Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 14 Dec 2017

Vol. 963 No. 3

Appropriation Bill 2017: Second and Subsequent Stages

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

The Appropriation Bill 2017 is an essential element of financial housekeeping that, as Deputies are aware, must be concluded by the end of the year.

There are two primary purposes of the Appropriation Bill. The first purpose is to provide authorisation in law for all of the expenditure that has been undertaken in 2017 on the basis of the Estimates, which were voted on by the Dáil during the year.

Section 1 and Schedule 1 set out the amounts to be appropriated for supply services. These relate to the amounts included in the Revised Estimates for 2017 voted by the Dáil on 30 May this year and the further Revised Estimates and Supplementary Estimates voted by the Dáil last Thursday, 7 December. In aggregate, these Estimates amount to €46.8 billion. The comparable amount in the Appropriation Act 2016 was €44.6 billion. The amount to be appropriated this year, therefore, represents an increase of €2.2 billion or 4.9% on last year’s net voted expenditure. Over 80% of this increase is in the areas of housing, health and education.

Housing is a key priority for Government. Including appropriations-in-aid, the sum appropriated for the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government will have increased year-on-year by just over 50%, with gross expenditure on the housing programme increasing by an estimated €0.5 billion to €1.3 billion this year.

Compared to the amount provided for health in 2016, the Appropriation Bill amount for 2017 represents an increase of approximately 5%. In line with the commitment to delivering improvements in the health service, spending on our health services is already at record levels. In 2016, Ireland ranked sixth in terms of health care spend per capita out of all OECD countries. Given the scale of gross voted expenditure of an estimated €14.8 billion in 2017, a key challenge is to ensure value for money to maximise the impact of the increased expenditure.

An effective education system delivers significant benefits for the individual and for society. It is also vital to keeping our economy competitive and attracting investment. The sums appropriated for education in the 2017 Bill represent an increase of almost 5% on the comparable amounts for 2016.

Including expenditure on the national training fund, this brings gross spend on education to over €9.5 billion in 2017. In aggregate, taking into account expenditure of the Social Insurance Fund and the national training fund, total gross voted expenditure is forecast to total over €58.5 billion in 2017. This represents a significant investment to support the delivery of essential public services and to provide for the necessary infrastructure to support social and economic progress. A key challenge as we continue with a policy of providing sustainable and prudent increases in public expenditure will be to ensure value for money from this expenditure in order to maximise the benefits for society.

The second key purpose of the Appropriation Bill is to provide a legal basis for spending to continue into 2018 in the period before the Dáil votes on the 2018 Estimates. If the Bill were not enacted before the end of December there would be no authority to spend any voted moneys in 2018 from the start of January until approval of the 2018 Estimates, since this authority for 2018, as contained in the Central Fund (Permanent Provisions) Act 1965, is based on the amounts provided for in the Appropriation Act 2017 itself. Under the rolling multi-annual capital envelopes introduced in budget 2004 Departments may carry over, from the current year to the following year, unspent capital up to a maximum of 10% of voted capital. This reflects the difficulty in planning for major capital projects and provides some flexibility for Departments.

The Appropriation Act determines definitively the capital amounts which may be carried over to the following year. The aggregate amount of proposed capital carryover from 2017 into 2018 is €70.3 million, which represents just under 2% of the total Exchequer capital programme of €4.6 billion for 2017. The amount carried over from 2016 into 2017 was €76.5 million. The proposed amounts in unspent capital to be carried over by Vote are set out in Schedule 2 of the Bill.

The 2018 Revised Estimates Volume, to be presented to the House today, will set out detailed financial and key performance information for Departments and offices. In Part Il of the Estimates, for each Vote availing of the capital carryover facility a table is included listing the amounts to be deferred by sub-head. In line with last year’s Appropriation Act, section 3 of the Bill includes a specific provision to allow for an advance, not exceeding €200 million, from the Central Fund to the Paymaster General’s supply account, with this advance then being repaid to the Central Fund in January 2018. The need for this provision arises as certain Exchequer liabilities and social welfare payments, in particular child benefit, which will form part of the supply services for 2018, are due for payment by electronic funds transfer on 1 or 2 January 2018. With the banking system closed on 1 January 2018, funding will need to be in place in departmental bank accounts before the end of this year to meet those liabilities on a timely basis. In addition, An Post needs to be pre-funded before the end of 2017 in respect of certain payments due between the first and the fifth day of January 2018, in order to transfer payments from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection to their network of Post Offices throughout the country.

