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Departmental Strategy Statements

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 22 May 2012

Tuesday, 22 May 2012

Ceisteanna (23, 24, 25, 26, 27)

Gerry Adams

Ceist:

1Deputy Gerry Adams asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the publication of his Department’s Strategy Statement 2011-2014. [21605/12]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Micheál Martin

Ceist:

2Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Taoiseach his Department’s role in tackling the jobs crisis as outlined in his Department’s strategy statement; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23883/12]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Micheál Martin

Ceist:

3Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Taoiseach the policy areas for which he or his Department are specifically responsible; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23751/12]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Micheál Martin

Ceist:

4Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Taoiseach if his Department is adequately staffed to allow for implementation of the full Programme for Government as outlined in his Department’s Strategy Statement 2011-2014; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24818/12]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Micheál Martin

Ceist:

5Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Taoiseach the way he plans to promote further transparency from his Department as outlined in the Strategy Statement 2011-2014; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24819/12]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí ó Béal (18 píosaí cainte)

I propose to answer Questions Nos. 1 to 5, inclusive, together. The statement of strategy from my Department, published in March, reflects the considerable process of change and restructuring the Department has undergone since I took office. The Department of the Taoiseach, in its position at the centre of Government, has a very important role to play in supporting me and the rest of Government as we work to secure Ireland's future.

The statement of strategy outlines the key strategic priorities to be focused on in the period to 2014. These areas are jobs and growth; Europe; the programme for Government; service; trust; reform; fairness; and peace. The focus of my Department is to ensure that Government policy in these areas is progressed across the whole of Government. Through the system of Cabinet committees and senior official groups, key initiatives such as the Action Plan for Jobs and Pathways to Work have been given appropriate priority by my Department. Through these structures, my Department is monitoring progress on the implementation of the action plan for jobs and the first quarterly report was published on 20 April. My Department will also continue to work closely with other Departments to rebuild Ireland's position at EU level and internationally. This will be facilitated by the creation of an integrated EU division in the Department. Ministers and their Departments are, of course, specifically responsible to this House and to the public for policy matters covered within their areas.

The Government is committed to reform of the public service and of the way Government operates in order to become more transparent, accountable and efficient. In this regard, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, is overseeing a major programme of change, for example, in relation to freedom of information legislation, whistleblowers' legislation and regulation of lobbyists. There are also a significant number of commitments in the programme for Government assigned to my Department relating to constitutional and Oireachtas reform.

In addition to its general responsibilities to progress these commitments, my Department will also take specific actions to promote transparency. The Department already publishes details of foreign travel costs online and will soon be able to publish details of purchase orders worth over €20,000. It is also considering how best to publish other financial information online on a monthly basis.

The staffing needs of my Department are kept under ongoing review in order to ensure that it meets its strategic objectives. In addition to staff who transferred from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to the enhanced EU division in my Department, further staff have been redeployed from other Departments and a number of specialist temporary staff have been recruited to work on preparations for the EU Presidency. A number of staff have been seconded to my Department from the National Economic and Social Council and Forfás to assist in policy implementation. My Department will continue to change, develop and strengthen its capacity and expertise in light of emerging challenges and priorities.

In the spirit of transparency to which the Taoiseach referred in his reply, have any retired civil servants returned to work in his Department? There has been considerable public commentary about this phenomenon of civil servants leaving on pension and returning, in some cases to the same Department. Common sense dictates at a time of high unemployment that when vacancies arise within the service those positions should be filled by some of the many thousands of skilled people who find themselves on the dole queues or in the airport departure lounges. I ask the Taoiseach to clarify whether any position in his Department is filled by a person who has returned after retirement. I ask for his view on this phenomenon in general.

The Taoiseach has said that jobs and growth are a key priority for his Department and this is welcome. How does he see his role and that of his Department in the delivery of any economic stimulus plan? What is the role of his Department in overseeing the delivery of action plans for job creation? His strategy statement makes clear the need to avoid what is termed group think and I presume this arises from the findings of the Nyberg report, the Regling Watson report and the Honohan report.

In recent weeks we have heard how repeated cautions by a Department of Finance official in 2005 of the impending economic crash, were persistently removed from public statements and from responses to priority questions. What steps has the Government taken to avoid a repetition of any such scenario?

