Richard Boyd Barrett
Ceist:1. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach to report on his Department’s new publication entitled Government Response to Ireland’s Competitiveness Challenge 2023. [53909/23]
Ceisteanna - Questions
Economic Policy
Paul Murphy
Ceist:2. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach to report on his Department’s new publication entitled Government Response to Ireland’s Competitiveness Challenge 2023. [53912/23]
Robert Troy
Ceist:3. Deputy Robert Troy asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the Government’s response to the annual recommendations of the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council, which was published by his Department on 29 November 2023. [54689/23]
Aindrias Moynihan
Ceist:4. Deputy Aindrias Moynihan asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the Government’s response to the annual recommendations of the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council, which was published by his Department on 29 November 2023. [54692/23]
Mick Barry
Ceist:5. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Taoiseach to report on his Department’s new publication entitled Government Response to Ireland’s Competitiveness Challenge 2023. [55232/23]
Cian O'Callaghan
Ceist:6. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach to report on his Department’s new publication entitled Government Response to Ireland’s Competitiveness Challenge 2023. [55337/23]
Peadar Tóibín
Ceist:7. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Taoiseach to report on his Department’s new publication entitled Government Response to Ireland’s Competitiveness Challenge 2023. [55422/23]
I propose to take Questions Nos 1 to 7, inclusive, together.
The National Competitiveness and Productivity Council published its annual competitiveness challenge report in September 2023. The council's report outlined 19 priority recommendations across a broad range of areas for Government consideration. These include enabling stronger productivity growth through research, development and innovation; reducing the cost of doing business in Ireland; accelerating progress on the usage and generation of energy in line with our climate targets; and significantly improving planning, development and the delivery of infrastructure.
On 29 November last year, the Government published a comprehensive formal response to the council's recommendations. This is the fourth year in which a formal response was issued by the Government to the competitiveness challenge report. This response was co-ordinated by my Department, drawing together material from all relevant Departments. In its response, the Government welcomed the advice and views of the council and agreed on the importance and relevance of its recommendations to Ireland's continuing competitiveness. The response outlines specific actions underway across different Departments in answer to each of the recommendations of the council. These include, for example, a national industrial strategy for offshore wind to be published in the first half of the year; more efficiency and certainty in the planning system through the enactment of the Planning and Development Bill 2023; the provision of additional resources to An Bord Pleanála and local authorities; greater use of modern methods of construction, MMC, in the construction of housing; an updated Pathways to Work strategy to be published shortly reflecting current labour market challenges; and stronger pathways from schools into further education and training and apprenticeships. These are just a few examples of actions the Government is taking to ensure continued improvements in the competitiveness and productivity of the Irish economy in the years ahead.
There are several contributors, so they have up to one minute. I call Deputy Boyd Barrett.
Contrary to mainstream economic theory, all wealth in our society is generated by workers. It is very obvious now that we are chronically short of the skills and workers we need in a whole range of areas, including construction, the health service, teaching, bus drivers and hospitality; you name it.
Of course, the reason we are short is that it is unaffordable for tens of thousands of people who are qualified in the professions and trades to live here because housing is completely unaffordable. This has been confirmed again today by the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland, SCSI, highlighting the affordability gap for ordinary workers. As a result, tens of thousands of skilled workers, people who are leaving college or who have qualified in the trades, are leaving the country when we desperately need them. What is the Taoiseach going to do to make housing affordable? Does he agree with our proposal that, under the Planning and Development Bill 2023, a minimum of 50% of all new housing should be designated as being social or affordable?
At the weekend, it was reported that the Government is considering the introduction of an Internet tax, that is, a tax of €10 to €15 which will apply to everybody's broadband bills, to replace the TV licence fee. At a rate of €15, that would mean €180 for practically every household in the country. Broadband is not some luxury; it is a necessity. Such a tax would be extremely unjust and regressive. The poorest household in the country would be forced to pay the same as the richest. There have been some murmurs in the media since then suggesting that the Government is not going to do this. Will the Taoiseach give us a guarantee that the Government will not attempt to introduce an Internet tax? Will he go further and promise to get rid of the regressive tax currently in place, namely, the TV licence fee, which approximately 50% of the population is currently boycotting? Instead of the licence fee, we need a big tech tax on social media giants to fund proper public service broadcasting.
