Richard Boyd Barrett
Ceist:7. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach his views on the recently published annual report of his Department. [43877/23]
Amharc ar fhreagraTuesday, 7 November 2023
Ceisteanna (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
Peadar Tóibín
Ceist:8. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Taoiseach his views on the recently published annual report of his Department. [46370/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Paul Murphy
Ceist:9. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach his views on the recently published annual report of his Department. [46438/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Mick Barry
Ceist:10. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Taoiseach his views on the recently published annual report of his Department. [46494/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Cian O'Callaghan
Ceist:11. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach his views on the recently published annual report of his Department. [46789/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Brendan Smith
Ceist:12. Deputy Brendan Smith asked the Taoiseach his views on the recently published annual report of his Department. [47659/23]
Amharc ar fhreagraCian O'Callaghan
Ceist:13. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach his views on the recently published annual report of his Department. [47751/23]
Amharc ar fhreagraFreagraí ó Béal (18 píosaí cainte)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 7 to 13, inclusive, together.
The Department's annual report for 2022 was published on gov.ie and laid before the Houses in September. The report sets out the work of the Department in 2022 to achieve the strategic priorities set out in the Department’s three-year Statement of Strategy 2021-2023.
The Department is working to ensure that all Departments' policies align to the Government's agenda and develop Ireland in a sustainable way which assists economic development and social progress.
Through the work of the ten Cabinet committees, a range of cross-government work was advanced during 2022 in line with the strategic priorities set out. These include progress on the Housing for All action plan, with almost 30,000 new homes completed in 2022 and, we expect, more than that this year; implementation of the climate action plan and accelerating Ireland's response to the climate crisis; mobilising the cross-government humanitarian response, including the provision of emergency accommodation, with over 70,000 arrivals from Ukraine under the temporary protection directive during 2022; initiating the establishment of a new child poverty and well-being programme office to provide a whole-of-government focus to reducing child poverty and improving child well-being; implementing policies targeting sustainable development and economic recovery, investment and job creation including the new national digital strategy and providing a comprehensive cost-of-living package to help families; a comprehensive programme of dialogues and research by the shared island unit underpinned by the Shared Island Fund, with approximately €250 million allocated to date; citizen assemblies on a directly-elected mayor for Dublin and biodiversity loss held; the programme of events as part of the decade of commemorations, including the centenaries of the handover of Dublin Castle, the Civil War and the inauguration of the Free State; advancing Ireland's role in Europe and the world, including through participation in the European Council and the UN Security Council and General Assembly; continued engagement with the main political parties in the North and the UK Government on the return of a functioning Assembly and Executive; and continued cross-government focus on integrating the well-being framework into policy-making and expenditure decisions.
A new Statement of Strategy 2023-2025 for the Department of the Taoiseach was published on gov.ie in July and this sets out the strategic priorities for the Department for the next three years.
There are six speakers, maybe seven. Each has up to one minute.
The Taoiseach referred to the Government's commitment to promote biodiversity and address the climate crisis. I would like to take the opportunity to mention the sudden, unexpected and tragic death of Andrew St. Ledger of The Woodland League in the past week. I am not sure if the Taoiseach is familiar with Andrew but he would have been involved in the environmental pillar and, most notably, was an incredibly passionate, knowledgeable campaigner on the issue of forestry, woodland and trees with a particular passion for the restoration of Ireland's ancient native woodlands. The message that was repeated endlessly by many at his funeral yesterday was the need to carry on his fantastic work in this area. One of the last campaigns I worked with him on was on the issue of changing the mandate of Coillte, the State forestry company, to move away from a focus on commercial monocultures and towards the promotion of biodiversity. I wonder is the Government willing to go along with the widespread demands that we change the mandate of Coillte to move in this direction.
A recent headline in the Irish Independent quotes the Taoiseach as saying that the "Final lockdown ... may not have been needed". It states that the Taoiseach doubts that the December 2021 restrictions had any real benefit. Indeed, there are massive questions in relation to the Government's handling of Covid from the thousands of older people who were moved from the hospitals into nursing home, many not being tested, seeding Covid in the place where people were most exposed, to the closure of cancer care, mental health care and care for stroke and heart disease which may be leading to the increasing excess deaths now within society, to the longest closure of primary schools in the European Union which may be leading to the massive increase in the number of children bring referred to Tusla currently. The British Government, for all its faults and chaos, is at least holding an investigation into the actions and pulling back the veil on its decisions. Is it the case that there is a strategic reluctance for the Government to do exactly the same thing, and that the Government does not want to hold an investigation into its decisions? This will have a serious cost because if we do not learn from the mistakes that were made during Covid, we will not be properly prepared for the next time.
