Mary Lou McDonald
Ceist:1. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the programme for Government. [7937/24]
Amharc ar fhreagraWednesday, 20 March 2024
Ceisteanna (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
Alan Dillon
Ceist:2. Deputy Alan Dillon asked the Taoiseach to provide an update on the programme for Government. [9029/24]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Pádraig O'Sullivan
Ceist:3. Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the programme for Government. [9218/24]
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Brendan Smith
Ceist:4. Deputy Brendan Smith asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the programme for Government. [9335/24]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Jennifer Murnane O'Connor
Ceist:5. Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the programme for Government. [9336/24]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Cian O'Callaghan
Ceist:6. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the programme for Government. [10350/24]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Richard Boyd Barrett
Ceist:7. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the programme for Government. [10619/24]
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Paul Murphy
Ceist:8. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the programme for Government. [10622/24]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Mick Barry
Ceist:9. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Taoiseach if he will provide an update on the programme for Government. [12453/24]
Amharc ar fhreagraFreagraí ó Béal (32 píosaí cainte)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 9, inclusive, together.
When we published the programme for Government in June 2020, we said:
This is a Programme to recover our economy, rebuild our society, renew our communities, and respond to the challenges we face both nationally and internationally. This will be a Government of enterprise, creating new jobs, preparing for the jobs of the future, driving our economic recovery, and improving the quality of life for all our people.
I believe we are making good progress in that regard. Individual commitments in the programme for Government are advanced through the co-ordinating mechanisms of the Cabinet committee structure. The ten Cabinet committees established by the Government reflect the full range of policy areas set out in the programme for Government. Cabinet committees meet regularly to accomplish their work.
The strategy statements of all Departments reflect the national priorities outlined in the PFG. The Department of the Taoiseach is continuing to help advance the programme for Government commitments in the following significant policy areas: the implementation of Housing for All, including additional initiatives as necessary, to advance crucial housing-related commitments; continued engagement at EU and international level on the situation in the Middle East, including by calling for full observance of international law by all parties, working to build consensus at EU level to take a more proactive approach in assisting a negotiated two-state solution and lasting peace process, and increased funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA; engagement with EU leaders to advance high-level objectives in the programme for Government, in particular economic and competitiveness issues, energy security, external relations, including with the UK, as well as continuing our strong, collective EU response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine; pursuing our international commitments, including strengthening our relationship with the US, and implementing the UN sustainable development goals; advancing the Government's commitments on shared island; ensuring implementation of New Decade, New Approach commitments, working with the relevant Departments, North and South, in advancing those goals; strengthening the British-Irish bilateral relationship, including with London, and the devolved governments in Wales and Scotland; implementation of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 and the Government's climate action plan; advancements in Sláintecare, improving access, outcomes and affordability for patients by increasing the capacity and effectiveness of the workforce, infrastructure and provision of patient care; oversight of implementation of the third domestic, sexual and gender-based violence strategy; oversight of the implementation of A Policing Service for the Future, a Government plan to implement the report of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland; development of the well-being framework for Ireland and driving its integration into policymaking and budgetary systems; publication of Harnessing Digital: The Digital Ireland Framework in February 2022; and the establishment of the child poverty and well-being programme office in the Department of the Taoiseach to progress commitments identified in the programme for Government that will have the greatest effect on the lives of children who experience poverty.
I wish the Taoiseach all the best personally. I know it is not an easy day for him but I wish him the best for the future.
In the programme for Government, the Government committed to reducing waiting times for assessments of need under the Disability Act 2005 by using the standard operating procedure the former Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, introduced in January 2020. However, parents became very quickly aware of the shortcomings of that approach and aware that the rights of their children were being undermined by an inadequate assessment. In 2022, as the Taoiseach will recall, the High Court struck down the standard operating procedure. The HSE was found to be shortcutting disability rights.