I will ask the Taoiseach about competitiveness and the great struggle many small local businesses right across the country are experiencing in that regard. I refer particularly to businesses in the hospitality sector that provide many younger people with their first jobs, that sponsor community events and that employ a great many people. These are often family run enterprises. I am talking about cafes, pubs, shops and restaurants, many of which are under phenomenal pressure and having to close their doors. This is about more than the warehousing of taxes, increased wages and the changes to VAT. A perfect storm of a range of different issues is coming together and putting these businesses under pressure. Many of the LEOs do not have direction on the increased cost of business grant that was to be available and have not made it available. Will the Taoiseach give us an outline of how we are going to meet those challenges for those businesses?
The Minister of State, Deputy Neale Richmond, met the employers' organisation Nursing Homes Ireland earlier this month and agreed to its request to defer increases to minimum pay rates for healthcare assistants and home care workers from outside of the European Economic Area who hold work permits. This concession to employers was made despite nursing homes being increasingly owned by real estate investment trusts and operated by separate companies which are increasingly financed, at least in part, by means of private equity, according to the ESRI. The Minister of State did not meet with the representative body for the healthcare assistants, Migrant Nurses Ireland, despite its request for a meeting. He has now agreed to such a meeting this Thursday but this is after the announcement of the deferral. Non-EEA healthcare assistants, many of whom come from India, perform vital and stressful work in our nursing homes. They are isolated because their pay rates do not meet the threshold needed to bring their families with them. The Minister of State's decision to defer the pay increase is a concession to the owners, many of whom are very wealthy, and an insult to these workers, all of whom are low paid. How on earth can the Taoiseach justify that?
Time and again, the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council has warned that the lack of affordable housing is a key risk to the economy. It is absolutely infuriating for individuals and families who work hard to save up to buy homes to see vulture funds swooping in to snatch them up. In Belcamp Manor in Balgriffin, 85% of the housing estate has been bought by the investment arm of Deutsche Bank, an €800 billion fund. Mouthwatering rents of €3,175 are now being sought for these homes. The Minister with responsibility for housing, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has conceded that the 10% stamp duty on bulk purchases is not working and is going to be reviewed. Why is the Government not supporting the proposal from the Social Democrats for a 100% rate of stamp duty on bulk purchases in order to effectively ban investment funds from buying up homes? What level is the Government going to set stamp duty on bulk purchases at?
There is an alarming increase in the number of small businesses being forced to close. The owners of these businesses, who have invested blood, sweat and tears to make them function, are being hammered with massive costs. In fact, we have a two-tier economy. We have a very strong foreign direct investment sector but a comparatively weak indigenous business sector. The businesses to which I refer are being hit by rip-off Ireland, which is made worse by the cost-of-living crisis. Many of them, especially restaurants, were hammered during Covid. In addition, the Government's policy on migrant accommodation relies too heavily on the hospitality sector. I ask the Taoiseach to consider what I believe to be the solution, which is to split the hospitality sector. In that sector, there are extremely large hotels that are making very big profits. These could be separated from small cafes, restaurants and other businesses, which would comprise a different sector that would be subject to a different VAT rate of 9%. Will the Taoiseach consider that proposal?
The Taoiseach spoke about the many new pathways to education that provide people with necessary skill sets. While there are substantial deficits as regards the numbers we want trained in the traditional trades, there are also nouveau apprenticeships relating to cybersecurity, robotics and so on. There is great work being done in my constituency by Drogheda Institute of Further Education, Ó Fiaich Institute of Further Education and the Advanced Manufacturing Training Centre of Excellence. We want to see more of that. We know how necessary and important the big tech sector is and that we need to deal with the issues connected to the Digital Services Bill, but what is the State's policy on utilising artificial intelligence and addressing the dangers relating to it? How can we develop the courses and training that will be necessary to get the best of that world and to deal with any issues that arise and dangers that exist?
