I have visited five hospitals over recent weeks. I have spoken to many managers of hospitals, but also people who work on the front line, including nurses, doctors, consultants and healthcare assistants. Every single hospital is doing its best to deal with very difficult circumstances at the moment with rising infections in the community. Staff are working wonders, but they are burned out and there is a lot of fatigue. Managers are also doing their best. At every single hospital I have visited there are plans for more beds. The hospitals need more beds, surgical theatre capacity and diagnostic capacity. They also do not have the option, in many cases, of sending people home because the home care is not there and we do not have step-down or recovery beds in the community, yet over the past 24 hours the Minister for Health seems to be blaming everybody bar himself. It seems to be the management of the hospitals and the staff who are not doing enough, but the Minister needs to take responsibility for the fact that in far too many circumstances-----
Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
I thank the Deputy; the time is up.
-----the beds are not there and the staff are not.
I thank the Deputy.
When will the 1,500 rapid-build beds this Minister promised be delivered-----
I thank the Deputy, but the time is up.
-----and how many of those will be delivered in 2024?
To explain, the Taoiseach had to leave because he is on his way to a European Council meeting. I hope the House understands that and I am happy to-----
Europe is more important than Ireland obviously.
------fill in for him, but for that particular question, I ask the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, to give an accurate answer.
I agree with the premise of Deputy Cullinane's question, which is that more capacity has been required. As the Deputy will be aware, we have added more beds, more hospital-based staff, including clinicians and non-clinicians, and more community-based resources than ever. There has been an unprecedented expansion of capacity. The second part of this, though, is that while that additional capacity is required, in reality some parts of the health service are being run more productively for patient outcomes than others. The hospital in the Deputy's own constituency of Waterford is an exemplar of what can be done. While I fully accept more capacity is required, we are in the middle of the biggest expansion of our public health service-----
I thank the Minister.
-----there has ever been. The corollary to that is we must see increases in productivity and consistent-----
Okay. The time is up. I thank the Minister very much.
-----use of good practice in all our hospitals across the country.
On "Morning Ireland" earlier we heard reaction to the new Government plans for those fleeing Putin's brutal war in Ukraine. We heard from Olga, a Ukrainian refugee living here and from Emma Lane Spollen of the Ukraine Civil Society Forum. They expressed really serious concern at the proposal a 90-day limit be applied for accommodating new arrivals from Ukraine in the new year. We all understand these concerns are justified. No one needs reminding, as the RTB report did today, that the private rental sector is totally overwhelmed. There are metres-long queues for house viewings for rentals, and we hear stories all the time in our constituencies about people being forced to bid on rental properties and being unable to find any rental properties in their area. Already 6,000 people who have attained refugee status are stuck in direct provision because they cannot access private rental accommodation. What contingencies is the Minister, Deputy Coveney, and his Government putting in place to ensure we do not see more children winding up homeless-----
I thank the Deputy; the time is up.
-----as a result of the change-----
Thank you, Deputy, please.
-----in policy as regards arrivals from Ukraine?
The Deputy will have heard the Taoiseach address this question this week, as well as the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman. What the Government has done this week is make a decision to bring Ireland closer into line with what other countries are doing with respect to supports for people fleeing conflict in Ukraine. More than 100,000 Ukrainians have come to Ireland in just under two years and we have enormous pressures as a result of that when it comes to ensuring we can provide appropriate accommodation. While other countries have made changes in the meantime, we have decided to make changes now that we think will reduce the numbers coming from Ukraine and coming from other countries in the EU to Ireland. We believe that is necessary so we can ensure we focus the resources that are available on ensuring-----
I thank the Minister. The time is up.
-----we look after Ukrainians appropriately, but just in closing-----
Thank you, no. The time is up. I am sorry. The time is up.
I had intended to ask the Taoiseach to put the full weight of his office behind the campaign to rejuvenate O'Connell Street fully, but since he has left-----
I will happily answer.
