Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 13 Feb 2024

Vol. 1049 No. 4

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate

Inland Fisheries

Deputy Michael Ring

I express my disappointment. It is the second time I have put down this matter and the Minister has failed to show up. I want to register that strongly. I really am annoyed. I have stuff I want to put on the record but I want the Minister to be here. I say that with respect to the House and the Minister of State who is here - it is no fault of his but he has no responsibility for fisheries or for that Department. All he will do, and I did it on many occasions, is read a prepared script.

There was a programme on UTV over the Christmas. It was "Mr. Bates vs The Post Office". It was about semi-state companies and the state and what they did to postmasters in England. We have the case of Pat Gorman. He was a director of Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI. The way he has been treated by that agency is a disgrace. He gave 37 and a half years of his life. His father before him and his family gave everything to the inland fisheries. He was treated that way over a simple little thing, a tractor stored in his garage by agreement between the line manager and Mr. Gorman. There was an anonymous letter sent in stating the tractor was there and was being used by this man. This man was treated very badly. There is stuff I want to put on the record but I will not do it tonight. I will put this down for the adjournment again and hope somebody from the fisheries will come in.

It is shocking the way this man has been treated. He went to the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, and won his case. The Department needs to be investigated, as does the IFI. An independent investigation needs to be carried out into all of this, given what the WRC said in its report about the line manager, the CEO and the Department. They lost the case. It was a disgrace the way this man was treated and the way the CEO came in with the line manager in front of all the staff and suspended him, and then eventually got rid of him. It is a scandal.

As a Fine Gael Member of this House, with a Fine Gael Taoiseach and a Fine Gael-led Government at the moment, I cannot allow this to happen. I cannot allow a decent, honourable man to have his and his family's reputation tarnished by a State board.

What really annoyed me was the action of the Minister the week the Dáil adjourned. What did he do? He appointed a new board. When the old board was investigating the CEO, he sacked it and got rid of it. The new board is in now and it has some can of worms to deal with. I hope the board's members are honourable, decent people and will deal with it.

I commend the Comptroller and Auditor General because he has already discovered what was happening in relation to expenses. I know the inland fisheries will come before the Committee of Public Accounts again and I know the Comptroller and Auditor General will deal with that. I am glad there is somebody there to watch the State agencies because what happened to this man and his family is a disgrace.

I am waiting to hear the prepared speech from the Minister of State and controlled officials in that Department. I know them. They are there for so long now they are part of the establishment and part of the furniture. It is not right. It is like I said before in this Dáil, when there is something wrong, the public service will unite and come together to kill the small man.

I ask the Leas-Cheann Comhairle to put this back on the adjournment again because I have stuff here I want to put on the record when the Minister is here. I would like to hear what the Minister of State has to say.

Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Deputy Dara Calleary)

I thank Deputy Ring. Unfortunately, I will have to read him a prepared script. I know he has followed this issue hard and has stood up on this matter over a number of years. This is the second occasion a Minister of the Department has not been present, so I will bring it to the attention of the Minister on his behalf.

The matter of protected disclosures has been received in both the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications and Inland Fisheries Ireland. It is important to state there are no investigations into any staff in IFI, including the CEO. However, the protected disclosures process itself may involve the appointment of investigators to carry out investigations on the disclosures. As the Deputy is aware, a number of protected disclosures have been made relating to Inland Fisheries Ireland to both the Department and to Inland Fisheries Ireland itself over the past 18 months or so. These disclosures are being examined in line with the protected disclosure policy and guidelines of the Department and the equivalent policy of Inland Fisheries Ireland, as appropriate.

Clearly, within both the Department and IFI, there are established processes in place to deal with and manage the consideration of confidential protected disclosures, and in the case of the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications such disclosures are screened and managed by the protected disclosures unit in that Department. As many of these investigations are ongoing and confidential in nature, the Department is not in a position to comment on them except to state that it looks forward to their resolution in the near future. Any follow-up actions required on foot of the investigation of protected disclosures will be taken.

The Committee of Public Accounts was advised by Inland Fisheries Ireland on 6 July 2023 that alleged fraud was identified within Inland Fisheries Ireland in 2022 and this was subject to an investigation by An Garda Síochána. Inland Fisheries Ireland updated the Department that it understood this Garda investigation is ongoing and, in that context, it would not be appropriate to comment further on this particular matter.