I thank the Deputies for their questions. Deputy Boyd Barrett is quite right to say that wealth is generated by workers, but there are different forms of workers and different forms of wealth. A lot of wealth is generated by innovation and creating new things. We need to always bear that in mind. There is a lot of research showing that 75% of all new global growth in recent decades has been driven by innovation, new inventions and entrepreneurship, that is, not by people doing the same things, but by people doing new things.
On the issue of skilled people leaving the country, Deputy Boyd Barrett is absolutely correct; there are skilled people leaving the country for lots of different reasons. There are way more skilled people coming into the country every year. There is net migration of skilled people into Ireland and that has been the case for a very long time. As I pointed out earlier, even if it is narrowed down to just Irish citizens, 80,000 left in the past three years but 90,000 returned. Notwithstanding the high cost of housing and the high cost of living, skilled people are pouring into this country because of the jobs that are available and more Irish citizens are returning to the country than are leaving. These are just the facts.
On what we can do to make housing more affordable, increasing incomes is a big part. It is the ratio of incomes to house prices that matters the most. The help-to-buy scheme helps great numbers of people to get their deposit for their first home. The derelict properties grants help a lot too. It is good to see dereliction now falling. The first home scheme makes a big difference in closing the affordability gap. There is also the construction of much more social housing because social housing benefits everyone, not just those who are taken off the housing list as a result of getting homes. It also helps to bring down the cost of housing generally and makes more places available to rent.
I took a look at the SCSI report that is being reported on today. Unfortunately, I believe its findings have been misreported. I can understand why people misunderstood it. The SCSI specifically states that the first home scheme is not included in its calculations.
That would close the affordability gap. Indeed, it would eliminate it in many cases. It only applies to three-bedroom new semi-detached homes. Most people do not buy three-bedroom new semi-detached homes. Most people buy homes that are not new and most first-time buyers tend to buy two-bedroom, rather than three-bedroom, properties. As is often the case with these reports, it has been incorrectly reported by elements of the media and then incorrectly quoted by politicians, which is regrettable but happens very regularly.
As regards Deputy Murphy's comments, we are not planning to introduce an Internet tax. That was one option of many considered by the working group. The disadvantages were clear. It would not just be a 1% or 2% levy, but would have to be €10 or €15 a month, which would be too high, and there would be huge difficulties in applying exemptions, which we currently apply to people on very low incomes and to pensioners, for example. It did not jump out of the report as a good option. Rather, it jumped out of the report as a not-very-good option, but it is always important to consider all options.
As regards Deputy Moynihan's comments, as I acknowledged earlier, the cost of doing business is very high and it is rising, particularly for the hospitality sector and very labour-intensive sectors, such as retail, for example. We are seeing many cafés and restaurants closing. There are many of them opening, too, and a lot that are very difficult to get into, have a lot of business and are very busy. We are not seeing any evidence yet of employment levels falling in the hospitality sector but we need to monitor and watch out for that very closely. As I have said before, there is no point putting up people's wages if the net result is they lose their job or have their hours cut. We are not seeing much evidence of that yet.
In terms of businesses struggling, help is on the way. A quarter of a million euro will be injected into small businesses between now and the end of March to help them with their costs. The tax warehousing scheme remains in place, but tax cannot be withheld forever. Businesses do have to pay their taxes. Members should bear in mind that some of that tax is PAYE, money that people earned a year or two ago that has not yet been paid to Revenue. In addition, we are seeing energy costs falling, which is encouraging.
As regards VAT rates, for most of the past 30 years the VAT rate for hospitality has been between 12.5% and 13.5%. On a temporary basis, it was reduced to 9% after the financial crash and during Covid. In the run-up to the budget, we considered separating accommodation from food service. That is technically possible. It would take time to implement but the cost, unfortunately, ran into hundreds of millions of euro and, for that reason, a decision was made not to proceed with it.
