Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Mooney stated: “I would like to update the committee on some of my Department’s priorities for the sustainable management of public expenditure and driving and supporting the reform programme.” I will touch on two issues, the first of which is the Department’s overall involvement in long-term planning within Departments. Is it the case that it is not involved? In speaking about long-term planning, I am talking about saving money for the taxpayer. For instance, local authorities undertake their five-year development plans, but the implementation of those plans is then subject to the whim of Irish Water because houses cannot be built unless Irish Water is prepared to install services.

Now the planning regulator is intervening. In order to carry out long-term planning, we need to have a 20-year programme rather than a five-year programme. Would Mr. Moloney accept that the way in which it is currently structured will result in a significant long-term cost to the taxpayer?

Turning to the health budget, the number of people working in the HSE has increased from 103,000 to more than 132,000, an increase of more than 27%. This is about saving money in the health service and whether Mr. Moloney's Department can examine such an issue. There has been a 27% increase in the total number of staff, including administrative staff, doctors and nurses, over a six-year period, but the one area in which there has not been an increase is public health nurses. If we want to keep people out of hospitals, we will need to have more people on the ground. In fact, the number of public health nurses increased by less than 4% in that period, from 1,460 to 1,523. In the interests of saving money for the taxpayer, can the Department examine such issues and decide it needs to review certain aspects of a given Department's policy, rather than wait for that Department to make a proposal to be examined? There is a considerable problem with the lack of long-term planning. Five-year plans are being undertaken by local authorities, but that no longer works because that is a very short timeframe in which to put in infrastructure. For instance, the Ringaskiddy bypass is being built in Cork, where the landowners were served notices in November 2014. Eight years later, we are only turning the sod, without even having a contract yet in place. The general structure does not seem to be working. Is the Department looking at that aspect of reform?