Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Given the needs of the economy, the decision to withdraw grant supports for postgraduate students was an incredibly backward one. The costs involved were not huge. We should be doing more at fourth level to encourage the take-up of master's degrees and PhDs.

The early school leavers scheme, which brought school completion to its highest ever level, is being fatally undermined. This is an issue I feel passionately about. In 1999 the Government of which I was a part introduced the school retention initiative, which saw completion levels increasing from 78% in 1998 to 91% ten years later. Does the Taoiseach have a clue what is going on in this regard? The school completion programme has been brought under the remit of Tusla and subjected to cuts in funding in the past two to three years. The home school liaison programme, likewise, has been brought under Tusla. Both of those programmes should be returned to the Department of Education and Skills because they are a core part of its remit.

The only reason these functions were transferred to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs is that not enough responsibilities could be found for that Department. That is the reality. Civil servants got together and said they had better make this thing look like it has capacity. The Taoiseach can ask anybody in the field and they will tell him that is what happened. He should ask anybody working in communities on the school completion programme. I have met with people involved, Business in the Community and so on, and they are saying that what is going on is shocking. It amounts to a dismantling of a school completion programme which has been working effectively for the past decade. The money involved is not huge and the decision that was taken shows the Government does not have a clue what is going on in terms of providing a coherent education policy. No amount of spin will cover that up. Any Government which refuses to give a clear priority to education in long-term economic planning and acknowledge the impact of its own policies is one that has no idea about how to shape an inclusive future for our country.

The massive overrun in the budget of the Department of Health last year is likely to be repeated this year because the core policy has not changed.  That policy involves a refusal to allow honest budgets at the start of the year, relying instead on a wasteful catch-up later in the year.  The Minister for Health was warned six months before it happened that Government policy would lead to a massive crisis early this year, but he and his colleagues did nothing. Massive damage is being done by abandoning initiatives which were working and by the commitment to move the entire system to a private insurance approach, which escalates costs and reduces service guarantees.

It is welcome that there will be some increase in health service staffing. What is not welcome is the absence of any strategy for funding or developing health services in the near future. The spring economic statement was billed as a setting out by Fine Gael and the Labour Party of their priorities for the next five years, but it seems health is not one of them. There was no acknowledgement in the statement of the 405,000 people waiting for outpatient appointments and the 67,000 people awaiting inpatient treatment.  No mention was made of the fact that the numbers of patients on trolleys last month was the highest ever, with an average of 500 patients per day in that position.  There was no reference to the 30,000 people who had their medical cards removed before it was even admitted there was a problem. If the Government will not even acknowledge these problems, let alone identify them as a priority, how can anyone believe it will tackle them?

Housing is another area where a policy of disengagement and denial has allowed a national crisis to develop.  There are 1,000 children in emergency accommodation in this city alone.  The plans announced so far are nowhere near sufficient to tackle this or the wider housing crisis. After yesterday, all we have is a continuation of existing policy in this area.

The Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, is a man with an acute memory.  He will remember the countless times he came into this House to reject calls by Fianna Fáil that he intervene to address the mounting crisis in household debts.  He will recall how he rejected all of our legislative proposals to help those in deep trouble. He and the Government have followed a steady policy for four years now of putting the fattening of the banks in preparation for a sale ahead of any concern for mortgage holders or small businesses.  It is only in the past month that there has suddenly been an awakening to the fact that the economic and social damage this has caused has political implications.  Since then, there has been a scramble to make as many statements of intent as possible.

Yesterday, however, the Minister, Deputy Noonan, again placed most emphasis on selling the banks rather than dealing with the household debt crisis.  From the manner in which this issue was presented, it is clear that he wants to be able to claim before the next election to have "got the money back from the banks". He will have done nothing of the sort. What he will have done is empower those institutions to charge extortionate variable rates and deny basic relief to families in deep trouble. The statement's spin in regard to banking debt is among its most cynical and misleading.  It is striking that the Government has completely changed its argument concerning the conversion of the promissory notes into long-term debt, as indicated on page 24.  Most of the claimed benefit of that deal is being lost because the Central Bank is selling off its bonds and the Exchequer will no longer have the interest it pays returned.  The Government is now refusing to put any figure at all on what was supposedly saved.

This statement marks the moment when the Government quietly abandoned the search for relief on the impact of other bank-related debt.  Nearly three years ago, after the famous EU summit, the two Ministers, Deputies Noonan and Howlin, were giggling like schoolboys at the prospect of the billions of euro which were on the way.  As I recall, a figure of €6 billion was mentioned. The Minister for Finance refused to say how much he was seeking because his experience of selling sheep at the Fair of Glynn taught him never to reveal what one is looking for. Yesterday we found out that we have received and are looking for nothing.  Every single part of the relief Ireland has received was negotiated by and for other countries and extended automatically to this country. Ireland is not even aiming for equality with other member states through seeking the return of ECB profits on its holding of Irish bonds.

The failure of the Dublin, London and Stormont Administrations to move forward on any joint approach to economic development in the Border region and for the whole island has been a major failing of the past four years. There are huge potential synergies in an all-island approach but they are being lost because of the lack of political will.  This goes directly against the objectives set in the Good Friday Agreement. The Sinn Féin-DUP decision to implement a long-term economic development plan which ignores the South is part of that Administration's wider failings to make the institutions work in the interests of all.  It is regrettable that our Government has taken the same approach. It also is regrettable that the savage austerity being implemented by Sinn Féin and the DUP has not been challenged by our Government and we have failed to speak up for the need to invest in underpinning peace rather than taking it for granted.

The spring economic statement was devised to be a political launching pad for the next stage of a re-election campaign. It has failed because all it involves is more of the same.  It ignores deep social and economic problems.  It is political in everything and none of its statements can be taken at face value.  It offers no long-term vision of our economy or society.  It does not say what role the State should play.  It is silent on growing inequality. After six months of hype, it has fallen flat because it is more of the same from a Government of spin and broken promises, a Government that is complacent about the future and in denial about its record. We will now enter a new budgetary cycle where there will be more and more leaks and a policy of promising everything to everyone. The Government will fail in this just as it has failed thus far.

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