As regards Belcamp Manor, just like Deputy O'Callaghan and everybody else in the House, I do not like to see investment funds buying up family homes. We changed the law in 2021 to prevent that from happening. This particular permission was granted in 2019, two years before the law changed. Stamp duty is currently 10%. Clearly that did not deter the investment fund in this case from buying these homes. Sinn Féin is saying it should be 17% and the Social Democrats are saying 100%. That is not the way you do tax policy. We need to examine this properly-----
Just ban them.
-----work out what the effective amount would be and make sure we are very careful about any unintended consequences, which often happen in tax policy.
Artificial intelligence is a really important topic to which we need to give a lot of consideration. It was the main topic of discussion in Davos last week. It is a powerful technology with potentially enormous benefits for society and the economy, but one that has some risks too. My only regret is that it is described as artificial intelligence. That gives people the impression it is something it is not. It is not anything approaching human intelligence. These are machines that can do calculations very fast.
What about the question on healthcare assistance?
I will ask the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, to revert to the Deputy on that issue.
Covid-19 Pandemic
Peadar Tóibín
Ceist:8. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Taoiseach when the terms of reference for the inquiry into Covid-19 in Ireland will be produced. [55131/23]
Mary Lou McDonald
Ceist:9. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach when the terms of reference for the inquiry into Covid-19 in Ireland will be produced. [56544/23]
Peadar Tóibín
Ceist:10. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Taoiseach his views on the need for an inquiry into the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in Ireland. [2773/24]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 8 to 10, inclusive, together.
A comprehensive evaluation of how the country managed Covid-19 will provide an opportunity to learn lessons from our experiences in dealing with the pandemic. It will include a review of the whole-of-government response to the pandemic and how we might do better and be in a stronger position if another pandemic or other similar event were to occur. It will include a consideration of the health service response, covering hospitals, the community and nursing homes, along with the wider economic and social response.
It is intended to have a public element to hear the lived experiences of all of society. The review should be undertaken by those independent of the national response and with relevant expertise. A consultation with Opposition parties has been scheduled for this week and I intend to bring the terms of reference to Government shortly thereafter.
I have received some incredible answers from different Ministers to parliamentary questions in respect of what happened during Covid. The Minister for Health confirmed to me that there were 10% fewer cancers diagnosed in 2020 than would have been expected for that year by the National Cancer Registry Ireland. That is an alarming revelation. In 2020, 60,000 fewer women were screened by CervicalCheck than were screened in the previous year. This is because the Government in part shut down cancer screening. There were 30% fewer women diagnosed with cancer of the cervix in 2020 compared with 2019.
Aontú was the only political party in the Dáil at the time pushing back against the policy of the Government to reduce cancer services. During that time, Ireland was the only country in the whole of Europe to shut down the building of homes. In terms of child experiences in this country, there has been an enormous spike in the number of children who have been referred to the likes of Tusla and to State care in the past couple of years. People within that sector have told me there is absolutely no doubt that the actions taken by the Government in the context of how children were treated during Covid have left children in a very precarious situation.
Any time the Government refers to its review or investigation into the Covid time, the first thing it talks about is the need to avoid a blame game. It sounds like the Government is using language of trying to prevent accountability in that regard. We need a proper open public investigation into the decisions that were made and the outcomes they had on people. People suffered significantly from many of the decisions, some of which were not based on science relating to protection of people.
The Covid-19 pandemic was a worldwide catastrophe that no one could have anticipated. It brought worry, isolation and loss that will stay with us for some time to come. Some families will never recover. Some lost their loved ones who lay stranded in a nursing home and had to say goodbye through a window or over the phone. It was a cruel and hard time. Most of us rallied and it brought out the best of us. Front-line workers rose to the challenge in a magnificent way. Teachers pivoted to online classrooms and neighbours minded each other. Now we need to take the learning from what was a desperately dark time.
