Dáil debates
Thursday, 27 June 2024
Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
12:00 pm
Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Faoin Rialtas seo, tá an ghéarchéim tithíochta imithe ó olcas go dtí rudaí níos measa. Sampla eile don teip seo ná an scéal an tseachtain seo go gcosnóidh tithe inacmhainne, tithe ar phraghas réasúnta, ar Bhóthar Oscair Mhic Thréinir sa Chúlóg, suas le €475,000. Tá ag teipthe ar an Rialtas tithe inacmhainne a sholáthar agus is teip arís é seo ó thaobh polasaí tithíochta an Rialtais atá ag déanamh rudaí níos deacra do go leor daoine.
The Tánaiste is aware that under this Government house prices have soared and home ownership is falling. For too many, buying a home in this State is simply unaffordable. When Deputy Darragh O'Brien took office as Minister for housing he stated that one of his key objectives was to deliver affordable homes for people and families to purchase, to give hope back to young people so they can aspire to own their own family home. Those were his words. He talked a big game. The question is, what is affordable in the eyes of the Minister or the Tánaiste?
In October 2020, Dublin city councillors voted down a controversial deal to sell public land at Oscar Traynor Road to a private developer. The deal was rejected because it would make it impossible to deliver affordable homes for working people to buy. Sinn Féin had long campaigned for the Government to fund Dublin City Council to deliver affordable and social homes on this very site but Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments refused to provide the funding. Instead, the Government wanted the public land to be sold to the developer. Sinn Féin warned this would lead to unaffordable prices and rip-off rents. When the vote came, Fine Gael, as it does, supported it, Sinn Féin opposed it and the Tánaiste's party was split down the middle, with four councillors voting against it. In desperation, the Government leaned on Dublin City Council and a promise was made that three-bedroom homes would be sold for between €250,000 and €306,000. Fianna Fáil got in line and supported the bad deal and the land was sold.
Fast forward to today, 2024. This week, Dublin City Council announced the prices that what this Government describes as affordable homes on Oscar Traynor Road will be sold for. A sum of €400,000 is the lowest price people will pay for a three-bedroom home. The cost will go up to €475,000. Up to €309,000 is the price people will pay for a one-bedroom home on Oscar Traynor Road in Coolock. The Government calls this its affordable housing scheme. It is bonkers. This is the Minister and the Government's idea of affordability. It is astonishing. People will wonder if they are living in a parallel universe. How out of touch can the Government get if it thinks these prices are affordable? How can anybody stand over a scheme that offers a three-bedroom home for prices of between €400,000 and €475,000 and call it affordable? We warned the Government this plan would lead to homes that were unaffordable and out of the reach of ordinary people, and we were right, but Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil refused to listen. Look where we are today.
We now have the ludicrous result of what was promised as affordable homes on State-owned land being sold for up to €475,000. The people in Coolock - I know many of them - who are desperate to buy a home in the community in which they were born to have a future for themselves and their families are now looking at a development in their back yard in which they can never aspire to own a home.
Does the Tánaiste believe €475,000 for a three-bedroom home in Coolock is affordable? It is a very simple question. Does he regret his support for this deal? Does he accept this was not only a bad deal for people who want affordable homes, but a terrible deal for the taxpayer? Will the Government now stop the policy of gifting public land to developers and support councils and approved housing bodies delivering real, affordable homes on public land.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Ní aontaím in aon chor leis an Teachta. Níl an méid a dúirt sé cruinn nó macánta. Tá sé mímhacánta. Is léir go bhfuil easpa polasaithe ag páirtí Sinn Féin i gcomhthéacs chúrsaí tithíochta. Bhí Sinn Féin i gcoinne an-chuid scéimeanna ar Bhóthar Oscair Mhic Thréinir-----
Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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Is é sin an fáth.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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-----le fada de bhlianta. Sinn Féin was against the building of houses on Oscar Traynor Road for well over a decade.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The bottom line is that in the Deputy's contribution - it is interesting - he omitted to say that the scheme approved by Dublin City Council contained 20% affordable homes, 40% social homes and 40% cost-rental homes. Of the 853 homes, 20% are affordable, 40% are social and 40% are cost rental. Why did the Deputy not mention the 40% social? Why did he not mention the 40% cost rental?