To my knowledge, there is nobody in the Department of the Taoiseach who has been rehired following retirement. I will check this information for the Deputy to ensure its accuracy but I do not believe this to be the case. On the general policy of rehiring people following retirement, the Minister for State, Deputy Brian Hayes dealt with this issue last week in the matter of the rehiring of a number of specialists who returned on contract. For example, in the case of members of the teaching profession, their employer is the board of management of a school and the Department of Education and Skills acts as the paymaster general. The Government made a clear decision early this year that teachers who retired under the voluntary scheme at the end of February and who were teaching the junior certificate and leaving examination classes, could be rehired to continue with their classes until the end of the examination period because of the special bond between teachers of examination classes and their pupils. We did not wish to see disruption caused to those classes if the teachers were replaced by new personnel.

The Deputy will be aware of the issue of the employment of a number of hired veterinary surgeons to carry out inspections in meat factories. These are taken from a long list of veterinary practitioners, the vast majority of whom are in private practice. I do not wish to speak further as a Supreme Court case is pending and the Department closed the list some time ago. As a general principle it is my view that when people retire on pension or gratuity, the opportunities for work should be available to new people who will have that extra enthusiasm and energy for the work. I acknowledge there are cases where particular specialists may be required on a contract basis but as a general principle I believe that when people retire this means retirement rather than a return to work as described by the Deputy.

As for overseeing the delivery of an economic stimulus or action plan, the Office of the Taoiseach, through the Cabinet sub-committees, has the opportunity to call together the agencies and the Ministers and to organise the time line for required actions. I am not suggesting that this does not happen but in order to avoid an occasional drift it is very important to have a regular assessment of progress on the action plan. This is the reason for the special section in my Department which includes personnel from Forfás. Together with the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, this section monitors and oversees the jobs action plan which was published in February. The plan contains 270 proposals specifically designed for the small and medium enterprises and small businesses sector. This section in my Department is constantly engaged with Secretaries General, Ministers and Ministers of State in regard to the quarterly schedule of issues and actions that need to be addressed, decided upon and implemented.

I believe the response was approximately 96% in the first quarterly report of that action programme. This may be the easy section and the next section may be more difficult because some of the issues are more complex. I have direct and regular contact with that section of my Department, which cuts across all those other Departments, and I see how those action plans are being implemented. The same applies in regard to the programme for Government as the section is in constant contact with the Ministers and their Secretaries General to ensure the Government plan is implemented in full over its period.

The Deputy asked how I can ensure there will not be a repeat of what happened in the past. I can report that the entire regime has changed and there is now a new emphasis on openness and transparency in the Department of the Taoiseach with a new Secretary General who has considerable experience and who wants to be very proactive in dealing with people. That is why these measures will be published online and ongoing financial transactions will be published monthly for the information of the public and everyone else. I hope that regular meetings between the senior officials of the Department of the Taoiseach and myself will ensure that the areas of responsibility of the Department and of the Government are followed through rigorously and actions which should be accomplished within a particular timescale are seen to happen, all in the interests of better services for everybody.

As I have four of the five first questions, the Ceann Comhairle might give me an opportunity to come back in again.

I have raised the Taoiseach's role in tackling the jobs crisis, as outlined in his Department's strategy statement. I asked him to make a statement on the matter as well as outlining the policy areas for which his Department is responsible, and whether his Department is adequately staffed. The Taoiseach's colleague, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Rabbitte, loves to choose his words carefully. Whether he is trying to rock the foundations of the State or just getting a laugh, he does not speak without thinking things through. It was therefore very revealing that he recently told a group of energy executives that the Government does not have a plan for the economy. This was reported in the Sunday Independent. He said the Government was essentially reacting on a day-by-day basis. Cutting through the spin, it seems there is a lot of hype about things but very little is actually happening.

The Department of the Taoiseach basically has the same staff as it had 18 months ago, but his office's role in formulating economic policy has been significantly reduced. His office hosts a lot of meetings, but he has removed most of the staff whose responsibility was to co-ordinate and deliver a jobs strategy. Would the Taoiseach agree that is one of the reasons the jobs strategy, which was launched last year, comprises over 90% of re-published existing strategies? There is nothing new or very fresh in that jobs strategy.

Given the admission by the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, that the Government does not have a strategic plan for the economy, should the Taoiseach not take genuine control of the situation and direct proper strategic economic planning within Government? His Ministers are clearly of the view that no such strategic plan exists.

