Mary Lou McDonald
Ceist:1. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of his Department with the National Economic and Social Council. [28558/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraTuesday, 20 October 2020
Ceisteanna (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
Alan Kelly
Ceist:2. Deputy Alan Kelly asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of his Department with the National Economic and Social Council. [31297/20]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Richard Boyd Barrett
Ceist:3. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of his Department with the National Economic and Social Council. [31337/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraAlan Kelly
Ceist:4. Deputy Alan Kelly asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the State boards and agencies that civil servants from his Department are appointed to by the Government. [31300/20]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Mick Barry
Ceist:5. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of his Department with the National Economic and Social Council. [31710/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraFreagraí ó Béal (10 píosaí cainte)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 5, inclusive, together.
The National Economic and Social Council is an independent statutory agency operating under the aegis of my Department. The NESC is a valuable forum where strategic policy matters relevant to Ireland's economic social, environmental and sustainable development can be analysed and discussed between a variety of actors and Departments.
The work of the council focuses on the strategic and longer-term view. It recently agreed a new work programme comprising the following core areas of work: shared island; housing; sustainable development, climate and biodiversity action; good jobs and resilience in transitions; elder care; and galvanising vision. In addition, to date in 2020 and in response to the Covid-19 crisis the NESC secretariat has published seven working papers on Covid-19 across a range of issues, including the implications of Covid-19 on housing in Ireland, protecting enterprises, employment and incomes and progressing sustainability in the context of Covid-19.
In accordance with the National Economic and Social Development Office Act 2006 I have certain functions regarding NESC, such as presenting reports to Government prior to publication or laying them before the Houses, as in the case of the annual reports. The council is funded through my Department's Vote and my Department also has governance responsibilities in respect of the council.
I appoint members to the council under the National Economic and Social Development Office Act 2006 and SI 603 of 2010. Each of the following sectors nominate three representatives to the council: business and employer interests, ICTU, farming and agricultural interests, community and voluntary sector and the environmental sector. There are also seven independent members on the council. A further six members are public servants, mainly Secretaries General, and this group must include a representative of my Department and the Department of Finance. The Secretary General of my Department is the chairperson of the council and an assistant secretary of my Department is the deputy chairperson. Since becoming Taoiseach I have made one appointment to the council.
The National Economic and Social Development Office is the body corporate for the NESC. Section 13 of the National Economic and Social Development Office Act 2006 provides that the chairperson and deputy chairperson of NESC are members of the NESDO. The National Statistics Board was established under the Statistics Act 1993 to guide the broad strategic direction of the Central Statistics Office and in particular to establish priorities for the development of official statistics in Ireland. The legislation provides that the NSB shall consist of eight members, including an assistant secretary or equivalent or higher grade from my Department and the Department of Finance and the Director General of the CSO. In August I made one new appointment to the NSB. Three other members were reappointed for second terms.
All appointments to NESC and the NSB have been made in line with the relevant legislative provisions and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform guidelines on appointments to State boards. Finally, one principal officer in my Department has been nominated to the council of Gasice. These appointments are made by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs.
The National Economic and Social Council, NESC, is hosting the annual conference of the European Environment and Sustainable Development Advisory Councils Network next week. NESC published an important paper earlier this year that addressed employment vulnerability as part of a just transition in Ireland. The paper recommended that Government take steps to improve the evidence base for policymakers and that future efforts to gather evidence to inform policymaking for a just transition should involve a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques to ensure data findings are amplified by first-hand expertise from businesses and communities. Perhaps the Taoiseach could provide us with an update on the Government's implementation of these recommendations and where these measures are placed in the climate action and low carbon development (amendment) Bill, which was published earlier this month. The Bill does not make reference to a just transition, nor did the Government make mention of fairness when launching this legislation. My colleagues, Senator Boylan and Deputy O'Rourke, have already expressed concerns at the omission of any mention of a just transition, workers' rights or social justice in the Government's climate Bill.
As political leaders, we need to meet people where they are and bring them where they need to be on matters of such island-wide and global importance. Deputy O'Rourke has highlighted the absence of workers' rights or social justice expertise on the Climate Change Advisory Council. I ask the Taoiseach to address this omission. Solutions to the climate crisis can create an income crisis for workers and their families. As a result, climate action is all too often unnecessarily framed in a negative context. Inequality is central to this. Where agriculture is placed within the climate action discussion is an example of how the Government is getting this wrong. The Think-tank for Action on Social Change, TASC, and others have highlighted how unequal the agricultural sector is in terms of income. Farmers, like those in other sectors affected by the changes we need to make, need to know that fairness and climate action can and will go hand in hand. The Government's climate legislation needs to incorporate solid evidence-based data, amplify expertise from businesses and communities as recommended by NESC, and place a just transition, workers' rights and social justice centre stage. I would be grateful if the Taoiseach would share his point of view on these matters.
The work programme of NESC does not cover any issues around the educational system, which is a glaring omission as far as I am concerned. We all know the Minister for Education and Skills also does not sit at the Cabinet sub-committee on Covid-19. To make progress, economically and socially, we need to manage and monitor all our developments in education and how they will interact.
