Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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5. To ask the Taoiseach the number of times Cabinet committee B, social policy and public services, has met to date; and when it last met. [25195/19]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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6. To ask the Taoiseach when Cabinet committee B, social policy and public services, last met; and when it will next meet. [26284/19]

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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7. To ask the Taoiseach when Cabinet committee B, social policy and public services, last met; and when it is scheduled to meet again. [26554/19]

Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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8. To ask the Taoiseach the number of times Cabinet committee B, social policy and public services, has met in 2019 to date. [26565/19]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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9. To ask the Taoiseach when Cabinet committee B, social policy and public services, last met; and when it will next meet. [26567/19]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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10. To ask the Taoiseach when Cabinet committee B, social policy and public services, last met. [26622/19]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Taoiseach for his reply. In recent weeks, there have been quite a few stories about the impact of personnel shortages on key services. The failure to hire, and critically to retain, key people has led to a serious waste of public resources and is contributing to rising budgets. The most obvious example of this can be found in the health sector, where basic planning and cost controls are much harder when the ability to roster and schedule activity is undermined by a failure to fill vacant positions.

I presume that the Taoiseach is aware of the current campaign by the Irish Hospital Consultants Association. However, that campaign is not needed; going through the data, we can see that there are significant shortages and vacancies in key consultant areas. For example, in Cork city alone, 13 consultants have resigned in the past three years, and ten of those were involved in delivering cancer care. Some of these key positions have been filled by locums but some remain vacant, and this is replicated across the country. I know the Taoiseach can give us the macro figures and say that we are getting more people in than are leaving, but the bottom line is underneath the figures. There is a real crisis in the retention of key personnel in our health services. Given how central this has been to health budgets under this and the previous Government, has he received a report on the impact of vacancies on services?

The Taoiseach will also remember that the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council has said that, in the past, one of the most important reasons for the new phenomenon of significant overspends in the health system is the habit that developed in recent years of Ministers promising levels of service that have not been planned or funded. This has led to a deeply wasteful stop-start approach to service delivery. The Taoiseach has admitted that his decision, and that of his predecessor, to operate the HSE without a management board has caused serious problems in planning and cost control. Equally, he has repeatedly promised that measures are in place to avoid the need for significant supplementaries in health. He has said that repeatedly and told the House that any overspends would be identified and published without delay. In that context, will he comment on the fact that spending pressure are already evident and that the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, appears to be repeating last year's approach of denying any concerns until as late as possible in the year?

Finally, on Sunday, the Minister reported that 800,000 extra home help hours will be delivered. There is a serious and profound disconnect between official statements of that kind and the reality on the ground. In each healthcare area, people are being told that there is no funding left and that there is a curtailment of home help services across the board. The Taoiseach said last week that he was trying to get to the bottom of the issue. More than 6,000 people are on the waiting list for home help and no cover is being provided for annual or sick leave. The budgets appear to have dried up, and yet we get the mantra from central level that there is nothing to see here and everything is fine because there will be additional positions. Will the Taoiseach comment on that?

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Committee B deals with public services and a major public service strike is looming. Tomorrow, 10,000 of the lowest paid workers in the health system are going on strike. They are the pivotal workers who provide for the basic running our hospitals, and they are going on strike because of a job evaluation scheme that was agreed to in a chairman's note under the umbrella of the Lansdowne Road agreement and formalised in 2017 in a deal with the HSE. A timeframe was set out for that, stating that the initial phase would conclude by 30 June 2017, phase 2 by November 2017 and phase 3 no later than 30 May 2018. The outcome of phases 1 and 2 was to be reviewed at the conclusion and no payment would arise at a date earlier than the conclusion of phase 2, that is, the earliest payment would be on 1 December 2017. We are now well into 2019.

There is a legitimate expectation from these workers, all of whom stepped up to the plate in the worst of times. I know that, because I was in touch with our unions throughout the most difficult phase of our economic history. Uniquely across Europe, our public service balloted for and accepted significant wage reductions and curtailments in costs. The Taoiseach knows that we would not have got through the crisis without that. The quid pro quo is that we should honour the agreements we have entered into with them.