Nearly 12 months ago, Mary Lou McDonald and David Cullinane wrote to the Taoiseach asking for the terms of reference of a Covid inquiry. They heard nothing in response. A meeting with Opposition leaders in December was cancelled. Finally, a meeting is to happen later this week. The Taoiseach has committed to engaging not only with political leaders but also with those who showed bravery, steadfastness and creativity through the Covid crisis. Did he speak to Care Champions, which has been such a strong voice for those who lost family members? Did he speak to the Irish Association of Social Workers, Safeguarding Ireland and representatives of the healthcare trade unions? They must have their say in shaping this inquiry. I have spoken before on the need for a mechanism for families who lost loved ones in places such as Dealgan House.
A Covid inquiry should not be a witch-hunt. It should acknowledge the hard decisions that had to be taken. It should be conscious and respectful of the efforts of all front-line workers and, most important, should acknowledge the trauma still felt by some.
My question is simple. Will long Covid be included in the terms of reference of the Covid inquiry? It is clearly important that if we are to come to a balanced assessment of mistakes that were made and so on, we do not look just at the short term but also at the long-term implications for hundreds of thousands of people, such as illness, isolation and inability to work. In that regard, the economic impacts alone are severe.
According to the World Health Organization, one in ten Covid infections results in long Covid. There are 350,000 people in Ireland suffering from long Covid. The Government has utterly failed to organise proper healthcare services for long Covid, such as basic training for GPs to properly diagnose and manage it. It is not recognised as a disability for the purposes of social welfare.
The Government continues to fail to warn the public about the ongoing dangers of contracting Covid through a public information campaign. Again, Taoiseach, it is a very simple question. Will long Covid be included in the terms of reference of the inquiry?
Some 24 residents died in a 51-bed nursing home at Ballynoe in Cork during the Covid emergency. They were just some of the more than 1,500 people who died in nursing homes during those times. Families and loved ones have many questions they want answered about the care that was and, in some cases, was not given in the homes. Ireland's Covid inquiry is due to be set up in the near future. Majella Beattie of Care Champions told Shannonside radio that older people and people in care were often seen through a medical lens rather than being seen as human beings with thoughts and being able to make choice and having human rights. They were never given that. Where rights were given in other countries, we continued with extreme restrictions on older people. Care Champions are calling for a human rights expert to be on the panel that looks at what happened in our nursing homes and how we go forward from here. Will the Taoiseach agree to this request?
There are a lot of issues that will have to be dealt with in the Covid inquiry but certain things are beyond question. The Irish health service is operating at near 100% capacity. Most countries in Europe operate at about 80% to 85%. If we are hit with further public health emergencies or major accidents, unless we have a buffer within our health system, which means additional capacity so we are not tipping over the edge of the ability of our system to cope on a day-to-day basis, we will be in very serious trouble. All the hardships we saw during Covid could be seen again. What is the Government going to do to ensure that we get ICU capacity at the same levels as the rest of the European Union when it is well below? Is it not time to recognise that having a fragmented, half privatised system is not the way to maximise the capacity that we have in our health service? We need an integrated national, publicly owned and run health service rather than the partially privatised and fragmented system that we have. Considering that staff are the key to increasing capacity, is it not very counter-productive that the Government is holding out on giving public service workers, including nurses and other health workers, a decent pay increase to entice them to stay and work in this country and in our health service? Many of them are leaving because their pay, their income, as the Taoiseach referred to earlier, is insufficient to give them a decent standard of life or for them to be able to afford accommodation in this country.
On Deputy Tóibín's questions, look, I was there in government both as Taoiseach and Tánaiste for that very dark period which was the pandemic. These were very difficult decisions to make. Everyone can be an expert in hindsight. We can only make decisions based on the information available and the advice that was put to us by experts. I have no doubt that the lockdowns saved lives. I am absolutely certain that the vaccine programme saved a lot of lives. We see that from the most recent OECD report, which shows that Ireland is one of only a handful of countries in which there were no excess deaths during that period, with only New Zealand, Iceland and Norway outperforming us. Of course the lockdowns had negative effects. I was among many people in government who were very clear about my concerns about the negative effects of lockdowns, not just on people's jobs and businesses but also delayed and deferred diagnoses, which the Deputy raised, which did happen. In housing construction we lost thousands of houses because of the housing construction lockdown.
