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

Deputy Moynihan is spot on in terms of the real challenge we have when it comes to capacity in the system, particularly in relation to children and young people with disabilities not getting their assessments or the services and therapies that they need. A big part of what we are doing now is making sure we have more staff available. We have increased the number of training places, in particular, for therapists, psychologists and social workers. That might take a few years to have an effect, but if we do not do it now, it will never have an effect. We are giving consideration to funding people who go private. There is a bit of that happening already, but not in a systemic way. We do it pretty regularly in healthcare, through the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, and the cross-border directive. We refund people who go privately. However, there are pitfalls to that too. We need to make sure that the quality is at a certain level and that by funding people to go private, we do not encourage people who are currently working in the public system to migrate to the private system. I know that the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, is doing some work on that at the moment.

On the question of the medical card, my understanding was that if you are on the disability allowance, you can get a guarantee that you keep your medical card for five years even if you do not satisfy the means test anymore. I think we brought that in years ago, when I was Minister for Social Protection, but I will double-check it. I know that it is a big fear, if you have a disability, that by getting a pay increase, a promotion or working extra hours, you lose your medical card and then you are worse off. It is a very rational and understandable fear that somebody who is in good health and does not have a disability would be less worried about. We definitely do not want people to work shorter hours or not take up employment for fear of losing their medical card or their free travel pass, which is important too.

In terms of income support for carers, we have the carer's support grant, which is not means-tested, although the amount people get is relatively low. It is possible to increase that to recognise the role of carers and the work they do, regardless of any means test. The carer's allowance itself is a welfare payment. When it was established, as colleagues will know, it was established in order that people who could not work because they were working as carers and who therefore did not qualify for jobseeker's because they were not actively seeking employment at least got a payment to keep them out of poverty. It was never designed as an employment payment. If you were to get into that space, you would get into some complicated areas. If it is a payment for de facto employment, issues then arise as to the qualifications of the person, whether the position was advertised and if they are regulated, and potentially the State could become liable. There is a big difference between a welfare payment and a payment for a particular service. It is a complicated area to get into. Perhaps the best thing we can do is to increase the carer's support grant considerably, because it is not means-tested, as well as bringing in a contributory pension for carers, which I know the Minister for Social Protection is working on at the moment.

Senator Horkan is absolutely right in terms of the backlogs. There are backlogs across the public system at the moment. A lot of it is post Covid, with the suppression of demand followed by a snap-back in demand. Passports are much better and work permits are sorted out. There is only a two- or three-week turnaround time now. In An Bord Pleanála, we have appointed new members of the board and additional staff, who are hard to get but we are getting them. In the courts, additional judges are being appointed and we are expanding the Courts Service to deal with some of the backlogs there. There are some real problems in driver testing and with the NCT, but I am confident that we will work through them. I know the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers, in particular, is working very hard on that.

In terms of new housing, roughly 30,000 new homes were built last year of all types - social, one-off, build-to-rent, cost rental, affordable purchase and private purchase. We need more of all of those categories, just to be very clear. We do not need less of any one of them. We need more of all of them but I think the area where we need more the most, if that makes sense, is for purchase. Of the 30,000 new homes built last year, probably only about 7,000 were available for purchase by people who want to buy a home, whether it is their first home or a second home. Looking at the first-time buyers last year, it was really good to see those numbers increase so much, but two thirds of homes bought by first-time buyers were not new homes. It would have been more like 50:50 in the past, or even in the other direction. That shows to me that as we go up from 30,000 to 35,000, 40,000 and 50,000 units, we need to make sure that the proportion of homes that are there for purchase is higher. That can be done in the planning system. It can be prescribed that these are for sale and not for rent. I would like to see more councils doing that, quite frankly.

On EU scrutiny, the committee is a really important one. I am glad to see it finally up and running.

So much of our legislation now is determined at European level. The role of Ministers has changed fundamentally in that often the directive is agreed at European Council level and there is very little to do after that. The law is just transposed into Irish law. That is why Ministers really paying attention to what they are doing at European Council meetings is really important. It is very easy to turn up at a European Council meeting and agree a general approach to a directive that somebody else has to turn into Irish law two years later. You really tie the hands of future Ministers if you do not get that right, so Ministers need to be very aware of that.

As regards the committee's work, it might make sense to do a review after a year or so, when the committee has been up and running, to see if the terms of reference are right. If the committee feels that it is getting pushback from particular Departments, it can let me know and I will see if I can help.