I remarked at the outset that the Appropriation Bill is an essential element of housekeeping which those of us in the Dáil are required to undertake. The passing of the Bill will authorise in law all of the expenditure that has been undertaken in 2017 on the basis of the Estimates voted on by the Dáil during the year. The passage of the Bill will also ensure that payments funded from voted expenditure in 2017 such as jobseeker’s allowance, disability allowance, non-contributory State pension, nurses’ pay, teachers’ pay and all other pay and pensions funded from voted money can continue to be funded in 2018 in the period before the Dáil approves the 2018 Estimates. While this is a somewhat technical Bill, it is vitally important. I commend it to the House.

We will be supporting the Bill. As the Minister of State said it is a very technical Bill, but it is important. The recent discussions around a potential election highlighted the importance of this Bill. They also perhaps highlighted an issue as to whether or not this is the most effective way to be doing business in this day and age. We bring this Bill in on the very last day of the session and if it does not pass many things will fall. From the point of view of prudence and keeping our legislation up to date it might be worth looking at.

The Minister of State mentioned some of his priorities, including health, education and housing, and used the usual phrase of "record spending". There are record problems, in housing in particular. If we are to do anything in 2018, we should build houses. Spending money on HAP is not adding anything extra to the stock. We can talk about extra money and record amounts of money, but at the end of the day we still have thousands of children in emergency accommodation and people dying on our streets. If we are here again this time next year talking about record allocations for housing when it is not making a blind bit of difference on the ground then there is no real point in being here.

There was a story this morning about the Central Bank spending €135,000 on a lighting fixture for its new headquarters in the docklands. It shows that a sense of extravagance is creeping in around the use of taxpayers' money again. It needs to be cut out now and a clear signal should go to all Government Departments and agencies. That kind of extravagance has no place. We have problems in health, housing and education. That kind of extravagance is completely ridiculous and is an insult to people on housing lists, health waiting lists and people who are waiting on payments the length and breadth of the country. The Minister needs to send a very strong signal from the Department of Finance that this cannot happen.

We also will be supporting the Bill. Deputy Calleary outlined the importance of it. It gives authorisation in law for all of the expenditure covered by the Estimates which were dealt with in May of this year and also the Supplementary Estimates which were dealt with on 7 December. The Bill is coming before the House now because it could not be brought before the Supplementary Estimates are in. Deputy Calleary's point about looking at how we approach this is valid, because if a general election had been called the week before last this is one of the Bills that would not have been able to proceed, along with the Finance Bill and the Social Welfare Bill.

The Minister of State spoke about record spending and mentioned health and housing as areas of priority. Unfortunately the issue of housing has dominated the political agenda again this year, in particular homelessness. We have had a number of deaths this year. It is really not a matter of spending, but a matter of policy. The quicker Government realises that the policies which are articulated and put forward are not working the better everyone will be. We cannot have a situation where, despite all of the policy proposals put forward to deal with housing, the number of people who are entering homelessness is on the increase. The number of young people under 25 entering homelessness has gone up again this year and very sadly and tragically the number of people who have died on our streets this year is greater than it was last year. That is a very damning indictment of Government policy.

The Bill also allows for certain expenditure in 2018 to be able to happen because of the way the new year and bank holidays are falling. Certain social welfare payments must be made, as the Minister of State outlined. For that reason this Bill is important. If this Bill was not passed child benefit and social welfare payments would not be paid at the start of the year because they would not have been authorised in law. While it is a very technical Bill it is very important legislation and we will be supporting it.

While the Minister of State reeled off a list of impressive statistics and amounts, the Government is somewhat in denial about the scale of some of the problems associated with some of these headings, which are deeply worrying to concerned members of Irish society.

I will start by referring to housing. I listened to one of the two Ministers for housing we have had in less than two years. This is a structural problem with this Government, and with Fine Gael in office. It is now so focused on spin that people are not being left in jobs long enough to see matters to completion. They do not have time to build up authority with civil servants so that they can be in leadership positions and inspire people in order to actually get the job done.

I was on the first trip on the new Luas line a few days ago. When in Cabinet, I argued very strongly for spending on public transport. Without that kind of spending, we will not be able to give people the quality of life they need. I was astonished when I passed Dominick Street and heard both of the Fine Gael Ministers who have been responsible for housing, Deputy Coveney and his successor, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, refer to that huge vacant site within a stone's throw of Stephen's Green. I thought building was under way. I had not been in Dominick Street on foot for a few months. I was astonished to discover that nothing has happened.

