Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Government's priorities for the forthcoming two years. Before I do so, I must compliment my colleague from Galway West on his honesty and frankness regarding the new political rainbow that has formed in this Dáil. I refer to a new troika of negativity that involves people who were once great advocates of everything the Government was doing but who, for one reason or another, fell out of favour with the Government. The previous speaker has really summed up in a very succinct and honest way the stances taken by some Members.

This is an important debate but some of the media coverage that has been devoted to it has been regrettable. On my way to the House this morning I was listening to RTE's "Morning Ireland". The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources was being interviewed. He gave a speech in the House yesterday on his priorities for the years ahead. Rather than honing in on the Minister's legislative and policy priorities, the interviewers did what they do best in many cases, that is, they honed in on a few soundbites from some of the far-flung benches of a very disparate bunch in respect of what we are doing here this week. One cannot have one's cake and eat it. This is a very old but true adage. On the one hand, members of the Opposition complain that the Government's priorities and series of legislative initiatives are being driven by the Government itself and that the House does not have ownership while, on the other hand, we have been having in the House for the past few days a debate in which Members can bring forward their own ideas and suggestions on where the Government should now focus to rebuild the country that was so devastatingly wrecked by the previous Administration. Rather than taking up the challenge of making suggestions, Opposition Members outlined a catalogue of negativity. We are delighted that the Opposition benches are graced with the presence of two Members today considering that there is normally no one in them on occasions such as this. It is no wonder that the Opposition is as it is when it uses the opportunity to make suggestions that might hold the Government to account in a constructive manner to do nothing other than whinge. Thus, the Opposition is seen as a bunch of whingers with nothing to offer and nothing concrete to suggest. It comes in and criticises for the sake of criticising. People have had enough of that.

This week should be used as an opportunity to provide a blueprint to allow the programme for Government to be honoured in its entirety and for Members to identify their priorities. I have a number of issues that could be built upon that I would like the Government to note.

My first point concerns the Department of Finance and a man who was instrumental in redirecting the course of this country, namely the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, a colleague of mine from Limerick. Everybody would agree he has done sterling work. This view is contrary to what Deputy Healy was saying yesterday; he was trying to grab at any old straw of publicity by suggesting in a totally daft way that the Taoiseach should sack the Minister for Finance. As we know, the Minister for Finance has overseen the evacuation of the troika from Ireland and restored sovereignty.

The Minister for Finance should consider the use of personal pensions as a method by which people might be able to clear personal debt. Although changes were made in the Finance Bill two years ago regarding people with AVCs, many people who have pensions or who have stopped paying into pension funds are locked in and are subject to a penalty if they use their funds to clear debt, be it personal debt or mortgage debt. The Minister might consider this.

Another issue I wish to raise regarding finance concerns use of the credit union movement in a partnership model involving local authorities. I advocate an arrangement almost akin to what the European Investment Bank is allowed to do on a national basis. Our credit union movement is fantastic and has been one of the mainstays in maintaining local economies. If the Department of Finance and Government considered initiatives whereby credit unions could have strategic relationships with local authorities to bring forward infrastructural projects that currently cannot be carried out because they would go onto the State's balance sheet, they could serve as a means of stimulating the local economy.

The Government is very keen on focusing on agriculture and driving employment in the agriculture sector. As we gear up for Food Harvest 2020 and abolish milk quotas, there is undoubtedly a move towards encouraging more young farmers into the sector. While tax incentives have been introduced by the Government to maintain the number of young farmers, more could be done. In addition, work could be done on agricultural education. In my constituency there is the Salesian college in Pallaskenry, a long-established agricultural college. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, along with Teagasc, needs to ensure that agricultural colleges are adequately staffed to reflect the demand placed on them. There is an agriculture college in the constituency of the Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

Country-of-origin labelling presents a huge problem. In my area, the poultry issue was a case in point. The manner in which imported poultry was labelled had an impact on the processing of poultry. The farming organisations have been raising this for a number of years. This week the farming organisations have focused on the price of beef. Again, I encourage the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to get all the stakeholders around the table to ensure this is properly addressed. He will know from his constituency that input costs are not decreasing. The prices of diesel, feedstuffs, etc., are increasing but the price of the finished product of the farmer seems to be decreasing. However, the reduction does not seem to be passed on to the consumer. There is an anomaly that needs to be addressed.

With regard to the overall development of rural areas, I welcome the fact that the Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas was established under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government in the past 12 months. I look forward to the publication of its report because it could play a very important role in the development of rural areas.

Let me proceed to the Department of Social Protection. Great steps have been made in the detection of social welfare fraud but, by the same token, much more could be done. The introduction of the identity card is work in progress. More could be done in this regard also.

