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Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 15 Nov 2006

Vol. 185 No. 4

Adjournment Matters.

Housing Policy.

I thank the Minister of State for taking this matter. The concept of management companies is in dire need of reform and regulation because hundreds of thousands of euro is being collected from householders who have moved into apartment complexes and mixed housing developments. However, there is no transparency in the collection and expenditure of this money and the bank accounts in which it is held. I held public meetings in Lusk and Balbriggan in north County Dublin and the information I gathered indicates that a number of management companies can only be contacted through a mobile number which, more often that not, is out of service. In a number of instances, management companies are not even registered with the Companies Registration Office. They are flying in the face of their legal corporate governance responsibilities.

During a debate in the House last May, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government addressed this issue and whether such companies are acceptable on housing estates. I accept they are needed in apartment complexes that have common areas such as lifts, stairwells and hallways but people residing on traditional housing estates cannot see the need for them. Some 500,000 people, 12% of the population, live in apartment complexes with management companies, but the area is not regulated.

A further bone of contention is whether this practice is legal. Will the Government be landed with a bill of unforeseen magnitude and do councils have a legitimate right to impose a planning condition that they cannot enforce? Normally, a condition in a planning permission is enforceable, for example, landscaping for trees, open spaces and so on. In this situation, councils are imposing the condition of a management company and are then walking away and saying that the estates are no longer their responsibilities. However, a planning permission should be enforceable by the authority that grants it.

If a test case were taken, local authorities could be held liable in respect of management companies in conventional estates where people have own-door keys, that is, they do not share hall doors or common spaces. It is wrong that people are forced to pay for public liability insurance and public lighting, that the estates are not taken in charge by councils and that people are left with the long-term responsibility of establishing sinking funds in their communities for roads, open spaces and all other areas over which councils have traditionally had responsibility because they claim that these are privately managed estates.

A ridiculous situation has developed. In Dublin, someone living in a €5 million house could pay no charges for the upkeep of his or her estate because it is taken in charge in terms of public lighting, maintenance, grass cutting and so on in the normal way. Young couples on the affordable housing list in Fingal, people on lower incomes by the very nature of being on the list, are told when they sign their mortgages, which they get with the assistance of the council, that the estate is managed and that they must supply a cheque for €500 on day one and a cheque for €800 or €1,000 next year. This situation is ironic, outlandish and needs regulation. In the first instance, the Minister must instruct local authorities that they must desist from including such conditions in planning permissions.

I welcome the opportunity to address the House on this matter and I thank Senator Morrissey for raising it. As Senators are aware, it was traditional for management companies to operate for apartment developments because it was necessary to have arrangements in place for the upkeep and maintenance of buildings and shared private areas in such developments.

Section 34 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 recognised the practice of establishing management companies by allowing a planning authority to attach conditions to a planning permission for the maintenance or management of the proposed development. In early 2006, my Department carried out a survey of planning authorities in response to complaints that they had inappropriately extended the practice of placing the condition of management companies on traditional housing estates. In response, the authorities indicated that they did not generally do so.

My Department subsequently made it plain to planning authorities that conditions requiring management companies should not be attached to planning permissions for traditional housing estates, that is, estates of houses with individual private gardens, except in very specific circumstances, for example, if a particular service or facility is provided for residents' use only, such as a playground. In January 2006, my Department reminded planning authorities of their responsibilities under the Act in respect of the taking in charge of roads, footpaths, sewerage, etc. in such estates.

Many of the residential estates being built are the newer type of high-density estate containing a mix of apartments, duplex houses and other terraced houses, with shared open spaces instead of traditional gardens. Frequently, these estates contain features such as high-maintenance landscaping and shrubberies, open spaces where interlocking cobbled treatment is used and small playgrounds that would have been intended for residents' use only.

Roads, footpaths, public lighting and sewerage should always be taken in charge by the local authority. However, Senators will acknowledge that some further consideration must be given to whether it is appropriate that all shared areas in high-density estates should be taken in charge and maintained at public expense. It may be that it is appropriate that some of these facilities should be maintained by the residents themselves.

Accordingly, the Department established a working group in August 2006 that is representative of the Department, local authorities, architects, planners and consumer interests. The group is considering the question of responsibility for the maintenance of various common shared facilities in residential estates, including small landscaped open spaces, car parking and playgrounds. The group is also considering the issues around completion of estates and the taking-in-charge process having regard to the statutory requirements under section 180 of the Act. The remit of the group is to develop clear policy advice for planning authorities.