Having seen the Dominick Street site lying empty, I raised the issue of another site with both Deputies. It is called O'Devaney Gardens. By the way, there are beautiful flats further up the way at the corner of Dorset Street. The city council has now boarded up all of the lower levels, which used to be for the use of older people. It is now starting to board up the upper levels and is doing so in the midst of a housing crisis of the scale the city and the country are facing. I want to pause. The Minister is saying that more money has been allocated. I accept that. That is good, but where is the management leadership to get the job done in respect of housing? We have had two different Ministers responsible for housing in less than two years. That is a shocking commentary on the Government. I went up to O'Devaney Gardens to check progress, because that is the area I am from. It is a beautiful site beside the Phoenix Park. It has a public road running through it which would allow building in any corner. It is beside St. Bricin's, very close to Arbour Hill, so it is in a beautiful, highly desirable part of Dublin. There are many transport options there. Even Heuston Station is only a stone's throw away. Weeds are growing everywhere. There is absolutely no sign of a brick being placed on a brick.

Increasing numbers of people are becoming homeless because more of the banks are repossessing houses. When I was Minister for Social Protection, I spent time with the Simon Community and the housing authorities in Cork on several occasions. I agree with Deputy Jonathan O'Brien. It is shocking to see that homelessness is now spreading in a way not seen heretofore. Cork has been very good at looking after its own people. The Simon Community, other organisations, those involved with Penny Dinners and so on have been very good at looking after rough sleepers or people with other issues. Will the Government have a meeting in the new year to show some leadership in the management of expenditure so that we can start getting results?

I spoke to the Minister earlier about the dreadful situation in respect of the publicly-paid employees of section 39 organisations and he was quite honest. He very kindly went through an explanation. However, the explanation provided by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, was all about process rather than people. There is now a problem. If a nurse, a doctor or another member of staff transfers from one of the hospitals in Cork to work in the hospice, from the beginning of next year his or her pay will be sharply lower than the pay he or she got when working in the hospital. The Minister said that we cannot identify whether some people took a cut. This is a nightmare for the people trying to run these organisations, which include Rehab, the Irish Wheelchair Association, the Western Care Association, and the hospices in Cork, Dublin and Limerick. Rehab employs approximately 10,000 people. It is the job of the Minister to find solutions. We have now analysed the problem over a long period.

All of those organisations, particularly the hospices, have asked for meetings with the Minister and the Minister for Health. There has been no reply. They do not seem able to meet anybody. I believe that all three speakers present here, on behalf of our respective parties, would ask the Minister if he could not sit down with these organisations. He gave us many technical reasons for not acting and I appreciate that he did so, but can he not sit down and work out who is and who is not entitled to pay restoration? The Minister said that some people did not take the cuts. That is possibly true, but he can still make a declaration.

Finally, on education and housing, we have nowhere near enough apprentices in training. As we get the money together, we will have nobody to build the houses or the apartments. Will the Minister please address that from a leadership management point of view?

I too am delighted to be able to contribute. Like other speakers, I wonder what would have happened if we had the election nobody wanted but which almost arrived. Where would it have left us in respect of this Bill? It is being debated at half past the 11th hour - on the second-last day of this current session - as we head towards a new year. I think it is imprudent and improper that it is being stuck in here at the end of session given the huge and important amount of money being made available for appropriations across all Departments. This is not the right way to do business.

The former Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, made a promise during the talks. The Minister was there and was listening to him. He said that we would have to change because of the new situation arrived at after the election and the new scenario that had presented itself. He said that the whole public service would have to change to match that. I believe he was genuine, but we have not seen this change. The wheels of State are still turning as if there had been no change and no election. I am not attacking the officials but this whole system must change.

We have the Business Committee, which the Ceann Comhairle does a fine job of chairing. We worked very hard to set it up as a result of the work of the Sub-Committee on Dáil Reform. On that committee, we do our best to deal with any legislation that comes forward. I received an earful from the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, a few minutes ago. One would think I was in control of the Business Committee. I am only one member representing our group. I am not preventing his legislation passing Second Stage. The Minister's comments were very unfair but I can deal with that when I am speaking on the Road Traffic (Amendment) Bill 2017. This kind of legislation comes through the committee and did so this morning. We agreed on it but anything could happen. The sky could fall in or the election could have happened. Where would we have been then? Would there be any money in any accounts to pay anybody in different Departments? To use other parlance, we are sailing close to the wind.