We are often inclined to forget about the self-employed. Over the remaining two years of the Government's term, I would like to see initiatives introduced whereby the self-employed would have a fund from which they could draw on a rainy day. This will involve PRSI changes. If self-employed people were allowed to make additional voluntary PRSI contributions such that they would have something to turn to during hard times, it would be beneficial. At present, they have nothing.

As Minister of State Deputy Dinny McGinley will know, I spent some time teaching before I became a Member. I raised with the Minister for Education and Skills certain issues time and again. I acknowledge he is trying to do his best. In primary education especially, it is crucial that children be allowed to participate actively in the use of information technology. Information technology in classrooms must not be about the teacher standing in front of an interactive whiteboard with the children as passive agents. The children must be actively involved. The best way to achieve this is by ensuring they are not told to put their iPads or laptops into their schoolbags on arriving at school but, rather, actively encouraged to use these devices on arriving. The environment in which children are being taught, especially in primary school, needs to be examined. The inspection regime that is currently in place for primary schools needs to reflect the environment in which children are taught.

Currently, the inspection in a whole school evaluation examines the teaching and learning. One cannot look at the teaching and learning of children in primary schools without looking at the environment. I can give an example. If a child is in a classroom with 30 or 40 children and six or seven of the children must be moved to allow a child to leave to go to the bathroom, something that is not factored into a whole school evaluation, how can that environment produce an adequate result in terms of the teaching and learning for that child?

The Minister has introduced junior certificate reform, but I do not believe that will work unless it is carried out in tandem with leaving certificate reform. Across all spheres in education there is a move away from learning by rote. The leaving certificate is the ultimate test of learning by rote. Basically, it is an intensive test, over approximately two hours, of how much a young person can regurgitate onto a sheet of paper, without really assessing their overall knowledge of the subject. Learning by rote has been decreasing at primary level, junior certificate level and even at tertiary level, but it is still grudgingly retained at leaving certificate level. That must be addressed.

An issue I have raised on many occasions in the House is the labour market. The courses at third level, be they in institutes of technology, post-leaving certificate courses or degree, masters or doctorate level courses, must reflect the economic circumstances in the country. I have a problem with young people receiving career guidance without finding out whether they will be employable in Ireland after finishing a third level course. They do not get that information at present. They do not get the statistics on how many people will end up with a job in a particular area. That must change and I urge the Department to do it.

With regard to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, an issue I have raised umpteen times on the Order of Business is foreshore licensing and development. Our ports have the potential to generate a great deal more economic activity, particularly given the location of this country relative to the rest of the Continent. The port of Foynes in my constituency, for example, is the deepest and most sheltered port on the west coast of Ireland. We must have a proper foreshore licensing regime that reflects a modern economy and under which planning applications can be made and dealt with in a realistic timeframe. The victorian legislation in that regard must be removed from the Statute Book.

Housing aid for older people is another labour activation method. Huge numbers of people across the country benefit from it, including in my constituency. With little support from Government it makes a big difference in terms of labour activation. Over the next two years, as the country goes into recovery mode, there should be a further enhancement of that scheme. I mentioned the development I would like to see of a relationship with the credit unions. Credit unions are located in every town and village in the country. In the same towns and villages there are many people in the retail sector who are in dire straits due to commercial rates. This problem did not arise today nor yesterday. The sooner the valuation changes are implemented, the better. I support a method of self-valuation, at least on a voluntary basis. If a person can value their house for private property tax, there should be an element of individual input into the valuations for commercial properties as well.

In the justice area, I welcome the announcement regarding Garda recruitment. The Minister for Justice and Equality has provided leadership on Garda recruitment and the renewal of the Garda fleet. However, a number of gardaí are due to retire this year and the Government and Garda authorities must plan adequately for that and ensure Garda strength is maintained after the next round of recruitment is completed.

I have raised the accessibility of the courts on many occasions in the Dáil and in the committee of which I am a member. The courts should not be the preserve of the rich, as they are at present in many cases. When the Oireachtas communications committee did its cyberbullying report it found that one must have money to vindicate one's good name in this country. I welcome the introduction of a new court of appeal. The Minister is due to bring forward legislation in that regard this year. However, the completion of the legal services Bill is important because accessibility to justice should not be dictated by virtue of the amount of money one has in one's bank account, regardless of one's address.

