Mary Lou McDonald
Question:1. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the non-statutory public service modernisation, development and reform functions for which his Department is responsible. [29334/23]
View answerTuesday, 27 June 2023
Questions (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
Cian O'Callaghan
Question:2. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the non-statutory public service modernisation, development and reform functions for which his Department is responsible. [30944/23]
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Richard Boyd Barrett
Question:3. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the non-statutory public service modernisation, development and reform functions for which his Department is responsible. [30974/23]
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Paul Murphy
Question:4. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the non-statutory public service modernisation, development and reform functions for which his Department is responsible. [30977/23]
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Gino Kenny
Question:5. Deputy Gino Kenny asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the non-statutory public service modernisation, development and reform functions for which his Department is responsible. [30980/23]
View answerOral answers (8 contributions)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 5, inclusive, together.
The overall responsibility for the public service modernisation, development and reform functions is vested in the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. This has been the case since the transforming public services programme office was moved to that Department from the Department of the Taoiseach back in 2011.
Better Public Services, a new strategy for public service transformation to 2030, was launched by the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform in May 2023. The strategy provides a direction of reform for the public service, setting out the vision of: "Inclusive, high quality and integrated Public Service provision that meets the needs and improves the lives of the people of Ireland."
The Department of the Taoiseach is now involved in several important public service reforms. It provides the secretariat to the Civil Service management board, which provides collective leadership to the Civil Service renewal programme. The board is chaired by the Secretary General to the Government and its membership consists of all five Secretaries General of Departments and heads of major offices.
The Department of the Taoiseach is also centrally involved in implementation of the report of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland, which is the most substantive work of reform ever undertaken with respect to An Garda Síochána. The work is overseen by a dedicated programme office in the Department of the Taoiseach and has now entered the final consolidation phase, with many substantive reforms already attained.
The Department of the Taoiseach also has a role in respect of the report of the Commission on the Defence Forces. The Secretary General to the Government chairs the high-level steering board, the membership of which consists of the Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces as well as Secretaries General of relevant Departments. These activities reflect the importance the Government places on excellent public services and also the emphasis on ensuring they continue to reform and improve.
One of the most obvious areas in need of public service modernisation and reform is the addiction sector. We have seen significant recent shifts in addiction treatment presentations and in deaths. Alongside this, we have seen staff in section 29 services fighting for fair pay and conditions. The reality is that many of these staff raised concerns about the changing drug trends two years ago but, rather than being taken on board, their concerns were mostly ignored.
Without modernisation and reform, the addiction sector will remain on the back foot, with some of the highest level of staff burnout of any health or social care professionals. We have the expertise. We have an extremely competent workforce but we need to pay the workers and we need to treat them fairly. Sinn Féin members believe that alongside engagement with the section 39 workers, we need to look at professional supervision to try to ease the staff burnout. We need to ensure that staff members feel valued and that their expertise is recognised. I am sure the Taoiseach, like myself, has visited addiction services. He has seen the phenomenal work that is done by the staff day in, day out. With empathy and compassion, they help to reduce the harm and to bring people on recovery journeys. Without proper reform, we are leaving the staff, those people who do the work on the ground with individuals, families, and communities, without the support they need. While we have a citizens' assembly, and it does great work on policy matters, there is a role for the Taoiseach's Department to explore how we listen to and bring forward recommendations from the citizens' assembly. I hope the Taoiseach takes this on board.
The scandal of the secret payments to Ryan Tubridy in RTÉ has highlighted very serious questions about governance and oversight in public bodies in receipt of large amounts of public funding. Of course, it is gut wrenching for the ordinary workers in RTÉ, the ordinary journalists who do not benefit from these staggering salaries that a small few at the top got, or the additional secret payments, to see this scandal unfold when those workers were victims of pay freezes, pay cuts, zero-hour contracts, instances of bogus self-employment and abuse of fixed-term contracts. All of these things now need to be looked at. Something I have been raising for quite a while about what is going on in the film industry echoes this. This is an area where large amounts of public money go in and it has been suggested to me that many of the actors and performers working for RTÉ Drama are also being asked to sign buy-out contracts on their intellectual property and the right to royalties. Therefore, at the top, people are getting secret payments and staggering salaries while actors, performers and workers are getting short-changed. Something that requires further investigation and is something I have been talking about, is the money going into the film industry, because the same stuff is going on there. Huge amounts of money and no proper oversight. If properly investigated, there will be a similar picture: a small group at the top doing very well out of large amounts of public money, but the actors, performers, the film crew, the people who actually make films happen, are often being treated in the most shoddy fashion.