-----I want to highlight a particular issue there. Walking down O'Connell Street and on to Parnell Square, which we have rightly discussed many times over the past couple of weeks because of the tragedy that happened there, we cannot step away from the level of dereliction and decay that has been allowed to settle in to that part of town. One building stands out for me because it is the first closed building I see as I walk down O'Connell Street near the Parnell Monument, namely, the Ambassador Theatre. The Ambassador could be a jewel in the crown of the city centre and be part of the rejuvenation. The doors are closed almost 12 months a year. The city is crying out for cultural spaces where people can gather for music, song or whatever and it is simply unjust a building like the theatre, which was built in 1764 and is part of the city's cultural heritage, remains closed. I ask for the full support of the Taoiseach's office-----
I thank the Deputy. The time is up.
-----and the Government in terms of bringing these buildings back to life.
The time is up Deputy, please.
I am sorry, a Cheann Comhairle.
The Ceann Comhairle is enforcing the rules well today. Following the events of a number of weeks ago, I met Dublin City Council and many business representatives. We have agreed to provide some funding to the council to focus immediately on public realm enhancement in the north inner city, especially around O'Connell Street, and that is already under way. We will continue to support Dublin City Council in those efforts.
On the Ambassador Theatre, I will raise that issue in conversation with the council officials as we work with them to try to both improve-----
It is MCD.
-----safety and, of course, the general vibe around the city centre, not just between now and the end of the year but into next year as well.
I just got off the phone in the last hour to a couple in my constituency who have a diagnosis at 22 weeks of a fatal foetal anomaly. They have a two-and-a-half-year-old child and, at a multidisciplinary team meeting this morning, they were refused a termination on the grounds of fatal foetal anomaly because it is "impossible", in the words of Marie O'Shea, who spoke to the health committee in October, to say how long that baby will live if it survived birth. Despite this we have a clause, section 11, in the legislation that will not allow for doctors to recommend a termination in very tragic circumstances. This is a baby with one enlarged kidney covered in cysts with no amniotic fluid around its body and the mother is suffering in pain. She will be forced to travel to Liverpool and she was told to bring her two-and-a-half-year-old with her if she cannot get care. I cannot believe the cruelty going on in our hospitals at the moment and I am really pleading-----
The time is up Deputy, please.
-----with this Government to do something about it. The Government has a comprehensive report------
The time is up Deputy, please.
-----coming back to it next week from Marie O'Shea. It can legislate on the grounds-----
Thank you, Deputy.
-----of at least fatal foetal anomaly and decriminalising abortion so it does not act as a chill factor in decisions that should be made for the care of women and not for the constitutionality of it.
I am very slow to comment on an individual case that is as stressful and potentially as tragic as the one the Deputy has just outlined-----
I want a comment on the legislation.
Please, Deputy.
-----but we will have an opportunity in the new year to finalise decisions on the report she mentioned. This House will have plenty of time to debate that early in the new year.
I raise an issue highlighted by a GP in my constituency that reduces patients' access to GPs. The issue relates to Revenue plans to change the current system in which GPs pay their taxes. GPs practising under the General Medical Services scheme often lodge money from it and from private patents into a partnership bank account of the practice that can cover running costs, including light, heating, insurance and staff costs. The doctors themselves then take an annual salary and are taxed from the salary they receive from the practice. However, Revenue issued guidelines to tax practitioners through the tax administration liaison committee in July that propose treating income under the General Medical Services as individual income and GPs will be taxed accordingly. This will not result in any increases in revenue, but will make GPs' partnerships and relationships with the General Medical Services list very difficult and result in them being reluctant to take up the list.
These plans to change how medical card income is taxed will force GPs to retire or withdraw from the scheme, which will negatively impact the delivery of care to patients. This issue needs to be resolved at the earliest possible date as many GPs have already indicated they intend to retire or resign from the scheme.
I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. I may be wrong, but I am told that the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael McGrath, may have dealt with this issue by way of amendment in the Finance Bill. I will come back to the Deputy with the detail but I think the issue may have been addressed, or at least partially addressed, in the Finance Bill.
