Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 15 Feb 2024

Vol. 1049 No. 6

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions

Deputy Pearse Doherty

Inné, nochtadh arís cultúr na teidlíochta in RTÉ. Thug an ard-stiúrthóir le fios go raibh pacáiste fágtha de €450,000 tugtha don iar-phríomhoifigeach airgeadais, Breda O'Keeffe. Tá sé soiléir anois nach bhfuil muinín ag an phobal as an chraoltóir seirbhíse poiblí a thuilleadh agus níl consias ná freagracht ann.

Once again we see the culture of entitlement, at RTÉ. It was unveiled for all of us to see before the Oireachtas media committee yesterday. The new director general, Kevin Bakhurst, confirmed that RTÉ's former chief financial officer, Breda O'Keeffe, walked away from her job with a €450,000 redundancy package, except this was not a redundancy package because her job was never eliminated. Furthermore, that package was not signed off by RTÉ's executive board, as required. Instead, it was cooked up between Ms O'Keeffe and the former director general, Dee Forbes.

This was a golden handshake to the value of ten times the average salary in the State cooked up behind closed doors, with no sign off, no tax paid and no disclosure until yesterday. You could not make it up. It is damning. People are sick to their back teeth of what is going on and what has gone on in RTÉ.

We also learned that there were others involved. Rory Coveney resigned just last year from RTÉ. We are told he was the driving force behind the fiasco that was Toy Show The Musical, which lost €2.2 million of taxpayers' money. Yet he gets a secret golden handshake at the taxpayers' expense. We do not know the details of this. Does the Tánaiste? If not, will the Government demand this information from RTÉ? How many others have received secret golden handshakes in the last period? Is it any wonder that compliance with payment of the TV licence has fallen off a cliff? This is because the public have lost confidence in the governance of the public sector broadcaster. This is a very dangerous place to be.

The State and its citizens rely on RTÉ to hold those in power to account and for trusted, reliable news and current affairs coverage. It cannot fulfil its obligations if there is no accountability. That is what is missing here.

The Tánaiste said he supports the measure that those who have not paid their TV licence be dragged before the courts and be jailed if needs be. There are now more than 300,000 households that have not paid their TV licences. However, the executives in RTÉ can walk away into the sunset with €450,000 in their back pockets and what? There is no accountability and there are no consequences.

In any other workplace, a person who walks off the job and quits only gets what he or she is entitled to, no more, no less. People are not even entitled to social welfare payments for a period. However, an RTÉ executive can walk off the job and receive €450,000 of taxpayers' money. It is a joke and people are demanding accountability. It is one rule for the privileged and another for ordinary workers. Yet we have heard from the Tánaiste - I am sure we will hear it again - and from the Taoiseach and from the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, who all say there will be accountability. We have seen no accountability in the past eight months. We were told that the process of accountability in RTÉ had begun. Is there accountability when those centrally involved in a financial scandal that has brought RTÉ into disrepute are able to walk off into the sunset with undisclosed exit packages that it seems they were not contractually entitled to? When will there be consequences for those who have breached the public trust and for those who played fast and loose with taxpayers' money? That is what ordinary people the length and breadth of this State are asking. Does the Tánaiste support Sinn Féin's calls for the full details of the process that led to these secret redundancy packages and golden handshakes, including those made to Rory Coveney and whoever else got them, to be made public as a matter of urgency? Crucially, and above all else, when will there be accountability? That is what people demand.

The Tánaiste

RTÉ is funded by a combination of the licence fee, taxpayers' money and advertising revenue. Essentially, the RTÉ licence money is the public's money. Where public money forms the bulk of any organisation's revenue, there should be full transparency and accountability to the public. What has happened is unacceptable. There should be no secrecy in respect of any package which any executive received from RTÉ. All such packages should be in accordance with proper frameworks, procedures and controls that exist in an organisation. RTÉ had controls and procedures but they were clearly not adhered in one particular case, it seems. What should happen in this case is the correct amount for the exit package should apply. I do not have any details of any package, including Mr. Coveney's package, who the Deputy referenced. He slyly insinuated that I might but I do not.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

Hands off.