I reject the report, that I have heard about, of comments attributed to and alleged to have been made by the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte. He was clear and categoric in his response to that, stating that no such thing was said by him. In the past, there were parallel departments of finance. There was a semblance of a department of finance in the Department of the Taoiseach, keeping a close eye on what was happening in the Department of Finance itself. For quite some time in the past, we had evidence of the scarcity of qualified people to drive economic policy in the country, but that has changed. The Government has a clear plan for dealing with our economic problems and woes, which is partly related to the programme for Government. It is also related to the fact that we are in a bailout programme and must get our deficit down to 3% of GDP by 2015. We must also consistently work with and renegotiate elements of the memorandum of understanding with the troika, and reduce our debt. In addition, we must grow our economy thus providing opportunities for business to grow, exports to expand and jobs to be created. Contrary to the Deputy's allegation, the Government has a clear plan which we are following through to develop our economy and provide those opportunities.

In so far as the formulation of economic policy is concerned, Deputy Martin is aware that I chair the Economic Management Council, which deals with issues of an economic nature that arise prior to their being presented to Government. At the council we have a direct input, assessment and discussion about each of these issues. In addition, as director of the Cabinet agenda, I follow through with my colleagues discussions on the formulation of economic policy and how that should be decided.

In appointing Ministers, the Taoiseach allocates responsibility and those responsibilities should be lived up to. There is no need for extensive duplication in Departments, with one doing the same as another. There are clear guidelines as well as a clear structure and strategy. If Ministers are having problems with a particular issue we discuss it, release the blockage and get on with it.

From the perspective of the Office of the Taoiseach, it is achievable to have fixed times for responses to various stages of whatever action might be being followed. In that sense, economic policy formulation is discussed with Ministers, organisations and groups across a broad spectrum prior to these policies being finalised. Deputy Martin says that nothing new has happened here, but when I launched the jobs action programme with the Minister, Deputy Bruton, I said that quite a number of good suggestions were made in the past, including when Deputy Martin was in government. However, they were never acted upon; they were left lying in reports which gathered dust on shelves in various Departments, having been paid for by the taxpayer. I make no apology for saying openly that a number of those proposals were there for years. I see no reason they should not be implemented now if they are good suggestions of a practical nature that will help business to flourish and increase job creation opportunities. When the jobs action plan was published, I said that these were not all new ideas from this Government. A number of them had been there for some time, but were never followed through. They will be followed through now. There is a specific section in the Department of the Taoiseach to see that this actually happens, with assistance from redeployed personnel from Forfás.

It means that when Ministers come before Cabinet sub-committees they are requested to report on progress in so far as how items, for which they have responsibility, on the jobs action plan are behaving. They know that the next quarterly publication will be made public, so it is in their own interests to make decisions within their Departments. It is not just a question of saying that they have done this, but also of outlining its impact and effectiveness. This must be seen by the wider business community as helping to achieve our ambition of demonstrating that, by 2016, we will be the best small country in which to do business.

I am glad the Taoiseach has clarified that the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, denies that he made the remarks attributed to him at the weekend. In the context of transparency, I also take it as an adamant denial of any suggestion that the Minister told the executives present that this was not to be spoken about afterwards, and that he did not want his remarks to be re-articulated or published subsequently.

I put it to the Taoiseach, however, that the jobs strategy is not working. At the time the growth target was set by the Government, everybody said it would not happen. The Government has belatedly acknowledged that its growth target will not work. As far back as the budget, the Government's own documentation was predicting an increase in unemployment this year. Therefore there is no evidence whatsoever that the jobs strategy is up to the game, given the scale of the problem.

There is no specific targeting of youth unemployment. We published a youth employment strategy last week with a view to getting a political consensus around the idea of focusing proactively on young people and the predicament they face in this crisis, which is the worst globally since the 1930s. We need to take extra measures and engage in out of the box thinking in order to help young people leaving schools and colleges to gain work or, at least, be put on the pathway to employment by gaining valuable experience through internships and thus securing jobs.

I do not accept the Taoiseach's political point about previous plans not being followed through. It is clear that the work we did with Enterprise Ireland and the IDA in recent years has borne fruit. For quite some time, the country's essential industrial strategy has worked for foreign direct investment. In addition, the reform and re-priorisitising of Enterprise Ireland's strategic objectives have worked to help Irish-owned companies grow and export. The development of a venture capital fund strategy happened quite a number of years ago through Enterprise Ireland, in the absence of the private sector. All of that has been effective but the current crisis has impacted most on the domestic economy, on the retail sector, in particular, and the hospitality sector, in terms of construction. I do not see a jobs strategy across all sectors in any response or sense of a series of measures being devised to assist those sectors earn some breathing space to come through this crisis. The Government stands indicted in terms of a lack of creative thinking-----

A question, please, Deputy.

