Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not accept the premise of Deputy Coppinger's response at all. She states that we created a tax haven in the country. We did no such thing. Not only that, we have been very much upfront with the OECD in terms of the presentation of our corporate tax position. We abolished the double Irish concept. We got rid of the stateless concept. We were the first country to have a fully compliant regime in terms of the OECD requirements for countries. We have introduced the first fully OECD compliant knowledge development box with a tax rate of 6.25%. We defend strongly our corporate tax rate of 12.5% and will continue to do so. I note that other countries intend to reduce their corporate tax rate as well.

The Deputy mentioned last week's CSO figures. We dealt with them. Obviously, they do not reflect the average growth in the economy. The figures were impacted by the scale of aircraft leasing in the country, contracted manufacturing in other countries where firms are based here in Ireland, the transfer of public limited companies, plcs, to Ireland and the transfer of significant amounts of intellectual property rights to the country. These are all issues which impact on our economy, but clearly the figures produced last week do not impact in terms of job creation and job numbers.

The Cabinet sub-committee on social policy and public service reform has been dealing with quite a number of issues. It is important to reflect on the benefits of a rising economy on social injustice, unfairness and inequality and to demonstrate that Government does care about the quality of people's lives. My visits to the north inner city are a case in point. Within 100 yards of the IFSC, I witnessed people who deal in misery for money on the streets. Garda resources and facilities are needed to deal with these things and clean up these places. We also need to help those who have been waylaid.

In recent years, we have protected the primary weekly social welfare rates. We have put in place a proactive approach to helping those who are unemployed through the provision of Intreo offices. We held a referendum on children's rights. We strengthened child protection through the National Vetting Bureau. We published the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill, which is going through the legislative process now. We launched the new junior cycle reforms. We increased the time spent on literacy and numeracy skills in all primary schools and introduced a comprehensive action plan on bullying. We ended the practice of sending 16 year olds to St. Patrick's Institution. We published the national positive ageing strategy and the national dementia strategy. We established the Child and Family Agency. We increased provision for special needs assistants to 12,600 until the end of 2016, which is an increase of 2,300. We put in place the Irish refugee protection programme to take in 4,000 persons to the country. We approved amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act to give the Garda greater power to deal with the problem of illicit trade in street medicines. We introduced a two-week period of paternity leave and associated social welfare payments. Priorities for this year include the new model of in-school speech and language therapy and the implementation of the national plan for equality of access to higher education. They also include expanding the preschool provision under the early childhood care and education, ECCE, programme, which will see the number of children benefiting rise from approximately 67,000 to 127,000 in the programme next year. We published the Government's action plan for education inclusion.

I will give an example to Deputy Coppinger. We have been dealing with the issue of resource teachers for years. This is a sore point with people and rightly so because it means an awful lot to those for whom it should mean most - the students. The model was developed by the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, with Mr. Eamon Stack. It was discussed by the Cabinet sub-committee twice under the last Government. It was piloted in 47 schemes and the feedback has been positive.

We are going to roll it out nationally in a way that does not create any losers in the short term and at a once-off cost of €72 million. The situation in regard to some learning support schemes was wasteful and inequitable. In one example, if school A has 250 students with ten needing learning support while school B has 250 students with 75 needing learning support, both would get the same level of learning support under the current system and that is inequitable, wasteful and harmful to those who do not get the necessary support. We are changing all that with a model designed for Ireland by the NCSE which will eliminate that type of situation and will mean the accompanying stress and pressure will not be put on parents and children. All these matters are important and reflect inequality, unfairness and social disadvantage so we must focus where we can on using the resources of a rising economy to deal with them.

As I said to Deputy Adams on a previous occasion, there needs to be an output from this type of investment in order that we can help people. Last week I met reformed alcoholics, reformed drug addicts and women who had suffered the most horrendous physical violence in their relationships and who have tried hard over the years to make a comeback and live their lives again. We must and will continue to work in that area.

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