The Tánaiste

Yes, hands off. Government can never interfere with a public service broadcaster. There has always been a hands-off and an arm's-length approach. I can remember as a young student when people accused governments of the day of interfering too much in RTÉ in terms of editorial control or saying that RTÉ should not publish this or should not criticise that. That was an earlier debate in society which I thought everyone had agreed to, that we should keep at arm's-length from the broadcaster in respect of editorial control or trying to manipulate it. That does not mean that RTÉ does not have to adhere to the proper norms and frameworks around redundancy packages and dealing upfront with the Revenue. All of that is obviously something the Minister is very concerned about. That is why the Minister has initiated a variety of reports in respect of governance and culture in RTÉ. It is not an acceptable culture. There is no difference in our position here in respect of this.

We should not be putting words in people's mouths. I am not on record anywhere as saying that people should be dragged before the courts. I never said that but just now, the Deputy said that I did. We need honesty, complete transparency and accountability. I have never set myself up as judge and executioner of anybody in society. I mean that. We have to be careful too and there should be full accountability before the committees of the House. However, those committees must also balance that with due process. I respectfully suggest that has not always been the case in the past in terms of how committees conducted inquiries.

The current committees are doing a good job. In fairness to the arts and culture committee, it has done good public service in revealing a lot of this which would not have been revealed without the work of our Oireachtas committees. I think the members of the committee, chaired by Deputy Niamh Smyth, have elicited information for the public which we would not have been presented with otherwise. That is good and I would like to see more of that. I would like to see everybody involved come before the Oireachtas committees. I acknowledge that if people are in ill health it is difficult. I respect that principle but I think we should look at other mechanisms by which people could give their account of what happened. Perhaps the Oireachtas or the committees responsible could look at those who have not come forward.

Deputy Pearse Doherty

The Tánaiste says he wants full accountability but I ask him where it is. We were led to believe that, in the last year, people who were involved in the financial scandals were forced to resign. However, yesterday we find out that they were actually given secret golden handshake payments and that the current management of RTÉ introduced confidentiality clauses. Where is the accountability? The Tánaiste says he wants full transparency regarding the packages. What does he say about Rory Coveney's package and the other packages where confidentiality clauses were entered into? That just happened eight months ago. I invited the Tánaiste to do this. Does he support our call on RTÉ that all packages, redundancy payments and golden handshakes be made transparent to the public who are funding them in the first place?

What, if anything, is the Government going to do in respect of accountability? I make the point genuinely. There are 300,000-plus families who have stopped paying for their TV licences.

An Ceann Comhairle

Thank you, Deputy.

Deputy Pearse Doherty

The Government's view is that they should be brought before the court and should be prosecuted.

An Ceann Comhairle

Thank you, Deputy. Time is up, please.

Deputy Pearse Doherty

Some of them may end up in prison for a short time.

An Ceann Comhairle

Please, Deputy.

Deputy Pearse Doherty

There is no accountability.

An Ceann Comhairle

Please, Deputy. The time is up.

Deputy Pearse Doherty

What is the Tánaiste saying about the accountability of the executives who caused financial scandals and are walking into the sunset with hundreds of thousands of euro in taxpayers' money in their back pockets?

The Tánaiste

The Deputy clearly did not listen to my original reply. I said there should be full transparency in respect of everybody who got a package from RTÉ. That is my view. It is public money; it is licence fee money and taxpayers' money. There must be full transparency in respect of any individual. I said that already.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

This has been going on for decades.

The Tánaiste

In terms of the licence fee, Sinn Féin's alternative budget for last year, which was published only four months ago, did not mention, let alone budget for, its plan to scrap the licence fee.

Deputy Pearse Doherty

We actually did.

The Tánaiste

You did not.

Deputy Pearse Doherty

There is a contingency fund of over €800 million.

The Tánaiste

It would cost in excess of €150 million.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

A contingency fund.

Deputy Pearse Doherty

It includes media.