I will raise with the Taoiseach an issue that has become topical as a result of what schools have been saying in recent times. We will have to bring in rapid testing across economic and social settings. I will raise this matter in the House every week because I do not have the capacity to understand why this testing is taking so long to introduce in this country. We have a 250-page report on this. Rapid testing is not a silver bullet but it will complement polymerase chain reaction, PCR, testing and help in schools, many economic settings such as factories and various social settings. Why is it taking so long? It will have a massive impact and would give some help in educational settings, whether third-level education or in schools. While it has not come through the regulatory validation process, the Taoiseach is aware that a secondary school in Cork city is using rapid testing all of the time. What is his opinion on that given that it is outside the regulatory setting? I understand the reason it is happening. It is because people are so frustrated. There are so many organisations that want to do this. We are allowing the GAA championships to go ahead, and I agree with that decision. What would happen if we could provide rapid testing to facilitate that and other elite sports all of the time? It would help those who are participating in the background in those sports. Will the Taoiseach outline to us where we are on this? When does he expect a decision on it? This has gone beyond a joke.
In June, NESC produced a paper called "How We Value Work: The Impact of Covid-19". One of the conclusions it drew is that Covid-19 has made good jobs better and poor jobs worse. That is an extremely interesting conclusion and the paper featured a fascinating graph, which I would be interested to know if the Taoiseach has seen. The graph shows that the people least impacted by Covid-19 tend to be the best paid people with the best ability to work remotely and so on. They are also less economically affected. The worst impacted and least remunerated are the people we have depended on most.
There is a great deal to be said about this and how we have failed to reward those who have carried and will carry us through the restrictions. One of the most damning examples is that of healthcare workers. They are subject to the highest risk and many of them are among the lowest rewarded. A shocking example of this, although there are multiple examples, was the case of nurses who applied under the Be On Call for Ireland campaign being put on agency contracts, to which unfair dismissal protections and sick pay do not apply. As I revealed last week, contact tracers were placed on zero-hour contracts. A few hours after I exposed this, we were told that it was a mistake, even though it was all over their contracts. Even if it was a mistake, which it was not, unfair dismissal protections and sick pay do not apply to contact tracing workers. It is no wonder we do not have the contact tracers to get on top of the virus.
Another egregious example is that of student nurses, who because of protest, were given healthcare assistant pay in March and April but who are working for nothing again. Thousands of student nurses who are effectively working as nurses and care assistants are not getting a red cent. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, suggests that, such is the exploitation of this group of student nurses, the HSE does not bother to directly recruit permanent healthcare assistants, which we desperately need. It can rely on the slave student nurses who also cannot do other work to boost their incomes because Covid-19 restrictions would mean they would be carrying infections into the hospitals, which they are effectively holding together in many cases while getting nothing.
This is unacceptable. This is fighting Covid-19 on the cheap, which will not succeed. This is a big part of the reason we are in this mess, with the levels of infections we have. We have not directly recruited for proper jobs in the HSE. The nurses, healthcare assistants and other healthcare workers who are most at threat from Covid-19 are getting little financially and, in some cases, nothing. Is the Government going to do something about this? Will it make sure these student nurses are paid and rewarded? Will it deal with the issue of proper recruitment to quality jobs for the front-line workers on whom we depend?
I will ask about youth unemployment and training. If we add the number of young people on the live register and the number of young people on the pandemic unemployment payment, we get a number in the region of 100,000. That figure will increase significantly in the coming weeks. Some €200 million was set aside for training in the budget. I question whether that is enough. There are 80,000 places but I also wonder if that is enough. I will not focus on that today. I want to talk about the quality of training. The track record over the years has been far from great. I only have to mention the JobBridge scheme. I am concerned that the new arrangements include internships paying €229 for 24 hours. That is €26 more than the jobseeker's allowance. It works out at €1.08 per hour for employers. Under the JobBridge scheme, less than 20% of the young people doing the internship ended up securing a job in the host company immediately afterwards.
How can the Taoiseach stand over internship pay rates at that level? What guarantees can he give that this will be genuine training and not exploitation of young people?
On the climate Bill and a just transition, the Bill is transformative. It should be welcomed by the Opposition and Deputy McDonald's party, Sinn Féin, although I know they have issues with the climate change agenda, have taken a negative stance on the matter and are somewhat in denial about it in reality. As for the just transition, we moved in respect of the midlands. The Government provided €20 million for the first retrofit scheme, with quite a number of counties affected by the decisions relating to the peat-burning stations. That is one part of the pre-emptive moves that were identified in the NESC report to create alternative enterprises and employment in areas affected by climate change decisions that would have a detrimental impact on employment in a given area. In addition, the carbon fund that has been created from the proceeds of the carbon tax will provide fuel subsidies. Over the next decade over €3 billion will be put aside for that to make sure that people on low incomes are not disadvantaged as a result of the tax and also to deal with agriculture and environmentally friendly farming, which is very important.
As for the education system and rapid testing and antigen testing, I spoke to the CMO at the weekend about this and HIQA has, as was said, published its report. NPHET is now clinically validating that as far as the antigen tests are concerned. France is moving ahead with this. When I met the Prime Ministers of Portugal and Greece at the European Council meeting, they told me that their countries had been undertaking these tests for some time. The view up to now has been a policy issue as to whether the testing is as effective as PCR testing or whether it is effective at all. I think we have moved on from that position, so when the clinical validation is over we will be able to come back to the Deputies.
We will not get to the other questions. We have limited time.
We could agree to give the Taoiseach a few more minutes to answer.
There are questions in other people's names. I am sorry.
Including mine.