On the broader matter of good governance within Inland Fisheries Ireland, the Minister, Deputy Ryan, requested the section 18 appointees, who stood in to perform the functions of the Inland Fisheries Ireland board from February 2023, to commission a review of the governance arrangements and operations of Inland Fisheries Ireland. EY was engaged to carry out this review, which included interviews with IFI staff, and the final report includes recommendations on how to address a number of important issues. This governance review was published in December 2023. The IFI chairman informed the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action last week that he is chairing a subgroup to address the EY governance report recommendations, and an implementation plan has been developed to give effect to these recommendations during the course of 2024.

As I said at the outset, I will bring the Deputy’s anger directly to the attention of the Minister.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Before Deputy Ring comes back in, I would urge some caution in identifying people who are not in the Chamber. I understand the Deputy's passion on the issue he is raising but I urge caution.

Deputy Michael Ring

I did not name anybody.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I know that. I am thinking ahead.

Deputy Michael Ring

I do not blame the Leas-Cheann Comhairle because I will be naming them and I will be making allegations I can stand over - every single one of them. One of them is that Mr. Gorman was treated differently from the CEO. When a disclosure was made to the Department, Mr. Gorman was suspended. Why was the CEO not suspended when allegations were made about him?

To be fair to Mr. Gorman, he did nothing wrong and he won his case at the Workplace Relations Commission and won a substantial amount of money. He will be going further and will go to the courts. Maybe when we get to the courts, we will actually find out the truth, as in the case of Mr. Bates and the Post Office in England. For 20 years, the public service, the Civil Service and all of them came together to do that to this man. It was wrong. I wish the Minister were here tonight because I want to put everything about this on the record of the Dáil. A good man's name has been damaged by somebody who should not have done it. This is a man who gave 37.5 years of good service to the State. It is wrong, and when somebody is wronged, that has to be put right.

I will not let this go. As for the excuse that it has gone to the Garda for investigation, the Minister of State and I know the Garda could spend the next ten years investigating that, and it will be investigating the CEO as well. I hope the Garda does that and quickly. He has already won his case at the Workplace Relations Commission, an independent body that has also made damning findings. It is a pity the Department did not put some of the damning findings into the script tonight.

Deputy Dara Calleary

Again, I can assure Deputy Ring that I will bring his concerns and the script of his remarks directly to the Minister's attention and ask him to follow it up with the Deputy.

Schools Building Projects

Deputy James Lawless

I wish to raise the issue of the Mercy Convent Primary School in Naas and to set out the sorry tale I have raised many times with the Minister, Deputy Foley. I want to put on record what has happened in this extremely frustrating situation. There are schools around the country, many in my own constituency, where boards of management, principals and staff are looking for a new-build project to be approved, to get funding or to advance. In this particular instance of the Mercy Convent school in Naas, there is a brand new building sitting idle on the school grounds.

What happened is that after all of the usual delays, lobbying and campaigning to get it off the ground, the project started in 2017. The building commenced and the school moved into prefabs next door to have a temporary location during the construction phase. Lo and behold, in 2020, everything ground to a halt because of a row with the contractor. That happens and it is part of construction life, unfortunately, but we are now four years on. The school is directly opposite my office in Naas and I have been on site with the principal, Cathal Ruane, who is doing a great job advocating for his school, the school community and the parents and staff. I have sat with him in his office and looked out of his prefab window at the brand new building that is co-located on the same site but is inaccessible to the students, staff or anybody else. Unfortunately, it remains a shell which has not been completed because of this dispute. It is understandable that a dispute can cause a delay of three or four months, but four years is really pushing it beyond the beyond.

In addition to the delay, the costs associated with that include the cost of security because the building site had to be secured and policed, the cost of maintenance because the shell had to be protected and windows, ceilings and roofs had to be protected and repaired in some cases, and the cost of renting prefabs because, as well as the new school building that has to be maintained, the temporary prefabs on the same site have to be maintained. There is also the cost of various rows with subcontractors, and while I will not go into all of them on the floor of the Dáil, I have had calls from various people involved about everything from the highest to the lowest level of the project with all kinds of allegations, such as tools being locked in, projects being left behind and scaffolding on site. It is a mess.