Let us take the advertised prices and the Deputy's figure of €400,000. The advertised prices are €264,000 for a one-bedroom property, €356,000 for a two-bedroom and €399,000 for a three-bedroom home. Those prices are €100,000 lower than the marker price at the moment, bear that in mind, because of schemes the Government introduced to support providers.
Let us go further. Let us take the first home scheme, which Sinn Féin opposed, the shared equity scheme. Anyone purchasing a home through that scheme can get up to €100,000, which brings the price and the affordability down to €300,000.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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It cannot be used on this scheme.
Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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They cannot use it on this scheme.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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They can then get €30,000 in terms of the help to buy scheme-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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That is not true. They cannot use the first home scheme on these developments. That is factually incorrect. He does not even know what scheme he is talking about.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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-----so they are looking at a much-reduced price in respect of what is being presented by the Deputy. They are the first houses to come on stream on that particular scheme. There is 40% social and 40% cost rental. The cost-rental homes are 25% below market value. That site was left vacant for decades. It was a scandal that site was left vacant, in my view-----
Martin KennyEoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Tánaiste was in government at the time.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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-----because of ideologically driven policies by Sinn Féin and others, objecting serially all of the time. My point is that Sinn Féin's equity scheme, for example, is interesting. Home ownership matters and we believe in home ownership. We did not believe the site should be 100% social homes, which Sinn Féin did.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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One hundred per cent affordable.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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We do not believe in 100% social schemes.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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One hundred per cent affordable.
Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Please, Deputy Ó Broin.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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We believe there should be a balance and we believe home ownership matters. In many respects through Sinn Féin's schemes - given the cap of €80,000 on its shared equity scheme, for example - one could never own a house if they were a garda married to a nurse or whatever. That is a fact.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Sinn Féin would put a cap of €80,000 on it and get rid of the shared equity scheme and the first home scheme. That is the bottom line.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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But we would deliver affordable homes, which is something the Government is not doing.
Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Well, the answer is that the Government is living in a parallel universe-----
Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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-----and the Tánaiste actually does not know the Government's own housing policy. He stood there and tried to justify this. I understand his dilemma because I asked him a simple question, which was whether he believes the houses the Government is delivering on Oscar Traynor Road, at an entry price of €400,000 for a three-bedroom house and going up to €475,000, are affordable. He cannot answer that simple question because he knows that to say "Yes" is absolutely daft and to say "No" shows up that the Government is completely failing ordinary people. So what did do? He misled the Dáil. He suggested people can use the first home scheme to reduce the price by €100,000. People cannot do that. The problem is this. The Government's policy-----
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is affordability.
Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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-----is about gifting public land to private developers.
This scheme should be 100% affordable - social housing and affordable homes. I ask the question very simply. Is €400,000 affordable for a three-bedroom house in Coolock, in the Tánaiste's view? It goes up to €475,000. It could have been affordable. This month, Ó Cualann has delivered three-bedroom affordable purchase homes in Ballymun at purchase prices of €264,000 to €295,000. Why? It is not for profit. The land was kept public, the right thing was done. The Government's policy is pushing up prices beyond the reach of anybody. Does the Tánaiste believe that the advertised price of €400,000 is affordable for a family purchasing a three-bedroom home in Coolock? It is a simple question.
12:10 pm
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The person will not have to pay €400,000, that is the point. It is already €100,000 below market value. When someone buys that house, they will have acquired a house for €100,000 below the market value. They will have availed of schemes that will increase their capacity to afford that house by about €130,000, if they go the full distance on the first home scheme and take the help to buy payment of €30,000. You did not mention once----
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Through the Chair, you did not mention once the help to buy scheme. You opposed it from day one. That would benefit anybody buying an affordable house. You have never supported development in Oscar Traynor.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Where are the affordable homes, Tánaiste? Not on Oscar Traynor Road.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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You are obfuscating and prevaricating. You will not accept the basic fact that the schemes the Government has brought in through the first home scheme and the help to buy scheme-----
Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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A price of €400,000 is not affordable.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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-----significantly improve an individual's or a couple's capacity to make a house affordable, in this case from about €400,000 to €270,000 in terms of the amount that a person would have to pay out. That is significant. That covers right across the board.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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You are just embarrassing yourself now, Tánaiste.
Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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A Cheann Comhairle, you cannot accept that these houses are being sold for €270,000. Let us fact-check it.
Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Resume your seat, Deputy Doherty.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Sinn Féin would get rid of those schemes if it went into government.
Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Let us fact-check the Tánaiste's claim.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Any first-time buyer out there needs to be aware that Sinn Féin would undermine their capacity to buy houses into the future by getting rid of help to buy and getting rid of the first home scheme. You do not believe in home ownership.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Sinn Féin would deliver affordable homes.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Ó Broin does not believe in home ownership. Tell the truth. You do not believe in home ownership.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Where are the affordable homes? Not in Oscar Traynor Road.
Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Would Deputies bring an end to this charade, please? Deputy Ó Broin, you are letting yourself down.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Absolutely, the Government is letting homeowners who want to buy affordable homes down. It is embarrassing.
Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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Where is your housing policy?
Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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We do not need anything from the Government side. We want an end to your strategic heckling, please. Let us conduct ourselves with a bit of decorum.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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We cannot have the Tánaiste misleading the Dáil.
Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Resume your seat.
Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Can I ask a question on a point of order?
Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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No, there are no points of order on Leaders' Questions. Resume your seat.
Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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That is fine, but I would like to know at some stage after Leaders' Questions, when the Tánaiste deliberately misleads the House, what rights does the Opposition have?
Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Do not accuse a colleague of deliberately misleading the House.
Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I am absolutely, fully accusing him of deliberately misleading the House. He suggested that these houses will be sold for €270,000. It is a bloody plain lie.
Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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The way that should be done, if you wish to go down that road, is by way of a formal motion, not by way of accusation on the floor of the House. If you have a motion you want to table, do so. We are going to hear Deputy Nash.
Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I am not making an accusation, I am stating a fact.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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You are not.
Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I am. You are being completely dishonest.
Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I will suspend the House if this continues. Please do not make me do that. Deputy Nash is next.
Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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Dereliction is a disease. It is insidious. It destroys communities. Nothing saps the confidence of a town like dilapidated, derelict, dangerous buildings. Vacancy unchecked is the gateway to dereliction. There are nearly 2,000 derelict sites in Ireland, and they are just the ones that have been recorded and have made it onto the derelict sites register. There is an acute situation in my home town of Drogheda. Just three weeks ago, an important 18th century building was about to fall down. The street has since been closed and neighbouring businesses have lost trade. Properties that used to host shops and homes are falling and collapsing around Ireland as we speak. This problem is not exclusive to my home town. It is a national disgrace and a national solution is required.
It is telling that the national planning framework mentions dereliction just twice. The Derelict Sites Act 1990 is just not fit for purpose. The Tánaiste's Minister for housing, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, admitted that in 2021 when he set up a working group to change the Act. The working group has met on just three occasions since 2021 and still has not reported. Why is that the case? The Derelict Sites Act is a rogue developers' charter. It has allowed dodgy developers to erect hoarding around obviously derelict buildings just to screen them from public view, thereby complying with the Act. This is just crazy, absolutely bonkers. These errant developers are literally giving the two fingers to citizens across the country, and to councils as well.
If you own a property that you can afford to let go to rack and ruin, you are obviously rich. The only language that some people understand is money. These people need to be hit hard in the pockets. Revenue needs to be given the power to collect derelict site levies. Owners that dodge the councils and the District Court need to be the responsibility of the Revenue Commissioners. Give these people tax compliance problems instead. Hit their businesses. The Derelict Sites Act needs to be streamlined. It needs to be made easier for councils to acquire derelict buildings before they become dangerous. The Tánaiste will agree there is an environmental imperative to recover important buildings in our town centres and put back them into use before we develop new ones. I know the Tánaiste is going to talk to me about the Croí Cónaithe scheme. It is piecemeal, a sticking-plaster solution, that is all, as is the deficient town centre first programme. Despite my calls over many years, the living cities initiative tax relief has not been extended to towns like Drogheda.
