Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Prior to the summer recess, Deputy Brian Hayes, the Fine Gael spokesman on education, asked the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, about the withdrawal of facilities for Protestant fee-paying schools. He raised this again yesterday in the Dáil. The Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. John Neil, raised this matter at his diocesan synod. I understand the facility was made available to fee-paying Protestant schools by the late Donogh O'Malley, for very good reasons, when free education was introduced. All Governments since then have treated the Protestant fee-paying schools fairly, as stated by Archbishop Neil yesterday.

The Minister for Education and Science has wandered into stormy waters that could be very controversial. Will the Taoiseach state why advice on this matter was sought from the Attorney General given that the system in place operated without any difficulty for the past 40 years? Will he confirm what question was asked of the Attorney General? It appears as if the Minister for Education and Science is saying in his responses to Deputy Brian Hayes that the payment to Protestant fee-paying schools has been unconstitutional in all the years for which it has been made available. Who sought advice from the Attorney General and what question was asked? Does the Taoiseach believe the system that has been in place for 40 years is unconstitutional?

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

This Government, like all its predecessors, is anxious to support minority schools, faith schools and the Protestant community generally. That is our intention at all times. The block grant remains in place and there is no question of its having been removed. It applies to those attending Protestant fee-charging schools and we continue to provide the support. It is a targeted support for individual members of the Protestant community wishing to attend Protestant second level schools.

The issue in question arose in regard to the withdrawal of an ancillary grant last year as part of the measures the Minister had to consider in the context of limited resources. Since last November, he has made it clear to the education committee of the Church of Ireland that he would like to hear from it on the issue of how those schools in rural areas that require support can be targeted, while acknowledging at the same time that there are well-established schools in more urban areas that draw from a wide catchment, similar to Catholic fee-paying schools. It is a question of hearing from the education committee as to how we can better target those schools that require financial support in the interest of maintaining the Protestant ethos in our education system, which we all welcome.

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The Taoiseach did not answer my question. I asked who sought the Attorney General's advice and what question he was asked. The solution is to reinstate the grant, as pointed out by Deputy Brian Hayes yesterday. The block grant is irrelevant to the issue.

Today's The Irish Times quotes Archbishop Neil's remarks at yesterday's diocesan synod where he stated, "It was driven by what amounts to a very determined and doctrinaire effort within the Department of Education and Science to strike at a sector which some officials totally failed to understand." Furthermore, he stated, "It is only now that what was once seen as realism in relation to different and complex situations is being described simply as 'an anomaly'." He also made the point that previous governments had treated these schools in a fair manner and that the same cannot be said of the present Fianna Fáil-Green Party coalition. The Taoiseach's Minister for Education and Science has caused this problem.

I understand from the Department of Finance that it is not a question of the extra grants for the fee-paying Protestant schools but of the fact that the Department of Education and Science lost its case against Protestant schools last year.

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Hear, hear.

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The schools were told they would be got at by the Department of Education and Science. The Taoiseach has direct responsibility for Northern Ireland relations and for good relations between all the churches. These are issues we discuss in the House occasionally. This is a matter in respect of which the Taoiseach should step in, overrule the Minister for Education and Science, who has made an almighty mess of the matter, and reinstate the grants, as Deputy Hayes pointed out yesterday. We do not want claims of sectarianism or discrimination or upheaval considering that the Protestant ethos in this Republic has been recognised and the Protestant minority has been treated fairly by all Governments since the late Donogh O'Malley introduced his free education scheme. This is an issue with which the Taoiseach can deal this morning. In his reply, he can state he will instruct the Minister for Education and Science to restore to fee-paying Protestant schools the grants that have been allocated to them for the past 40 years. It is not an issue concerning the Department of Finance but one of a mood and environment within the Department of Education and Science resulting in an effort to get at Protestant schools. I do not support that and neither should the Taoiseach. I would like him to deal with it now.

Deputies:

Hear, hear.

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I fundamentally disagree with Deputy Kenny. I do not attach mal fides to anyone in this matter. The Minister has indicated that he is conscious that Protestant schools in rural areas may be in a different financial position from larger schools in Dublin. He reiterated yesterday in this House his invitation to the Archbishop and the schools concerned to come forward with proposals-----

Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

He has done nothing.

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

-----that deal, in a targeted manner, with particular problems. He is committed to progressing such proposals in a helpful way. To ascribe mal fides, in the way the Deputy has done, is not responsible or accurate. It is a question of dealing with the issue in a substantive way, recognising that some schools require continuing assistance, which the Minister is anxious to facilitate on the basis of a targeted initiative, and that there are other well-established schools whose needs might not be so great.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

When will the Taoiseach answer the question? What about the Attorney General? The Taoiseach is afraid to answer that question.

Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

When did the Attorney General come into the matter?