The Tánaiste

The other point I will make is that the other fundamental problem with the amnesty proposal is that for the hundreds and thousands of people who paid the licence fee down through the years, it is an incredible insult. "Fools you were to pay" is what Sinn Féin is saying to them. What does that mean for other bills that people pay? What Sinn Féin is saying to people is, "Don't bother paying your bills. Don't pay any kind of bill."

Deputy Pearse Doherty

Who is dishonest now? Who is dishonest now?

The Tánaiste

That is what Sinn Féin is saying.

Deputy Pearse Doherty

The Tánaiste will not answer the question about accountability.

The Tánaiste

"We will look after you at the end of the day." That is what Sinn Féin is saying. It is saying it does not have to provide for it in alternative budgets.

Deputy Pearse Doherty

The only person who is held accountable is the mother who cannot pay for her TV licence.

The Tánaiste

For those who have paid their licence fees over the years, that was an incredible slap in the face. The Deputy has basically-----

Deputy Pearse Doherty

Do you know what is a slap in the face? The slap in the face is €450,000.

An Ceann Comhairle

Will the Deputy please respect the orders of the House? The Tánaiste's time is up.

The Tánaiste

I wish to say finally that what Sinn Féin has basically said to the Irish people is, "Why bother to pay any bill?".

Deputy Pearse Doherty

That is completely and utterly dishonest. It is completely and utterly dishonest and-----

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy-----

Deputy Pearse Doherty

----- the Tánaiste has nothing to say about accountability.

Deputy Ivana Bacik

In all the heat of the debate this week, we have to recall that Ireland has lots to be proud of when it comes to public service broadcasting and that has to be said. However, there are many areas where we can do better. We boast generations of talented writers and artists, many of whom have had to leave these shores to have their work seen and heard. The work of many who are here and are contributing so much to news coverage and the creation of content here at home is desperately undervalued by our national broadcaster. Far too many of those who keep the lights on and the cameras rolling at RTÉ are denied a fair wage, a pension, holidays and maternity leave because they are trapped on bogus self-employment contracts. That is the reality. These workers' rights issues are not receiving enough scrutiny. Instead, our time is preoccupied by what our colleague, Senator Marie Sherlock, has rightly described as the upstairs-downstairs culture that prevails at RTÉ and the indefensible conduct of a few at the top. Yesterday’s committee appearances confirmed that. People were rightly shocked at the revelation that the former director general of RTÉ signed off on a €450,000 retirement payment for the former chief financial officer, Breda O’Keeffe. People are also shocked when they compare this extraordinary outlay with RTÉ's decision to spend tens of thousands of euro appealing findings made by the Department of Social Protection on bogus self-employment practices at the station. Those who are most demoralised by the revelations of the past year, the revelations of secret golden handshakes, are the staff on the ground who are paying for the very flaithiúlach approach being taken by those at the top to the resources of a struggling public body.

We all want to move on and focus on issues such as the workers' rights I have mentioned and, crucially, the key issue of the future funding model for the broadcaster, which the Government has not yet answered. The Government and RTÉ also have questions to answer about the past conduct of those at the top. The Tánaiste said just now that there must be transparency and accountability and he said earlier today that the exit package given to Breda O’Keeffe should be reassessed. Indeed, he suggested she might consider paying back excessive amounts. However, this is not just about one individual’s retirement deal. I think the Tánaiste agrees with that. We know there are others. RTÉ's former director of strategy, Rory Coveney, also received an exit package when he resigned in July but we do not know the value of that payment or what it was for. When asked, a spokesperson said that RTÉ could not provide more information.

We know that everybody wants to turn over a new leaf and focus on real issues but that cannot happen while public money is apparently still being spent sustaining the bad culture of old and fighting those who are bearing the brunt of this crisis at the Workplace Relations Commission or the High Court. Can the Tánaiste say how the Government is going to go about achieving that accountability and transparency he has said is so badly needed? While we in the Labour Party absolutely support decent investment in public service broadcasting, and pay our TV licences, we still need to know how much of the public money going into the national broadcaster has been spent covering the costs of yet another lucrative exit package and how much has been spent fighting the rights of workers who are struggling at the bottom of the system in RTÉ.

