Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for raising those various issues.

On waiting lists, the number of people awaiting hospital treatment and who have been waiting to see a specialist for more than three months or who have been waiting for an operation they need for more than three months is 50,000 lower than was the case this time last year. We are seeing progress in respect of some waiting lists, but that does not for a second take away from the fact that this is not the case across the board and that many children are awaiting therapies, psychology appointments and assessments of need. I know it is not acceptable. As I outlined earlier, a huge amount of this relates to the difficulties in recruitment in light of the global shortage of staff in this area. I outlined many of the measures that are being taken to improve the situation, including hiring and training more staff and encouraging recruitment from overseas.

I should clarify that the child poverty and welfare programme office will not be involved in service provision, which is a matter for the relevant public bodies, but it can, for example, carry out research on best practice in other countries and see how that might be applied here.

Deputy Hourigan raised the issue of policing reform and my Department's role in that regard. The implementation plan is being overseen by a programme office in the Department and has now entered its final consolidation phase, with many substantive reforms achieved. The phase is expected to conclude at the end of the year, after which the enhanced statutory governance and accountability framework being introduced under the Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill will have commenced. Major reforms include progressing an operating model for An Garda Síochána designed to streamline Garda administration and provide a more visible, responsive and localised policing service to communities nationwide. That is well advanced and, it is hoped, will increase a feeling of community safety. There are pilots of local community safety partnerships in three locations, namely, Dublin's north inner city, which is in the Deputy's constituency, Waterford city and county and Longford county. There has been the recruitment of nearly 1,800 Garda staff, which has resulted in the reassignment of many gardaí to front-line duties, as well as 5,000 digital communication devices to enable front-line gardaí to perform their duty without having to return to stations. In addition, we have developed a Garda Síochána equality, diversity and inclusion strategy statement and action plan. In terms of legislative reforms, there is the landmark Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill, the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) Bill, which includes provision for body-worn cameras, and the Garda Síochána (powers) Bill, which will modernise police powers around search, arrest and detention.

As regards the question asked by Deputy Barry, let me be clear once again, as I was earlier, no income tax reductions will be funded by curbing or reducing public services. That certainly has not been the case for the past number of years. We have reduced income taxes while increasing spending on public services and public infrastructure. That is what you can achieve if you pursue the right economic policies and achieve economic growth. We have delivered on income tax in recent years. Only a couple of years ago, people earning as little as €33,000 or €34,000 a year paid the highest rate of income tax. That has now gone up to €40,000. What is that worth to a middle-income person earning €35,000 or €40,000 a year? It is worth €1,400 a year. For a couple, it is €2,800 a year. That is how much better off people are every year, at least in terms of take home pay, than they would be under the alternative government opposite.

What does it say in the programme for Government? There is a clear commitment in the programme for Government that we will index tax bands and tax credits should we be able to afford to do so. We can do so and I will be insisting that commitment be honoured. The exact detail as to how it is done is still to be worked out but the commitment in the programme for Government is clear that tax credits and tax bands should be indexed if we can afford to do it. We can afford to do it and that is why there will be a tax package in the next budget, as well as a welfare and pensions packages and all the things one would expect to see in any budget in normal times.

On the issue of energy companies and a windfall tax, that is being worked on at the moment. We intend to have it in place for September. That will allow us to recoup some of those profits and give them back to households and businesses to help them with energy bills. I do not know about the profits of SSE. I suspect some of those profits were overseas and not in Ireland but I do not know that for sure. As regards ESB, we have taken a special dividend from ESB of approximately €300 billion, taking back some of the profits it had not expected to make.

I cannot comment on the case raised by Deputy Boyd Barrett. It is an individual case and I do not know the facts. As I said before, however, not all notices to quit are valid. In fact, a large number of notices to quit are not valid. It is incorrect to describe them as eviction notices for that specific reason. I certainly encourage anyone to challenge a notice to quit that is not valid.

I cannot answer the question asked by Deputy Murphy as I am not familiar with the details.

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