Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

One could base it on reading the newspapers. If the Department is going to outsource, I must bring it to the Minister's attention that what is happening with outsourcing is a drift down to minimum wage employment and relatively poor conditions of employment. The Department of Social Protection, in which I worked, has a huge amount of employment distributed throughout the country. There are large amounts of such employment in places such as Donegal, Sligo and the north west, as well as in the rest of the country. I seek reassurance from the Minister that this country-wide employment structure will remain largely intact. We have seen what happened with the British social welfare system, which is very different from ours, and in the social welfare system in the North. They have outsourced heavily, and disastrously so. In case this is one of the bright ideas floating around for those savings, I ask that there not be an agenda around additional outsourcing.

I have a question on another area. The Minister referred to demographics, which are terribly important. Can he supply the committee with a broad indication of the demographic costs involved? We know what they are in the context of younger children and a rapidly ageing population. I do not intend to go into that now but it would be useful for this committee because it is not often understood.

We have this marvellous thing that the Germans do not have, a rising population, a huge population of children but with big costs in health and education as a consequence. We also have an older population which is living longer, another great thing for the country but there is a pensions crisis. How is the Department going to approach the pricing of those demographic changes which are both a bonus and a huge pressure on spending?

In respect of the budget arithmetic, including the change that Deputy Chambers referred to, when a senior official told us an hour before the budget announcement that everything was "nailed down" – I think that was the term - there was a laugh around the committee because as we suspected, all the figures were subject to change. What plans is the Minister putting into his expenditure proposals and reviews for the cost of Brexit? The sterling rate in the budget arithmetic was assumed to be around 85 cent. It has fluctuated quite dramatically since and is falling rapidly. Many of us recall the mushroom growing firms in Monaghan and the midlands that closed overnight. It will be necessary for the Government to put a plan in place for Brexit. Is there a contingency plan? In a certain sense Brexit will happen very slowly. Will something be put into the plan?

We need more figures on the child care initiative due to start in September because the provision for it seems very low for our child population. It will be only three months of this year but in the context of buoyancy it is changeable. I would like to know more about that and in fairness to this committee the Minister should give us more information.

In respect of the health service, while I appreciate that €14.1 billion is the highest figure ever, does the Minister really think the Department and its officials have a grip on spending in the health services in Ireland? We are yo-yoing around very large changes in the figures in the budget season almost week by week. In his statement the Minister says correctly – and I was a member of the Government involved in this – that the health expenditure went up by €780 million in additional allocations. That was followed, which has become the practice in the Health Service Executive, HSE, by the most recent statement, that it wants €9 billion over ten years. Eaten bread is soon forgotten. I know this included capital but does the Department have a serious take on the finances of the health service?

Many extra managers have been employed recently in the health service. While I know managers are necessary most people want to see that expressed in extra nurses, doctors, medical services and people with qualifications in that field. In respect of the queues in accident and emergency departments in many parts of Dublin, and Deputy O'Connell could probably elaborate on this, there are very good services available at pharmacy level which are well positioned to take some of the pressure off people going to accident and emergency departments. That does not, however, seem to be prioritised in any way. Some of the quality services available in pharmacies in my constituency, the Minister's and that of Deputy O'Connell are absolutely excellent at providing people with information and reassurance for example, when children have cuts or grazes or adults have relatively minor complaints, such as the start of a cold. This, together with community-based services, seems to be the way to go yet we do not seem to be over the threshold. What does the Department do to monitor the health service budget? I presume the €9 billion has been accepted because nobody from the Department said it did not accept that figure. Is it right? Is this the private negotiation? That is roughly an extra €1 billion per annum. It is a lot of money unless we have a lot of extra buoyancy.

The Minister for Finance told us he was involved in negotiations on the terms of the fiscal rules. Is the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform involved in them because unless we put serious capital investment into the capital region, as well as the rest of the country, we will not do as well as we could from Brexit by companies locating in Dublin? I think we have a good chance of getting extra jobs out of Brexit.