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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 3 May 2017

Vol. 949 No. 1

Questions on Promised Legislation

Under the programme for Government the Government commits to developing a national disease register and also to implement the national rare diseases plan. There was a very constructive presentation today in the Oireachtas - and outside of the Oireachtas - on the issue of Lyme disease. It is a rare disease but it is growing in terms of the number of people in this country who have the condition. What is striking and quite shocking is the lack of implementation of those elements of the programme for Government, particularly on Lyme disease, where there is no national lead or proper diagnostic centre or service for people with this disease, or indeed a treatment centre. In the discipline of neurology or infectious disease there is a huge gap, and the people that we have met have to go to Germany for comprehensive and proper diagnosis. They do not get reimbursed for that and it is not recognised here by the medical profession. The commitment is there in the programme for Government but very little action is evident on the issue. I would ask the Minister to speak to the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, and also ensure that the Chief Medical Officer in the Department of Health takes a lead position on this to ensure the needs of people with Lyme disease in this country are attended to and dealt with in a comprehensive fashion.

I had the opportunity, as Deputy Micheál Martin did, to meet with some of the groups today. I took the opportunity to check out what the position is. There is a HSE health protection surveillance centre which has established a Lyme disease sub-committee with the primary aim of examining best practice in prevention and surveillance of Lyme disease and to develop strategies to undertake primary prevention in order to minimise harm caused by the Lyme borreliosis in Ireland. There is a group assessing this issue, and I hope-----

They are not meeting. A person outside told me they have only had one meeting.

It is intended that the group will publish the final report on its findings in the near future. It has looked at diagnostic methods, guidance for general practitioners and medical media articles to highlight diagnostics and laboratory methods. Work is ongoing in this area. I will convey the Deputy's concerns to the Minister for Health.

Will the Minister correspond with us on the issue?

Yes, I will ask him to do so.

I want to ask about the Domestic Violence Bill 2017, the purpose of which is to consolidate and update the Domestic Violence Bill 1996 and the Domestic Violence (Amendment) Act 2002 in a new comprehensive Bill. As the Minister may be aware, Siobhán Phillips, a young woman who was grievously wounded in the same shooting in which Garda Tony Golden was killed, was the victim of sustained domestic violence. Two days before she and Garda Golden were shot, she went to Dundalk Garda station where, despite obvious injuries, she was unable to make a statement as there was no private location in the station for her to speak to gardaí about her injuries. The objectives of the Domestic Violence Bill are, among others, to make it easier for victims to avail of the courts system and to link them with support services but there is clearly a need for Garda protocols and facilities based on best international practice to allow victims of violence or abuse to have their complaints dealt with in a fitting, therapeutic and appropriate manner. When does the Minister expect the Bill to complete its legislative journey and be enacted?

I understand the Bill has reached Committee Stage in the Seanad, a fairly advanced point in the legislative cycle. It is a priority of the Minister who I am sure will proceed as quickly as possible.

As we approach the first anniversary of the Government and having heard much about new politics, legislative activity has ground to a slow crawl in the Houses. One Private Members' Bill has, however, passed through one House in the past 12 months, namely, the Competition (Amendment) Bill, which aims to give collective bargaining rights to freelance workers. It was championed in the Seanad by Senators Ivana Bacik and Ged Nash and supported by the Minister, Deputy Mary Mitchell O'Connor. It passed all Stages in the Seanad last November and there was cross-party support on Second Stage in this House when the legislation was brought forward by the Labour Party during Private Members' time. We were told that because it had all-party support, it would speedily pass through Committee Stage. Will the Minister tell us when it will take place? At the reform committee, I raised the use of a device by the Government for Bills such as this - it also happened in the case of Deputy Jim O'Callaghan's Bill - whereby a money message was required. Is it a device to frustrate Bills? When will the money message be given for the Bill and when will it be allowed to proceed?

I am not in a position to indicate when the money message will have to be given. The Bill has been passed on Second Stage and is awaiting Committee Stage. It will be for the Department and the committee to schedule it for debate. I do not have details as to when the money message will be issued but we will convey an answer to the Deputy at a later stage.

Despite the fact that Deputy Gino Kenny's Cannabis for Medicinal Use Regulation Bill was passed by the House in December with unanimous support and despite the fact that in the past ten days the IMO, the representative organisation for the medical profession in this country, stated medical cannabis should be available on a GP's prescription, not a consultant's, the Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, has publicly stated his view that the Bill is no longer necessary and proposed a dramatically restrictive so-called access programme under which access to medicinal cannabis for Vera Twomey's daughter Ava cannot even be given. Vera is now outside Leinster House and planning to stay there because the Minister is trying to subvert the Bill that was passed by the House and stating publicly that he does not intend to support it.