Aspect is a service in Cahir, County Tipperary, that seeks to support people with autism and intellectual disabilities to enhance their lives. It falls under the auspices of the larger SOS Kilkenny CLG organisation. Last year, SOS got once-off funding of €540,000 from the HSE to provide services around the south east. If it does not get similar support this year, the Aspect service in Cahir, which is a wonderful service that provides valuable supports to children, will close. Other services will also be diminished. We need a repeat of that funding because Aspect cannot survive without it. All costs, including wages, staff, heat and electricity, have increased. SOS needs the funding so that Aspect in Cahir town can continue its services.
As the Deputy knows, we cannot make a funding decision of that type on the hoof on the floor of the Dáil. I will certainly raise the issue for the Deputy with the Minister concerned. Perhaps he could get back to the Deputy on the timeline around funding decisions.
I welcome the fact that the Taoiseach visited Leitrim village earlier this week. Those who were with him on the day saw that he spent time there, saw the damage for himself and listened to people. He said that assistance would be available quickly. He said it would be available "today or tomorrow". I know that the Department of the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, has humanitarian assistance available for households. I hope it is available straight away. However, my specific question is about what interim funding - not loans, but supports - are available for businesses to help them get up and running. It seems that many people may be underinsured because of the huge cost of insurance. If, for example, they are underinsured by 30%, then regardless of the size of their claim, big or small, they lose 30% of their claim. That is a major issue that applies not only to the people of Leitrim village, but they are the people facing it now.
I have spoken to the Taoiseach on a number of occasions about his meeting with the businesses and households in Leitrim who were hit by the devastating weather event. We are anxious to be as helpful as we can. Supports from the Department of the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, are open to households. I asked Mircrofinance Ireland to send an official down to Leitrim to speak to businesses to see if we can try to make short-term money available for businesses. That has happened. We are working with Mircrofinance Ireland to try to ensure that low-cost loan facilities will be available before the end of the year. I understand there was an indication that they might not be available until January so we are working to try to make that happen much faster. We must build an understanding of the responsibility of the insurance industry and companies that provide insurance to provide a clearer picture for how best we can help businesses.
I again raise the continued and questionable use of the concept of family or parental alienation in family law, and the extent to which it militates against the interests of mothers, some fathers and, in many cases, children. The Minister has been very helpful in outlining her proposals for the future in that respect. I respectfully suggest that the pseudo concept of parental alienation be abolished from family law cases, that the suitability of professionals offering expert evidence be restricted to those who are professionally qualified and that all reports emanating from them under sections 47 and 32, etc., should be challengeable in court and questionable in all instances. I also suggest that Tusla would continue to have an influence in the welfare of children in such cases. I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise the matter.
I thank the Deputy. Only this morning, I updated the family justice development forum on a number of actions that have been undertaken to improve the family justice system not just for parents but also for children. One of those actions related to a report I received just this week on court assessors. It looks at ensuring we have a number of actions in place in the short, medium and long terms. In the long term, it is to ensure there are correct diplomas and routes through which people must go to become a court assessor. In the short term, it is to ensure we have a panel overseen by a board so that where complaints are made, people have somewhere to go and that there is oversight of those who are conducting these types of reports. There are many other actions to ensure we support families so that people do not have to go through the court process and, above all, that the voice of the child is heard in all of this. I would be happy to update the Deputy further on this particular report.
I raise the situation in which staff at Ballincollog-based VMware find themselves as they face into Christmas. The company announced in recent weeks that it is restructuring and that there would be job losses, and that negotiations would be going on during December and January. Earlier this week, the company announced that 360 people will lose their jobs in the new year. That is a massive blow to the people themselves and the wider area, but especially to the 360 staff. That is more than a number. Those are real people with families, commitments, mortgages, hopes and aspirations, all of which are now hanging in the balance. The company will have been engaging with the Minister's Department. It is essential that it makes every effort to protect those jobs and that the job losses will be minimal. Will the Minister outline the efforts being made to minimise those job losses and to provide support to any people who lose their jobs?
