Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has made a sensible decision to accept Deputy Calleary's amendment as we need the information. While we need the facts and figures, as I stated before the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, came into the Chamber, we also need to look to the future and not just to the past, particularly in areas such as education and health.

The key point in education is we are beginning to experience a severe shortage of teachers. With rents now being so high, both in the greater Dublin area and in most large towns and cities as landlords have sought to maximise the returns from their rents, particularly for new tenants in the market, I constantly meet people who are taking up jobs on the fringes of Dublin, including in my own constituency in west Dublin, who are commuting on a daily basis to home because they simply cannot afford the rent. This is true in all the other cities. Because there is such population growth, which is wonderful, we need more teachers. We also are now mainstreaming children who have a disability in primary and secondary schools. That is a really positive development for this country that will require significant extra staffing. Unless the Minister accelerates the pace at which pay restoration will be provided, I fear that many of those teachers will go abroad.

Previously I raised with the Minister the issue of staff in hospices. I am not talking about a significant number of staff but these are employees whose pay is parallel to that of public servants. The Minister undertook earlier to review this issue. He stated he would be looking at it in the Department and I appreciate him doing so. It is really difficult for the hospice movement and other such section 39 organisations. I had it down in my notes to talk about this. These are public servants. For the information of Deputy Calleary, these are employees who are paid out of the public purse. Those who are working in the HSE began to get pay restoration some months ago. Because the staff come freely over and back between the HSE and the hospices, and almost all hospice staff in medical, nursing and other disciplines are recruited from and on similar terms to the HSE, there will be a serious problem in respect of recruitment.

I hope that the Minister will look at this carefully and work on a solution although I am conscious of the fact that none of the potential solutions are particularly easy.

During Question Time with the Minister recently I pointed out that four banks, including Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Bank, have €5.5 billion of deferred tax assets between them. On the basis of yesterday's Exchequer figures, the Minister appears to have some room for movement, which I am sure was welcome news on what was a difficult day for the Government. Alongside that, we have a situation now whereby the banks are very profitable again. They are including all of this in their briefing notes to investors and to the markets and so on. They have €5.5 billion of deferred tax assets, that is, losses that they will claim against their profits until such time as they are exhausted. I have proposed to the Minister that the banks should not be allowed to do that at a time when the economy needs more funding for both current and capital investment. It is also an offence to taxpayers who bailed out the banks that they should be boasting in notes to investors about the value of these deferred tax assets, which are very significant. The Minister wants to put more money into key areas like education, health, housing, social services and infrastructure. He cannot allow the banks to get away scot free in terms of contributing corporation tax.

I am sure the Minister must have been shocked by the statement from the Revenue Commissioners last week about up to ten very large companies. I do not think the statement was referring to the banks because it related to a period before the banks began to return to profitability. That is only happening now and that is why we are raising it now. Notwithstanding the bank levy, it is really wrong to let them get away with it. It is something that the Minister could address and some of that money could be used to provide additional funding for education, health and other areas of badly needed social provision. Our increasing population and the fact that our economy is growing means that we need to invest.

The best thing in a growing economy is to see wages growing strongly. In that context, I would strongly recommend that the Minister reintroduces social partnership. I wish to refer to the teacher unions and the good work that their members did during the recession. In that context, Fine Gael should have a change of heart and positively embrace social partnership and collective agreements that provide for wage growth as well as for agreement on social investment and social provision. Fine Gael should also acknowledge the status of people who work in the public service. It is true that entrepreneurs work hard but so too do public servants. We have an economy that is a mixture of public and private and we want it to stay like that.

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