Mary Lou McDonald
Question:1. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach when the annual report of his Department for 2021 will be published. [12411/22]
View answerTuesday, 29 March 2022
Questions (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
Richard Boyd Barrett
Question:2. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach when the annual report of his Department for 2021 will be published. [14270/22]
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Paul Murphy
Question:3. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach when the annual report of his Department for 2021 will be published. [14273/22]
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Paul McAuliffe
Question:4. Deputy Paul McAuliffe asked the Taoiseach when his Department’s annual report for 2021 will be published. [14354/22]
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Mick Barry
Question:5. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Taoiseach when the annual report of his Department for 2021 will be published. [15475/22]
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Ivana Bacik
Question:6. Deputy Ivana Bacik asked the Taoiseach when the annual report of his Department for 2021 will be published. [16203/22]
View answerOral answers (10 contributions)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 6, inclusive, together.
My Department's annual report for 2021 will be finalised and published in the coming months and will set out the work of my Department in 2021 to deliver on the strategic priorities set out in the Department's three-year statement of strategy. My Department continues to work at the centre to ensure that policies developed support the Government's commitment to develop Ireland in a sustainable way which supports economic development and social progress. It achieves this mainly through the Cabinet committee structure.
Through the work of the ten Cabinet committees, supported by my Department, a range of cross-government work has been advanced during 2021 under the new strategy statement, including: management of the whole-of-government response to Covid-19, including the national vaccination programme roll-out; the economic recovery plan, which was published in June, and implementation of which is helping to drive a jobs-rich recovery and which will support the economy in transitioning towards a decarbonised and digital economy; publication of the Housing for All plan, an ambitious and far-reaching plan to address the provision of housing, to increase the supply of housing and to provide a sustainable housing system into the future; supporting cross-government work to manage the ongoing economic and political impacts of Brexit; driving the delivery of our commitments on a shared island on a whole-of-government basis, through the shared island unit in my Department and the shared island fund; supporting Ireland's role in Europe and the world, including through my participation in the European Council, Ireland's seat on the UN Security Council and with respect to continuing EU-UK discussions on the Northern Ireland protocol; delivery of an initial well-being framework for Ireland and a supporting information hub, which are being developed to better understand and measure our progress as a country; the establishment of a social dialogue unit in my Department, which is working to co-ordinate and support the Government's overall approach to social dialogue; work on the Future of Media Commission, which has now concluded its work; completion of the work of the Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality; the launch of the revised national development plan, setting out the roadmap for investment of €165 billion in new and upgraded infrastructure over the decade ahead; supporting the development of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 and the Climate Action Plan 2021, which are key elements of a suite of measures introduced to fundamentally alter Ireland's approach to climate change; and three legislative programmes published during 2021 setting out priority legislation across government.
My question concerns the expulsion of four senior officials from the Russian embassy in Dublin. I understand these four senior officials have been identified as carrying out activities not "in accordance with [...] standards of diplomatic behaviour". Will the Taoiseach inform the House who these senior officials are and what behaviour marked them out for expulsion? We all dearly hope there will be positive progress at the talks in Istanbul today. We know that the war must end and that peace and diplomacy must prevail but we have said to the Taoiseach for quite some time that as this illegal war continues and as Russia breaches international law so viciously and with such brazenness, Ireland must exert all possible pressure. The call had been for the expulsion of the Russian ambassador and all the staff. Russia should not be left with the cloak of respectability and any diplomatic footprint in Europe. Will the Taoiseach please set out for us the facts around the expulsion of these four officials?
The Taoiseach mentioned Housing for All. Does he not have to accept now that it is failing disastrously? From my clinic, I can tell him about the number of people and families coming in, most of whom are working and who are facing eviction or who are already homeless. They have no prospect of finding rented accommodation under the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme or social housing. The numbers are going through the roof. I will give one example. A man, his ill wife and their family of five are facing eviction on 2 April. He is working in one of our Dublin hospitals. I have another young man who works for Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and he is living in his car. Another woman, who was previously homeless and is now in a homeless HAP tenancy, is being evicted. The Dublin place finder service cannot find her a place. She will not go to a hostel, so she is going to end up sleeping in her car. Another mother, with two kids, is on the housing list. She works part time and is in receipt of the working family payment. She has been told that she is over the limit for social housing. The list goes on. What does the Taoiseach intend to do for these people who are working but for whom the Government's housing policies have totally failed?
Last September, the Taoiseach first promised a bonus for front-line health workers who helped in the fight against Covid-19. Seven months on, not a single cent has been paid out and now many workers are finding out that they either will not qualify for the full bonus or they will not get anything at all due to the Scrooge-like terms and conditions being applied. One such group is the Covid-19 community swabbers, who helped to run our testing facilities throughout the country before vaccines were even available and without personal protective equipment, PPE, back in the early days of the pandemic. They put themselves at risk to help to control the virus, but now many of them are being told they do not count as front-line workers. I will quote a short excerpt from an email from a woman who worked as a community swabber. She made the point that "We are the people who worked on the front line, day in and day out, throughout the entire pandemic, at times with sub-par PPE, and for many of us in suboptimal conditions, working in temporary structures, such as army tents in freezing cold snow and blistering heat". Will the Taoiseach intervene to ensure these people get what they deserve at the very least?