Will the Tánaiste, please, put a rocket under the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien ,and get him to publish the report of the Derelict Sites Act working group? Will he amend the Act and make the definition of dereliction stronger, more robust and more effective? Will he streamline the compulsory purchase process and introduce compulsory sale orders, for example, like they have in Scotland? Will he staff up councils to properly allow them to fully enforce the laws that are in place? Will he give the Revenue Commissioners the legal power to collect levies?
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Dereliction and vacancy is a key issue. However, I would argue that never has more funding been made available through a whole variety of schemes to try to end dereliction and get urban regeneration going. In the first instance we have the urban regeneration and development fund, URDF. A lot of that is yet to come through in terms of the schemes. Funding has been allocated, schemes have been announced, but through design and planning it is going to take quite some time before we will see that on our street landscapes and in our towns and cities. Then we have the rural regeneration and development fund on top of that, through which about €575 million has been invested in about 245 major projects since the Government was formed. That has supported landmark regeneration projects. About €400 million in the URDF is currently giving assistance to 132 projects.
The Deputy said not to mention Croí Cónaithe. It provides for the vacant property refurbishment grant itself. Some 8,300 applications have now been received by local authorities with some 5,100 already approved. That will help vacancy and dereliction in a very concrete way. In my view, it is a far more direct way than some of the ideas the Deputy has put forward, which I agree with, in terms of streamlining CPO. The Derelict Sites Act has never reached its potential, I accept the Deputy's point. However, I do think there is an onus and responsibility on local authorities to do better in respect of being proactive on implementation of the Act. I will talk to the Minister about the working group and getting it to complete and publish the report. That could inform some of the issues the Deputy highlighted.
As to whether we would give Revenue a role, the Revenue Commissioners are wary of being asked to do everything in terms of what may be seen as policies for other Departments to enact. It is the domain and jurisdiction of local authorities. Certainly from what I have seen on the ground, the derelict sites framework has not worked to the degree that it should. The town centre first initiative of the Government will make a difference in towns across the country. There is a range of measures, including rural regeneration and development, urban regeneration and development, Croí Cónaithe and the town and village renewal scheme, which are incentivising the bringing back to life of derelict buildings and derelict residential streets. That is the key.
Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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Derelict sites are the low-hanging fruit in terms of addressing the housing crisis that we have.
I know the Tánaiste visited Drogheda briefly during the local and European election campaigns, but he did not walk down a street in Drogheda called Narrow West Street. Had he done so, he would have seen a case study of dereliction and things that can go wrong. He talks about resourcing local authorities and making sure they do the job they are required to do under the Derelict Sites Act. That is all well and good, but the Government might consider resourcing them properly. Louth County Council, for example, got a total of €7 million this year for its CPO agenda. That amount is nothing close to what is required to allow it to fulfil its plans to acquire properties under CPO and bring them back into use. What should be considered is, for example, the compulsory sales order idea. This is in place in Scotland. If a developer is not using a property and if it is derelict, he or she is required to sell it on to somebody who can use it.
What we need is a national conversation about property interests and property rights and how they are balanced against the rights of the common good. In the review of the Derelict Sites Act, we need to prioritise community interests, the common good and the public interest over the property rights of developers and property owners.
12:20 pm
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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There are streets across the country which need that rebalancing in respect of the common good. Sometimes it can be through the delay in getting various projects through. Take Dublin and O'Connell Street. A major project there has been on the go for about 20 years in respect of retail and residential. What is the name of that company? I do not have its name now but it has gone through dozens of committees, met with a cross-party committee here-----
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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No, I am talking about the development itself - the bigger one. That has yet to go through planning but it has been on the agenda for about two decades. That is a problem that speaks more to the dereliction question. When a big project is mooted and is in the works, very little happens until it gets realised. I see that in parts of Cork at the moment as well in terms of people waiting for certain developments to take place before they will invest. That is one issue, but I have no difficulty with the fundamental principle of rebalancing the rights under the Derelict Sites Act in respect of the common good.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I was grimly amused by the Tánaiste's accusing others of ideological obsessions in response to an earlier question. Surely the ideological obsession that is most evident is that of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to privatise everything that moves, whether it is selling public land to private developers for housing or the issue I want to raise, public service broadcasting.