Planning authorities have been advised that pending the outcome of the work of the working group, they should only attach planning conditions in respect of the ongoing management of shared facilities in circumstances where they judge that those are clearly required for the benefit of residents. These circumstances could include apartment blocks, gated communities or where a specific service or facility is provided for residents' use only, such as a private playground. It is intended to issue guidance to planning authorities by early 2007 at the latest.

I thank the Minister of State for his considered reply. However, while the Minister of State has suggested what will be done, there must be a discussion on the issues created by practices that have developed in the past three or four years.

It is accepted that difficulties have arisen. Based on the advice of the working group, we will examine what can be achieved in respect of past happenings.

Industrial Relations.

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. Since I tabled this matter last week there has been a considerable change in terms of the Labour Court outcome to the case in question. Prior to that, the Irish Nurses Organisation and the Psychiatric Nurses Association hoped for a more positive outcome in terms of their core demand to reduce the working week from 39 hours to 35 hours. The INO and the PNA will get together to try to formulate a strategic approach to getting their just entitlements and rights within the public service.

From working closely with local authorities and other State agencies, the Minister of State knows that only one arm of the public service works a 39-hour week, namely, nurses. This is a discriminatory practice and it would be wrong to revert the matter to be dealt with by benchmarking. The Labour Court was in a position to deal with it, but did not do so. For the Health Service Executive to kick the matter back to touch is the wrong way to go about this business. In the early 1990s, benchmarking did not work in respect of this issue, anomalies in pay conditions for nursing staff or anomalies in working hours. I ask the Minister of State to have a serious consultation with the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, on this matter because the anger within the two organisations is growing. That anger is justified because of the way they have been treated, but it can be dealt with if we intervene at this stage. If we kick it to touch and leave benchmarking to deal with the issue, it will not be dealt with. We procrastinated before and that will happen again.

The Minister of State knows from his constituency that most nurses and nursing staff are female and work in arduous conditions with long and anti-social hours which put them under great stress. There are also males in the sector but the majority are female and it is discriminatory and sexist. The Government should not take its eye off the ball because their anger is building. The decision was made last Friday and now it is Wednesday. There is a meeting next week and I advise the Government to heed the demands of the Psychiatric Nurses Association and the Irish Nurses Organisation.

I thank Senator McHugh for raising what is a very important issue and I am pleased to have the opportunity to answer the question on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney. I welcome the opportunity to outline the position on the issues raised.

Since 1987 the social partnership agreements have helped to maintain a strategic focus on key national priorities and have created and sustained the conditions for employment growth, fiscal stability and the restructuring of the economy to respond to new challenges and opportunities. There has been a dramatic improvement in living standards and the culture of dialogue has served workers, employers and the people very well.

The parties to the previous national agreement, Sustaining Progress , had agreed that the benchmarking exercise was an important initiative in developing a better system of pay determination in the public sector. The parties further agreed that this process was an appropriate way of determining pay rates in the future. Following on from this, a new public service benchmarking body, PSBB, was established on 13 January 2006 by the Minister for Finance. The new PSBB is the mechanism for the determination of the pay of public servants, including nurses and midwives.

Members of the Irish Nurses Organisation, INO, and the Psychiatric Nurses Association, PNA, had accepted pay increases under Sustaining Progress which endorsed benchmarking as the means of addressing claims concerning pay and conditions of employment. However, the INO and the PNA have since decided not to participate in the current benchmarking process.

Prior to the expiry of Sustaining Progress, the INO and the PNA lodged eight cost-increasing claims with the Health Service Executive employers’ agency for improvements in pay and conditions. The eight claims were for a pay parity claim with social care and child care workers; a 35-hour week for nurses, without a corresponding reduction in pay; pay parity claim with therapist grades; introduction of a Dublin living allowance; increased shift premium payments; introduction of a preceptorship allowance; a review of clinical nurse specialist and advance nurse practitioner posts; and days lost during the 1999 strike to be reckoned for pension purposes.

An initial estimate of the ongoing cost of the claims is more than €800 million per annum and this does not include increased pension costs. In addition, the unions are seeking retrospection estimated at €566 million. It is also estimated that in excess of 4,000 additional nurses would be required to make up the shortfall if the working week were to be reduced from 39 to 35 hours.

Can the Government not train more nurses?

It should be noted that other key health service grades, including junior doctors, health care assistants and other support staff, work a 39-hour week. Is that what Fine Gael is offering the people into the future?

I only suggest it for that part of the public service.