The only country in Europe.
Even for something like Garda numbers, if we had not closed Templemore there would be 1,000 more gardaí today. These things have real consequences but they were difficult decisions. It was never a case of choosing between the right option and the wrong option. It was choosing between options A, B and C, all of which had pros and cons.
We were an outlier.
Often those decisions were finely balanced. The public health advice more often than not was for deeper, longer, stricter lockdowns. That was often the view of the Opposition, too, indeed some even flirted with the bizarre zero Covid policy which has proven to be among the worst options when we see the effects that occurred, or certainly not a sustainable option as it was abandoned by all the countries that attempted it.
In respect of Deputy Ó Murchú's questions about the terms of reference of the Covid inquiry, I am going to consult with Opposition leaders this week. I had hoped to do so in December but my diary just was not able to do it because of the amount of other obligations I have, particularly in relation to foreign travel. I hope that can go ahead this week. We will share the draft terms of reference with Opposition parties and discuss their views on the composition of them. Unfortunately I am not going to be in a position to engage personally with all of the different individual groups and stakeholders. We would never get this commission up and running. If it was possible to schedule that many meetings I would but I just cannot. We will find a mechanism to consult interested groups and stakeholders.
On health service capacity, I agree that our health service needs more capacity, not least because of our rising population, our aging population and the development of new treatments. What Deputy Boyd Barrett did not acknowledge is that this is exactly what this Government has been doing since 2020, in the three or four years since we have been in office. We have 20,000 more staff in our health service now than we had in 2020. Yes, there are people leaving but there are way more people joining, 20,000 more in fact. We have 1,000 more consultants than we had in 2020. We have 1,000 more hospital beds than we had in 2020. We have more ICU beds and the Deputy is right that we are going to need a lot more. In terms of nurses we are now in the top five in the western world when it comes to practising nurses per head, even higher when it is practising nurses per bed. For the first time that I can remember, in the most recent statistics we are now around average in terms of the number of doctors that we have. We had been below average previously. There have been pay increases and we are in negotiations with public service unions about further pay increases. We would have liked to have that agreed back in October or November but it has not been possible. I do think that the utopian system, or perhaps the ideal system, to be fair, that Deputy Boyd Barrett describes sounds very like the NHS. It might have been a model that would have worked 50 or 100 years ago but it does not work in the modern world. What do we see in the NHS? We see longer waiting lists and waiting times for patients, lower life expectancy, worse outcomes when it comes to stroke and heart attack and lower pay for the staff.
That is because they ripped it apart.
That is definitely not a model that we will be following. In the election we will be encouraging people not to vote for Sinn Féin or for left wing parties precisely because that is what they want to do in Ireland. It is not a good thing.
On long Covid, early in the pandemic the HSE identified a need for a national service for long Covid and to set up a multidisciplinary team to develop a model of care under the auspices of the chief clinical officer. The model of care is now being implemented building on existing service provision in addition to establishing new services across GP and community services and acute hospitals, to ensure a national service is in place for those who need it. Funding for the model of care has been increased to €6.6 million this year. At present there are six long Covid clinics and seven post-acute Covid clinics that are operating nationally. The clinics currently operate at St. Vincent's and Beaumont and the post-acute Covid clinics operating under the new model of care will be in the Mater and Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown. In addition, Tallaght, St. James's Hospital, CUH, UHG and Limerick hospitals are operating combined post-acute and long Covid clinics. The HSE is working with Letterkenny to have a more definitive timeline around their anticipated launch date. Recruitment, which includes consultants in the areas of infectious disease, respiratory medicine, psychiatry, neurology and allied health professionals, clinical psychologists and administrators, is under way. To date 66 WTE primary notification numbers have been issued across all of the post-acute and long Covid clinics. As of 8 September last year, 46 whole-time equivalent posts had been followed. Deputies will appreciate that long Covid is an emerging area of medicine and expertise. There is still so much that we do not know about it.