The school community and I, as the local TD, want to get this project advanced again. I hope this is the last time I have to raise it on the floor of the Dáil. We thought some good news had come through after I had been persistent on this issue last year. Stage 2B applications were received in March 2023, the tenders came back in July 2023 and a tender report issued in September 2023. At the time, I gave what I thought was the good news to the principal and the school community that things were moving on again. Everybody was relieved and thought that, maybe by September 2024, we would have some progress and we could even dream of it opening in September 2025 or September 2026. We are still there and we have not had any sight of it. I believe a letter of intent is needed to give effect to the next stage and to move the project on.

It is remarkable. This may be the only site of its kind in the country. I think it has cost €9 million to date but that does not include the cost of maintenance, security, renting prefabs or all the attendant costs. It is a brand-new school building that is lying idle, with children being taught daily in prefabs beside it. It is a Flann O’Brienesque or Kafkaesque, crazy situation that has to be addressed.

There is a need to inject urgency with the relevant officials, the Department or whoever else to issue that letter of intent. We need to move to the next stage and address this outrageous lacuna.

Deputy Dara Calleary

I thank the Deputy for raising the matter as it provides an opportunity to outline the current position with regard to the major building project for Mercy Convent Primary School, Naas. I know the Deputy has been consistent in raising the issue with the Minister, Deputy Foley. As the House is aware, the project is included in the Department of Education’s construction programme, which will be delivered under the national development plan as part of the Project Ireland 2040 framework. The Department’s planning and building unit is currently assessing its work programme and priorities for 2024 in the context of overall requirements. Mercy Convent Primary School remains a priority for delivery on behalf of the Department. A tender report was received by the Department in quarter 3 of 2023, as noted by the Deputy, and is currently under review. The authorisation to issue the letter of acceptance has not issued. The next steps for this project will be the completion of the tender process and progression to stage 4, namely, construction.

I assure the Deputy and the Mercy Convent Primary School community that the school building project will be progressed and delivered. The Department of Education will update the school authorities when there is a further update on the progression of this major and important project.

Deputy James Lawless

I thank the Minister of State for that commitment. I want the Department to go further, however. I appreciate there is only so much the Minister of State can say and do tonight. I thank him for the commitment to take the matter to the Minister, Deputy Foley. As he stated, I have discussed the matter with her on several occasions. I acknowledge her good faith on the matter but we need to see action, the letter of intent issued and the matter moved on.

A separate issue relating to the school is that two years ago, it applied to embrace a co-educational approach, with both sexes attending. Traditionally, it was co-educational up to a certain point at which children of one sex left. The senior classes were single-sex. The application was supported by staff, the school community and parental bodies. A poll, consultation or vote was held within the school and the application was overwhelmingly supported by staff and parents. We are now two years on. When a child is attending a particular school, parents have decisions to make that flow from whether a sibling can go to the same school. These are important choices parents make annually which affect the whole family, work decisions and related matters.

The application for co-educational status has still not been progressed. I realise this is not entirely within the control of the Department. It may not be within its control at all but, rather, a matter of patronage. I pay credit to Bishop Denis Nulty. I spoke to him this evening on this issue and am progressing it through the patron as well. However, I ask the Department to use its influence to address the issue. There is significant disappointment that the school does not have its new building and now the co-educational situation is adding insult to injury. A new school building for a school that is co-educational from junior to senior streams is what is wanted in that school community. It is not too much to ask. I ask the Minister to make every effort to advance both issues, primarily that of the school building, which is within the domain of the Department, but also the co-educational aspect, which is an important issue for the school community.

Deputy Dara Calleary

I assure the Deputy the Minister is very committed to this project. Since 2020, the Department of Education has invested in the region of €4.3 billion in schools throughout the country, involving the completion of more than 800 school building projects, with construction currently under way at approximately 300 other projects, including 34 new school buildings. The 300 projects currently at construction involve a total State investment of more than €1.2 billion. There are also 90 projects currently at tender stage, including a further 28 new school buildings. There is a record level of investment in schools and new school buildings under the Minister, Deputy Foley.

I will relay to her the Deputy's urgency on the issue of the school becoming co-educational. The position of the Department of Education in respect of post-primary or primary schools requesting to become co-educational is that the decision-making authority belongs to the patron of the school in question, as the Deputy has acknowledged. Any proposal to change the status of a school requires consultation with the relevant stakeholders, including parents, teachers, students, local communities and patrons of other schools in the school planning area. Such proposals must then be applied for and agreed with the Department of Education, which undertakes a review of such proposals. It should be noted that each change of status within a school is dealt with on a case-by-case basis by an officer of the Department of Education.