With regard to the Office of Public Works, OPW, as recently as last week I raised the issue of land drainage. It affects every rural constituency in the country. We now have a situation where a multitude of agencies must examine a river before a shovel can be put into it to take out a bucket of gravel. I note the presence of the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht in the House. There is a multiplicity of agencies responsible for land drainage, but nobody does the work on it. We cannot expect the OPW, alone, to do it. I have proposed many times in the House, in the context of the proposed rural development programme, that a scheme similar to the agri-environment options scheme, AEOS, the rural environment protection scheme, REPS, or GLAS should be developed, in partnership with Inland Fisheries Ireland, the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and the OPW, to allow farmers and land owners who have drains, streams and the like running through their land to clean and maintain them in such a way as to ensure there will not be a recurrence of the flooding we have seen throughout the country, which is due in no small way to the lack of any type of such maintenance. There are over 50 different publicly-funded agencies in charge of the Shannon, from Cavan to its mouth at Ballylongford. Is it any wonder it bursts its banks every year?

In the health area, one of the commitments in the programme for Government on which I believe progress should be made is the introduction of minimum standards and inspections for services, both public and private, provided to elderly people in their homes. Elderly people and vulnerable adults are in receipt of private and public home care and it is essential that minimum standards are implemented before there is another "Prime Time" investigation that will inevitably unearth huge problems in that area.

I have raised the issue of orthodontic services with the Minister, Deputy Reilly, and progress has been made on it. Young children and young adults all over the country are on waiting lists for years. Under the system in the UK and other countries orthodontic services are rolled out on an orthodontic therapy basis. The officials in the Department are examining this, but there must be a sense of urgency because these are things that can be fixed in a very short amount of time.

Type 2 diabetes is at epidemic proportions due to the fact that there is an obesity crisis in this country. There must be a greater level of public awareness and more resources so we can try to come to terms with it. It will be the single biggest public health issue for this country not only in the next generation but also in the current one, in terms of heart disease, hypertension, stroke and so forth, if it is not properly addressed.

I am a member of the transport committee and I acknowledge the work of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport on transport. As an island economy, Ireland is hugely dependent on the haulage industry, but as recently as this week we have seen hauliers being blackguarded in respect of interpretations of capitage and the introduction of a new tax proposed by the Northern Ireland Executive. I welcome the fact that a Sinn Féin Member is present. Perhaps the Northern Ireland Executive will be able to stop this move, as we should not have partitionist economics in this country whereby lorry drivers from the Republic will be faced with a charge of up to €1,000 being imposed by the Northern Ireland Executive for the simple pleasure of crossing the Border. We have moved on from that type of partitionist mentality under the Good Friday Agreement and I urge Sinn Féin, one of the parties in government in Northern Ireland, not to introduce it.

The development of the motorway from Galway to Limerick is hugely important for the west of Ireland. It is important to provide a counterbalance on the west coast in terms of a critical mass of population that can be linked, in less than an hour and a half, to Dublin. Also in the transport area, there have been huge improvements at Shannon Airport with the introduction by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, of the 0% travel tax and the lower rate of VAT in the hospitality sector. The Opposition Members opposed it when the jobs initiative was introduced but they then became great proponents of it, so much so that they thought it was their idea and we should all row in behind them, as with everything else.

The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Varadkar, has worked on the local improvement scheme and the community involvement scheme, but we should re-introduce the separate funding heading for the local improvement scheme. Many people in rural areas who pay road tax and are living on isolated culs-de-sac have watched their roads deteriorate over a number of years. They need support. They tell us that if they are paying road tax, they should occasionally be given the option of having their road tarred.

With regard to sport, perhaps the Minister would consider the possibility of extending the Gateway initiative with the local authorities for front-line services to the sports partnerships. The sports partnerships are now an integral part of local authorities.

They might be an opportunity for people with a detailed knowledge of sport to provide their skills and knowledge to younger people and to those who are unemployed looking to get out in their communities.

The issues of energy and natural resources and the Shannon LNG project are very close to the heart of the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. It is also close to my heart as the project is in a neighbouring townland to my constituency. We need to see a commitment on a change in policy on how the project can be delivered. It has the potential to create massive employment and investment in the Shannon estuary region, which the mid-west region from Tralee to Ennis has sought in recent years.

In recent days in a jocose way I suggested it might be time to move a motion of no confidence in the Opposition given the behaviour of some of its members. This debate is an opportunity for them to bring forward their ideas. If only they used these three days to give us a break from the whingeing and change the record and bring forward suggestions, because I am sure they meet some of the same people as I do, who ask me questions about small business, roads, heritage and agriculture. The Opposition should use these three days to bring forward suggestions on how we can make the next two years of the programme for Government two years of recovery, considering the first three years were years of clean up.

I commend the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Ministers from Fine Gael and the Labour Party for taking on the challenge of recovering the country's sovereignty and rebuilding it from the ashes of the economic collapse of the previous administration. I wish them well in the next two years. I hope some of the suggestions I have made will be taken on board.

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