The general public and workers at RTÉ are utterly appalled at the revelations of secret payments to Ryan Tubridy. They raise a number of questions about the public service role of RTÉ. One aspect is the function of effectively secret agreements with companies. In this case, what we are led to believe is that in 2020, RTÉ made an arrangement with the car company, Renault, whereby in order to avoid it appearing on RTÉ's balance sheet, Renault would make a payment of €75,000 to Ryan Tubridy, in return for which Renault got a credit note for advertising worth €75,000 and a number of visits - three I think - by Ryan Tubridy. In other words, it cost Renault nothing and the company got a benefit from it.
This raises a number of questions. First, a freedom of information, FOI, request from RTÉ Climate Watch to which an answer was received on 15 February 2022, asked about all communications and documents regarding any payments or payments in kind from the motoring, aviation, or travel industries to any RTÉ staff member. The answer came back to say that there was nothing which seems to suggest that this FOI is incorrect. Second, it raises a broader question about the role of fossil fuel advertising at RTÉ and whether it is having an influence on what is produced editorially. An interesting fact is that the "Late Late Show" has referenced climate change twice in its entire history. Both times were when it had climate change deniers on. It did not deal with this, the biggest issue facing all of humanity, at any stage. It is time to have a conversation about getting rid of the influence of these fossil fuel companies as we have got rid of the role of tobacco advertising, for example.
Ireland's health budget runs to €20 billion per year. Ireland spends roughly the same on healthcare per capita as Denmark and Austria but yet while Austria and Denmark are third and fourth on the CEOWORLD magazine's healthcare ranking index, Ireland is 80th. The difference between Austria and Denmark and Ireland in relation to healthcare spending is quite extraordinary. They rank countries in terms of infrastructure, costs, health outcomes and medicine availability. Something is obviously wrong. Once one gets into it, the Irish health system is as good as anywhere in the world. The staff are as motivated and trained as the best in the world. There is obviously a huge issue around retention and around health and safety but the elephant in the room is privatisation in our health system. A huge amount of the money from that €20 billion pool goes towards private healthcare. There has to be something wrong if Ireland is 80th in this league of healthcare providers in the world.
I thank the Deputies. On the addiction sector and services raised by Deputy Gould, I am very familiar with these as well. I have often visited the Coolmine Therapeutic Community which is based in Blanchardstown but now has facilities in other parts of the country as well. I am very aware of the work it does. It is work that can really turn people's lives around. I have had an interest in the area for a long time, going back to my time as a practising doctor. Responsibility for it does not fall under my remit; nor does the citizens' assembly. I might ask the Minister of State at the Department for Health, Deputy Naughton, to write to the Deputy to get some more information on what is being done in terms of increasing funding and capacity within the sector.
Deputy Boyd Barrett raised the issue of concealed or secret payments in RTÉ. It is important once again to put on record that as far as we know so far anyway, this only applies to one person. There is not yet any evidence of any other secret payments to any other contractor of RTÉ. It is important we say that so that people do not all get tarred with the one brush. It is also important to say that it was picked up by an external audit. RTÉ’s own auditors, Grant Thornton, picked it up, which shows why it is important we have internal and external audit functions.
The film industry receives its support in different ways, including through the tax system by tax incentives and also through Screen Ireland when it comes to grants and other aid. I do not know exactly what the conditionality is around that but I expect that where a tax incentive is being applied for or a grant is being sought from a body such as Screen Ireland, that the minimum statutory standards would be upheld when it comes to health and safety, employment rights etc.
It is not.
Certainly, that should be the case.
Deputy Murphy raised the issue of RTÉ and climate. RTÉ covers climate a lot. Maybe it does not cover it on “The Late Late Show” but it does so often on the website and on the news and in many programmes dealing with the issue. Coverage is generally by George Lee who covers it very well and passionately.
The issue of Ireland’s spend on healthcare was raised. It is the case that spending is now much higher than it used to be. When I was Minister for Health, which is not all that long ago, we spent approximately €14 billion or €15 billion on health. The figure is now €24 billion. A huge amount of money is now being spent on health. As the Deputy pointed out, broadly speaking on a per capita basis – there are always different ways of measuring these things – our health spending is now one of the highest in the developed world. There are different reasons for that. We have very high pay levels. If we compare pay in the health service in Ireland with Northern Ireland, the UK or almost anywhere, other than the Middle East or Australia, it is clear we pay very well.
We have a high number of nurses, for example. We have more nurses per head and per bed than almost any other healthcare system in the world. We pay a lot for medicines as well, which is an issue. The fact we have quite old buildings and old structures adds to the cost. There are different healthcare rankings. It is not the only one and we are not 80th in all of them. We do very well on life expectancy and ours is one of the highest in the EU. We have much better cancer, stroke and heart attack survival rates than the NHS, which some people believe, for some reason, should be an example we follow. Our patient outcomes are generally much better than in that system. I do not know how much of the €24 billion goes to private contractors, be it for agency staff or the National Treatment Purchase Fund. I suspect it is less than 10%, so it is very high levels of public funding into our public health service.