Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is well documented that this Government inherited a basket case of economy and in the past three years we have made significant progress in addressing this. The previous Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government was an embarrassment nationally and internationally. In the last few months of its term of office Ministers did not even turn up to events at home and abroad. They threw in the towel and abandoned their democratic responsibility to our State and its people. They let everybody down and people have not forgotten the consequences of their political abdication.

One of the key planks of this progress has been made in the past three years has been in the area of job creation. We have reduced the unemployment figures but we must do much better. Our medium-term economic strategy sets the objective of reducing unemployment to below the eurozone average this year and to below 10% by 2016.

For my part, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government is playing a key role in implementing the programme for Government and I am happy to report that we have made significant progress in delivering on the broad range of actions for which my Department is responsible. As Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, I have implemented the largest programme of reform since the early 1960s.

There is real evidence that our hard work is bearing fruit and making an important contribution to economic and physical regeneration, social and community development and environmental protection. I have led an extremely ambitious programme of reform since coming to office, with a major focus on strengthening our democratic system, improving the environment and ensuring effective and efficient services for the public. We have put people first.

As a key goal of the local government reform programme, I want to see local authorities as the key drivers of local enterprise, and this will be done by the establishment of local enterprise offices. These offices will contribute to national recovery through the timely delivery of our policies and programmes, especially in support of job creation. I look forward to the establishment in April of local enterprise offices to provide strengthened support to microenterprises through local authorities, where they will respond to national enterprise and employment initiatives by providing local support.

The Action Programme for Effective Local Government, published in October 2012, set out Government policy for a range of reform measures, including the establishment of local enterprise offices, in regard to the structures, functions, funding, governance and operational aspects of local government. The legislation providing for much of the reform programme is now in place with the enactment of the Local Government Reform Act 2014, which was completed in January of this year. This will deliver a much more streamlined system, with the number of local authorities reducing from 114 to 31 at this year's local elections and with the number of councillors down from over 1,600 to 949. New governance arrangements will apply under which elected members will have more powers in terms of policy development and will be better positioned to oversee the implementation of policy by the executive, delivering improved outcomes on the ground for the people. Local government will have a wider and clear role in regard to economic development, including the adoption of regional spatial and economic strategies, to which all relevant agencies will be required to subscribe.

Provisions to enable the holding of elections to the new councils on 23 May have already been brought into force and phased commencement of other provisions of the Act and formulation of related regulations, orders and guidance to give effect to specific measures is proceeding apace. A key element of this will involve a renewed focus on local government performance, particularly through the establishment of a new national oversight and audit commission. As well as modernising structures, the reform Act strengthens local government functions in some very important areas, particularly economic and community development. When the new structures are bedded down, I will be recommencing a rigorous programme of engagement with other Departments and agencies to initiate a substantial programme of devolution of further functions to local government. Meanwhile, to maintain the momentum towards greater devolution, the Government recently agreed a procedure for "local government proofing" of all future proposals for public service functions at local level, which will ensure that local government is the default option for governance and public service at local level.

The Gateway scheme is now starting to build towards a critical mass. The purpose of the scheme, in conjunction with the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, is to allow the long-term unemployed to make a contribution locally and, at the same time, learn some new skills. It is not to mask the unemployment figures, as some on the Opposition benches are snidely suggesting. By the end of this year, we hope to have 3,000 long-term unemployed people complementing existing local authority staffing resources. These people will learn new skills, which should contribute to their employability into the future.

The programme of assistance agreed between the Government and the EU-ECB-IMF required the Government to introduce domestic water charges. In the programme, the Government promised to introduce a fair funding model to deliver clean and reliable water, establish a new State-owned utility to take responsibility for water infrastructure, and implement a metering programme and water charging system based on usage above a free allowance. The Government has made significant progress on these commitments. On 1 January this year, Irish Water became the national water services authority. Significant progress has also been made on the roll-out domestic water metering programme which, together with the establishment of the Commission for Energy Regulation, CER, as the independent economic regulator for the water sector, will help to underpin the new sustainable financial model for water services into the future. To date, we have installed approximately 140,000 meters and in excess of 1,000 people are currently employed on the installation programme.

While the dedication and commitment of the local authorities and their staff in delivering water services was never in question, and although some on the Opposition benches wrongly sought to denigrate their contribution in the provision of water and sewerage services over the years, it was nonetheless clear there was requirement for reform of the delivery structures. The system lacked economies of scale. For example, the operating expenditure per connection was more than twice the average of UK water companies. Capital investment on water infrastructure needs to increase, as we see in today's EPA report, which suggests a sizeable additional capital investment is required to bring us up to the necessary standards that will prevent the European Commission from taking this country to court again on many occasions in the future, as it did in the past in regard to groundwater quality.

At an early stage of establishing the public water utility, we commissioned PricewaterhouseCoopers to carry out an assessment on which model should be used in order to set up Irish Water. The assessment assumed annual investment level requirements of €600 million per annum. In 2014, Irish Water will invest some €310 million in core water services infrastructure, which will create and sustain up to 3,000 jobs.