It would add €800 million to Exchequer costs. If the claims were to be conceded, there would be significant knock-on claims from other health service grades and the wider public service with an estimated cost to the Exchequer in excess of €600 million per annum.

Would it be money well spent?

The Minister without interruption.

Acceding to this claim from the INO and the PNA would cost €1 billion. A Labour Court hearing on the claims was held on 20 June and the court issued its recommendation on 9 November. It noted that the social partnership agreements continued to have the support of the great majority of workers, their trade unions and employers. The court also stated that the agreements provided an agreed framework by which workers could obtain improvements in pay and conditions of employment.

The court did not recommend concession of any of the major claims made by the two unions. Instead the court urged the unions to reconsider their position with regard to participation in benchmarking to have their claims examined through that process.

The HSE employers' agency has accepted the Labour Court recommendation and has called on the unions to reconsider their attitude to the benchmarking process. The employers have also urged the INO and the PNA to sign up the current national agreement, Towards 2016. It should be noted that SIPTU and IMPACT, which represent a minority of nurses, are co-operating with benchmarking and have recently made written and oral submissions to the public service benchmarking body on behalf of their members. Government policy on cost-increasing claims is clear. It is not open to public service unions to pursue pay claims otherwise than in accordance with the terms of the prevailing national pay agreement.

The Minister values the essential contribution of nurses and midwives to the delivery of a quality health service and she urges the INO and the PNA, in the interests of both patients and staff, to give serious consideration to the court's recommendation.

I am struck by the emotive nature of the Minister of State's response. This is not a like-for-like demand. I am talking about a woman or a man who has worked in the nursing profession for perhaps 25 or 30 years. One cannot compare somebody with the skills and expertise of a nurse with a junior doctor just starting his or her career, who may also have to work 39 hours per week. Looking at different levels is a dangerous road to go down. The Minister of State knows, as he stated at the end of his response, the value of the contributions nurses make.

The Senator is allowed to ask one supplementary question.

I ask the Minister to intervene. He should not use emotive language to suggest what nurses should do. He should become involved before it escalates because the nurses will ballot and may do so in a way not to the Government's liking.

The most important thing for the Government is to have an agreement going forward and participation in the benchmarking process, as laid out, from all public service unions. There is an opportunity under the benchmarking scheme for those workers and unions to have pay increases——

It did not work in the 1990s.

——provided they come within the scope of benchmarking and the unions can prove their case. If we were to concede all the claims, which the Labour Court has not recommended, the Senator must accept that it would cost the Exchequer €1 billion more.

I do not suggest it accept all the claims. The Government should talk to the unions and listen to them.

We can only talk to them——

The Senator is allowed one question.

We can talk to them only in the context of the pay agreement. The Senator is hardly saying, on behalf of the Fine Gael Party, that——

I am not here to make a political issue of it. I am speaking on behalf of the nurses.

——we should talk to them and pay what the claim amounts to, which is €2 billion.

Equal rights.

All workers have equal rights.

What equal rights? They work more hours than the average public servant.

I call Senator McCarthy to raise his matter.

Schools Building Projects.

I was expecting the Minister, Deputy Hanafin, to reply on this matter. The Minister of State, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, will understand that my remarks are directed towards the Minister, Deputy Hanafin.

That sounds ominous.

This issue has been causing huge concern in Clonakilty in recent times. Those concerned, the principal, teaching staff, parents and pupils who attend Clonakilty community college, are beyond frustration. The college was built in 1980 to accommodate 400 pupils. There are now almost 600 students enrolled there.

There is a clear need for an extension to the school. Much professional advice to that effect has been offered by the Department's experts. At present, such are the restrictions in terms of capacity at the college that students must walk from one side of Clonakilty to the old technical school on the other side of the town to use spare capacity there. In February this year I organised a public meeting in Clonakilty in conjunction with people who are affected by the problem in the college. I have visited the college on a number of occasions and have brought various members of my party to the college when they made constituency visits to highlight the problem, should they or other politicians be in a position in future to do something about it.

I walked from the college along the route to the technical school that students are expected to travel. It is inherently dangerous. Regardless of the debate about the extension, I must confess that walking that route, which entailed crossing five or six dangerous junctions, is not ideal in terms of safety and the other problems that could arise. What if a student, for example, were struck by a car? It could happen on MacCurtain Hill, near the Garda station in Clonakilty, through Assumption Place or crossing the road to the old technical college.