Despite the fact he promised in front of me, Deputies Micheál Martin, Kelleher, Jonathan O'Brien and Gino Kenny, a number of weeks ago that he would meet Vera Twomey two weeks after that meeting, he now refuses to take her phone calls, refuses to respond to her communications and has refused to give her that meeting.

I ask the Minister to explain why this is happening. I ask him to appeal to the Minister, Deputy Harris, to meet Vera Twomey and explain to her why promises made at that meeting were not honoured in order to vindicate the health of her daughter.

I call Deputy Aindrias Moynihan on the same matter.

On the same matter, but on a slightly different aspect, the Minister is proposing his own compassionate access Bill to facilitate people, such as Vera Twomey and many others, getting access. Is it intended to facilitate people who have prescriptions from outside the jurisdiction to bring in medication from outside it and use it in Ireland? Will people be able to travel throughout the EU with their prescriptions if this proposed Bill is passed or is that facility already in place? Can people already bring in medication which may not be recognised in this country?

I understand the Minister has agreed to move away from the very restrictive scheme that was in place, whereby the Minister would have to individually license each prescription made in these cases. He is proposing to introduce a scheme and I understand an expert group has carried out research on the design of such a scheme. At this point, the Minister has not flagged the contents of any Bill.

He has and it is against the advice of the doctors of this country.

As far as I know, in terms of the parliamentary procedure as to whether the Bill is promised legislation which is what are dealing with here, it is not my understanding that specific Bill has been promised. However, the Minister has indicated that he intends to introduce a scheme. The details of that are being worked out.

Compassionate access programme.

Non-compassionate no-access programme.

The approach is that it will be access without the requirement for the Minister to give a licence. It will be based on medical expertise and the need of patients. That is the approach.

The Government is ignoring the doctors.

When will the Government move into the 21st century?

The programme for Government commits to holding plebiscites in the former town and borough district council areas and if the people vote to have them reinstated at no cost, they will be reinstated. They should never have been removed. The former Minister, Deputy Howlin, has admitted that it was one of the biggest mistakes the Government ever made. I do not hear him say much about it now. When will we see any efforts being made to reinstate what were vital services for our towns that had the borough councils? People had served on those councils for generations. When will that part of the programme be implemented or efforts made to go down that road?

I will ask the responsible Minister to respond to the Deputy. I do not have access to that information here.

The Minister could perhaps talk to Commissioner Hogan.

I ask the Minister to confirm that the Attorney General has advised that the automatic number-plate-recognition system of An Garda Síochána has no legislative basis and that the data gleaned from the system and the work of the traffic corps cannot be used in prosecutions. If this is the case, is it intended to introduce a criminal justice or road traffic Bill or to amend legislation already before the Houses to remedy this defect urgently?

I do not have notification of any legislation at this point. I am sure if the Deputy tables a parliamentary question to the Minister, she will indicate whether the issue he raises will require legislation.

In August 2016, the Minister, Deputy Ross, established a commission of inquiry, the Moran inquiry, into the ticketing fiasco in Rio with a timeline of 12 weeks. The 12-week timeline was subsequently extended but we were guaranteed that the full report of the commission would be published before Easter. When will the Moran inquiry publish its findings?

Again, I will have to get the Minister responsible to communicate with the Deputy. I do not have the date of publication for that inquiry.

In the programme for Government, there is a commitment to the equality of access to education and to an increase in the number of opportunities available. The Minister recently appointed a working group to look at the future of the GMIT campus in Mayo to ensure its future and sustainability. It now appears that the GMIT management have pre-empted the outcome of the working group. They have now told certain members of staff who were on certain courses that have been axed or cut from the offering at Mayo GMIT that they must "voluntarily" move to Galway and that if they do not do so, they will be redeployed elsewhere in the Civil Service. This seems to be totally at variance with the working group that the Minister established only a number of weeks ago.

I wrote to the Minister and asked him for the terms of reference for that group, the time it should report by and who will be in it. He failed in his reply to me to answer any of those questions. Is the Minister going to ensure the working group gets an opportunity to do its work? Is he going to ask GMIT management to desist from moving staff, which is essentially a downgrading and an asset-stripping of our GMIT campus in Mayo?