-----to help employment creation in the domestic sector. I put it to the Taoiseach that he needs to go back to the drawing board in terms of a jobs strategy that is effective and that generates jobs.

In terms of health, will the Taoiseach tell the Minister for Health to stop massaging the figures in regard to waiting lists? He announced that 12 months was a new-----

These are questions to the Taoiseach.

This relates to the programme for Government.

No, that is an issue relating to the Minister for Health.

Question No. 4 asks about the implementation of the programme for Government. I do not think the Taoiseach has enough staff to follow what the Minister for Health is doing but he needs to make sure that some of his staff stop the Minister from deliberately massaging the figures and setting up false targets.

I would appreciate the Deputy's co-operation.

In this context, the target was always six months, not 12 months, and the Minister has claimed 84% of a reduction. That is a con job of the worst kind and it should be stopped at once.

That is a separate issue for the Minister for Health.

Deputy Martin said that the jobs strategy is not working. It would be wonderful to be able to report job creation figures like we had back in the 1990s when the then Minister, Deputy Bruton, was announcing 1,000 new jobs a week. Clearly, it is the kind of economic policy position to which we would like to return, where we were competitive, export driven and jobs were being created at significant levels.

It is true to say that the current strategy has realised 1,000 new foreign investment jobs a month over the past period and that employment has stabilised. While the unemployment numbers are much too high, we are creating more jobs than are now being lost, which is a sign of confidence in its own way. The figures for growth have been revised to 0.7% increase for this year, which is very much in excess of the eurozone and euro area in general, and it is projected to be 2% for next year. These figures have been referred to by other independent commentators.

I put it to the Deputy that there already 5,000 places on the Springboard scheme, announced by the Department of Education and Skills. Only yesterday the Minister, Deputy Quinn, announced a further 6,000 higher educations places for the unemployed. There are more than 5,000 places for young unemployed graduates on the JobBridge scheme, which is private sector driven and has been of enormous significance. When one speaks to employers who have taken on young graduates who are employed on that scheme, the majority of them are exceptionally pleased with the quality of the young personnel they get and many assume responsibilities permanently in those places. The Minister, Deputy Burton, is following through the Pathways to Work scheme, which affects the young and not so young.

From that point of view changes have had to be made here. The Deputy will be well aware that when his party was in government and small businesses approached banks, money was provided hand over fist as if there was never a requirement to pay anything but that is not the situation now. That is the reason the Government published the legislation in respect of partial loan credit guarantees in order that small and medium enterprises can have the flexibility, working with banks, to be able to draw and have access to credit, which we discussed last week, in the interests of employment and taking on new people. The same applies in the case of the micro-finance agency, a model of which is now to be worked on, which should provide up to €100 million for lending to small enterprises at commercial rates.

The Deputy mentioned issues such as the situation that applies here in general for business. There is no doubt that the retail sector is under pressure. If one travels to any town in the country, one can see evidence of that. There are reasons for it in terms of a lack of confidence and a loss of consumer confidence. That is the reason that for each of the last four months, despite the capacity to spend consumers are making other choices. It took some persistence to restore clarity and decisiveness about our corporation tax situation, about which there was some confusion and misinterpretation last year.

We have messed around in this country for a long time with our strategy to deal effectively with the broadband issue. The Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, is now dealing with that and world class speeds can become available to business and a programme for the next young generation is being connected to schools.

The Deputy mentioned the hospitality sector. The decision to reduce VAT to 9% from 13% has resulted in 11,000 jobs in that sector. If the Deputy talks to those working in the sector, they will tell him that it has been a direct injection to their benefit. The same applied in the case of the reduction of PRSI for employers for the lower paid. The Government has set out its strategy for the next year in the hospitality sector for the Gathering. We hope to being in another 350,000 people to the country during the course of 2013 for those occasions, which will be of direct extra benefit to the hospitality sector.

These are challenging times, as the Deputy is aware. I do not accept that the jobs strategy is not working. It is now beginning to have effect. In dealing with 400,000 people on the live register - 130,000 of whom work three-day weeks and part-time and others who sign on while they are retired until they reach pension age - clearly, those who require significant motivation are those who are in a rut, who do not see any hope or do not have the confidence to project themselves in a way that possibly they can. The Pathways to Work, Springboard and JobBridge schemes and other areas, plus decisions to put responsibility down to local authority level for enterprise boards and enterprise operations will have a significant impact in the months ahead. For its part, the Government's priority will be to focus on that jobs and business area, clear those blockages and open those doors in order that business will have a genuine environment in which to thrive.

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