Brendan Howlin
Question:1. Deputy Brendan Howlin asked the Taoiseach the legislation his Department is planning to introduce. [31184/17]
View answerTuesday, 11 July 2017
Questions (1, 2, 3, 87)
Gerry Adams
Question:2. Deputy Gerry Adams asked the Taoiseach the status of Bills under preparation in his Department. [32319/17]
View answer
Richard Boyd Barrett
Question:3. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach the legislation his Department is planning to introduce. [32517/17]
View answer
Micheál Martin
Question:87. Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Taoiseach the Bills his Department is now working on. [32815/17]
View answerOral answers (14 contributions)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 3, inclusive, and 87 together.
My Department has responsibility for the National Economic and Social Council, or NESC, the statutory basis for which is as a body under the framework of the National Economic and Social Development Office Act 2006. As that framework is no longer necessary, the Government has agreed that it should be dissolved with NESC itself placed on a statutory footing in its own right. That work is ongoing and is the only legislation being prepared in my Department. The proposals will be brought forward in due course.
NESC's role is to analyse and report on strategic policy matters relevant to Ireland's economic, social, environmental and sustainable development. The council has a long record as the vehicle for multilateral dialogue among Government, employer, trade union and farming interests and, more recently, among community, voluntary and environmental interests as well as independent experts. Since the decision to place the council on a statutory footing was made, the policymaking landscape has continued to evolve and there are now other fora in which dialogue can take place. It is important to make sure we have the best arrangements in place for the council in order that it can continue to provide the highest quality research and advice to Government, especially as we want to reflect these in legislation.
A new NESC was appointed in May and has begun its work. The new restructured council is smaller and is adopting more flexible operating arrangements. The combination of analysis, consultation and engagement will be whatever is most appropriate for the policy issue being examined. The reconfigured council is continuing its work and the absence of specific legislation does not impede it in carrying out its mandate.
Having pursued the matter with the former Taoiseach, I am trying to get a view from the new Taoiseach on the role he sees for the National Economic and Social Council into the future. As the Taoiseach knows, there was a very long gap between the termination of the term of office of the previous incumbents and the appointment of a new council.
The Government's legislative programme lists the National Economic and Social Development Office (Amendment) Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny but we have yet to see the heads of that Bill. The National Economic and Social Development Office, NESDO, was established by the National Economic and Social Development Office Act 2006. The proposed Bill in the programme for Government would dissolve NESDO and place NESC on a statutory basis. What role does the Taoiseach see for NESC? Will the Government be proceeding with this? From what I heard in his reply, I presume the Government will be proceeding with legislation this year.
On a related Bill, last week I introduced the Genuine Progress Indicators and National Distributional Accounts Bill to change the way we measure social progress in this country so that we would not merely be looking at economic growth but social and environmental issues also. Does the Taoiseach see that as a role for NESC?
The Government has been understandably and correctly criticised for its poor legislative programme. There are many examples of this but I want to ask the Taoiseach about one specific area. Today, SafeIreland is holding a conference entitled "Understanding Coercive Control - Domestic Violence, Domination and the Defence of Liberty". It is to be addressed by Evan Stark, an American academic. Professor Stark has criticised the State's record for investigating and prosecuting domestic violence. He has previously pointed out that for every 100 reports of physical or sexual assault, only approximately two result in any kind of policing action. Almost nobody is receiving any significant custodial sentences. Ellen O'Malley-Dunlop, the chair of the National Women's Council of Ireland, has also called for specialist training in and an understanding of coercive and controlling behaviour to be provided to first responders and judges who deal with issues of domestic violence. Today's conference will examine some of the legislation that this State needs to implement to meet our obligations under the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence and the EU directive on victims' rights.
The Istanbul Convention was formally adopted by the Council of Europe on 7 April 2011 and entered into force almost three years ago on 1 August 2014. It took the Government another year to sign it on 5 November 2015. At the time, the Government also published 18 outstanding actions necessary to ratify the convention in the multi-annual action plan. It was intended that these would be delivered in the first quarter of 2018. One of the key actions is the enactment of a consolidated domestic violence Bill. As the Taoiseach knows, the purpose of the Bill is to consolidate and update the law. We have been waiting and waiting for this legislation and I am blue in the face, as are others, from raising this issue on the floor of the Dáil. Today I would like an answer as to when we will see the Bill. When will it complete its legislative journey and be signed into law?
Another shameful statistic has emerged in the utterly shameful record of this Government on the issue of housing and homelessness. We now top the league table in Europe for the proportion of women who are homeless. The number of women as a proportion of those who are homeless is 48%, which is approximately 10% higher than the next highest in Europe. This is shameful. I have looked at the draft National Risk Assessment - Overview of Strategic Risks that the Department of the Taoiseach has produced and, frankly, I understand why we are in this mess. This document was produced in the last couple of days. While there is a lot of commentary about how we got here and the failures of the market, in all of the prescriptions, in so far as there are any in the risk assessment, and there are very few, there is no mention of social housing: none. That is extraordinary given a collapse in the provision of social housing is the key reason we are in this mess. There is no mention of the need to increase the stock of social housing dramatically and for the State to do it when the market has so obviously failed. It is in that context that I am asking if the Taoiseach will consider, as I and others have asked before, moving legislation for a constitutional referendum on the right to housing. It needs to be established in our Constitution so that there is an obligation on the State to deliver the housing that we so urgently need to deal with the shameful situation that has emerged under Fine Gael's watch.