The extension is needed now more than ever. Experts from the Department of Education and Science have examined this issue. The proposed extension was to be 1,600 sq. m. but in 2001 inspectors from the Department increased it to 1,900 sq. m. That is how the Department envisages it. It has been sanctioned since 2001. In 2002, the then Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Woods, wrote to the local Deputy, who also happened to be the Minister for Agriculture and Food in that Administration, and sanctioned the appointment of the design team. This was greeted with great fanfare locally. People were delighted. However, nothing has happened since.

There has been a deafening silence from the Minister about this issue. There is no way of knowing if the design team will be appointed in days, weeks or months. The school is constantly expanding and it is not good enough that there is a silence about when the design team will be appointed, particularly given the clear political stunt that was pulled in 2002. There has never been an explanation from the current Minister as to why the project did not go ahead.

There was great expectation locally about the schools listed in the most recent schools building programme; it was expected that Clonakilty community college would feature on it. Alas, however, there was no mention of the school. Again, there has been utter silence. I have been in constant communication with the Department of Education and Science on this issue. The responses I have received contain all sorts of Civil Service drivel about prioritisation criteria but what does that mean? How does one go from a situation where the extension is sanctioned in 2002 to nothing happening in 2006? There has been no communication with the community in Clonakilty about it.

Recently, the Taoiseach was in Clonakilty to attend the transfer of Bord Iascaigh Mhara staff to the technology park. It was a great day for Clonakilty and for decentralisation. It is part of the decentralisation programme that has worked well and is a most welcome development in the area. People of Clonakilty welcome the employees of BIM and their families with open arms. However, if the Government were serious about decentralisation, it would ensure the educational facilities in that area were such that they would attract the employees of BIM and their families.

This issue is a cause of great ongoing frustration in Clonakilty. The Minister could imagine the angst of people if this occurred in his constituency. There is a deafening silence from the Department despite the raised expectations. There was a clear pre-election commitment but it has not been fulfilled. People want to know when this project will go ahead.

I thank Senator McCarthy for raising the matter as it affords me the opportunity to outline the Government's strategy for capital investment in education projects and to outline the position regarding Clonakilty community college.

Modernising facilities in our 3,200 primary and 750 post-primary schools is not an easy task given the legacy of decades of under-investment in this area as well as the need to respond to emerging needs in areas of rapid population growth. Nonetheless, since taking office the Government has shown focused determination to improve the condition of our school buildings and to ensure the appropriate facilities are in place to enable the implementation of a broad and balanced curriculum.

As evidence of this commitment, there will be approximately 1,300 building and modernisation projects active in primary and post-primary schools during 2006. This year, approximately €500 million is being spent on primary and post-primary projects. The Senator will agree this record level of investment is a lasting testament to the high priority the Government attaches to this sector.

There are two schools serving the post-primary needs of Clonakilty — Clonakilty community college, which is co-educational, and Sacred Heart secondary school, which is an all-girls school. Clonakilty community college was formed in 1980 as a result of the amalgamation of the town's vocational school and St. Mary's boys' secondary school. It operates under the aegis of County Cork Vocational Education Committee. The community college was built in 1980 to cater for 400 pupils. Since then, additional accommodation has been provided to cater for increasing enrolments.

Cork VEC requested that the Department of Education and Science review the accommodation at the college and make capital funding available for refurbishment and extension. This application was processed having regard to all relevant factors, including enrolment and demographic trends in the area and the overall accommodation requirements of the post-primary schools in Clonakilty. An accommodation brief to cater for a long-term enrolment of 550 has been agreed with the school authorities. Schedules of accommodation were revised earlier this year to ensure the appropriate level of accommodation is provided to meet the school's long-term needs. This project is under active consideration in the Department and will be progressed in the context of the schools building and modernisation programme, 2006-10.

I thank the Senator for giving me the opportunity to outline the position with this school project and to highlight the great amount of work being undertaken by the Department of Education and Science in implementing the schools building and modernisation programme to ensure infrastructure of the highest standard is available for all our schoolgoing population.

The most telling part of the reply is the statement that the project is under active consideration. It has been for many years but we need to know when it will happen. If that decision were announced, people would be happy. The project has been already approved and if there were no knowledge deficit, the situation would not be so frustrating. The project is urgent. I thank the Minister, Deputy O'Keeffe, for replying.

Obviously I am aware of the concerns in Clonakilty. These concerns have been brought to the attention of the Minister. She has declared that the project is under active consideration and is part of the 2006-10 building programme.

The Seanad adjourned at 8.10 p.m. until10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 16 November 2006.
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