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. It is obviously a big concern to me. I know VMware well. It is a fantastic company with a skilled workforce who have done an amazing job for quite a long time in Cork. VMware has been acquired by a company called Broadcom. We knew that when the acquisition or merger took place, there would be an impact. The workforce also knew that. Unfortunately, it means 360 job losses. The IDA has been working closely with the company, and will continue to do so, as will my Department. We will do everything we can to support the workforce. It is really bad news. However, this is a highly skilled workforce and there will be other employment opportunities available quickly for people. That is certainly the experience. Nevertheless, it is still a shock, particularly at this time of year. I assure the Deputy that the agencies of the State will be working closely with the staff to support them in any way we can.
COP28 reached agreement this morning and while it fell short of saying it, we must agree that the cornerstone of climate action must be based on an end to fossil fuels and a just transition at global and national levels. A report published last week by Dublin's energy agency, Codema, concluded that the poorest communities cannot afford to give up fossil fuels and risk being worse off via climate action measures. They are paying carbon tax but cannot afford to retrofit their homes. Some 16% of households are solely dependent on solid fuels, coal, sticks and turf. In some areas, it is as high as 40%. One thing the Government could do to help these households to move away from fossil fuels and to ensure they are not worse off due to climate action measures is to introduce a dedicated retrofitting scheme specifically targeted at households, including those in rented accommodation, dependent on solid fuels. This is a measure Sinn Féin has proposed for some time and set out in our alternative budget this year. Will the Government adopt the proposal?
The first thing to say is that I welcome the agreement at COP28. I recognise, because I am not sure it has got enough recognition, the role played by the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, in getting a final agreement from the EU side. He was central to EU negotiations, particularly in the context of climate finance.
To the Deputy's question, we are always looking for new ways in which we can encourage and support the retrofitting of homes and making that affordable for people. We must not only decarbonise our economy but our whole society, and that will involve spending hundreds of millions, if not billions, of euro on helping households and businesses to decarbonise in the years ahead.
Now that we are well on our way to 2024, I cannot help but think of the families in my area who are still struggling to get a public health nurse appointment. Babies in areas such as Lucan, Newcastle and Rathcoole may be showing signs of early developmental delay that are going unnoticed simply because of a lack of service.
It is incredibly stressful for first-time parents who simply do not know what to look out for. People are just utterly frustrated at this stage and I can understand why. I am frustrated myself. This is my eighth time raising this matter at Government and national level. I have been working really closely with the HSE on the need for more public health nurses. The executive has the budget for hiring new staff and has advertised for these roles but there is still a shortage of applicants and because of that, there is a shortage of service. How can the Government intervene?
Right across the health sector, as we have heard already this morning, the inability to attract and recruit the skills and staff necessary is impacting on services. In most cases it is not a financial issue but a lack of capacity to get the skills we need from home and abroad and I suspect that it is the same in Deputy Higgins's constituency. I will ask the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, to come back with a specific answer in relation to nursing in the Deputy's area.
Yesterday, at Letterkenny University Hospital eight ambulances were backed up outside. Patients were in the back of those ambulances rather than being cared for in the hospital. This is not a rare occurrence. A week previously a similar number of ambulances were outside and I am sure the Minister will agree that this is utterly unacceptable. I received a report late last night that an 88 year old woman had been on a hard seat all day long, waiting for care, as had a 79 year old man. Recently the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, came up to Donegal and met with GPs and consultants who had been seeking such a meeting for weeks. When will he act on the proposals they made which are crucial to the hospital?
I agree it is not acceptable that elderly people would be sitting in ambulances waiting to get into hospital. Effectively the ambulance becomes a remote bed which, for all sorts of reasons, is not the way the system should work. I am glad to hear that the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, was in Donegal speaking to practitioners and I expect he will come back to Deputy MacLochlainn with an answer in relation to those discussions but I will certainly remind him of that.
