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

We read today that a 90 year old woman faces a €1,500 bill in a satellite dish case following a planning enforcement by Dublin City Council. Is this what we have come to? All of us in this House have heard of numerous cases where councils failed to take enforcement measures against people who flagrantly disregarded planning laws, yet a 90-year old woman was taken to court over a satellite dish which she got as a birthday present. The context is the promised planning and development Bill. I ask that a clause would be inserted in the Bill to ensure something like this does not happen again, and that some sense of decency and humanity prevails in terms of how we enforce planning laws, because God knows an awful lot of them have not been enforced. People with far greater clout get away with far more than a senior citizen who has been dragged through the courts at such an age.

The planning and development Bill was promised by the Government. We read on Sunday and Monday about rent now being tied to inflation for a four-year period. Could the Taoiseach confirm that such a legislative proposal will be introduced within the next month? When can we expect the legislation about rent certainty and tying rent to inflation for a four-year period?

I seek clarification from the Taoiseach on the implementation of the programme for Government in terms of health. The Government said in the programme that it would introduce universal health insurance, UHI, with equal access to care for all. The document stated that under this system, there would be no discrimination between patients on the grounds of income or insurance status and the two-tier system of unequal access to hospital care would end. For good measure, the Government was very clear and specific four and a half years ago when it stated that a system of universal health insurance would be introduced by 2016, with the legislative and organisational groundwork for the system complete within this Government’s term of office. It was further stated that everyone would have a choice between competing insurers and that UHI would provide guaranteed access to care for all in public and private hospitals. It was stated that Exchequer funding for hospital care would go into a hospital insurance fund. There is an entire page on it but I will not go on about it at length, except to say that it was stated that the legislative basis for UHI would be established by the universal health insurance Act.

It was stated that a patient safety authority, incorporating HIQA, would be established and that the Government would act speedily to reduce costs in the delivery of both public and private health care and in the administration of the health care system. The document goes on and on for approximately eight pages in terms of the pathway to universal care insurance, the hospital care purchase agency and stating that legislation would be introduced. Reference was made to an expansion in the care for older people and community care. The programme for Government stated that there would be additional money every year and more home care packages every year. It was stated that the fair deal system of financing nursing home care would be reviewed, with a view to developing a secure and equitable system of financing for community and long-term care which supports older people to stay in their homes. Four and a half years later-----

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