It has been about a year since a scandal erupted in RTÉ which centred on the behaviour of a tiny group of people at the top of that organisation, whether presenters or people running the organisation, of malgovernance and obscene salaries. The net result of that scandal, of the bad behaviour of and excessive pay to a tiny group of people, we learn, is the outsourcing and privatisation of the two flagship programmes of RTÉ, "Fair City" and "The Late Late Show", and the loss of hundreds of jobs of ordinary workers who had no hand, act or part in the malgovernance that took place or the obscene salaries enjoyed by a few at the top. The people who will lose out are the technical workers, the costume workers, the makeup workers, staging, editing, camera, scripting and floor managers. These are people on modest salaries, many of whom had to fight for years even to get proper contracts. Some of them are still only on temporary contracts. These are the people who will lose their jobs. Those jobs will be outsourced to the private sector. This is particularly ironic considering that it was the corrosive influence of the commercial sector on shows such as "The Late Late Show" that led people to think they should be paid these obscene salaries in the first place and that produced things such as the barter accounts over business deals with the private sector.
The consequence we now face is that the whole thing - lock, stock and barrel - will be handed over to the commercial, for-profit sector, which is characterised by poor working conditions, lack of pension entitlements and employment insecurity. The workers believe that RTÉ is just stringing along the people who work on "Fair City" and that, in reality, this will be the beginning of the end of "Fair City". Privatisation is the net result of bad behaviour. What the Government should have done, and what it should still do, is stop this privatisation, stop the axing of jobs and fund public service broadcasting properly by imposing a tax on the profits of social media and ICT companies instead of a regressive and failing TV licence funding model, which is completely inadequate. Will the Government intervene in this to protect the jobs of ordinary workers and to safeguard the future of public service broadcasting for our society?
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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First, I want to make it very clear that there is a fundamental difference between outsourcing and privatisation. Fianna Fáil, by the way, has a very strong record historically of building up State enterprises and did so through various decades-----
Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It has some record of selling them off as well.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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-----particularly during the Seán Lemass era. RTÉ is not for sale. I do not think there is any proposal to put RTÉ on the market-----
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Just "Fair City".
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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And "The Late Late Show".
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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-----or on the stock exchange. That is privatisation - let us be clear. Deputy Boyd Barrett is like Don Quixote, tilting at windmills. There is no privatisation. RTÉ is not going to be sold. It is not on the market.
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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To whom is it being outsourced? Private companies.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister and the Government have been clear that they do not want mandatory redundancies. RTÉ has committed to seeking voluntary redundancies. Public funding has increased and the Government will make a decision on the future funding of RTÉ, which has always been part RTÉ licence fee, part Exchequer funding and part commercial revenue. RTÉ has always taken in commercial revenues for many decades, and Deputy Boyd Barrett knows that. That has been a feature of the model. RTÉ now proposes in its latest strategy to increase the level of content produced by the independent production sector. That was signalled in the strategic vision document, which the broadcaster published last November.
Second, it had already been recommended by the Future of Media Commission, which was established to consider the significant challenges facing the wider broadcasting and media sector in light of increasing globalised competition and to make recommendations in order that we could continue to have a sustainable public sector broadcaster and public service content.
Take TG4, for example. The latter has been a very innovative State-owned company and it uses that model quite extensively. It sources almost its entire schedule from the independent sector. We need a balance, although I accept the need for in-house talent to be developed within RTÉ itself. I accept that principle in terms of the skill sets and making sure people have continuing professional development, are retrained and so on. All of that is provided for within the RTÉ strategy. It commits to increasing the amount of RTÉ content that is produced outside of Dublin, for example, which is important and which I welcome in the context of new proposals for Cork and other cities and areas across the country.