The Tánaiste

I agree with the Deputy on almost everything she has said. Her point about bogus self-employment contracts is valid. She has consistently raised the matter and it is a very serious issue. A significant and comprehensive investigation is under way. The Department of Social Protection commenced that investigation into the PRSI classification of RTÉ contractors. RTÉ provided the Department with a list of 695 workers engaged on a contract basis in 2018, 2019 and 2020. These form the basis of the investigation. It is a significant investigation. This is a very serious issue that potentially undermined the rights of many workers within RTÉ. Decisions have issued in respect of approximately 131 workers. Some 89 workers were found to have employee status to which class A PRSI applies, while 42 workers were found to be self-employed and insurable at class S PRSI. Some 48 decisions have been appealed. It is important that the investigation continues. A total of €1.7 million in compliance has been notified to RTÉ to date and the total liability repaid to date by RTÉ amounts to €1.2 million.

That investigation has to conclude but there is a more fundamental question then in terms of future workforce composition, the rights and entitlements for people working for RTÉ and not applying pressure to workers to declare themselves to be independent contractors when they are doing the same work that they were doing as employees and losing out on entitlements consequent to being full-time employees.

I also agree about the centrality of public service broadcasting. We must not lose sight of that. I agree that there must be full transparency and there should be no secrecy or confidentiality in terms of any package because it is public money. I also accept that for staff on the ground in RTÉ, morale is further undermined by these revelations. The Minister has initiated comprehensive reports into RTÉ on governance and culture, and they will have to form the basis for new structures that will deliver accountability and that will also give confidence and trust to the Oireachtas and to the Government in terms of reforms of the funding system. All along we have been told to rush a decision in respect of a situation that is clearly not satisfactory at the moment. There has to be clear informed light, if you like, and evidence on which to base new decisions in respect of that. I am conscious that in the area of foreign affairs, RTÉ's capacity is significantly reduced in terms of what it can cover and in terms of the complexity and analysis required for what is going on globally in the world today. It is not what it should be, in my view, in terms of public service broadcasting.

Deputy Ivana Bacik

I thank the Tánaiste for responding on the issue of workers' rights at RTÉ. Indeed, there are very serious issues for workers at levels below those top management levels at RTÉ. Trevor Keegan, chair of the National Union of Journalists, NUJ, group at RTÉ said today that the impending redundancies at RTÉ loom large and that the prospect is impacting morale among staff at all levels below top management. The Tánaiste is right about that. When will we see results? When will we see an outcome from the Minister's review? When will we see actual improvement in conditions for those who are currently on those bogus self-employed contracts, those who are incorrectly being described by RTÉ as contractors when they are actually staff? When will see certainty and clarity for staff on their future? That relies on a future funding model and we have not got clarity from the Government in that regard.

The Tánaiste has said he wants transparency and accountability around past conduct and payments made to those at the top. We still have a real lack of information and clarity about the payments made to others, beyond Breda O'Keeffe. Kevin Bakhurst took up his position on Monday, 10 July. Rory Coveney announced his resignation on Sunday, 9 July.

We still have no clarity about exit payments in this regard, nor about exit payments to others at the top level in RTÉ. We need to know from the Government what it is going to do about it.

The Tánaiste

I expect to have the recommendations of the two expert advisory groups, on governance and culture and on contractor fees, human resources and other matters, shortly. They will be incorporated into a new strategy for RTÉ, which will come to the Government. They will bring clarity to the basis on which the Government will make decisions on the future funding of RTÉ. In the interim, there will have to be absolute transparency regarding packages; there should be no secrecy. The chair, Siún Ní Raghallaigh, and the director general, are working very hard to restore trust. This is being done in parallel with the process of revelation and necessary accountability before the Oireachtas committees. Parallel with that, we have to create stability within the public service broadcaster. We have to create a future and ensure the broadcaster can grow and recover from this period. We are very focused on that imperative, and our actions will follow that.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