I am concerned by the comment made today by the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, and Deputy Brophy.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is provocative.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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It is deliberately intent on inflaming, rather than calming, the situation.

The WRC process is not concluded, so the notion of a Labour Court intervention does not arise because a real offer has not been made. The evaluation agreed a cost of €16 million, but €1 million has been put on the table to date. For 10,000 people, €1 million is less than €2 a week. That is not a realistic offer. Will the Taoiseach ensure that this goes back to the WRC and a realistic offer be put on the table to avert a strike and not undermine fundamentally confidence in the ability of the Government and the State to be honest dealers in industrial relations?

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Link Group manages thousands of distressed mortgages for Cerberus, a vulture fund, and others. Last week it described Ireland as "the gift that keeps giving" in an address to its investors. This was in anticipation of more mortgages being sold by the banks to the vulture funds. Some of these banks are in majority shareholder ownership of the Irish State, the shares being held by the Minister for Finance.

It is ludicrous that vulture funds are looking at Ireland as the gift that keeps on giving while distressed mortgage holders are worried and wondering what approach these vulture funds will take to their mortgages. I have given countless examples to the Taoiseach and others as to how some of these vulture funds are calling in all of the debt, to be paid within a 30-day notice period. That is organising a structural default and repossessing properties as a result. Is it not time that we implemented the code of practice of the Central Bank whereby no mortgage can be sold without the consent of the borrower which has been on a voluntary basis since 1991? I have tabled legislation which has already passed the Dáil and is before committee. Is it not time that the Government stopped Ireland being the gift that keeps on giving to these vulture funds that are treating borrowers in such an intolerable way?

I also want to mention Cabinet committee B. We face severe challenges in public services. We have heard about issues for home help and Sinn Féin will be leading a discussion about that during Private Members' time this evening. There are pressures elsewhere in health and in affordable housing. A document produced by Government on climate action had absolutely no costings or commitments for Government investment. The Government's summer economic statement completely disregards the critique of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council. It told the Government that there is a return to boom and bust and that has been ignored. It also told the Government that there was an over-reliance on corporation tax receipts, which are highly volatile and concentrated. That has also been ignored. There is nothing additional in the summer economic statement which deals with that issue. The council told the Government that it has failed to account for the Christmas bonus, which costs €300 million. That is ignored in the summer economic statement. It also said there is no allocation for a just transition in climate change policy, which was also completely ignored. Instead there is fiscal space or an unallocated amount of €700 million which must cover all of the different pressures I have outlined and uses up every single cent of corporation tax, outside of the rainy day fund, and the Government is committing to use that, as the Taoiseach earlier articulated, in a tax-cutting agenda that will not benefit 79% of income taxpayers in the State.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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If I heard the Taoiseach correctly, he said that Cabinet committee B, which is concerned with social policy and public services in Ireland, met most recently towards the end of February and will meet again before the end of June. That is a gap of four months. Public services require constant attention on the part of any competent Government because moving from the period of economic collapse to recovery includes very delicate negotiations and considerations as to how to recompense people who have lost out.

I am concerned about school completion programmes and services for children with autism. There is no collective Government policy about these issues at all. It is spread over a whole lot of different Departments and the relevant Government committees do not seem to meet or, if they do, they meet infrequently. We can see the gaps in policy and it is difficult to discuss them in the House.

A movement started in Dublin 15 about autism spectrum disorder services with large public meetings of hundreds of parents of children on the autism spectrum over the past nine months. Some 60 children in the area were identified as being without services. We have moved to quite a good resolution where there will be a special autism school on a small scale for children who have both high-level needs in respect of autism and other problems such as behavioural issues.

