Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have some questions on the Bill which I hope the Minister will address. There is a great deal of speculation about a possible vaccine for Covid-19. Hopefully it will start to bring the virus under control but priority must be given to encouraging the maximum uptake possible, including among young people, when it becomes available. Vaccine hesitancy is a major issue that will arise. It will come very much into focus in the coming weeks and months. An issue that will arise soon is that of indemnity for suppliers of those vaccines. Will the Minister clarify if indemnity has yet been sought from any of the manufacturers? There is always a risk with any vaccine. That risk may be very small, particularly compared to the risk of not being vaccinated, but it must be acknowledged. However, we are one of the few, if not the only country, in the European Union that has failed to introduce a national vaccine injury compensation scheme for adverse reactions, if they occur. Sadly, the approach in this country has been to brush this problem under the carpet and to force victims and their families through long years of legal battles which ultimately only benefit the legal profession, not the patient.

Back in the spring of 2002, 18 years ago, I had a meeting with the then Minister for Health, now the Taoiseach, with Margaret Best from Cork. The then Minister, Deputy Micheál Martin, gave a commitment to investigate the feasibility of providing support for parents but especially their children who had been damaged by State-run vaccination programmes. That ultimately led to the vaccine damage steering groups whose report was published in 2009. Eleven years later, we are still looking at this issue and still sweeping it under the carpet. We are still forcing patients to go to the courts to find fault where no fault exists just to get an acknowledgement of what happened them. That is wrong. I will continue to raise this until it is addressed. I would rather not have to raise it in the House as we deal with the roll out of the Covid-19 vaccine. I will advocate that people should take the vaccine when it becomes available but I will not allow the issue be brushed under the carpet any longer. I hope that during the process of the passage of this legislation that the funds are put in place to establish such a compensation scheme.

The second issue relates to section 6 of the Bill which refers to providing an exemption from income tax for payments under the mobility allowance. I welcome that provision but only a small number of people are eligible for the allowance because it was suspended eight years ago. Only people in receipt of the allowance eight years ago are eligible for this incentive. The allowance was suspended at the same time as the motorised transport grant, two of only three supports that were available for people with a physical disability who did not have access to public transport. The third support was the disabled driver scheme which has now been suspended because no new applicants can go into it because they cannot get a primary medical certificate as the Minister for Finance instructed the HSE to suspend processing those on foot of a court decision. This means that anyone who has a physical disability from this day forward is effectively marooned in their home if they do not have direct access to public transport. It might be someone who was involved in an accident, say someone who was unfortunately involved in a farm accident, who is marooned because he or she does not have the financial resources to adapt a car or purchase a new accessible car and no scheme is available. Will the Minister update the House on when primary medical certificates will be issued once again? What provision is being made in this legislation to address that?

The third issue, which I will raise in more detail on Committee Stage, relates to the supports that must be put in place across the midlands with the closure of Lanesborough and Shannonbridge power stations. Twelve months ago, during the passage of the Finance Bill, I put forward proposals that were rejected. The Government has had 12 months to come forward with constructive proposals. This Bill has no specific proposals for the communities that are being decimated by the closure not only of the two power stations but the 20 Bord na Móna works sites across the midlands, including in the Minister of State's constituency, that will be wound down as a result of the move from brown to green. It is a move that I agreed with and worked on with Bord na Móna but one that was supposed to be a transition over a decade, not 12 months. I am disappointed that Kieran Mulvey, the Government-appointed just transition commissioner, has been quite critical of the fact that the Government has not sought changes to EU state aid rules. He told a conference late last month that there is an urgent need to change state aid rules to better support local authorities, businesses and communities in the midlands moving away from reliance on peat production towards the just transition. He went on to point out that there is absolutely no point in encouraging local communities to think big and come up with innovative solutions if they will be blocked in developing those innovative solutions in creating jobs in their local community because it breaches state aid rules or has an impact on competition rules.

The European Committee of the Regions produced a report earlier this year which stated that changes are needed to the state aid rules. However, the responsibility and onus is on the Government to seek those changes for the midlands region in order to support local jobs there. It is imperative that we have very specific and focused incentives in the Finance Bill to stimulate job creation in that area. I accept that the issue may not have got the priority it should have because of the Covid-19 crisis, but we are now weeks away from the closure of the power stations to which I referred. The Government must pull up its socks and provide the types of incentives that are needed.

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