CER recently outlined its timetable for the approval of water charges. In April, it will undertake public consultations on a range of issues, including domestic and non-domestic tariff structures. In August, it will announce its final decision on the approved level of domestic and non-domestic water charges. Irish Water will commence charging domestic customers from October next and the first bills will issue from January 2015. This is the source of income that will be required to repay the loans that will be achieved on the financial markets in the future in order to pay for the additional capital investment that will be urgently required in order to create job opportunities and in the interests of public health.

Since taking office, the Government has introduced radical and significant reforms to the operation and financing of the political system. The Electoral Act 2011 allowed for a reduction in the number of Deputies, which will result in 158 being elected at the next general election compared to 166 in the 2011 election. The Act also provided that the writ for Dáil by-elections must now be issued within six months of the vacancy occurring. The spending limit for candidates at Presidential elections will be reduced from €1.3 million to €750,000 and the maximum reimbursement payment to candidates for Presidential elections will be reduced from €260,000 to €200,000.

The Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Act 2012 brought into force restrictions on corporate donations, considerable reductions in the maximum amount that a political party or an individual can accept as a political donation, reductions in donation reporting thresholds and a ban on the receipt of all cash donations over €200. The Act introduced a new requirement that to qualify for full State funding, provided to political parties under the Electoral Act 1997, a qualifying political party must have at least 30% women candidates and at least 30% men candidates at the next Dáil general election, and this will rise to 40% after seven years. If a party does not meet these thresholds, its funding will be halved.

Constituency and local electoral area boundaries have been reviewed and revised for local, European and Dáil elections, which will improve the representational balance across the country for all elections. We are continuing with our busy programme of reform in this area. Last month, I published for consultation the general scheme of the Seanad Electoral (University Members) (Amendment) Bill, which provides for the election of the six university Senators to be more democratic. This will include the provisions that were already approved by the Irish people in a referendum in 1979.

Turning now to the community area, the local and community development programme, LCDP, is the largest national social inclusion support programme of its kind in the State. It provides employment, training, personal development and capacity building supports for the harder to reach in the most disadvantaged areas in our communities. The successor LCDP is at design stage. The current programme is being implemented on a transitional basis for 2014 and all contract holders operating within the programme through the local development companies will continue to the end of this year. There will be seamless transition to the new LCDP committees of local authorities and communities at the beginning of 2015. As an integral part of the alignment process, the management and oversight of the LCDP will transfer within each local authority, initially from 1 July this year as an oversight measure, and in terms of the management and operation of the programme from 1 January 2015. I want to assure the local development companies that, in regard to the 1,650 people who are employed in those companies at present, even though they are private companies, the financial allocation of €48 million this year should be sufficient for them to continue with most of that employment in the context of the financial resources available to them, and in view of the fact they have to make decisions as private companies as to whether they have sufficient resources for administration, or not, as the case may be.

The LCDP will require tendering in future, so we will have to change this mechanism. Following legal advice from the Attorney General, we are now obliged to tender for these programmes in order to comply with competition law.

The Leader programme, on which negotiations are taking place at present with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for the next seven-year programme, does not need to be tendered. However, we will have to see what resources are available in regard to that programme to ensure we have a rural development programme at local level that is operated effectively and efficiently, and in the interests of maximising the amount of money that will go to projects and front-line services rather than administration.

I want to place local government as the main vehicle of governance and public service at local level, including at social and community development level. Better alignment of local government and local development will achieve a more joined-up approach to service delivery at local level. The Local Government Reform Act 2014 provides the legislative basis for the alignment, including the establishment of local community development committees and the preparation and implementation of local economic and community plans. LCDCs will be established in each local authority area. They will have oversight and planning responsibility for local development and community programmes in their area. They will have a democratic mandate because they will be reporting to the local authority members elected on 23 May 2014. We have already established some front-runner, as it were, LCDCs in a number of local authority areas and will learn from those experiences to ensure we have the best possible structures in place that will include the community and local government sector working together on behalf of the people and in respect of all the projects at local level.

The Leader programme for 2007 to 2013 was valued at €375 million. The finalisation of negotiations is ongoing and we expect to have agreement in the next six weeks. In the last programme, 5% of the Common Agricultural Policy moneys were allocated for the purpose of the rural development programme. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and I have got agreement through negotiations that the initial amount of money to be delivered through Leader will be 7% or €153 million. There was an opportunity in the negotiations with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform for some co-financing to top up that amount for the next seven years. My Department will seek expressions of interest to develop and submit local development strategies in respect of Leader in autumn of this year. It is expected that the process of selecting suitable local development strategies for implementation through Leader will take place over the second half of this year and early 2015, with commencement shortly thereafter in early to mid-2015.