Homeless Accommodation

Deputy Maurice Quinlivan

This Topical Issue matter relates to homeless services in Limerick, particularly the lack of space and how increased rents, the ending of the no-fault eviction ban and the failure to fund Limerick's homeless services have all impacted on the inadequate capacity of homeless services in Limerick. Homeless services in Limerick have advised me that they have been turning away many people almost every night as they simply do not have the space to accommodate them. These are people who have nowhere else to go. If you walk through the centre of Limerick city, you will see many of these people spending their days, and nights, unfortunately, on the streets.

The most recent Department of housing homeless report, which recorded homelessness in December, showed that 13,318 people remained in State-provided homeless accommodation. Of this headline figure, 3,962 of those presenting were children, unfortunately. Of course, the figure of 13,318 represents only a proportion of those who are homeless. There are others who, night to night and week to week, are rough sleeping or couch surfing on a friend's couch. Having to ask permission from your friends, family members or even your partner's parents to stay on their couch would be a dent to anyone’s pride and a blow to their confidence. These figures do not include people in domestic refuges or direct provision centres or those who are couch surfing.

In Limerick, there were 344 people living in Department of housing emergency accommodation. These are people who have nowhere else to go. The city is littered with vacant and boarded-up local authority-owned homes, but there is a lack of funding and intervention to release grants to the local authority to do up these properties. Many of these people have been priced out of renting a property and, in view of the excessive price of houses for sale, have no chance of obtaining a mortgage. They are in a limbo and a void.

They could opt to apply for social housing, and many do so, but they are joining a list of thousands and face little prospect of being allocated a house in the immediate term. Every day, my office takes calls from constituents who are on the Limerick social housing list, often for many years, and yet to be accommodated. Why are so many turning to the scant supply of social housing? They are doing so because there are no other options - they are priced out of renting, there is very little supply and they are priced out of purchasing their own home.

A cursory glance at the rental section of daft.ie showed that there were only 13 properties available to rent in Limerick city today. There was a two-bedroom apartment for €1,960 and a one-bedroom property at €1,850 per month. There is no three-bedroom property available in the city for families. One of the properties that caught my eye was a one-bedroom flat going for €1,820 a month that is not even furnished with a couch. A couple may have some hope of getting a property, but only if they do not have kids.

It is the policies of this Government that have created this crisis. It is the decisions of this Government that have made renting a mere pipe dream for many young people. It is the actions of this Government that has increased the level of homelessness in the State. Since the Minister of State and his colleagues took office, homelessness has increased by 61% and child homelessness by 74%. It is shameful that the Government has allowed things to get so bad for citizens and it is particularly shameful that there were 3,962 children in homeless accommodation in December. Under the stewardship of the Government, we have record high rent prices, record rent increases and record levels of homelessness.

There is no doubt that we are in accommodation crisis. There is no doubt that young people, our educated and motivated youth, are being delayed in beginning their journey of independent living. CSO figures indicate that more than 522,000 adults lived in the same house as their parents in 2022, a 19% increase on 2011.

What will the Government do to address these figures and the lack of homeless places in Limerick? What is it doing to ensure a more accurate homelessness figure is reported? When will it accept that the Housing for All policies the Minister trumpets almost daily are not working. especially for young people in Limerick and elsewhere in the State?

Deputy Dara Calleary

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. The latest Housing for All progress report, which covered quarter 4 of 2023, showed that the number of new homes delivered last year was the highest in 15 years, with 32,695 new homes completed in 2023, which is 10% higher than in 2022 and exceeds Housing for All’s 2023 target by almost 13%. The pipeline is also strong, with 32,800 new homes commencing construction in 2023 and permission granted for another 37,600 homes.

This is the highest number of annual commencements on record. It is an increase of over 21.5% compared with 2022. In fact, it is the highest number of annual residential commencements since records began in 2014.

Supporting individuals and families facing homelessness is a key Government priority. The role of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is to ensure that a framework of policy, legislation and funding is provided to ensure that housing authorities are in a position to address homelessness at a local level. I can assure the Deputy that resources and funding are not an obstacle to the urgent efforts required. Budget 2024 reflects this commitment with the allocation of €242 million for homelessness services.