I thank the Taoiseach for his reply on NESC. We are in dire need of proper strategic oversight of economic and social policy, in particular the connection between both, and I hope that a new legislative status for NESC would achieve that. I want to make a general reference to whether the Department of the Taoiseach is co-ordinating legislation across Government. It seems to me that this particular Government has been very slow in producing legislation. There has been a significant lack of it, particularly in the priority areas of housing and health where a major crisis is to be seen. The waiting lists and times in health are getting worse all of the time and, as Deputy Boyd Barrett said, the homelessness question is getting progressively worse. We are at the bottom of the league table in terms of the number of women who are homeless - we are the worst - and children are in emergency accommodation.
There was an interesting article this morning in The Irish Times by Fintan O'Toole. I would not agree with everything he writes but he did draw an interesting contrast between the speed at which the Rugby World Cup 2023 Bill 2017 was rushed through the Dáil in two hours yet we were not in a position to prioritise other legislation. I thought we were going to go an extra week next week to consider legislation but it seems there was not enough material to keep us here. Notwithstanding some of the objections we had earlier about rushing some aspects of legislation this week, apparently there was not a whole lot of material to keep the House next week, and not until we come back on 20 September. There will be some commentary on that. The capacity of the Government to produce legislation seems to be an issue. Is there a draftsmanship issue? Have we enough draftspeople to draft legislation? On the education front, there are Bills that have been around for quite some time. The Technological Universities Bill is a classic one. We are now told it needs 80 amendments. That was nearly ready to be passed before the last general election.
It was.
The last general election was a year and a half ago and we are being told the Bill is nowhere near ready for introduction never mind completion. There is a real need to focus on what legislative output can be achieved. I am not just talking in terms of publishing Bills-----
If the Deputy wants the Taoiseach to respond, he will need to give him time.
-----but finishing and completing Bills.
I am sure the Deputy is aware of the purpose of the Rugby World Cup 2023 Bill. It will allow the State to provide a certain guarantee and to underwrite the finances of the Rugby World Cup bid. I can guarantee the House that if there was simple legislation that we could rush through the Dáil to eliminate waiting lists or homelessness we would do it. However, those are not problems that can be dealt with by legislation alone. To compare the Rugby World Cup 2023 Bill with complex problems such as homelessness or waiting lists is not to make a fair comparison.
I had a look at what is potentially going to get through the Houses of the Oireachtas this week and next week. There are nine Bills, including the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill, the Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill, the Mediation Bill, the Minerals Development Bill, the Rugby World Cup 2023 Bill, which was mentioned, the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman Bill, the National Shared Services Office Bill, the Adoption (Amendment) Bill and the Independent Reporting Commission Bill as well as Deputy Browne's Mental Health (Amendment) Bill.
With the co-operation of the House ten Bills could be passed by the Houses of the Oireachtas by the end of next week, which would bring the total for this year so far to the high twenties. That does not reflect a Dáil that is not passing legislation. Potentially there could be 27 or 28 Bills enacted so far in 2017. The total was approximately 40 in many years in the past, but obviously if the Government had a majority it could get far more legislation through. However, it does not and the process of getting legislation through-----
That is not the issue. It is just that the Bills are not being produced.
-----is much slower than it would have been in the past.
The Domestic Violence Bill is being piloted by the Minister for Justice and Equality and it is priority legislation for the next session. We have already passed some legislation relating to domestic violence. A particularly important provision relates to temporary orders which ensure that it is the abuser who is ordered to leave the family home, thus allowing the person who is experiencing domestic violence to stay in the home. That is good legislation which is already in place.
I only had a cursory look at the Trinity College report, "Women's Homelessness in Europe", which was published this morning. What has gone largely unreported is that the report shows Ireland has one of the lowest rates of homelessness overall among EU member states. It shows that there is a gender gap, with men more likely to be homeless in Ireland than women. However, the gap between men and women in terms of the likelihood or prevalence of homelessness is narrower than in other countries. There is a big difference between male and female homelessness. The male homeless tend to be single men and often they are men who have mental health and addiction issues. Women tend to be in a different group and often have children. That is why the family hubs are being developed, to provide alternative accommodation to hotels, which nobody believes are suitable.
While the report the Deputy refers to might not discuss social housing, the Government's strategy on housing and homelessness does. The Rebuilding Ireland plan contains a commitment to increase our social housing stock by more than a third, reversing the policies of previous Governments, which were to sell our social housing stock. Instead, we intend to expand the social housing stock by more than a third in the coming years. Indeed, 1,600 social housing units are now in the process of planning and construction and only yesterday the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, was in north Dublin handing out keys to families who have been provided with affordable accommodation. That is an example of the different things that are happening.
It is a drop in the ocean.
The role of the NESC, its role is to analyse and report to me, as Taoiseach, on strategic issues relating to the efficient development of the economy, the achievement of social justice and the development of a strategic framework for the conduct of relations and the negotiation of agreements between the Government and the social partners. The 2006 Act provides for social partnership but that context has changed significantly from what it was in 2006. The work programme on which the council is working at present relates to housing policy and the challenge of affordability, the circular economy, natural capital and the requirements and implications of an effective infrastructure policy.