Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat, Cathaoirleach, as an gcuireadh a bheith anseo. Tá súil agam go mbeadh an cruinniú seo úsáideach duinn. Is deis atá ann cad atá ar siúl ag bhur choistí a chloisteáil agus chun ceisteanna atá agat a ardú liom. Is deis atá ann dom freisin chun tú a chur ar eolas faoi cad atá ar siúl ag an Rialtas agus an Roinn.

I thank the Cathaoirleach for the invitation to be here today. We all know how important parliamentary committees are. They play a unique and evolving role in the legislative process, scrutinising legislation in the kind of detail that cannot happen in the Chamber and engaging with members of the public, interest groups, outside bodies and officials.

I am sure the Cathaoirleach and Leas-Chathaoirligh have a long list of issues to raise with me so I will keep my contribution relatively short. However, I would first like to provide a brief update on the work of Government. Next week, this Government will have been three years in office. It has not been defined solely by the response to the pandemic and its aftermath, as we might have thought it would be three years ago. It has been dealing with a range of unforeseen issues, including the outbreak of war in Europe, an influx of refugees and asylum seekers and a protracted inflation and cost-of-living crisis.

After many years of progress with rising incomes in real terms, falling inequality and reductions in poverty and deprivation, poverty rates last year increased for the first time in a long time due to the inflation. Now that inflation is easing, our objective is to restore the power of people’s incomes and push poverty rates back down in the right direction. Our limitation is not the public finances because we have the money to respond but is the risk of fuelling inflation if we do too much too quickly. However, we can do a lot and intend to do so. When it comes to any household budget, there are three elements to it, namely, how much you are paid, how much you get to keep after tax and how far the money goes. Both inside and outside the budgetary process, we intend to make progress on all three fronts, putting money back into people’s pockets and ensuring it goes further. Last year was a set back in terms of living standards but I want real incomes and living standards to rise again over the course of the next year.

Many people argue that we must choose between saving and spending; increasing public spending and investment or decreasing taxes. The truth is that we can do all of these things if we have a growing economy. The real policy choice is the total quantum and the split within it.

How much do you do in total by means of financial interventions and what is the breakdown in terms of tax relief, increased spending on services, investment and debt reduction? In more simple terms, a bigger pie means bigger slices, and that is why economic growth is important.

I imagine we will not be able to spend much time today debating how we can strengthen our enterprise base. Unfortunately, that question does not get enough discussion in the Dáil or Seanad but it deserves our attention. We are now ranked the second most competitive economy in the world but we must never take for granted our economic success and assume that full employment, record levels of trade and investment and budget surpluses will persist no matter what economic policies we pursue. Wealth and jobs have to be generated and that requires the protection of an economic model that has served us well for many decades now. The greatest risk to our prosperity and wealth is a fundamental change of policy when it comes to the economy, tax, trade and Europe. It is one of the biggest risks we face and it is my responsibility to warn about it.

Our vision as a Government is to make Ireland the best country in Europe in which to be a child. With that in mind, I established a new child poverty and well-being unit in the Department of the Taoiseach, which is now up and running. It will co-ordinate Government action, provide strategic leadership, research and analysis from the centre and bring enhanced accountability to the child poverty and well-being agenda. I want child poverty and well-being to be a theme of budget 2024 and I will make sure it is.

Earlier this month, we published the well-being framework for 2023, which assesses our performance using 35 different indicators - economic, social and environmental. It allows us to compare ourselves with the past as well as with other countries. It is largely a positive story but, as always, there is plenty of room for improvement.

Climate change is the single greatest threat facing humanity today. We are the generation of politicians that has to turn the tide on climate change and biodiversity loss. With this in mind, climate considerations inform all decisions we take as a Government. We have the high-level goals, laws, targets and plans in place but now we have to translate that into more meaningful actions and implementation on the ground.

As we all know, Ireland is in the midst of a very deep housing crisis. We will do whatever it takes to solve it. We are making some progress. Roughly every week, 400 first-time buyers are buying their first home, which is the highest we have seen since the Celtic tiger period. In raw numbers, more people own their own home than ever before - 1.2 million - but the percentage has fallen. We are building more social housing than in any year since 1975. The proportion of families who benefit from social housing has gone up not down in the past ten years, both in raw numbers and percentage terms. It shows that the social housing building programme initiated by the Minister, Deputy Coveney, and continued by the former Minister, Eoghan Murphy, and the current Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is now making a real difference. We are also providing grants to help people renovate old buildings and breathe new life into them, thus creating new homes in towns, villages and rural areas throughout the country. We know this progress is far from enough and we are doing all we can to speed up the implementation of Housing for All and ensure the initiatives we have committed to are implemented quickly and effectively.

One of my priorities as Taoiseach is to ensure balanced regional development and that all parts of the country benefit from our economic progress. We have made excellent progress in recent years. Many people want to live in rural Ireland, and remote and flexible working has opened up possibilities we had not dreamed of just a few years ago. In my first term as Taoiseach, I had the privilege to establish the Department of Rural and Community Development and the €1 billion rural fund. We can now see the impact of that on the ground. We also signed the contract for the national broadband plan. This new Government is backing this momentum with further investment, building vital infrastructure like new roads, railways, schools and healthcare facilities, and getting broadband into every home, farm and business in the country. I have tasked the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, with bringing about a step change when it comes to the implementation of Project Ireland 2040 and he is doing exactly that – removing layers of process and focusing on key bottlenecks.

I am proud of the way the Irish people have opened their arms to the people of Ukraine after Russia’s brutal invasion. Ireland has accommodated more than 86,000 people in State-sourced accommodation, between people who have fled here from the war in Ukraine and people seeking international protection. That is just in the past year or so. We have not always got things right on communication and I know it puts pressure on local services. It is a difficult task and I appreciate members' help on this as Cathaoirligh and also as local representatives.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Having discussed developments in Northern Ireland with Prime Minister Sunak, our shared priority is the return of functioning institutions to provide the services the people of Northern Ireland deserve and make the economic reforms that Northern Ireland needs. As we know, the shared island initiative is driving all-island co-operation and engaging with all communities and traditions. The initiative was included in the programme for Government, was led by the Tánaiste when he was Taoiseach and continues today. Just this week, the Government allocated €56 million from the shared island fund, providing for a major new investment in Ulster University’s campus in Derry city.

Again, I thank the Cathaoirligh for the work they do leading our committees. I look forward to their comments and questions.