The Department of the Taoiseach is responsible for co-ordinating the State's climate action plan which obliges the State to cut greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2030 but last week he and the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine jetted off to South Korea to flog beef exports to that country thousands of miles away while simultaneously signing a new deal for a data centre in this country. Already, data centres swallow up 18% of our electricity consumption and increasingly huge amounts of our water supply while providing very few jobs. Is there any limit to the number of data centres the Taoiseach wants us to have or is Government policy for unlimited growth whatever it takes to pander to big tech? Beef is the most carbon-intensive way of producing protein. Is there any limit to the amount of beef the Taoiseach wants farmers to produce so that big processors and big agrifood companies can make huge profits at their expense? Is Government policy still, despite what is written in the climate action plan, more growth and more profits for big business?
WCNSF is the new acronym being used by medics tending to victims of Israel's bombs. It stands for "wounded child, no surviving family."
More than 4,000 children have died as a result of that bombing campaign. More than that number will need surgery repeatedly throughout the course of their lives. Criticisms of the Israeli assault have been raised in recent days by the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste but when we watch a potential genocide unfold before our eyes, we have to ask ourselves whether that is enough. The time has come for words to be matched by actions. It is past time to expel the Israeli ambassador from this country. What would it take for the Taoiseach to do so? Would it take the death of 5,000, 10,000 or more than 10,000 children? Where does he draw the line? I think we should be told.
I have previously raised with the Taoiseach the plight of a number of young people who have been left without any day services after they graduated from school in St. Michael's House in Baldoyle. Despite promises from the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, that day services would be provided by the beginning of September, two of the young people are still awaiting an offer of any day service. One of them has still not even received an outreach service, while two of the young people affected are receiving a shared day service split in two, so they are only getting half of what they need. None of the young people who have been offered day services has any transport. They were promised transport and told that funding for it would not be an issue. When will the day services, outreach services and transport that were promised be provided?
I very much welcome the major funding from the Government for the shared island initiative. This is funding projects in my constituency, including the restoration of the Ulster Canal, which will be very beneficial for a number of counties throughout Ulster. The Taoiseach may recall that I raised with him when he held the enterprise portfolio the importance of developing enterprise centres and work space. Enterprise Ireland provides some support towards the building of such units but local authorities generally are the drivers of such projects. Substantial costs are involved in a local authority purchasing appropriate land and servicing those sites before construction even begins. Some work is ongoing in the shared island unit on enterprise on a cross-Border basis. Cavan and Monaghan county councils are working with neighbouring local authorities north of the Border. I am particularly interested in the Taoiseach ensuring that the shared island unit lays a particular emphasis on developing enterprise in the central Border region because it is particularly important. The same economic problems exist north and south of the Border. Thankfully, with the all-Ireland economy, there is significant interaction in business and commerce on a cross-Border basis. We should drive forward the development of enterprise centres on both sides of the Border. This additional assistance is needed for local authorities with a poor funding base, such as Cavan and Monaghan county councils given their poor rates base. Assistance in that respect would pay large dividends for the local and national economy.
I wish to raise the recent flooding in north County Louth, including Dundalk. Carlingford on the Cooley peninsula was particularly devastated, with unprecedented rain. I would like to think there would be flexibility in the humanitarian assistance scheme and the emergency business flood relief scheme. A request has been made to provide a scheme for farmers whose lands have been damaged and whose feedstock has been destroyed. A major issue is Government funding to make sure infrastructure such as roads can be reopened and bridges fixed. We should then look at what mitigation is possible in north County Louth. I have a specific question on Dundalk because the town is probably only one rain away from thousands of houses being flooded. I am referring to Cluan Enda, Bay Estate, the area off the Avenue Road and the area between Red Barns Road and St. Alphonsus Road. It involves a significant number of estates. We do not have the capacity to deal with the amount of wastewater being produced. The area generally experiences flooding on a normal day, which tells me there is a difficulty between Irish Water, the council and the company subcontracted to operate the local pumping station. An assessment needs to be made because we cannot deal with the level of wastewater from the new estates and factories that have been built in recent years.
I join with Deputy Boyd Barrett in recognising the life of Andrew St. Ledger and extend my condolences to his family, friends and colleagues. I did not know him well but I think we met once or twice in the context of environmental meetings. I would have to check what the exact mandate of Coillte is in legislation but when I had the chance to meet it last year, it set out a mandate that really had three elements. One was the production of timber for commercial purposes, which we need, particularly when it comes to building new houses and doing so in a more sustainable way using timber rather than concrete. Another is recreation for people who want to enjoy and spend time in forests, while another is biodiversity. I think this is a good mandate. That is what Coillte says its mandate is. I am not sure what is written down in the legislation but I think that is its mandate in practice.
