Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 and 2 together.

I last appointed the council in 2011 and the five-year term has expired. At the moment my Department is assessing the arrangements that will work best for a new council. As part of the considerations, the Secretary General of my Department wrote to all the members of the outgoing council on 14 October last, seeking views and suggestions on the future role and work programme of a council in advance of a plenary discussion scheduled for 17 November. The meeting will enable reflection on the work of the council to date, views on the best arrangements for the council and its future work programme in a changing policy landscape.

NESC has offered a valuable combination of economic, social, environmental and institutional perspectives that are necessary for good policy making. The views of the outgoing members will be an important contribution to any new arrangements. The background is that NESC was one of three constituent bodies of the National Economic and Social Development Office established under the NESDO Act 2006. Two of the constituent bodies, namely, the National Economic and Social Forum, NESF, and the National Centre for Partnership and Performance, NCPP, were dissolved in 2010, meaning that the framework of the NESDO is no longer necessary.

The previous Government agreed to dissolve the NESDO and place NESC on a statutory footing. The task in hand. Significant reports from NESC in the past few years include Housing Supply and Land; Driving Public Action for the Common Good; Ireland’s Private Rental Sector, Pathways to Secure Occupancy & Affordable Supply; Homeownership and Rental: What Road is Ireland On?; and Social Housing at the Crossroads: Possibilities for Investment, Provision and Cost Rental.

In addition, NESC provided analytical support to the expert group on the future funding of higher education and assisted in drafting its final report. At the moment, the secretariat is continuing its work on a number of projects such as funding of higher education; follow-up work to its Report on Jobless Households; working with the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government on issues relating to housing and the rental sector; and on a range of sustainable development themes, such as experimental approaches to climate change in Irish agriculture, the challenge of delivering compliant low energy buildings in Ireland and beginning research on infrastructure policy formulation and institutions.

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