Results 781-800 of 1,042,497 for in 'Dáil debates' OR in 'Committee meetings' (speaker:Chris Andrews OR speaker:Paschal Donohoe OR speaker:Aindrias Moynihan OR speaker:Verona Murphy)

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: If I make a further €100 million available to the Department of housing - and incidentally, we are doing far more than that - it is going to take time to turn that into more homes being built. Does the Deputy accept that premise?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: It is a capital expenditure increase spread out of a number of years, which is what we have done.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: We are starting. The Deputy can look at the increase to which we have referred. The Department of housing will make the decision regarding where that allocation goes but I imagine the majority will go into housing. If we look at the increase in capital investment in recent years, total funding for the Department of housing has gone from €1.7 billion to a planned figure of...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I do not accept that. When we complete the budgetary process, the Deputy can be confident that the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and I will point to increased capital funding for the Department of housing, which we will have announced. I can say that today. When we get to completing the budget, I am certain that the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, will be pointing to the fact that...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Aindrias Moynihan: Is the Deputy satisfied?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: Satisfaction is a tall order.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Aindrias Moynihan: We gave a moment or two extra to an earlier contributor so the Deputy can go ahead, if he wants.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I am staying within these parameters. How do we then make progress on delivering higher outputs for housing? There are two ways to do so, in particular. It will be done through the funding made available to the Housing Finance Agency and the Land Development Agency. Those agencies play a role in the delivery of additional homes within our country from the point of view of the State....

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: The Deputy knows I cannot answer that question because the Government has not made a decision on the revision of our Housing for All targets and what that will mean for what can be achieved when. The Deputy knows I cannot give her a truthful answer to that question because I am not the Minister for housing and he has not yet brought forward recommendations to the Government. The Deputy can...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I do not know the answer to that question. I imagine the Government will want to make a decision on the housing targets as soon as possible. As to whether that will happen in September or not, I cannot tell the Deputy now.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I can deal with that question and I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. Within the documentation members have to hand, we deal with the cost of public pay for 2025, as one would expect. From 2027 onwards, we do not have a wage agreement in place. The current agreement will come to an end at the end of 2026. There is a large degree of provision for public pay in the existing level of...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: The main reason for that is no agreement has been made in that regard. If we were to say how much we expect it to be,-----

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: -----it would materially affect negotiations, as the Deputy knows.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: Every budget I do receives criticism and focus in respect of different elements of the public service needing more funding. The way in which we handled the health budget for last year was consistent with how it has been done in every other year. In my efforts to deal with the issue now, I have tried to recognise that we have a level of spending within our health service that is far higher...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: Respectfully, Deputy, I do not accept the premise that I deliberately underfunded health. First, the use of such language implies a lack of compassion and a lack of recognition of the demands that patients face. I fundamentally do not accept that characterisation and that use of language.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: The further reason I do not accept that premise is that in the funding that was provided for the Department of Health, in the budget decisions that were made and communicated, there was an additional €1.9 billion. How can additional funding of €1.9 billion being provided be described as underfunding? Since 2019 alone, an additional €6 billion has been provided by me for...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: It is in place because every Department can only hire people it is funded to hire. We do not allow An Garda Síochána to decide how many gardaí it wants in each station. We do not allow our schools to decide how many teachers they want to hire.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: Were we to do that, it would create risks for our ability to fund our public services in the future. Moratorium is not the word I would use. All I asked, which I believe was reasonable, was that the health sector would only go ahead with recruitment that is funded and that it has the money to fund. To use the Deputy's word, since the introduction of the moratorium, the number of people...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: We have to ensure the posts that are being filled are funded by the taxpayer. I take great solace from the fact our waiting lists have fallen for the second year in a row. We are one of the few countries in Europe where that is happening. My constituency clinics are as full as the Deputy's with people wanting to get into our hospitals quicker, but surely Deputy Conway-Walsh can understand...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement: Discussion (10 Jul 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: The CEO of the HSE, as he has proven again and again, is a fully independent figure, as he should be. I do not recall him ever using the words "deliberately underfunded".