Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Seo an chéad uair go bhfuil mé sa Seomra agus an Leas-Cheann Comhairle sa Chathaoir. Guím comhghairdeas agus gach rath di ar a post nua. This is a timely debate and I have been listening to many of the contributions from my office. It is now six months since the first phase of the first lockdown. We are coming up to the preparation of the budget. This morning's report from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council is useful in considering the direction of public expenditure around Covid and what we need to do in budget 2021, particularly the provision of income supports for people and businesses to allow business owners to maintain businesses, employment levels and a connection between employers and employees as we move on.

The various schemes that were introduced are a tribute to our public service because they were introduced very quickly and many people got assistance overnight through hard work, often done remotely at home and without the back-up of facilities. That happened in many Departments, but particularly in the Departments of Employment Affairs and Social Protections, Health, and Business, Enterprise and Innovation. People in those Departments worked incredibly hard to give that assistance and are deserving of thanks and praise.

We must now take stock, look at those supports and make sure that they are relevant and flexible, particularly for business. As market and employment conditions are changing - in some cases on a weekly basis as we move into different lockdown rules - it is important that businesses can respond using the employment subsidy scheme and that Revenue will respond to them. Revenue has been helpful in the information it has provided but we need to make sure that helpfulness and the adaptability of the scheme continue as we move into different phases of the management of Covid.

There are similar requirements for income supports. Different areas are under different pressures and some people do not have a chance to go back to work. There should be some element of flexibility around their payments. Many Deputies have spoken about this and we have all received emails and had interactions with members of the artistic, cultural and entertainment community who will, more than likely, not be able to make any money until well into next year. They have responded to the difficulties they face with innovation and creativity through online performances but those will not realistically provide the kind of income those people need.

Flexibility is needed for members of that community as they struggle on because we will need them. In fact, we need them now. Their performances have supported and lifted us in many and various ways and we will need that as we proceed forward.

Various other businesses are also subject to similar restrictions. We must ensure that the decisions we make and the supports we put in place will maintain economies and businesses until we have a vaccine for Covid. We all love our tourism industry when it is going well, but we need to ensure that the decisions taken now will keep its infrastructure in place. I refer to accommodation, coaches and buses, and visitor attractions throughout the country. If we do not support those in the industry now, they will not be there when tourism returns to normality in 2021 or 2022 and we will be scrambling to put the infrastructure back in place.

Equally, however, it is time to look differently at such infrastructure and to make capital investments. I welcome the commitment of the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, to establishing gateways, walkways, cycleways and so on not just as facilities for tourism but as facilities for day-to-day living in our towns and cities, which we now have to reimagine. Our towns and cities have grown shabby because resources have not been available to expend on them. Many community groups have stepped into the breach to try to keep them going, but let us use this time to reimagine them. Let us make them accessible, let us develop greenways and cycleways and let us make them disability-friendly and sensory-friendly. Let us make the kind of capital investments now that will sustain local employment in companies that carry out that kind of work while also giving us town centres, city centres and communities that are attractive to be part of, to do business in, to visit and to spend time in. This is the time to reimagine how we do that kind of thing.

We need to look at our airports in a similar way. As an island nation, our airports are incredibly important to us but the decimation of international aviation has left them on a precipice. In addition to the State airports are the regional airports, such as Ireland West Airport Knock and others, which are essential to the economy and to social interaction. These airports need support to ensure their infrastructure will still be there as we rebuild our country and society. In his role as Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, I ask Deputy Ryan to engage with airports and not to forget the non-DAA airports. These are also an essential part of our infrastructure and deserve the same support.

The programme for Government includes an opportunity to review the national development plan. This should be looked at in a post-Covid environment but also, as was intended during programme for Government negotiations, through the prism of a new, climate-friendly environment. We should look at projects that will allow society to adapt not only to the context of Covid but also to new ways of living to reduce our own emissions and those of our society and communities. That will involve building up the regional economy to take pressure off our societies and looking at the mindset that has evolved over the past six months as regards regional, home-based working or remote working. I hate to use the phrase "remote working" because, while it is a technical phrase, it seems to downgrade the work done. This work is still as important as it was even if it can be done from home. Many people and employers now see that it is a productive way to do work.