I ask the Minister to outline Government policy regarding the dredging of rivers and waterways and the upkeep of river banks in light of the recent flooding, especially in Midleton and Castlemartyr in east Cork. What State agency, if any, is responsible for this and is there any plan to establish a national waterways agency to look after this kind of thing?
There are two different issues here. One is the short-term response to what we learned from what happened recently in Midleton and east Cork in terms of flooding. Cork County Council is doing a pretty detailed piece of work on what it can do in the short term to reduce the risk of flooding in east Cork in the future including clearing rivers, making sure that appropriate dredging is taking place and so on, so that water flows into the harbour more efficiently. The second is the more fundamental look at our waterways more generally, which is the responsibility of Waterways Ireland and the OPW and both need to take place. In the short term people in Midleton need to know that Cork County Council is acting in areas where it can to try to reduce risk until we put a much more comprehensive flood protection scheme in place for the town. Hopefully that will go to planning in the first half of next year.
Dublin 8 in the south west inner city has a population of about 50,000 people but not a single playing pitch. Sites have been identified at St. Teresa's Gardens and Marrowbone Lane but so far, Dublin City Council has not delivered. An interim solution was agreed in 2017 but that has not progressed at all. Dublin City Council, the LDA and various developers are involved in the area but the community needs the Government to step in now. We need the Minister for housing, who is responsible for the LDA and the council, and the Minister for sport to step in to help clear any roadblocks and ensure that the council can deliver a playing pitch for young people who quite simply have no sporting facilities. Will the Government step in and support the community of Dublin 8?
I know St. Teresa's Gardens quite well from my time as Minister for housing. From what I can remember, there was a plan at that time for a playing pitch to be developed in partnership with a series of community groups and sports clubs. I do not have a briefing on it but I will try to get one for the Deputy. It is appropriate and absolutely necessary that in urban areas like Dublin 8 young people can avail of sports facilities and pitches. I will get a response from the Minister for the Deputy.
One of the most frustrating elements of this Government is its inability to deliver capital projects. We are in the middle of a housing crisis at the moment, with hundreds of thousands of people in housing distress. We also have 130,000 empty homes in this State. The Government created a refurbishment grant scheme in July 2022 and since then just 70 people have drawn down a grant under that scheme. An average of about four homes are being refurbished every month which means it will take 3,500 years at the current rate for the Government to finish refurbishing all of the empty homes in the country. This is an incredible issue for people. Will the Government raise its ambitions in relation to the refurbishment of homes to a level higher than four per month?
First, the Deputy needs to check those figures because my understanding is that in Cork county alone, hundreds have applied-----
Applied-----
There is a difference between money being paid out and approvals for the scheme.
There were 22 this year.
Please Deputy.
The Government has made the scheme clear and viable. People who are refurbishing a home that is vacant will get €50,000 in grant aid support and if it is a derelict property, they will get €70,000 from the State. I know, because I am familiar with the Cork cases, that there are hundreds of applications for those schemes-----
There were 22.
-----in Cork county. Deputy Tóibín should check his figures.
Applications are different to grants.
Please Deputy Tóibín.
No, approvals.
I have a question for the Minister for Justice. Thankfully, that ridiculous vote last week is out of the way and we can get back to focusing on Garda resources. I have two questions-----
You can only ask one.
There are approximately 113 gardaí currently suspended which, to put it into perspective, is approximately half of the total cohort of gardaí in my own county. I am sure some of them have done awful things while others have done very minor things but at the very least natural justice should prevail and the investigations, led by the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, should be sped up. One of the gardaí concerned has been suspended for almost ten years, which is ludicrous. They are still being paid. Surely the investigations need to be sped up and back on the ground. Surely the Garda Reserve should also be open to recruitment. At the moment the portal for joining the Garda Reserve seems to be closed. Surely now, on foot of those awful riots in Dublin, it is the right time to be recruiting people to the service, ensuring that we have more Garda visibility on our streets.