Deputy Tóibín spoke about the pandemic. When we speak about the pandemic, we should always acknowledge that Ireland managed a very difficult situation - an unprecedented situation - very well. We did not get everything right. Nobody does and nobody can but our excess deaths were among the lowest in the developed world and our economy bounced back probably the fastest in the developed world. You still see countries where people are still suffering from the economic impact of the pandemic and the lockdowns. There will be a Covid inquiry. I anticipate the memorandum to establish it and agree the terms of reference will go to Cabinet in the next couple of weeks. We then need to recruit a chair and a panel, which will be difficult because it will be very hard to find people who did not have some role in managing the pandemic or did not comment on it in some way. That will be difficult but that is a challenge that we will overcome. It will go on for some time so it is quite a big commitment on behalf of the people who will be asked to serve on the inquiry.
What I have always said from day one during Covid - I was one of the few who said it and it was hard to hear sometimes - is that lockdowns and restrictions on people's freedom would save lives, as they did, but could also do harm, cause damage and potentially cost lives, particularly because so much regular healthcare was delayed or deferred. I was always up-front about that. I remember people calling for zero Covid and suggesting all sorts of extreme lockdowns and actions. I was always of the view and was honest with people that this was a judgment call and a balanced decision to make. I remember absurd calls for some things that were done. I remember the debates around mandatory hotel quarantine, which I was never a big fan of. A lot of people called for very strict measures, stricter measures that those that happened, and for prolonged periods, never acknowledging that those restrictions could do harm as well as good. It will be very hard for any inquiry to do the maths on that and work out which decisions were right and which were wrong but we must have an inquiry because we need to learn from it. Hopefully, it will never happen again.
I wish to reassure Deputy Paul Murphy that there was a very strong enterprise environment element to the trade mission to South Korea. To give three examples, the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Coveney, met a company that will power a data centre using fuel cells-----
Using gas.
-----in the midlands. It will not be connected to the electricity grid so this data centre will have no impact on electricity transmission-----
It will burn fossil fuels.
-----and, of course, it can be fuelled by biogas, which is a sustainable form of gas. Another company is turning the old peat-powered power station infrastructure in Shannonbridge to battery storage, so we can store excess wind energy when we have it and put it back into the grid.
When it comes to beef, it is not necessarily about increasing production. We are seeing herd stabilisation at the moment. I do not think it is about increasing production. I do think it is about diversification because the more markets we are in, the better price we get. If you lose market share for one reason or another or a market closes to you for one reason or another, the more markets you are in, the better. This makes sense. You never want to be overly dependent on any one market, particularly when it comes to commodities.
Deputy Barry again called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador. This is not something we intend to do. There are 40 Irish citizens in Gaza - Irish-Palestinians.
A young girl, an Irish and Israeli citizen, is being held in Gaza by Hamas. We want to get them out and I also hope that, at some point in the future, we can again start talking about a peace process, reconciliation and construction. Expelling the ambassador and cutting off those direct links with Israel does not serve any good. It might satisfy the need for-----
Where has the peace process been for the last 25 years?
-----a response on an emotional basis but it will not help the hostages or our citizens get out and it will not help bring peace and reconciliation any closer.
I will come back to Deputy Cian O'Callaghan regarding day services and transport in his constituency. I do not have an update on that.
I agree with Deputy Brendan Smith on the need for the Government to help councils in developing local enterprise centres. I will bring that up with the Minister, Deputy Coveney. In some ways, a county like Cavan is in a bit of a bind in that it does not have a rate base from industry but also does not have the funds to invest in the enterprise centres that could help with that rate base. I will certainly speak to the Minister about that in the context of his capital budget.
Deputy Ó Murchú raised the issue of flooding in areas of north Louth, including Carlingford. I extend my sympathy and solidarity to the people affected. There is a scheme for residents. That is not just for homeowners; it also applies to landlords and renters. There is also an enhanced scheme for businesses and there will also be a special allocation for public infrastructure. I cannot answer the specific question the Deputy asked. I do not have the information or expertise to answer it but we can certainly follow up on it.
Will there be a scheme for farmers?
Schemes for farmers operate on a case-by-case basis. A scheme for a particular area was approved by Cabinet today. The Minister, Deputy McConalogue, either has announced or will announce that scheme. I do not want to go into the details. It can be done but it is done on a case-by-case basis.