Now assessment of need waiting lists are longer than ever. Children are entitled to assessment within three months; few, if any, receive it in that timeframe. There are 8,900 children whose assessment is overdue, and most are overdue by more than three months. That is not to mention the other children, maybe more than 5,000, who were robbed of a proper assessment of their needs. These children's rights are being denied and they deserve better. The Government has spent time in office finding shortcuts around the rights of people with disabilities instead of planning to meet their needs. What is the Government's plan to tackle the backlog of assessments of need and to deliver fit-for-purpose, proper disability services for children?
Before I get to my question, I will clarify what I was saying earlier about the SET allocation. I have a scoresheet in front of me from a school principal. It includes weighting towards, as I said, illiteracy, innumeracy and the educational disadvantage or geographical location of a school. Nowhere in that assessment is there any provision for complex needs, as I stated. When it comes to brass tacks, that is the way allocations are scored and weighted. On that basis, I ask the Taoiseach once more to go back to both Ministers to ensure that schools are not being disadvantaged, as I am suggesting.
As regards my question today, it would be remiss of me not to take the opportunity on the Taoiseach's last day taking Taoiseach's Questions to raise for the last time with him the issue of rare diseases and, specifically, reimbursement. More than 40 stakeholders from patient groups and industry are coming in to meet a cross-party group tomorrow at 12 noon in the audiovisual room. I encourage the Taoiseach and anybody else here to attend tomorrow if possible. Ultimately, what will be spoken about there is how we are, as I have said consistently for three years in the Dáil, laggards in the European context when it comes to reimbursement of drugs. Given that it is the Taoiseach's last day taking questions, I ask that before he departs he look at the possibility of establishing a task force or some kind of specialist group that would look specifically into the whole area of reimbursement.
Was it laggards we were called? It was not blackguards, was it?
Laggards.
It was definitely laggards.
Very good. Deputy Paul Murphy, please.
There are 20,000 members of Fine Gael. They make up 0.4% of the population. They are people who - no offence to them - are disproportionately older, disproportionately richer, disproportionately-----
Is this relevant to the question?
To the programme for Government, it is. They are disproportionately more conservative than the average person in society. Does the Taoiseach think that it is appropriate for this group of 20,000 people to decide who will be the next Taoiseach to implement the programme for Government? Does he not think it is repugnant to the notion of democracy that it is those 20,000 people, and, disproportionately within them, the parliamentary party, who will get to decide, as opposed to the people? The Government was formed in an attempt to thwart the wish of people for change as expressed in the February 2020 general election. That is why Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael came together in a formal coalition for the first time ever. Does the Taoiseach not accept that, on the grounds of democracy alone, it is time for the people to decide whether they want to continue with rule by landlord and for landlord or to vote for an alternative?
This is an out-of-touch Government and Deputy Varadkar has been an out-of-touch Taoiseach. Rarely was that seen more than in his interview on "The Six O'Clock Show", where he raised issues relating to care and disability and showed his Thatcherite colours. I suspect that was the moment the care referendum was lost. The Government, however, is about to repeat the mistake. Its Green Paper on disability reform, again aping the Tories, rather than dismantling barriers and forcing employers to make workplaces people with disability-friendly, points towards forcing disabled people into work under threat of loss of benefits. Will the Taoiseach not learn the lesson of the referendum campaign that the Government will rile the disability community in this country at its peril and scrap that Green Paper now?
We are running out of time for the Taoiseach to respond. I call Deputy Peadar Tóibín and then Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú.
The scale of the rejection of the Government's referendum proposals was colossal. It was absolutely incredible to see the most significant referendum losses happen to this Government. There is no doubt in my mind that trust in this Government is on the floor now. There is a political bubble in Ireland between the political establishment, many of the NGOs and some of the media. At the heart of the Government's carers proposal was a promise that it would do everything to help carers, but most people who are either carers or in need of care saw the reality of the Government's lack of delivery. They saw the fact that respite services were closed in many counties. They saw the fact that people could not get access to carer's allowance. They saw the fact that childcare centres are closing, nursing homes are closing and children are being put into unregulated State care and actually going missing. It is incredible to see Ministers such as Deputies Humphreys and O'Gorman promise that there will be a new dawn in terms of the provision of care after the referendum. The referendum is not needed. All that is needed is the Government will. Will the Government therefore promise now to deliver for those who are suffering the most in this country?