Our environment is a key national resource which requires protection, and I have led significant improvements at national level and during our EU Presidency at international level. My Department published a comprehensive waste management policy, entitled A Resource Opportunity, in July 2012. The policy provides for a focus on resource efficiency as a critical element in a holistic waste policy. The emphasis is on prevention of waste in the first instance and the resource potential available within our various waste streams. By not generating waste, we can eliminate the need to handle, transport, treat and dispose of it and thereby avoid having to pay for these services. We will continue to drive waste reduction through the existing producer responsibility initiatives and the development of new compliance schemes.

A number of important commitments under the new waste policy have been delivered on already, for example, new household food waste regulations and the establishment of the three new waste management planning regions. Continued roll-out of the waste policy is a primary focus for 2014. This year, I will introduce a new regulatory regime to improve the regulation of household waste collection.

There is major growth and jobs potential in the composting and anaerobic digestion area. To tap into that potential and to support the development of indigenous bio-waste treatment capacity, brown bin collection services will be provided to more households this year on a phased basis, with roll-out to population centres greater than 10,000 persons. This will enable households to reduce their waste collection costs and reduce the quantity of waste sent to landfill. I will continue to focus on improving the quality of our environment through the remediation of legal and illegal legacy landfill sites throughout the country, the development of new structures to provide for enhanced enforcement of waste legislation by local authorities and the Environmental Protection Agency, and the exploring of ways in which the existing enforcement regime can be made more responsive with a greater use of fixed payment notices, as used in respect of littering.

In 2012, my Department introduced a once-off litter enforcement grants scheme, targeted specifically at the issue of fly tipping and small-scale illegal dumping and encouraging local authorities to enhance their existing enforcement activities through measures such as the purchase of CCTV equipment to allow for the effective monitoring of known litter blackspots. I launched a national campaign in conjunction with Fáilte Ireland, local authorities and the EPA that was supported by the print media to highlight the economic value of our environment and encourage the public to report all incidences of illegal dumping to the EPA's national environmental complaints hotline.

In June 2012, we ratified the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters. This involved introducing a number of pieces of legislation to assist Ireland in meeting its obligations under the convention. In respect of environmental infringements or court cases with which we are threatened by the European Commission before the European Court of Justice, I inherited a situation where 31 cases against Ireland were brought before the European Court of Justice in 2010. These have been reduced to nine open environmental infringement cases. This is the type of concerted effort we have been making over the past three years to ensure Ireland complies with European Commission rulings and European Court of Justice judgments, unlike our predecessors who ignored rulings and judgments in respect of septic tanks and groundwater, costing the taxpayer €2.7 million. By reducing the number of infringements, we are saving the taxpayer a lot of money as well as protecting our environment.

Climate change remains an issue which will continue to present challenges for us all for decades to come. In the context of sustainable development, I will maintain progressive development of national policy and legislation in response to climate change. Recognising both the challenges and opportunities of a low carbon future, the Government is developing a high level national vision on transition to a low carbon, climate resilient and environmentally sustainable economy by 2050. In parallel, we will continue to work on progressing national greenhouse gas mitigation through the ongoing low carbon roadmapping process. Following through on the national climate change adaptation framework, we will also continue to maximise the operational dimension through sectoral and local adaptation planning. The spatial planning process provides an established means through which to implement and integrate climate change objectives at local level. Local development planning will become the mechanism for delivery of local climate adaptation action. I met the Commissioner for Climate Action, Connie Hedegaard, last week and emphasised to her that the effort-sharing arrangements of 2008, when the previous Government was asleep at the wheel in respect of the burden on Ireland, will not be repeated on this occasion in the context of climate change negotiations and that agriculture and land use must be seen as providing food security for the people of Europe and the world rather than as a soft touch in respect of climate change policy.

A range of challenges were left for this Government to deal with in the wake of the economic crisis, including in the areas of housing and planning. We have made considerable progress in dealing with legacy issues like Priory Hall, pyrite and unfinished estates. I compliment the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, on the progress she has made and her co-operation in many of the important areas of building control and outdated building regulatory practices.

I am proud of what this Government and my Department have achieved to date, particularly in the transformation of the political structures and the provision of services to the people. With the forthcoming local elections, people will have the opportunity to elect representatives to new and more efficient local authorities. They will be better able to access services which will be delivered in a more efficient manner. I believe I have put in place the necessary first steps in ensuring sustainable recovery, the development of thriving community and local government sectors and an environment of which we can all be proud. The progress to date has been made through a co-operative approach with central and local government working together with agencies and communities. This spirit of shared ambition for our country will help deliver on the objectives of this Government's challenging programme. We will continue to implement the necessary and difficult measures that are needed to restore our economic prosperity, particularly for the people who require jobs. Nobody in this Government could be satisfied to inherit an appalling political and economic legacy. Equally, members of this Government are angry at having to impose severe financial pain on families and businesses arising from the policies of our predecessors. The people are very mature. They realise that difficult decisions were and are necessary to deliver for the best interests of the country in the long term.

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