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The Taoiseach is fudging the issue.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

A report in today's Irish Independent states that the number of children on hospital waiting lists is increasing and that the number of children who have been waiting for six months or more for procedures has gone up from 1,709 last December to 1,830. Everyone is agreed that there is a shortage of public hospital beds. There is disagreement as to how they are to be provided and some disagreement as to the number required. However, there is general agreement that there is a shortage.

In July 2005, the Minister for Health and Children issued an instruction to the HSE to enter into co-location arrangements for the provision of beds. Sites on the grounds of public hospitals would be made available to property developers, tax incentives would be provided for the construction of private hospitals and those private hospitals would provide 1,000 beds, thereby releasing an equivalent number in the public system. There were, originally, to be ten co-located hospitals. In the programme for Government negotiated in 2008 we were told that the Government would implement the plan for co-located facilities because it represented the quickest and most effective way of ensuring that public capacity was increased and ring-fenced. In May 2008, when I questioned the Taoiseach about this, he wrote to me and stated that approved bidder status had been approved for six of the hospitals and it was expected that project agreements would be signed shortly for three others. In other words, there were to be nine hospitals.

In the programme for Government re-negotiated recently between Fianna Fáil and the Green Party this has been scaled back. The new programme states that the Government will proceed with the current programme of co-location limited to already committed projects under existing project contractual agreements. We know from replies to parliamentary questions that contractual agreements have been signed for four hospitals. The revised programme for Government has scaled back the number of co-located hospitals from nine to four.

First, if the number of co-located hospitals has been reduced from nine to four, how many hospital beds will be provided? The original idea was that 1,000 would be provided. Second, when will construction work begin on the four hospitals? Third, when will we see the first of the beds promised by the Minister, Deputy Mary Harney, in July 2005, when she said the purpose of co-location was to fast-track the provision of hospital beds?

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I do not have information specifically relating to this question, of which I did not have notice. I can contact the Deputy in due course and clarify many of the issues he raises. I do not accept that it is the universal view that there are insufficient beds in the system. What is needed is the utilisation of those beds to best effect. We have seen a big increase in the number of day cases and the length of stay of people requiring surgery has been shortening. Utilisation of existing bed places and greater efficiency and effectiveness has seen an increase in workload in our hospital system.

A report by the ESRI, published today, projects a significant increase in the demand for health care in Ireland, based upon demographic factors. It points out that shifting appropriate treatments from an in-patient to a day-case basis and moving activity which is more appropriate to primary care out of acute hospitals are some of the reforms currently taking place and which must be advanced.

I can obtain specific information for the Deputy in the next few hours. With regard to the general issue of co-location, the whole purpose was to facilitate bringing beds which had been designated as private into the public system by co-locating a private bed complement on co-located sites.

The traditional means of public procurement is also slow. There have been complications with regard to the co-location initiative coming on stream because of the problem in the banking system. There is also the question of ensuring that we proceed with those for which planning permission has been granted and on the basis of finance being provided.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I appreciate that the Taoiseach did not have advance notice of my question, but this subject should be familiar to him. One of the central issues in the last general election was that of hospital beds. There was a debate about the number of beds required. The country was full of posters giving the respective figures. There was also a debate about how they were to be provided.

The solution in the programme for Government was to increase the number of dedicated public hospital beds by 1,500 and to provide 1,000 of those through the co-located hospital scheme. The original number of planned co-located hospitals was nine. This dropped to four in the recently revised programme for Government. How many hospital beds does the Government now intend to provide? Until now it has been accepted as 1,000 and there was a formula for that figure. Four co-located hospitals cannot provide 1,000 beds, which were to have been provided by nine.

Second, what is happening to the co-location arrangement? When will the four hospitals be built and when will we see a bed produced? The HSE was reluctant to go down this road but the Minister for Health and Children instructed the HSE that this was the Government's route. She justified her instruction by saying it would fast-track the provision of hospital beds. That was more than four years ago. We still have not provided a bed and there is no sign of these hospitals being built. Now, under the revised programme for Government, the number of such hospitals is being reduced from nine to four.

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Regarding the changes currently under way, more than 20,000 additional day-case treatments have been delivered by our health services so far this year, compared to the same period last year.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I ask the Taoiseach to stick to the question of beds.

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Deputy Gilmore should read this morning's ESRI report.

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

If it is about increased activity to deal with waiting lists, which was the premise of Deputy Gilmore's question, the idea that they can only be dealt with by the provision of additional beds flies in the face of the facts.

Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

It was the Government parties who said that was the solution.

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The reforms which have been implemented have seen a more efficient and effective utilisation of beds in the system currently.

Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

So the Taoiseach was wrong when he said we needed more beds.

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Those co-located hospitals for which there is project agreement, subject to planning permission and the availability of finance, will proceed. The question of existing bed complements is not a static situation. Efficiencies have been and are being achieved by an increase in the number of day-cases and shorter stays by patients in surgical units.

Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

This has come out of the blue.

Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

It is a cock and bull story.

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

That is the issue. The detail on the up to date position can be provided by way of letter.