublin, Rosalind Dixon, professor of law at the University of New South Wales, and Madeline MacKenzie, parliamentary counsel in the Scottish Government’s Parliamentary Counsel Office. I am sure that the Deputies will agree that that is a very strong sub-committee. It will focus on this very important issue, in respect of which there is a commitment in the programme for Government.

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