RTÉ is the national broadcaster and provides excellent content, particularly in the area of sport. Many people in the North, however, are precluded from accessing that content because of issues around intellectual property rights. It is particularly the case on the RTÉ Player. Examples include the Olympics, which are important. It is the matter of the All-Ireland championships, though, that I want to raise. We are now only weeks away from them commencing and many people in the North will be unable to access those programmes. I believe the shared island fund exists to fight cross-Border issues in respect of infrastructure. Will the Taoiseach's Department identify or examine how the national broadcaster and the shared island fund might work together to create an Internet protocol that will allow everyone in the North to access the RTÉ Player?
Broadly speaking, there were only ever three options when it came to the future of the leaving certificate examination. The first was to keep the examination as is, the second was to go for a mix of examination and assessment and the third was to abolish the examination and introduce a policy of open access to third-level education, based on increased investment and offering a place to all who wanted one. Following the student protests of recent years, the first option was never a serious runner. The students did for that one. The Government was then left with the option of either reforming or abolishing the examination. I believe the Government has made the wrong choice.
To be clear, I welcome the introduction of drama, film and theatre studies onto the curriculum, as well as climate studies. I am not so mad about there being no proposals to teach more Black and Traveller history, and that there is still no comprehensive, objective sex education. I put it to the Taoiseach, however, that the Government is choosing here to patch up an examination system that deserves to go and failing to take the opportunity to genuinely open up third-level education now to all who wish to go.
I thank the Taoiseach for his response to my question earlier. I certainly did not expect to have such an immediate response to my first set of Leaders' Questions as the leader of the Labour Party. I thank him and commend him, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, on acting to expel four senior Russian diplomats. Does this mean that the position of the Russian ambassador is now under threat? I very much hope the Government will see fit to move to expel him too. My party, the Labour Party, as an internationalist party and a member of the Party of European Socialists, PES, has consistently stood with the people of Ukraine, and with the people of Syria when they endured horrific bombardment and attack from Putin through the al-Assad puppet regime. We have also stood with the people of Yemen and Palestine.
We can see daily the sort of horrendous suffering people are enduring in Ukraine. The people of Mariupol are enduring that now just as the people of Aleppo did when it was under siege. We have a strong track record of solidarity with people under assault and threat from the sort of brutal regime that Putin personifies. Will the Taoiseach now take further steps to expel Putin's ambassador here, having moved so swiftly and in such a welcome fashion to expel four senior diplomats?
Both Deputies McDonald and Bacik raised the expulsion of four senior officials in the Russian Federation embassy because their behaviour was not in accordance with international standards of diplomatic behaviour. We are doing this under Article 9 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. I do not want to divulge the security briefing we received in respect of these individuals but, in my view, it is the correct and the right decision in terms of our own national security but also in terms of sending a very clear message about our abhorrence of the war in Ukraine. The decision is primarily informed by the briefings we have received from security officials in respect of the behaviour of these individuals. That is why the Department of Foreign Affairs summoned the ambassador today.
We also wanted to take initiatives of this kind with our colleagues in the EU. Some of the Baltic states and states on the eastern side of Europe have already taken steps in sending officials back to the Russian Federation. No member state has yet expelled an ambassador. We have carried out these measures relating to officials with some countries today and although we worked with other countries on this initiative, it has not been possible to get the full 27 states working on the same agenda.
With regard to the ambassador, we are anxious to keep channels open and we believe that is important for the protection of citizens and in maintaining a channel to communicate our abhorrence of the war directly to the Russian Federation Government. This also will enable humanitarian assistance if it is required for Irish citizens in Russia or certain areas of Ukraine if we need to engage with the Russian Federation Government or officials to facilitate humanitarian responses to situations that may arise. It is important that diplomatic channels are maintained and kept open. That is the motivation behind the decision not to expel the Russian ambassador at this stage.
Deputy Boyd Barrett asked a question about Housing for All. I do not accept that Housing for All has failed as it is less than a year since its publication. The Government has been in office now for 21 months and a lot of progress has been made. We were held back by Covid-19 as the two lockdowns had an impact on construction. There were nonetheless 31,000 commencements last year, which augurs well for increased supply. Our aim this year is for 12,000 social houses, 9,000 of which will be built. We have also brought back 5,500 empty houses or voids within the local authority system. We have kept a strong focus and resourced local authorities so as not to have houses idle.
The cost-rental model we are developing is very important. We need to ramp it up and it will be a very significant feature of giving opportunities to people for affordable rents in future. That goes along with supply and we must build far more houses than we have been doing as a country.
It is getting worse.
Deputy Paul Murphy raised the issue of the bonus for healthcare workers. Again, the Government has given the resources to do this to the Department of Health and the HSE. These are major employers but I am anxious that the front-line workers are suitably provided for with the €1,000 payment we have agreed. The Government decided this and the implementation is about to begin. There has been a lot of consultation with unions in respect of this and it is time for it to be implemented. We are not adopting in any shape or form a Scrooge-like mentality towards it.
I will engage with Deputy Paul McAuliffe again as he raises a very fair point in respect of the RTÉ Player and the difficulties that citizens in Northern Ireland have in accessing it. I will engage with him to see what we can do to work with the national broadcaster with a view to being of some assistance if that is possible.
Deputy Barry raised leaving certificate reform, and today's announcement by the Minister, Deputy Norma Foley, is radical and a watershed moment in the history of the leaving certificate. There will clearly be continuing engagement with stakeholders. The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment has published the various principles governing the reform. To have 40% of the process dealt with via continuous assessment is a massive change and it will require much in-service training as well on models of assessment and the science of assessment, which is quite involved. Teachers used to a State exam may not have had the same level of in-service training as will be required with this process. It is very exciting that there is to be a new subject of climate change coming to the curriculum, along with drama and film and so on.