The amounts involved here are staggering. As the Minister of State said, in 2016 Ireland ranked sixth out of all OECD countries for per capita health care spend. Given the scale of gross voted expenditure of an estimated €14.8 billion in 2017, a key challenge is to ensure value for money to maximise the impact of the increased expenditure. The health budget has increased every year since I was elected, apart from the years when there were very serious cutbacks, but the outcomes have got worse. There are some very good outcomes when people get into the system, which all Members acknowledge, but there is chaos in terms of accident and emergency departments and waiting lists for simple operations on knees or hips or ophthalmic and cataract treatment. My colleagues, Deputies Danny Healy-Rae and Michael Collins, have organised for a busload of people to travel to Belfast this Saturday to get their cataracts treated on foot of an EU directive. Some of those people have been waiting four or five years for treatment. It took exposés by RTÉ and TV3 to get people to understand the sheer scale of the waiting lists. The EU directive exists but we are told it could disappear if Brexit goes ahead in all its incarnations and the UK ceases to be part of the EU, which would be a tragedy for Ireland. People have to organise the treatment themselves and most funding is organised through credit unions, which I thank. The treatment must be paid for upfront but people will get the money back from a health budget. I am told it will not come from the current budget and I would love to know from which one it comes. There seems to be endless money available. There was a response within five weeks. Many people cannot afford the treatment. I salute those Deputies for organising that endeavour. Buses will also travel up to Belfast in January and February. This is a great initiative and is made easier by the good motorway. Those people are delighted that they will be able to read the newspaper and see their crops, their loved ones and so on. They are nearly blind. We are happy to appropriate money into health to allow for such ventures.

Members are aware of the exposé in regard to consultants who work very limited hours. Many eminent consultants with whom I deal are very good but there are many, as was revealed, who conduct private business in public hospitals. Barry Desmond of the Labour Party - I am not sure whether he is still alive but I hope he is - was a Minister when I was only a buachaill óg and fought against the practice of consultants in the 1960s and 1970s working in public hospitals and using State-provided equipment. That should not have been allowed. A vet, dentist or any other practitioner has to have his or her own equipment, surgery, X-ray machine and equipment. Why should the State provide money for some consultants who earn enormous sums? While such consultants generally treat people well from a professional and medical perspective, some of them believe they are mighty people and treat others with utter disdain. At times, patients are barely permitted to talk to them. Why should the State provide them with assistance?

The outcomes in health have become worse. A line has been crossed. As regards orthodontic treatment, there are teenage girls in Tipperary who want to go to secondary school and are embarrassed to be out in public but have to wait four or five years for treatment. There are not enough psychologists available in the HSE. There is no mental health service in Tipperary, which is one of the finest and biggest counties in Ireland and which has a significant population. It has had no mental health services since A Vision for Change was implemented. It should have been called A Vision for Horror. People from south Tipperary and as far north as Thurles are expected to go to Kilkenny for treatment while people from north Tipperary are expected to go not to Limerick but, rather, to Ennis, where the mental health facilities are completely full and patients from Tipperary are not wanted. There are no facilities for transport for business, which is very important, as Members know, in the context of a person suffering from depression or mental illness. If a person has a psychotic episode, he or she ends up in the already vastly overcrowded accident and emergency department system.

We are coming up to the capital review of expenditure for the next period and more money will be thrown at hospitals without getting any meaningful outcomes. The Minister yesterday announced that HIQA will now have powers to close hospitals. Where will people go after hospitals are closed? Where will people go for treatment if we shut any more hospitals that are overcrowded and bursting at the seams? We can appropriate all that money and it is lovely to talk about the vast amount of money available and many good things are happening but there are also many bad things and much dysfunctionality and no accountability within the HSE.

Money is being thrown at the housing problem. All Members know how many housing Ministers there have been in recent years. Although it is Christmas and I do not want to be too hard on her, Deputy Burton will remember that when her colleague, Deputy Kelly, was housing Minister he promised to build skyscrapers to the moon that were going to be completed in weeks, not months. We saw very little action in that regard.

Some 4,000 houses were opened up while Deputy Kelly was Minister.

I am surprised Deputy Burton did not mention that when she was speaking on the issue. Deputy Kelly could not build a hen house in Toomevara or a dog house in Carrick-on-Suir and did not do so. It was all spin and talk. Members know of the Taoiseach's new spin unit. Deputy Kelly did not need his own spin team but he still has it and the ego to go with it. However, houses were not built while he was Minister. There have been too many Ministers for housing, with five or six in recent years, and there has been no continuity while people are dying on streets all over our country. Cork is affected, as is Clonmel, my home town in Tipperary. I am contacted by homeless families every couple of days. No progress is being made on housing although money is being thrown at it. It is pointless to do so when the outcomes are no better. We have lost the will, vision and capability to build social houses. It was left to private developers for decades and all Members know where that got us. It is now not profitable to build them. It must be profitable. I am neither in the pockets of nor a supporter of developers, but they need to be able to make some modicum of profit.