And the human rights expert?
I will be consulting with the Opposition parties on Thursday and am happy to go through it all then.
I would have thought you might have a view on it, but anyway.
Church-State Relations
Peadar Tóibín
Ceist:11. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Taoiseach when he last met with church leaders in Ireland. [55133/23]
Like public representatives generally, I meet church leaders informally from time to time in the course of attending official or public events. The most recent formal meeting between the Office of the Taoiseach and the church leaders took place on 15 April 2021, when the now Tánaiste met the leaders of all the Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church, the Methodist Church and the Irish Council of Churches. I had the opportunity to meet the papal nuncio shortly before Christmas. I understand that discussions at these forums covered the contribution to peace-building and the work churches undertake on an ongoing basis at community level in Northern Ireland in particular.
Religious leaders of all faiths are working overtime in this country at the moment. They do enormous work in helping the vulnerable, members of the Travelling community, victims of human trafficking, those in prison, those who are homeless, those with addictions, those who are grieving and so on, and in terms of integration and working with many in our migrant communities. They must, however, be better supported by the Government. I always find it very interesting to watch many within the political establishment, who are so hostile to those of the Catholic faith in particular, rely heavily on those religious people to pick up the tab in areas of Government neglect.
I take the opportunity to pay tribute to a nun, a Columban sister whom I know in Navan. At the age of 94, Sr. Catherine Lillis received the Oireachtas Human Dignity Award from the Ceann Comhairle. She has worked in missionaries in Myanmar, Hong Kong and Egypt. Her hope, in her old age, is to extend the addiction treatment centre she founded in Navan so it can treat women as well as men. She is a mighty woman who has done wonders for the town of Navan. There is an awful lot that politicians in this House could learn from her. What steps is the Government taking to help and support religious leaders of all faiths in the great work they are doing throughout the country?
In his engagement with religious leaders, did the Taoiseach or officials from his Department have any discussion with Archbishop Eamon Martin? It may have gone under the radar but just before Christmas, after the Dáil had wound down, the archbishop made a statement on the safe access zones Bill. Can the Taoiseach hurry this legislation up? There have been protests outside abortion clinics this morning in Limerick, and they are pretty intimidating protests by men carrying rosary beads and aggressively approaching women attending for reproductive healthcare. In this statement, the archbishop said "The imposition of so-called 'safe' abortion zones will further silence the voice of the innocent unborn", and the introduction of such zones "increases fears that freedom of religion, belief, expression and association are being undermined and open to attack". That is a pretty serious and aggressive statement to make when we need this Bill to be fast-tracked through as quickly as possible. Will the Taoiseach also comment on what the Government intends doing in relation to the Marie O'Shea review, which again went under the radar just as we broke up for Christmas, and how it is going to legislate to implement the recommendations she made?
Saint John of God Community Services is facing a funding crisis. The organisation has informed me that a meeting of the board is taking place this Thursday. If the €32 million deficit, which the HSE and the Government were supposed to address, and additional funding is not made available, it will not be able to provide services. We need to understand there are 8,000 children in its services. In my area, the organisation provides respite services, special schools, disability services, CAMHS and so on. There was a memorandum of understanding to deal with the funding problems. The money was supposed to have been allocated in the budget, was not allocated, and now we are facing an impending crisis whereby those services could cease in a very short while. Obviously, that cannot happen. I do not know if the Taoiseach knows anything about this, but it needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency because we are talking about a lot of children, a lot of families, a lot of vulnerable people and absolutely critical services that are currently underfunded.
Did the issue of trans rights in education and healthcare come up in discussions with church leaders? The Catholic Primary School Management Association recently wrote to the Government, arguing that students should not be taught what it means to be transgender. It stated that it would be "counterproductive, generating unnecessary divisions" and, "more seriously, it might add to a growing psychological contagion amongst young and vulnerable children". It is bizarre language that seems to suggest that being trans is some sort of contagious disease. Did any of that came up in discussion with church leaders?