This week, Fianna Fáil launched its campaign for a “Yes” vote in the so-called care referendum. It is important that we look behind the glossy marketing leaflets and actually analyse where the Government stands on care. Aontú has been carrying out significant research on the issue of children in State care by way of parliamentary questions, mostly to the Department of the Minister, Deputy Roderick O’Gorman. The information is absolutely shocking. First, a record number of children are being referred to Tusla annually. A reply to a parliamentary question that Aontú received shows that, in the first ten months of last year, 72,000 children were referred to Tusla, meaning 90,000 were referred to it in the full year. This is absolutely staggering. It represents an increase of 28% in two years. To put the number in perspective, it is 30,000 more children than sat the leaving certificate examinations last year. Two hundred and fifty-six children per day, or ten per hour, are being referred to Tusla at the moment. Tusla has admitted to me by way of responses to parliamentary questions that it is putting many of the vulnerable children into unregulated residential units called special emergency arrangements. These are typically just rented apartments and they are often staffed by unvetted staff. It is astounding that any government would put children who are so vulnerable into this situation.

We also know that hundreds of children go missing from State care annually. The Irish Examiner reports today that, in January, 22 children went missing from State care. This is incredible. The State is in loco parentis but is now losing hundreds of the children annually. Children taken into Tusla, potentially because of sexual abuse, are being lost to the State, potentially making them targets for traffickers for sexual abuse. The State is meant to be a sanctuary for these children with difficulties; however, either through ineptitude or resource disinterest, it is leaving these same children to be lost to abuse again.

I have asked Tusla to state how many children have reported sexual abuse while in State care. It has told me it simply does not record that information centrally. Other data shown to Aontú indicate that over 200 children have died either in State care or known to State care in the past ten years. Thirty-eight of these have taken their own lives, many more have died from overdoses, and others were murdered.

The rank-and-file staff involved in the protection of children are doing their best. They are under enormous pressure and many are suffering from burnout, but if what is happening had happened to children in the past, there would have been a State apology and a full investigation. Why is the Government not taking the horrendous neglect of children in State care seriously?

The Tánaiste

The referendum covers three areas, the first being a more inclusive definition of the family to ensure the up to 43,000 children born outside marriage in 2022 are finally recognised by our Constitution and have a sense of full inclusion. It is a very children-focused amendment in that context and it takes within its compass new family formations of recent times. Second, it deals with the role of women in society through the deletion of an article and its replacement, and in the replacement to recognise care. The fundamental issue of care provision is one that the Oireachtas and Government quite correctly have to deal with in terms of the allocation and prioritisation of resources.

The budget of Tusla has increased very significantly over recent years, as have the budgets of a range of other services. In childcare, for example, resources have vastly increased. Fees have been reduced to try to alleviate the pressure on families, including parents, in respect of the care of their children. DEIS programmes, programmes in disadvantaged schools and intervention programmes, including multidisciplinary intervention programmes, have also seen increases.

On children referred to Tusla, it is very sad to note the background issues and challenges families and certain parents have such that children are referred to either foster care or Tusla. Many of these cases are extremely complex, as the Deputy would have to acknowledge. To use words like “ineptitude” is too judgmental. In many instances, cases involve teenagers, who could be 14 or 15, in State services. There is a variety of State services and the people who work in them talk about the children’s complex backgrounds. When the Deputy uses the phrase that children are lost, it is almost as if he is saying it is Tusla’s fault. It is not fair to put it as baldly and simply as that.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

The State is in loco parentis.

The Tánaiste

Yes, we have responsibilities and have to do everything we possibly can to prevent such situations from arising, but any of us who deal with young people in life realise the complexities involved. When Minister for Education, I recall people escaping from Trinity House. I recall that education, health and justice were three silos at the time. That was before Tusla and the more co-ordinated approach that has emerged under the Department of children and equality, which is ultimately the end result of a process whereby we try to unite services for children under one roof.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

The Tánaiste raised the issue of ineptitude. I will give him an example of it. Retired Mr. Justice Simms wrote to the Minister, Deputy Roderick O’Gorman, and stated he had “utmost concern” with the predicament of children in State care. He attached four anonymised reports, with permission to share them. He gave them to the Minister, who deleted three of them, with the excuse that there were GDPR issues. A judge stuck his neck out to bring change to this space and the bureaucratic response of the State was to delete the reports. I have learned that the Department actually reported Mr. Justice Simms to his seniors for doing so.