Before and since the publication of the programme for Government, Members have called on the Government to address the issue of vacant shops and premises in the middle of towns which have become desolate and to recognise that they could be turned into living accommodation without development charges or fees for planning or change of use. Some action in that regard was today announced by the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy. That would create a living town again and go some way towards solving the housing crisis. I do not know when the Government will do simple things such as that. It could instruct county managers to waive fees. If it is worried about giving breaks to builders, the VAT incurred during construction could be returned to the people who want to buy or lease such premises and do them up and buy all the materials. Such people would spend that money in towns and villages and improve the local economy in that way. A vision of what needs to be done seems to have been totally lost, which is very sad.

I will not address the issue of the Central Bank and the new chandeliers that have been installed there. I thought that kind of morass was gone with the recession but it has crept back in because no action has been taken. There has been no legislation to deal with bankers or to stop the Central Bank spending a scandalous amount of money on lighting. It is time the lights were turned off on those people.

I apologise for missing the contributions of Deputies Calleary and Jonathan O'Brien and some of that of Deputy Burton but I have been updated on what was said. Deputies Calleary and Jonathan O'Brien queried whether this is the correct way to handle such legislation. This is how such legislation is always handled and it is done at this time of the year. That is because it is only at this point in the year that the issue of any Supplementary Estimates is settled. All Estimates for all Departments, including Supplementary Estimates, have been scrutinised by the relevant committees. They have gone through committees and we are now seeking to give legal effect to the spending of that money this year and the passage of the Bill then allows the spending of money for next year, which is crucial. It takes place now because it is only at this point in the parliamentary cycle that we are clear on the nature and magnitude of the Supplementary Estimates. For example, any funding that may be required in the areas of housing and health can only be dealt with at this time. It happens at this point every year. Everything has already gone through the relevant committees.

I acknowledge it is a very high level of spending. In many areas, we are returning to the level of spending we had at other points in our history. It would be great if Members, in particular Deputy Mattie McGrath, could give recognition to the very fine things that are happening in our country and which are enabled by the spending of this money.

In recent weeks, for example, we have seen the great success of young Irish students in numeracy and literacy. We have also seen that life expectancy in Ireland has increased because of breakthroughs in how we handle ageing, heart disease and lifestyle changes. These are just some examples of all the very positive things that have been enabled by successive Governments - obviously, I point to this one and that which preceded it - in spending money to try to make progress on the path taken by our State.

This is not to say that we do not have difficulties; of course we do. However, the acknowledgement that we have significant and severe difficulties should not come at the expense of failing to say that we are making progress in some areas, because we are doing so. Yes, we have difficulties in respect of housing and our health service, but there is also the fact that housing output will increase next year. The Government of which Deputy Mattie McGrath was a member allowed social housing to be delivered by the private sector. When the private sector then completely collapsed, we did not have the capacity to deliver that housing. We are now rebuilding that supply. I see this, for example, on the northside of Dublin. Last week, for example, I witnessed the launch of Broome Lodge, 80 new units of sheltered accommodation available in the heart of Dublin 7. Similarly, we will start making progress tomorrow on St. Mary's Mansions on Railway Street and Foley Street, a housing project that has been crying out for support for a decade. We all wish this could have happened sooner, but the work is under way and we are now putting a huge amount of resources into housing and into efforts to ensure we make progress on the commitment that everyone in this House has - and which the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, certainly has - to tackling this issue.

Regarding health, it is a fact that amid many of the difficulties to which Deputies have referred, waiting lists in a number of key areas are beginning to decline. It is also a fact that while the recent patient survey published by the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, this week pointed to things we want to change, it also pointed to things that are happening in our hospitals and primary care centres that are good for patients and that deliver the kind of support and health care they need at vulnerable points in their lives. We are seeking authorisation for a very large amount of money; the amount that would be authorised by the Bill is €46.8 billion, which is an increase of almost 5% on the sum authorised in respect of the Appropriation Act 2016. In recent years, we have increased expenditure by 15% to respond to the issues we have. We have accompanied this through reform of our public services. An example in this regard is the 2020 public service reform plan I launched earlier in the week. Passing the Bill would give legal authorisation to spend money this year. Crucially, this would then allow us to spend money from 1 January to meet our citizens' needs.

Question put and agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.

The Bill, which is certified to be a money Bill in accordance with Article 22.2.1° of the Constitution, will now be sent to the Seanad.

Top
Share