I am glad to say that we are in a position to start funding the third level sector. In its assessment of the institutes of technology, the Higher Education Authority, HEA, recognises that there are particular problems for multi-campus institutes such as GMIT. The HEA has recognised that and will in its funding review, which is now being undertaken, ensure that resources can be made available to support multi-campus activity. As the Deputy indicated, I have also established a working group to look specifically at GMIT, where I know there is concern about its future. That is to ensure that we can develop a sustainable future that will not only guarantee the continuation of the college but also provide the underpinning of regional development in the area, which is an important function of the institutes of technology. I can assure the Deputy that our Department is fully committed to the Castlebar institution.

The programme for Government supports the transfer of landholdings from older farmers down to the younger generation. However, in recent times the farming courses by which farmers obtain green certificates are being intensified and lengthened. This is fine if a young fella is coming into a big farm or a farm that is economically viable. He will survive on that landholding with that farming enterprise. However, in rural areas, a lot of the young fellas are coming into smaller landholdings with a few sheep and a few cattle. They need to hold down another job. In these cases, I ask that these young farmers should not have to go through as much as the fellas that are in more intensive farming situations. This needs to be looked at because it is very hard on many young fellas.

That is an issue that will have to be considered in the context of the Finance Bill because it is a tax concession. Each year, the Minister designs conditions on any tax concession, which involves the taxpayer giving up resources, to ensure that whatever we invest in is going to provide a useful impact in the locality. It will be an issue for the Deputy to put before both Ministers, Deputies Creed and Noonan, the merit of the case that he is making that the conditions that are now there should be broadened. That is an issue for the Finance Bill, when the tax structure is assessed each year.

The programme for Government commits to the building of 25,000 new homes every year through to 2020. The Minister, Deputy Coveney, has claimed that 14,932 new homes were built last year. However, a number of experts have strongly disputed this figure, suggesting that the actual number could be as low as half that. This criticism has been supported by the recent release of the CSO housing data and the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government's own building control management system figures. Two things are now clear. The first is that ESB connections are not a reliable method of counting new builds. The second is that the Minister, Deputy Coveney, has no idea whatsoever of how many new homes are actually being built. Will the Government use the opportunity of the forthcoming building control Bill to introduce a new and reliable data source for house-building in order that people will actually know whether or not the Government is meeting its own targets?

I understand the approach taken to measuring house completions is the same as that which has been in place for many years and is based on ESB connections. The figure went from a high of 90,000 at one stage to a low of about 8,000 but it has now recovered significantly to 15,000. The Minister's ambition is to push it on. No individual indicator is perfect and the Department does not pretend that it is. Work is being done by the CSO to establish if there are better indicators but it is a fairly robust sign of the direction in which we are moving. It gives us a sign of the progress we are making. There is a group within the CSO looking at what are the best measures of house completions. It has not been yet developed. The ESB connection measure is one that has considerable historic value and it continues to be a relevant indicator.

There is a commitment in the programme for Government to increase funding every year for home care packages and home help services. Yesterday when the Taoiseach was answering questions from Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, he said: "Extra money has been allocated for home help and extra hours are being worked." He continued: "The overall allocation has increased and the number of hours has increased." I was concerned because people presenting at my clinic were having difficulty in accessing home help hours. I took the liberty of asking the Minister who, in turn, asked the HSE to respond to me. I wanted to see if I was seeing the rate of increase that might have been expected. In 2016, in my part of Dublin, there were 166,471 home help hours. In 2017, there were 166,471 which means that the number of home help hours in my part of Dublin in 2017 is exactly the same as that in 2016. The level of expenditure is also the same. The programme for Government acknowledged that there would be an increase. Yesterday, the Taoiseach said there was an increase. If the increase is on a global basis, people living in my area have been discriminated against. Will the Minister clarify the position?

This is an area which has very considerable priority. The Minister of State, Deputy Helen McEntee, is establishing a consultation process on the issue of home care support because home caring will become a real challenge in the future. There are 55,000 people receiving carer's allowance and 17,000 receiving a home care package, with 11 million home help hours. As they all represent increases on the figures for the years before, there is increased investment. In total, it represents about €1 billion of investment in home caring, but the Government recognises that we need more flexible models. The Minister of State responsible, Deputy Helen McEntee, is looking at how we can integrate some of them and perhaps look at other elements such as the tax relief now provided. Can we design a better long-term support package to keep people independent in their homes, which is a shared objective across the House?