Ultimately, RTÉ has to manage its affairs. I do not think the operational management of RTÉ can be undertaken by the Oireachtas or, for that matter, the Government. What the Government does have to do is look at the overall strategic framework, not only in policy terms but also in funding terms. The Government will make its decision on that in the coming weeks.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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So the Government washes its hands of the matter. The Government is responsible for not reining in the obscene salaries, which everybody knew about, at the top of RTÉ, whether it was executives or a tiny number of overpaid presenters. Now, however, the people getting it in the neck are the skilled people - the ordinary workers. They are the ones who will lose their jobs and they will go into an independent private sector characterised by the gig economy and project-to-project work. I do not know how many times I have raised the insecurity that workers face in the rest of the audiovisual sector. The producers do very well, but the workers do not know if they have a job from one project to the next. We are going to go away from a situation where people have decent, relatively secure jobs, albeit not all of them because they had to fight and campaign against bogus self-employment and contract work.
What will happen to those contractors? Will they get redundancy payments? No, they will not. Will they have any guarantee of getting work on other programmes? No, they will not. Flagship programmes like "Fair City" and "The Late Late Show" will become more reliant on private advertisers and the commercial sector. This will undermine the fundamental ethos of public service broadcasting.
12:30 pm
Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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The Deputy's time is up.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The losses will not stop at 400 jobs. Many of the people we are talking about are ancillary workers who work on "Fair City" and in other areas of RTÉ. Their jobs will be under threat as well.
Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Please, Deputy.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Will the Government intervene to protect public service broadcasting? Will it ensure there are decent jobs for workers and that they are not the victims of this process? Will public service broadcasting be properly funded by taxing the obscene profits of social media companies?
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Social media companies employ thousands of people in this country. The general taxation proposals of the Deputy's party would reduce foreign direct investment in this country to zero. If he got into a position to do so, he would tax the living daylights out of companies. That is his party's policy, which is fair enough. He is entitled to his ideological perspective.
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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The Tánaiste wants to tax ordinary households. It is a regressive tax.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I did not interrupt Deputy Boyd Barrett, to whom I am responding. He is the leader of his party this morning. Deputy Murphy might be leader next week but it is Deputy Boyd Barrett today.
It is long-standing Government policy to support the independent sector. The Deputies opposite may be against that and against the idea of innovation but it has always been the case that we support the independent sector. I believe in having a strong public service broadcaster. I also believe in supporting public service broadcasting content. Into the future, it will not just be about the public service broadcaster. We should support public service content through a variety of schemes, in the print sector, local radio and national stations, where there is genuine public service content. That is important for democracy.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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However, there will be crap conditions for workers.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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We have the long-standing Sound and Vision scheme, which is funded through television licence receipts.
Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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The time is up.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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New schemes are coming on board to support local democracy by way of court reporting, for example, as recommended by the Future of Media Commission. There is potential to do the right thing and to sustain employment and a decent quality of life for people.
Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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On three occasions in 2022, I raised the issue of the pain clinic at Sligo University Hospital, SUH, with the Tánaiste and the Minister for Health, when there were two service interruptions and, previously, when it was closed during the Covid period. Those issues were resolved and the service resumed. However, just over four weeks ago, I received information that there was to be a reduction in service at the pain clinic, with fewer consultants providing the service. I put down three questions to the Minister seeking information on the possible reduction in the number of consultants and a possible reduction in service. I have received no reply. This week, the news broke on local media that the pain clinic is to close tomorrow. Saolta University Health Care Group has since indicated that it will be a temporary closure. While I welcome that indication, I remain concerned.
When I submitted the three questions to which I referred, I also asked the Minister how it is proposed to alleviate the backlog of people waiting to access the pain clinic. I did receive a response to that question. It informed me that there are 341 patients on the SUH outpatient list and 107 on the inpatient list. Before there was any talk of closing the service, there were 448 people on a waiting list to access it. Many of the patients currently accessing the service are really concerned by the prospect of its closure, even if it is only temporary. The service is their lifeline. Chronic pain is often invisible. People who suffer from it feel very isolated. On average, it takes four years from initially visiting a GP to seeing a consultant and getting a diagnosis. Then people have to go on a waiting list to access the service. They are very worried that the service they rely on, which they cannot avail of anywhere else, could be pulled.