It relates to the question of trans healthcare, where Ireland is at the very bottom of the pile. A 2022 report by Transgender Europe rated Ireland's trans healthcare as worst in European Union. A big part of that is the failure to discuss with trans people and to bring their experience into the centre of the kind of informed consent model we need to develop. An example of that is the fact the new clinical lead for transgender services in Ireland, appointed by the HSE, appears to have been appointed without any consultation with any trans rights groups or the trans community about the role and the person who is going to fill the role - none of it. Does the Taoiseach agree that this is not the way to go about building an appropriate model for trans healthcare in this country?
I also raise the issue of Saint John of God Community Services. It has been brought to my attention that 8,000 adults and children receive supports in everything from mental health services to, in particular, disability services from the organisation. We are talking about community services and residential care. My area is served by Saint John of God North East Services, which provides a significant amount of its services in County Louth. It provides services to around 400 people and, in some cases, such as in the likes of Drumcar, we are talking about citizens who have the highest of needs.
We have been in this situation previously. I think it was back in September 2020 that the threat was made by the organisation, without choice, to transfer services back to the HSE. I understand that a decision was made in April 2021 to carry out a sustainability and impact assessment. The results were published in October 2023, but we have not seen any action on it. The organisation claims it has insufficient funding to be able to deliver these very necessary services. It is talking about starting the process of handing responsibility back to the HSE on Thursday. That cannot possibly happen. I have asked Mr. Bernard O'Regan, head of disability services in the HSE, about it. I understand engagement is ongoing, but we really need to bring it to a conclusion. It is not fair on the citizens who need these services nor on their families. We cannot be caught in this round-the-garden type scenario, where organisations constantly need to threaten to get the necessary services for some of our neediest citizens.
I thank the Deputies for their questions. On Deputy Tóibín's question, I put on the record that the Government is very grateful for and recognises the work done by the religious in Ireland and all over the world. Given the scandals that have affected churches and religious bodies and given the existence of religious extremism in the world, sometimes that can be forgotten, but it should not be forgotten. We will all know of people - nuns, priests and other religious people - who have made an enormous contribution to society and have given their lives, essentially, to help others. We have see that in healthcare, education, housing, addiction services and poverty alleviation, for example. It is easily forgotten that when the State was founded 100 years ago, we did not have a Department of social welfare and we did not have a Department of Health. Most people at the time did not consider these things to be matters for the State. It was often left to voluntary and religious bodies to fill that gap. Of course, things have changed so much since then.
We intend to get the safe access zones Bill enacted this year. I have not had any engagement with religious leaders on it specifically, although the last meeting I participated in was in 2021 and that was quite some time ago at this stage. It certainly was not raised with me by the papal nuncio or by the Archbishop of Dublin.
I am going to have to seek an update from the Minister on Saint John of God. I am aware of some of the issues facing the organisation, but I am not fully up to date.
I am sure these things will be resolved by negotiation - they always are - but I will seek an update from the Minister on it today, given the Deputies have raised it.
In respect of education about trans people, trans people exist. They have always existed. Now they can be more open about it, which is a good thing, but we have a long way to go. It is my view that it is right that children should learn about people who are transgender and what that means. I would prefer it if children learned about these things from their teachers in their schools rather than in the schoolyard, and from their loving parents rather than the Internet. If we do not have education in schools, I think we are letting children down in that regard.
Trans healthcare is a new and evolving area of medicine. It is controversial and there is a lot of disagreement within the profession about what the right treatments, diagnoses and investigations should be. There is so much we do not know about it; we are still learning. It is very important that NGOs should be consulted but, as with any area of healthcare, it has to be based on science and not on politics. It has to be led by science. I say that as somebody who is an LGBT advocate and a member of the LGBT community. Really, healthcare has to be led by science, not by politics.