The programme for Government commits to the establishment of a new court to deal specifically with the issue of mortgages and mortgage arrears. Will the Minister clarify the status of the Bill? In order to gain access to that court, will a person have to have gone through the insolvency process first? There is a scenario in which some people are deemed to be too poor to access the insolvency service because they have no income above the reasonable living expense guidelines with which they can make a contribution towards their debts. Will the Minister clarify the issue? Does he agree that what is needed is a dedicated body to deal specifically with mortgages without forcing people into insolvency?

The Minister is working on progressing the legislation and has sought the Attorney General's advice on some elements of it. It is awaited. I cannot give the Deputy more details at this point.

The Retention of Certain Records Bill in the Minister's Department is concerned with retaining the records of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, the Residential Institutions Redress Board and the Residential Institutions Redress Review Committee. The intention in the original legislation was to destroy these records. The legislation received pre-legislative scrutiny well over a year ago. It has been on the priority list since last autumn but has not yet been brought before the House.

I do not understand why that is the case. I ask the Minister to tell the House when it will be published and come before the House.

I understand that the issue is deciding on the final place where such records will be retained. Some work has had to be done to identify where the records will be stored but I will communicate further with Deputy O'Sullivan in due course.

It is a very long time since it went through pre-legislative scrutiny.

I wish to make a point about the increasing tendency of Ministers not to be here for questions on promised legislation. It is a very useful slot but the absence of Ministers makes it a lot less effective. Many Ministers can be here for Leader's Questions but then seem to find that they are busy during questions on promised legislation. That is something that I would ask both the Ceann Comhairle and the Cabinet to examine.

My question relates to the announcement today regarding the summer works scheme, which comes only seven to eight weeks before the end of the school year. The scheme is very welcome and is much needed by schools across the country with the average grant amounting to just over €100,000. However, the Department is now asking school principals to arrange tenders and quotes for work to be carried out in July and August with only seven to eight weeks' notice, which is entirely unnecessary. I ask the Minister to commit to revising the process for next year. I also ask him to explain why his Department unnecessarily puts that administrative burden on school principals, boards of management and also on the contractors who will be bidding for the work.

The Deputy will appreciate that there is huge pressure on the education capital budget because we have to accommodate 15,000 new school places every year as well as providing 5,000 necessary replacements. That leaves resources constrained. It means that we must decide, relatively late on, what will be available for the summer works scheme. Clearly, we try to maximise the available money but half of the schools in the country make an application for this scheme. It is a very strongly supported scheme and we have to try to be discerning in those projects that are supported to ensure that the highest priority cases get the go ahead. That said, there will be adequate time to deal with the work involved. By waiting until this point in the year, we ensure that we get as much as possible made available to schools.

In the programme for Government there is a section on page 43 dedicated to attracting new investment. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Shane Ross recently visited County Kerry, for which I thank him. He met representatives of the Tralee Chamber Alliance, where the possibility of an international Public Service Obligation, PSO, route to Amsterdam was discussed. Amsterdam would serve as a perfect connective route for all locations around the world. It would help to attract new customers and new business to counties like Kerry and towns like Tralee and Killarney, which have Farranfore Airport nearby. An international PSO route like that would be ideal and is an avenue the Government should consider.

I am sure that the Minister will subject the case put forward to appropriate consideration and scrutiny.

With his usual rigour-----

Obviously, PSO routes require the support of the Exchequer and we all know of the constraints on resources at present. Such constraints would influence any decision. That said, I am glad to hear of the initiative being taken by Tralee.

Tá súil agam go mbeidh an tAire, an Teachta Harris, in ann an cheist seo a fhreagairt.

An announcement regarding the National Children's Hospital was made recently - at long last - but when will we see the relevant legislation come before the House, namely the new children's hospital establishment Bill which has been promised for over six years? It is listed on the Government's legislative programme for early this year.

I thank Deputy Ó Snodaigh for his question. I expect to bring the heads of that Bill to Cabinet this month or shortly thereafter.

The programme for Government laid out a plan to tackle flooding, with €450 million to be spent over five years. I am sure the Minister has read the recent reports by Paul Melia in the Irish Independent. Those reports are shocking, with headlines such as "Perfect storm will cause havoc for businesses again if nothing is done", "Dozens of towns will never get protection from floods because sums do not add up" and "Vulnerable town fears a repeat of recent history". The Government has barely dipped its toes in the water in the context of this massive crisis. We have had eight or nine months of good weather and nothing has been done. There has been no dredging and no drainage.

