Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is good to know that the Revenue Commissioners have their accounts in order. Do any members wish to comment on that or speak to it? Can we agree and note the listing of accounts and financial statements? Agreed. As usual, the listing of accounts and statements will be published as part of the minutes.

We will move on to correspondence. As previously agreed, items that are not flagged for discussion for this meeting will continue to be dealt with in accordance with the proposed actions that have been circulated to members, and decisions taken by the committee in relation to correspondence are recorded in the minutes of the committee’s meetings and published on the committee’s web page. The first category of correspondence under which members have flagged items for discussion is correspondence from Accounting Officers and their Ministers, and follow-up to committee meetings.

The following item was held over from our last meeting: No. R1824 B from Ms Sorcha Fitzpatrick, chief superintendent, An Garda Síochána, dated 25 March 2023. It provides information that the Committee of Public Accounts requested regarding non-compliant procurement. We agreed a note and published an item of correspondence at our last meeting. Deputy Catherine Murphy flagged this item and requested that we hold over No. R1824 B for a further week. She is unavoidably absent. We normally do not hold items over. Normally we just hold it over for one week if a member requests it. In the circumstances however, I suggest that we agree to hold it over. Is that agreed? Agreed.

No. R1850 B is from Ms Sara Maxwell, office of the CEO, HSE, and is dated 21 April. It provides information requested by the committee arising from our meeting with the HSE on 2 February. It is proposed to note and publish that item of correspondence. Is that agreed? Agreed. I flagged this item for discussion because there are a number of things in it that we need to address. As regards the nursing home charges - when I say "charges" I am referring to residents being charged for items that normally would be covered under the medical card scheme - we raised this with the Secretary General of the Department of Health and I do not feel at this stage that we have got a satisfactory answer to it. We asked whether the HSE is ensuring that residents in nursing homes are not charged for items covered under the medical card scheme. The HSE states in its reply:

The HSE has no role in or control over the contractual arrangements that exist between private ... nursing homes and their residents.

The question arises, then, as to who does. It goes on - there is a very long reply:

As communicated previously to the Public Accounts Committee the HSE wrote to the CEO of HIQA ... outlining the services available to Medical Card Holders and provided the relevant supporting guidance.

The problem, however, is that the response to date has been that there is no one who completes all these contracts that are in existence between every nursing home and the Department. It is not a satisfactory answer. Members have raised previously the matter of people being charged for those items that are normally available under the medical card scheme. I suggest we write to the Secretary General of the Department of Health pointing out the answer we got, to the effect that the HSE has no role, and asking what exactly the Department is doing at this point to ensure, first, that the contracts it has with the nursing home providers are water-tight. Second, given the fact that this situation still continues, I suggest we ask what the Department is doing now to implement whatever measures are there to ensure that this halts. It is really unfair to families and the people in nursing homes, particularly those on low incomes. They have medical cards and they are being charged for these services which, if they were provided outside the nursing home, they would get free of charge. I just make that proposal. Any member who wishes to come in on that should feel free. Is that proposal agreed? I will take it as agreed.

If any other member wishes to come in on this, there is a HSE reply regarding the out-of-hours GP service, which we raised previously with the HSE at the committee. The HSE says there is a strategic review:

With the improved situation regarding Covid-19, the Minister has ... announced and recently published the Terms of Reference of the Strategic Review of General Practice that is now commencing, with the intention that the development of a reformed model of Out of Hours service will be brought forward as part of that process.

Members will recall that we dealt with this earlier this year. It is welcome that it is happening. This was supposed to happen a few years ago, but the Department and the HSE say that it got held up due to Covid. It would be useful to know what the timeline for that is, when that review will be completed and when we will be able to see some of the actions carried out on the back of that. If that is agreed, we will request that information from the HSE. Is that agreed? Agreed.

No. R1855 B is from Mr. Graham Doyle, Secretary General of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, and is dated 25 April 2023. It provides information we requested arising from our meeting with the Department on 26 January 2023. It is proposed to note and publish that item of correspondence. Is that agreed? I will take it as agreed. I flagged this item up for discussion. Any other members who wish to come in on it should feel free. I do not think anyone else flagged it, but they should feel free if there is anything in it they want to raise. Page 13 of this report shows information in response to a specific question I asked the Secretary General when the Department was before the committee in respect of local authority and approved housing body, AHB, builds. I had thought the figure was much higher but I note that the number of local authority builds for all of last year was 1,666 houses, or homes. Some of them would be apartments. There were 1,196 turnkey homes and 716 LAPVs. I am not sure what that is. Maybe somebody else can shed some light as to what LAPVs are. That comes to a total of 3,601, so the actual number built by local authorities was 1,666.

The dependence on AHBs is significant because they provided 469 plus, under another funding stream, 3,363. I think that shows that the local authorities are somewhat restricted in what they can do, and the delivery seems to be very slow. The fact is that it is only 1,666. The impression I got - we have quizzed the Department intensely about this when it has been before us - was that the Department was to make it easier for local authorities to build. We all know that we are in a housing crisis. When compared with the 1970s and the 1930s, when we were building - actually building - 8,000 local authority houses, it is a significant fall-off and only a fraction of what was being done at that time. I think we should write back to the Secretary General of the Department thanking him for his comprehensive response but pointing out that the delivery of actual local authority-constructed houses is at a very low scale, at just over 1,500 last year, despite the fact that there was a huge amount of funding available, and asking what specific steps are being taken to try to address this. Are the local authorities using more standardised designs? Are they using standard plans to try to speed up delivery? Given the report that came out yesterday regarding the comparison with other European countries, this seems to be a real issue. The fact is that, as regards local authorities and housing in general in this country, we tend not to use uniform plans or standard plans, which would appear to be hampering delivery. The fact that the Department is insisting on architectural design of every house that is built would appear to be slowing things up significantly. If it is agreeable, I ask that we write back to the Secretary General and ask if there are plans to change that in the current year. It is a very comprehensive response, and I welcome what the AHBs are doing - it is a significant number of homes - but local authorities would seem to be under an awful lot of restrictions, regulation and bureaucracy. The fact is that we are coming in only at over 1,500 a year when we have a housing crisis. I acknowledge a very significant budget allocation from the Government.