I know that Limerick City and County Council is doing everything in its power to address the severe pressures on access to emergency accommodation. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage continues to liaise with Limerick City and County Council in this regard. The RTB rent indices for quarter 3 of 2023 show that standardised average rent in Limerick city stood at €1,397 for new tenancies, while the standardised average rent for existing tenancies stood at €1,126. On average, rents in existing tenancies are significantly lower, by around 18%, than in new tenancies. The administrative area of Limerick City and County Council was prescribed as a rent pressure zone, RPZ, on 31 August last. Over 77% of tenancies nationwide are now in RPZs. Properties new to the market, including dwellings not on the market during the previous two years or the previous 12 months if the dwelling in question is a protected structure, can be set at market rent. New properties are not covered by the 2% rent increase cap for the initial rent setting but they are covered for all subsequent rent reviews in RPZs. Analysis carried out by the ESRI and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, which was published in April 2022, suggested ongoing pressures in the general housing market and the robust macroeconomic recovery mean that without RPZ’s, rental inflation would be notably higher.

Deputy Maurice Quinlivan

I thank the Minister of State for the reply. I know he did not write it and it did not come from his Department but what he has just read out to me is absolutely scandalous. I raised the issue of homeless services in Limerick. The Minister of State said that Limerick City and County Council is: "doing everything in its power to address the severe pressures on access to emergency accommodation." I did not doubt that for one second. What I do doubt is that the council has the funding or the resources to do what it needs to do. The council is doing the best it can, but it does not have the funding or resources it needs. That is the point I was making. Perhaps the Minister for housing, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, will answer that the next time I get a chance to ask him.

Rents in Limerick are increasing. They went up by 16.2% year on year between quarter 3 of 2022 and quarter 3 of 2023. The average house purchase price in Limerick has increased by almost 10%. Within Limerick city, average house prices now stand at over €250,000.

I want to put on record my thanks to those who work with homeless services, both those who are paid and those who do so on a voluntary basis. I include the staff of Novas, the homeless action team of Limerick City and County Council, and especially Ms Jackie Duhig Purcell, Ms Annemarie Sheehan and all those who volunteer with Limerick Help the Homeless. They do invaluable work on the streets with people who have nowhere to go and who sometimes, unfortunately, have nothing to eat.

I also want to commend my secretarial assistant, Ms. Danielle O'Shea, who answers the phone in my office, which is very busy. It is a difficult job for one person to be dealing with such a huge volume of often very complex cases. She deserves recognition for the really hard work that she does, especially when I am not in Limerick and am up in Dublin.

There are things that can be done to arrest these developments, to puncture the homeless figures and to give certainty and clarity to renters. Even at this stage, so late in the term of this Government, there is an opportunity to be on the side of workers and families. The Government can increase and deliver Housing First tenancy targets and reintroduce a temporary ban on no-fault evictions, the lifting of which increased homelessness numbers catastrophically. The Government can also expand the tenant in situ scheme.

I appreciate the Minister of State's robust defence of the Minister for housing but he is not codding anybody. People of all incomes are facing challenges. However, those challenges have not been eased by the Housing For All policy the Minister of State so earnestly defends. People want and deserve something different. They want a change from these failed policies. They want housing opportunities and affordable homes.

Deputy Dara Calleary

I assure Deputy Quinlivan that the most efficient way to deal with this and what people want is extra supply. What people want is more homes and they are being built through Housing For All, the Minister's plan. The latest CSO data on planning permission dating back to 7 December show that nationally, 9,662 dwelling units were granted planning permission in quarter three 2023, an increase of 43.3% on the same quarter in 2022. Residential planning permission granted for January to September 2023 is up 13% on the same period last year. Reflecting the importance of Housing For All and the fact that it is delivering, a record €5.1 billion in capital investment in housing was announced in budget 2024. This is made up of €2.6 billion in Exchequer funding, €978 million in the Land Development Agency and €1.5 billion in the Housing Finance Agency. As already stated, the number of new homes delivered last year, at 32,695, was the highest in 15 years. We are committed to continuing to increase that supply.

I will ask the Minister to look at the situation with regard to homeless services in Limerick and why, in the context of €242 million, there is pressure there. I acknowledge and endorse the tributes Deputy Quinlivan paid to everybody involved in addressing the homelessness issue, not just in Limerick but also across the country.

Cuireadh an Dáil ar athló ar 10.56 p.m. go dtí 9.10 a.m., Dé Céadaoin, an 14 Feabhra 2024.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.56 p.m. until 9.10 a.m. on Wednesday, 14 February 2024.