I wish the Taoiseach well, but I add my voice to what the rest of the Opposition said about the next Taoiseach and the Government, that is, that the decision should be made now and made by the people.
I want to follow on from Deputy Ó Laoghaire. We talk about the assessment of need backlogs and the people who cannot get assessments or therapies but we are not having the real conversation.
Even if we get the workforce planning right now, we know we cannot fill all of the positions in the children's disability network teams, primary care and everything that is needed. We know we have an issue with times in relation to the education system versus the health and medical options. We need to deliver a scenario in which we talk to the stakeholders, the therapists and psychologists, and come up with some sort of option for the best service we can offer as we strive to make sure we fill all of these positions. Otherwise, we will keep having the same conversation over and over again and fail a huge number of families.
We have a little under four minutes for the Taoiseach's response.
A Cheann Comhairle-----
No, you were not there on time, Deputy. I am sorry.
I am putting up my hand.
You were not here when-----
I had a question.
You did but you were not here when your question came up. We are out of time.
Other Deputies who did not table questions have spoken. Can I not-----
They had their hands up before you were here. You cannot come in at the end, when your question has been passed and we are running out of time, and consume the time that is required for the Taoiseach to respond.
Having submitted a question, seriously?
No. The question is grouped. The Taoiseach may answer it anyway.
The grouping was not over-----
Will you stop, Deputy, please, and have a bit of respect.
That is just out of order.
You are out of order.
You are out of order.
I am not going to get involved in a debate. I call the Taoiseach.
I thank the Ceann Comhairle. Deputies raised the issue of assessment of needs. I know we have a very big problem with waiting times for that. We all know it from our constituency clinics. The real struggle is finding enough clinically and appropriately qualified staff to carry out the assessments and provide all of the therapies. There are some big recruitment campaigns under way. Money has been set aside for them. Hopefully, it will make a real difference. It also demonstrates the pitfalls that can arise from putting certain rights in law. Unfortunately, this is an example of where a right put into law has not resulted in a right on the ground or in reality. Rather, it has led to people working in the disability sector spending their time trying to settle cases instead of providing better services and some budgets that would have otherwise been spent on services being diverted to damages. It is a pitfall we will have to take into account when people call for other rights to be put into law. Just putting a right into law does not mean it actually happens; not at all. That is not how it works, unfortunately.
On the SET model, I am advised that it makes an allocation based on a number of inputs, including enrolment numbers. Children with complex needs are recognised in the model by using school-level data from standardised tests to reflect the relative levels of overall need. The model seeks to distribute teaching resources in the fairest possible manner, taking into account as much evidence as possible in respect of individual schools and evidence in respect of possible use of resources. The standardised test results identify pupils who achieve below the average and may require some degree of additional teaching support. These are consistent and reliable indicators to identify additional learning need, particularly for those with the highest level of need.
On reimbursement of medicines, I am not sure I will be able to set up a task force in the next couple of weeks but I promise Deputy O'Sullivan that it is something on which we can perhaps work together. It is something I have been sincere about for a long time but I have not managed to unlock whatever the problem is. I will keep an interest in it because I do not understand or accept why any patient who needs a medicine that is available publicly in Britain or another similar jurisdiction cannot have it here. I think they should have them.
On Deputy Murphy's question, as I said earlier, our Constitution has been with us since 1937. It is clear. It is the people's document. The rules are there in black and white. The Taoiseach is elected by the Dáil, the Government is elected by the Dáil and the Dáil is elected by the people. The reason we have the current Government is not because of some sort of plot or conspiracy theory; it is because the parties in the Government - Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party - won 51% of the vote. That is why we are the Government. An election will happen within the next year.
On the Green Paper on disability payment reform, to be very clear, it is just a Green Paper for discussion, debate and consultation. It is not a set of proposals as of yet and is not an effort to reduce benefits, make savings or ape the welfare reforms in the UK. It is quite the opposite. We have introduced new benefits and increased benefits over the course of the past seven years.