On the school completion programme, particularly those in the delivering equality of opportunity in schools, DEIS, programme, it is vital to keep children in school and for them to enjoy it, to prosper and be nurtured. A situation pertains whereby the Department for Children and Youth Affairs, under the relevant Minister, is threatening that these broad general programmes will be cut back. There are seven programmes, for instance, in schools in Dublin 15 and the Taoiseach privately visited Ladyswell national school, one of those affected, a couple of months ago. Nobody from any other political party or public representative accompanied him so that he could have a private conversation. I am using Dublin 15 as an example. The Taoiseach is influential on other parts of the Civil Service but there were threats of serious cutbacks in the school completion programme in Dublin 15. In order to save money, the whole-school approach will be changed to an individual, identified, targeted child who is deemed to be particularly at need. That is a disorganised and disconnected way for the Government to formulate programmes affecting the most vulnerable children in our society.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Government has claimed it is supportive of a mix of social and non-social housing. A mix of people with different family sizes and in different income brackets is a reasonable aspiration although the net effect has been to, effectively, prevent large-scale social and affordable housing developments on public land because they are tied up with convoluted formulas around social housing that never seem to get resolved.

I put it to the Taoiseach that his stated aim of a mix of social and non-social housing is, in many cases, turning out to be something more akin to social cleansing or social apartheid. A report emerged today which stated that half of the counties in the country are unaffordable for first-time buyers. In those counties, and mine is one of them, people on low and middle incomes are being driven out. They are being cleansed from the area. These areas then only become places where very rich people can live. That is what is actually happening. There is a small number of developments where we are supposed to get a social mix on private developments with 10% social housing under Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000. That is not happening in a number of those cases, particularly and disgracefully in strategic housing developments which involved fast-track planning and were supposed to deal with the housing crisis. What is actually happening in a development in Dún Laoghaire is that an extra 60 houses will be built and no social housing. The law allowed for that through some convoluted arrangement with the developer.

In areas of high property value, social housing is being provided off-site so there is no social mix. The social housing is somewhere else because we could not have people on low incomes living in certain areas. Even in areas where that 10% is being provided, the social housing element is being segregated in separate blocks, usually with one or two-bedroom units and no family-sized units in many cases, and where the specifications of the social housing element are considerably lower than the houses built in the non-social part of the development. That is social apartheid, not social mix. It is institutionalising and underpinning segregation of people on the basis of their income levels. Does the Taoiseach think that is acceptable? What is he going to do about it? What is he going to do about the fact that strategic housing developments are, in some cases, not delivering any social housing whatsoever? Does the Taoiseach think that is acceptable?

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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She just got a call to leave. The Taoiseach understands that these things happen.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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We need more schools, particularly special schools.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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What about the tertiary referral centre in Cork?

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I did not say that.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Taoiseach is saying that.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Not on the specialist register.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Is that confirmed as €1 million?

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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It is still there.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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The Government did that anyway.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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The Taoiseach cannot answer any of the criticisms.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Taoiseach, without interruption.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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It would be useful if the Taoiseach answered IFAC's criticism.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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When Sinn Féin has a question time we will ask them.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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This is how difficult it is. The Taoiseach cannot answer IFAC's criticism because the Government is involved with a boom and bust cycle.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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We would have no problem submitting our plans.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Deputies may not be happy with the answers but I have no control over that.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I would be happy to not be happy with the answer if I got an answer with which I would not be happy. The problem is he cannot answer any of IFAC's criticism.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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In fairness, asking the Taoiseach about IFAC-----

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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It is a touchy subject.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Taoiseach, without interruption.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy is not allowed to ask about it.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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Is that the Fianna Fáil rainy day fund?

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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It was used for health last year.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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There was nothing wrong with many of the public housing estates built in the past.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Government needs to moderate its ideology.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Taoiseach's time is almost up.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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Fine Gael does not go into them.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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They know nothing about them as they never visit them. There were some great estates built and I know about them. I enjoyed my childhood in many of them.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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We will not get to the next group of questions.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Members from around the House should not invite interruptions.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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That is addressed to everybody.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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As there is only a minute left, we would not do justice to the next set of questions so I understand they will be taken first tomorrow.