When will the Government wake up to the fact that this is a huge crisis for many parts of Ireland? When can we expect to see real action? If proof is needed of my assertion that nothing is happening, it can be found in the articles I have mentioned. We need immediate action. Communities are still recovering from the appalling mess that was created last year. This is a challenge for those who are in government. It is clear that this Government has not grasped this issue and is not acting on it.

I understand that after many years when nothing was done in this area, a substantial increase in the commitment to capital funding has been made. More money has been spent in undertaking flood relief in recent years than had been spent for many years.

That is not true.

I understand that over 300 locations where strategic plans need to be put in place have been identified.

More fake news. The Minister must have got the bug from Leo and Simon.

Those plans have to be developed with input from the community and the local authorities. There is a commitment to address this in a systematic way. Such a plan was not there in the past.

I would like to make a point similar to that made earlier by Deputy Howlin. I proposed a Bill in this House some months ago to reform the law on the wind-up of defined benefit pension schemes. It was passed by an overwhelming majority of Deputies. I think the only people who voted against it were members of Fine Gael and a few tame Independents. A couple of weeks later, I received correspondence telling me I would have to wait for a money message, which is an animal I had never heard of previously.

I would say the Deputy is still waiting.

Yes, I am still waiting. I was told about the need for a money message a few weeks after the Bill was passed and I have heard nothing since. There was no question of the Bill being a charge on the Exchequer because if that were the case, it could not have proceeded to Second Stage. What is this money message? Is it some sort of stunt to prevent Bills from being passed when the Government does not have the numbers to vote them down? I would appreciate clarification on that. If, as he seemed to indicate earlier, the Minister does not know what the position is with regard to money messages, I would appreciate it if he would research it urgently and write to me about it.

The Deputy has been around here nearly as long as I have. Over that time, it has been common knowledge that one cannot table amendments or legislation if that results in a charge on the people or-----

The Bill has been passed on Second Stage.

It has been taken in the House.

Clearly, there is a requirement for some signal to the Dáil for that to happen.

It has happened.

It happened on the floor of the Dáil.

As far as I know, this convention has been in Standing Orders for years.

The Bill was taken, that is the point.

It is not a new innovation.

It went through the Dáil.

It has always been a requirement before legislation proceeds to Committee Stage. It is a long-standing requirement in this House. Deputy O'Dea has been around for almost as long as I have. He should know about the-----

When are we going to get the signal?

The programme for Government refers to the national maternity strategy. Many Members of this House are aware that interviews were held by RTE at national level and by some local radio stations with Lisa, who is the mother of baby Eoin, who was born prematurely and passed away in Letterkenny General Hospital last winter. Unfortunately, he was left in a room for up to a month before he was buried. I ask the Minister to learn from that experience and from the hurt and distress it has caused to baby Eoin's mother. Would the Minister be willing to meet the family to discuss the failure of the HSE to look after that child?

I thank Deputy Doherty for raising this important and sensitive matter. I would be happy to discuss it further with the Deputy and, in due course, to meet the family in question.

It seems from the programme for Government that the most the proponents of the M20 route from Cork to Limerick can hope for is a case study. I understand that the route being considered by Transport Infrastructure Ireland involves the use of the M7 route between Cork and Cahir and the Waterford to Limerick route thereafter. That would increase by 40 km the number of kilometres travelled by road users who want to go from Cork to Limerick. I ask the Government to use its political clout to tell Transport Infrastructure Ireland to focus on constructing a route from Cork to Limerick via Mallow and Charleville. We know all about the importance of the rest of the route for the economic development of western Ireland and southern Ireland and for connectivity from Cork to Galway, etc. I know there is a cost factor.

However, if one goes back to increasing the mileage, one is going against the grain of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by getting people to drive more miles to get to a certain route. Will the Government tell Transport Infrastructure Ireland to focus on the Cork-Limerick route going via Mallow and Charleville?

I concur with Deputy O’Keeffe's comments on this rumour circulating from Transport Infrastructure Ireland on changing the route in question. Much work has been done on this route from Cork to Mallow to Charleville and on. For connectivity in the south-west region, it would be a nonsense to build a corridor between Cork and Limerick, then changing its direction and adding 40 km to it.

We cannot really have questions on rumours. It is meant to be questions on promised legislation.

It is in the programme for Government.

There has been no denial of it either.

It is farcical if this is being considered by Transport Infrastructure Ireland.

I have to advise the Deputies to table a parliamentary question on the matter as I am not in a position to answer their questions on it.

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