The Tánaiste mentioned issues that arose before. There is nothing happening today that did not happen before but all the information shows that what is happening is happening to a far greater level now. Enormous damage is being done to children in State care. The State has serious responsibilities. High-dependency units and residential beds for the children are being closed down and staff are leaving because of burnout. This has happened because the Government is not focusing resources or prioritising the issue.

The Tánaiste

In response to retired Mr. Justice Simms’s letter, Tusla is working with officials within the Department of children. There were four documents. The Deputy referred to a bureaucratic response. I think he is referring to the Data Protection Act. The Department formed the view that it did not have a legal basis to process the personal data contained in those three reports-----

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

Maybe a human basis.

The Tánaiste

-----and those reports were subsequently deleted from the Department’s records. However, the Department is addressing the substantive issues to which the reports related and that were set out in the correspondence itself.

These are issues that have to be dealt with in respect of the personal information relating to any individual or child in the State. However, again, legislation is on the way, in terms of the general scheme of the Child Care (Amendment) Bill 2023. Regarding interagency co-operation, which is essential, the children concerned in the correspondence from Mr. Justice Simms require services from a number of State bodies and improved interagency co-operation is essential to ensure better care and services for children in these situations.

Deputy Michael Collins

The HSE is running from one disaster to another. The budget overrun last year of up to €1 billion still goes unrecognised by the State as though it were a few hundred euro. Overcrowding in our hospitals in 2023 was the worst on record. The number of patients on trolleys in University Hospital Limerick in 2023 was 21,143; Cork University Hospital, 12,487; University Hospital Galway, 8,914; Sligo University Hospital, 8,094; and St. Vincent's University Hospital, Dublin, 6,555. These are astonishing figures, which go unnoticed year after year by this and previous Governments, leaving HSE hospital staff burned out. The shortage of GPs is a cause of huge concern, with many GPs reluctant to take on new medical card patients as it is simply not viable. In my constituency of Cork South-West, SouthDoc services are gone in most parts of west Cork. The only remaining SouthDoc service is in Bantry. Dentists are reluctant to take new medical card patients as it is no longer viable for them. In west Cork, the school dentist practices in Castletownbere, Dunmanway, Schull and Skibbereen have been closed down leaving parents travelling all over the country to get dental services for their children. Podiatry services for older people are on a very limited basis, now disqualifying many elderly people who genuinely need foot care. We have a severe shortage of HSE occupational therapists, OTs, forcing people to pay for a vital service that many cannot afford. We have huge waiting lists for physiotherapy, forcing those who again cannot afford it to pay for a private practitioner. The home help situation is at an all-time low, with carers who mind loved ones pleading for more home help hours and more patients awaiting discharge, who cannot go home as they await a homecare package to be put in place due to a lack of home help services. Now, changes to home help services in parts of west Cork will see people who had two home-helpers a week now having four without any extension of time, which upsets many people because they have built up relationships with their home helpers. Parents of children with additional needs are now waiting lengthy periods to get services such as OT, speech and language therapy and psychological and psychiatric services. Respite for carers of adults with intellectual and physical disabilities has not been available since before the Covid-19 pandemic.

This is a factual list that surely every politician has. Last week I spoke with a man in St. Vincent's University Hospital, Dublin who spent 18 hours in a chair and the following five days on a trolley. I also spoke to a Clonakilty lady who spent nine days on a trolley in CUH last week. Who is in charge? Where is the HSE budget going? Where did the €1 billion overspend go last year? Does the Tánaiste accept that the HSE, as a delivery vehicle for the services I mentioned, has failed the people miserably? Will we have any accountability?

The Tánaiste

I thank the Deputy for his presentation and for raising the issue of health services.

On the question of who is in charge, factually, I presume the Deputy will be aware that Bernard Gloster is the CEO of the HSE and Deputy Stephen Donnelly is the Minister for Health.