We need to facilitate communities in this regard. We need to facilitate rural communities by getting broadband connection points up and running quickly and by providing workspaces in rural areas so that people will have the option to leave their homes and go to a centre to benefit from the collegiality of work without leaving their communities. Many people would take the opportunity to relocate to areas to which they may not have been able to relocate before now that has arisen because of the change of attitudes regarding remote working and the increased appreciation of its productivity. We need, however, to put infrastructure in place to support it. We need to make that investment.

Throughout the crisis, we have seen substantial extra investment in areas such as health and education. The fact that this year's winter plan is worth €600 million compared with €27 million last year gives an indication of the pressure under which our health service is now and will be over the coming weeks. We must ensure this money is invested in community-based services in line with Sláintecare. Our community GPs must be empowered to make bigger decisions and given the resources they need. They must also be given out-of-hours support because many rural GPs do not have appropriate out-of-hours support and are considerably overworked. This makes it more difficult to fill GP posts.

We also have a fantastic network of district hospitals which are completely underused. They should be used more and extra beds should be opened to reduce the pressure on our acute hospitals. There are beds in Ballina, Belmullet and Swinford that could be opened and staffed to take the pressure off Mayo University Hospital. Basic services such as X-rays, physiotherapy and mental health consultations could be provided at district level so that people would not be required to travel in to Mayo University Hospital or University Hospital Galway. It would take the pressure off these hospitals. They should be focused.

Our disability day services and mental health services are still not properly up and running again. I was concerned to see that, when people had to be put into contact tracing urgently, people working in the therapies were used to fill those roles, which again adds to the waiting lists which have built up because of the shutdown. It seemed incredibly strange to use therapists to fill those roles when there is no shortage of administrative staff in the area. This has added to the misery of patients who are on waiting lists and we cannot allow it to happen again. We have to invest in those services, in dealing with those waiting lists, and in putting extra people in place. Let us take the opportunity provided by this increased investment to do so.

In education, it is a great tribute to school communities, to the Minister, Deputy Foley, and to her officials that our schools are back up and running. One thing that struck me about the entire response, not just in education but across the system, is that things we were told could not be done at this time last year could be done. With regard to education, we were told assistants could not be provided to help schools reopen, but we now have them. There has been considerable investment in cleaning and sanitation right across this space. Let us never again accept that something cannot be done because of rules. When we apply imagination and urgency in the public interest, those rules get changed. We have learned a lot about that from Covid. We need to take time to take stock of where that can be done.

We have to guarantee that our education communities will maintain the same access to PPE resources and cleaning and sanitation equipment as they have at the moment. We need to make sure they retain the teaching and administration supports they were given to get them open in order to keep them open. We also still have an issue with regard to school transport. Even though substantial investments have been made, these have not resolved the challenge presented by the 50% capacity guidelines at secondary school level. Many families are greatly inconvenienced as a consequence and are unable to get back to work and to participating in their communities. Until we resolve that, we will not be able to get our education system fully back up and running.

The forthcoming budget will give us a chance to look at the next 12 months and their consequences, but we also need to be ambitious with regard to the national economic plan and the national development plan. We need to look at capital programmes that will create a basis for our economic and societal recovery and at bringing forward investments in important road projects. In my region, such projects include the N26, the N5 and the R312. These are not luxury projects but they connect communities, make our lives easier and allow industry to flourish.

There are also non-road projects to be looked at. We need to move and to give people opportunities through initiatives such as the western rail corridor. The Minister has been very generous with his time in discussing this project with us and he knows its value. It will be transformative for the west as regards rail access for passengers and freight and linking us with our regional capital of Galway for medical and educational appointments. It will also allow us to reimagine how freight is transported in and out of the west. This key project will send a signal as to the ambition of this country and show that we are rebalancing and using the Atlantic economic corridor to do so.

Many issues have arisen in the past six months which have changed the way we do things for the better. There are still things on which we are dragging along and which we are not doing properly, but more of this kind of debate will give us the chance to look at this while we get our committee system up and running. I wish both Ministers well as we proceed towards the budget and the review of the national development plan.

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