I have several questions for the Tánaiste. First, what alternative arrangements are being put in place for the people currently accessing the service? Will they be able to see their current consultant? Has the passing over of records and so on been sorted? Second, what will be done about the people on the waiting list? Have they received any communication about what will happen next and where they will go? Third, why did Saolta University Health Care Group not provide for a continuum of service? It must have known some of the consultants were departing. We have been told consultants are being recruited but, as we know, recruitment can take, six, 12 or 18 months. We are being told the closure is temporary but people have seen the pain clinic closed previously. They have waited and waited for the service to resume. Once again, there was no notice given to patients.
Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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The Deputy's time is up.
Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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People are not interested in hearing about Saolta University Health Care Group being in the process of recruiting consultants.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. Chronic pain is a devastating condition because it is a long-term one. Thankfully, there has been significant development in provision over the past decade or so but it took a long time to get a proper base within our heath service more generally. The reason for the temporary closure of the chronic pain service in Sligo University Hospital is, as the Deputy said, that the two consultant doctors providing the service are moving to new roles. The HSE advises that recruitment to fill those posts is ongoing and everything is being done to minimise the impact on patients. The refilling of the posts is not impacted by any recruitment pause or anything like that.
As an interim measure until the new consultants are in post, alternative arrangements are being put in place for patients who are currently attending the service. These arrangements include appointments for procedures being offered at Kingsbridge Private Hospital, Sligo, and exploring outsourcing with the National Treatment Purchase Fund. In July, a locum consultant will commence overseeing the governance of a pain management education programme, which is a psychology-based rehabilitative treatment for people with persistent pain. We are committed to continuing to invest in Sligo University Hospital. Staffing at the hospital has grown by 379, from 1,677 in January 2020 to 2,056 in January this year. That is a 22.5% increase. Since 2022, this includes 50 more nurses and midwives, 33 new medical and dental staff, five more patient care staff and 13 additional health and social care professionals. The budget has gone from approximately €159 million in 2020 to €187 million, which is an increase of €28 million, or 17%, in just four years. A total of 27 new beds have opened.
The National Treatment Purchase Fund has advised the Department of Health that three pain relief insourcing initiatives have been approved for the Saolta University Health Care Group, two for outpatients and one for inpatients, which will facilitate treatment for 580 patients on pain relief waiting lists. There are 341 people on the Sligo University Hospital outpatient pain relief waiting list, 78% of whom are waiting six months or less. A total of 107 patients are on the hospital's inpatient day case pain relief waiting list, with 61% of them waiting less than six months. I am not aware of the background as to why the two consultants at SUH's pain clinic have left at the same time and moved on to different portfolios and whether those departures were expected. The Deputy makes a reasonable point that this situation should have been anticipated and that recruitment could have begun earlier to coincide with the consultants leaving.
Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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The Tánaiste said progress has been made in the provision of pain relief services. I agree there has been some progress but it is important to note that there has been a change in the international classification of chronic pain. In moving from the tenth revision of the International Classification of Diseases, ICD-10, to ICD-11, chronic pain is now recognised as a disease in its own right as distinct from a symptom of another disease. The response in Ireland has been to put in place a pilot programme. That is all we have done. The Tánaiste says we have made progress but, in fact, this country is not a good place for those who suffer from chronic pain. The issue needs to move to the top of the agenda.
The Tánaiste is telling me that the Saolta group has various initiatives, is looking to recruit consultants and has approved this and approved that, but I can tell him that patients in chronic pain in Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal - because it covers that entire area - wait for long times to get access to a clinic. There have been many stoppages in the service and now with no notice it is gone. Yes, they are promised the closure is temporary but I want an absolute guarantee that this is the case.
12:40 pm
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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As I said earlier, the locum will be appointed in July. Alternative arrangements include appointments being offered in Kingsbridge. The NTPF also has a number of schemes for the Saolta group that should also help in providing treatment to people. I do not disagree with Deputy Harkin's fundamental point about the importance of pain management. It has significant implications for patients and those in persistent pain or chronic pain. Over the last decade or so, it has moved on from when it was as an embryonic service. It has improved significantly. It is very unfortunate that two consultants would leave at the one time. Every effort must be made to accelerate the recruitment of permanent replacements for the two consultants who have left. In the meantime, we have the use of the locum system and also the funding through the NTPF.