On the last question, the new Garda Reserve campaign will open in the new year and will be the first such campaign since 2017. Disciplinary matters are very much for the Garda Commissioner and are not something for which I am responsible.
Yesterday 702 people were being treated on trolleys in hospitals across the State, a shameful figure. Of those 702 people an incredible 15% or 106 people were in my local hospital, University Hospital Limerick. This year UHL has already seen a record of 20,628 people treated on trolleys and chairs. Every year that number gets higher but it seems that no concrete action is being taken by the Government to tackle the problem. The failure to get to grips with this crisis and to deliver the promised bed capacity over the last three years has put and is continuing to put patients' health at risk. After last year's disastrous winter which saw avoidable deaths and a massive street protest in Limerick we had hoped that the Government would get to grips with the issue but the inaction of the Government points to this winter being worse than ever. When is the Government going to act decisively so that the people of Limerick and the mid west can get the emergency department they deserve?
I know there are serious pressures in UHL and that is why the Government is committed to providing significantly more beds there and to increasing resources and staff. Again, I will ask the Minister for health to contact the Deputy directly on this matter but I am aware of the pressure that the hospital has been under in terms of patient care.
Many private early childhood care providers will not be returning to work after Christmas due to strike action.
Most of these excellent providers face ruination. The answer of the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, to this huge crisis is that enough money is being spent on childcare. This may be the case for those down the line, but private early childcare providers are on their knees and have no political support from the Government. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, has shut the door on these providers and the parents who use the service. The only communication early childcare providers have got from him in the past month is a document for them to study over the Christmas period, outlining how it will cost €4,000 to €5,000 to do an audit. Something here stinks to the high heavens. I ask the Minister, Deputy Coveney, on behalf of thousands of early childcare providers, and these parents, to step in and immediately instruct the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, to resolve this crisis before 8 January.
The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, was involved in extensive consultation before increasing the supports for both parents and childcare providers in the most recent budgetary decisions. He has delivered significant reductions in the cost of childcare for parents. He has also significantly increased core funding for childcare providers, having listened to the sector, and will continue to do so. I will ask him to come back on the specific question the Deputy asked, but there has been no shortage of consultation here.
It is a very serious matter.
Thanks to Deputy Stanton, who is not in the Chamber, we had a hearing this morning on the issue of shoplifting, which is costing each family in the country €1,000 every year. A very high level of frustration was expressed at the hearing, with massive under-reporting of the problem and a sense that there is no deterrent when people are caught. I welcome the Minister's announcement of an initiative in this area, but one thing that needs to be done is the barring of repeat offenders from certain areas of cities or towns so there is an effective deterrent that can be quickly applied.
When will the applications for the mother and baby homes scheme open? The redress scheme for survivors of mother and baby homes was signed off last July. Many of the survivors have contacted me. As the Minister knows, these survivors are not getting any younger. It is now important that this scheme is up and running as soon as possible. That needs to be done. Can we have a timescale for it? That will be so important. We are going into another new year in January.
Shoplifting is obviously a matter for the courts. Some decisions are taken where there is post-monitoring, or areas that certain individuals cannot go into after they have been prosecuted. More broadly, retail theft is up approximately 14% since the Covid pandemic. That is why we are working with the Department of enterprise; with the Minister, Deputy Coveney, and the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond; and closely with An Garda Síochána on a new retail theft operation. Operation Táirge was launched this week. It will operate on the same premise as Operation Thor, which has seen a 75% reduction in burglaries in rural areas over the winter months. We obviously hope it will have a similar effect and reduce theft in retail shops overall.
It is a very welcome initiative that my Department and the Department of Justice are working closely on this issue. We will continue to work with business organisations until we see shoplifting figures reduce significantly. We need to protect retail staff and their businesses. Much of this is organised crime that needs a comprehensive policing response. We will support businesses to deliver that.
I will get the Minister to come back to Deputy Murnane O'Connor with a date for the mother and baby homes redress scheme. I do not have a date with me and I do not want to mislead her on that.