There are 26,172 more staff working in our health service now than there were at the beginning of 2020. That is 26,000 additional staff the Deputy did not refer to in his opening remarks, including more than 8,000 midwives, which is a 21% increase. According to the OECD frameworks and assessment of various health services, we are one of the top countries in respect of the number of nurses per patients. We have an additional 4,000 health and social care professionals and close to 3,000 additional doctors and dentists. We have cut costs for patients across the board, as the Deputy will be aware. We have removed inpatient hospital charges. We have had the biggest expansion of access to free GP care in the history of the State, to 500,000 more people. That means that up to 60% of our population is now eligible for a GP card or medical card. We have reduced the drugs payment scheme cost. We have significantly funded diagnostic scans for patients. We introduced free contraception for women up to the age of 31. For the first time, we have providing funding for assisted human reproduction, including in vitro fertilisation, IVF, and we agreed a new consultant contract, which is significant with respect to increased activity. More than 1,700 consultants have signed up to that new contract. The Deputy must also be aware that in the past two years we have built up an entire new community health service from scratch, including primary care, chronic disease management, older persons services and ambulance services, employing of thousands of new people in the community. We have increased our acute hospital bed capacity by 1,126 beds in the past three years, expanded our intensive care unit, ICU, capacity by 25%, and new primary care centres have opened up all over the country. We increased college and training places to deal with what were challenges in getting new recruits and so on. Some 662 student places have been provided in the higher education sector on health-related courses this academic year, including 200 student places in nursing, midwifery and therapy professions in Northern Ireland. Today for every GP who retires between one and a half and three new GPs are starting work. Waiting times are coming down and we have provided a significant transformation in women's healthcare, with more CIN3, gynaecological and fertility hubs and specialist menopause clinics.

The context of what the Deputy said is that the population is rising. It has risen significantly-----

An Ceann Comhairle

Time is up now please.

The Tánaiste

-----and I acknowledge that continues to place strain on services but the Deputy has to acknowledge the enormous increase in investment and resources that has occurred.

Deputy Michael Collins

I thank the Tánaiste for his reply. He mentioned 26,000 additional staff but he admitted in the end that we have had huge population growth. The problem is, as he said, the Government is cutting costs. It is certainly cutting costs and I told him where all the costs were cut and where people are finding it extremely difficult to access services. Up to 1 million people are on waiting lists, some of whom are waiting two, three, four or five years for simple procedures. That is where the problem is. The new Silverwood unit was opened in Clonakilty hospital last week, which patients are being moved into. That is positive but the staff have come to me and told me they were under extreme pressure. I acted on that and I want to find out whether the old units that were closed will be filled with the same number of people as before. It is the same with the mental health unit in Bantry, which we were led to believe would be completed in January 2024. It has been put off until July. With the children's hospital in Dublin getting an increased budget of €510 million this week, bringing the total build cost to €2.24 billion, although it was initially estimated to cost €1.73 billion,-----

An Ceann Comhairle

Time is up now, please.

Deputy Michael Collins

-----surely what I have told the Tánaiste today shows that something is seriously wrong with the HSE. What will the Government do about it?

The Tánaiste

I welcome that the Deputy acknowledged the Government funding for Clonakilty Community Hospital. It is not a normal pattern of political behaviour on his part to acknowledge Government funding where it happens. I welcome that Government funding has enabled what we both agree is a fantastic service and facility for the people of Clonakilty agus an dúiche mórthimpeall.

The children's hospital is potentially for every child in Ireland and it is certainly for children in west Cork who need access to specialist treatment.

Deputy Michael Collins

They cannot get in there. How will they get there?

The Tánaiste

It has been a long saga, without question. Issues arose about structures and all the rest of it, but I am in no doubt that in the context of our current services in Crumlin or Temple Street, the sooner we get this hospital built and operational, the better. It will be transformative for children in terms of having single suites, the theatre capacity, infection control and, especially for children with conditions that make them vulnerable, it will be transformative.

I understand the negativity. Accountability is important, but equally, we need to focus on what this will mean for the children of the country, including those from west Cork who will have to avail of these services.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

€2.4 billion.

Deputy Michael Collins

There was no accountability in all this.