Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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4. To ask the Taoiseach the number of Cabinet Committee meetings he attended in January 2018. [6906/18]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 4 and 5 together.

I chaired meetings of Cabinet committees A and G in January, and to date in February I have chaired meetings of committees D, F and C. It is a short answer.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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When the Taoiseach changed the names and responsibilities of the Cabinet committees, he stated that they would be focused on driving forward delivery of policies. At around the same time, the Taoiseach talked about making sure the public would see concrete outcomes on specific problems. One striking aspect of what has happened since then is the emphasis has been on talking about process and promises without any concrete link to service targets. Soon after Deputy Harris, for example, took over the Department of Health, he announced that the health strategy, launched by the former Minister, Senator Reilly, and being implemented by Deputy Harris' predecessor, the Taoiseach, was to be abandoned. In its place is due to come an official response to the Sláintecare report. Can the Taoiseach explain how the Government could determine the capital investment needs of the health sector before it has decided on the overall health policies?

More importantly, can the Taoiseach tell us which specific service levels the Government is promising to achieve with the announced investments? In the area of mental health, there has been a sustained failure to deliver on core service commitments. We received absolute assurances from the Taoiseach's predecessor and from the Taoiseach that targets would be met but, unfortunately, they have not been met. All we have heard is the usual hand-wringing from Government and that it is someone else's fault. It is a serious issue in terms of the non-filling of posts across the mental health service. Are there specific service level commitments which the Taoiseach is willing to stand over because I happen to know that the little due diligence that has been done on some of the physical infrastructure investments has been done in the context of an overall assessment of health needs in given areas, such as chronic illness and the growing ageing demographic. There are very serious issues in terms of how these investments have been announced in the absence of that kind of service level assessment.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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The Taoiseach's response was brief.

Last week, the Taoiseach avoided the question put to him in relation to the establishment of a Cabinet committee on Irish unity. The Taoiseach rightly talked about his Government's and his personal commitment to the Good Friday Agreement. Sinn Féin is equally committed to the Good Friday Agreement. However, we also believe that we need to prepare for Irish unity. I note the comments of the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, during the Fine Gael leadership election where he stated in his policy document, "We need to prepare for the possibility that a United Ireland or shared sovereignty will occur in our lifetime.", and he is dead right. That work should begin as soon as possible. I ask the Taoiseach if he will examine the merit of establishing a dedicated Cabinet committee to discuss this issue in terms of how a new agreed Ireland would look and how we will plan for that.

I also want to ask whether the issue of the money messages has presented itself at any of these Cabinet meetings. As the Taoiseach will be aware, there are 27 pieces of legislation currently that have passed Second Stage in this House, some of them unanimously. These are the Banded Hours Contract Bill 2016, the Cannabis for Medicinal Use Regulation Bill 2016, the Consumer Insurance Contracts Bill 2017, the Coroners Bill 2015, the Criminal Justice (Aggravation by Prejudice) Bill 2016, the Education (Amendment) Bill 2015, the Electoral (Amendment) Bill, the Employment Equality (Abolition of Mandatory Retirement Age) Bill 2016, the Flood Insurance Bill 2016, the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017, the Housing (Homeless Families) Bill 2017, the Island Fisheries (Heritage Licence) Bill 2017, the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2016, the Local Government (Establishment of Town Councils Commission) Bill 2017, the Mortgage Arrears Resolution (Family Home) Bill 2017, the Multi-Party Actions Bill 2017, the National Famine Commemoration Day Bill 2017, the Online Advertising and Social Media (Transparency) Bill 2017, the Pensions (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2017, the Prisons (Solitary Confinement) (Amendment) Bill 2016, the prohibition Bill, the Protection of Employees (Collective Redundancies) Bill 2017, the Public Services and Procurement (Social Value) Bill 2017, the Residential Institutions Statutory Fund (Amendment) Bill 2016, the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Bill 2018, the Vacant Housing Refurbishment Bill 2017 and the Waste Reduction Bill 2017. All of those were passed by this House, some of them unanimously. One of those is a Bill that I myself brought forward. To let the Taoiseach know what that Bill does, the Consumer Insurance Contracts Bill 2017 ensures that insurance companies cannot wriggle out of paying a claim. If a person's house, for example, was hit by lightning and burnt to the ground and the assessor found that the burglar alarm was faulty which would have nothing to do with the claim whatsoever, on that basis they can wriggle their way out of it. Why is the Cabinet delaying and subverting the will of the Dáil, which is that these pieces of legislation would proceed to Committee Stage?

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I ask the Taoiseach specifically in relation to the Cabinet committee dealing with health and the Cabinet subcommittee dealing with children. In relation to health, it is difficult to understand, in the context of both Sláintecare which the Government has agreed to and the previous plans, what is happening. For example, the 100-bed unit for older people which was promised to be built in Connolly Hospital has hardly progressed at all. Given that it is in the Taoiseach's constituency and mine, could he tell us what is happening to such projects? We know they are in the grand plan but by now they should be well progressed, and there is a significant demand for the services. Moreover, I visited Connolly Hospital this morning and there is considerable concern among the staff, the patients and their relatives that some of the units dealing with older people are either to be closed or amalgamated. This is entirely at odds with what was laid out in the plan that was put forward when I was in government and the Taoiseach was Minister for Health to have a 100-bed unit. Instead of having more provision, it looks like there will be a closure.

The second question I want to ask is about child care which is raised constantly with me by young families in areas such as Castleknock. In many suburbs, towns and cities, crèche providers are refusing to take part in the second year of the early childhood education and fees for those crèches are being raised. As the young families concerned are also struggling to pay mortgages, in terms of the grandiose long-term plans, the issue is what in the meantime the Government will do in relation to the difficulties being experienced by parents with small children who would use crèches and want to use the first and second year of the early childhood education. They are being left completely bereft of anyone whom they can go to. Has the Government sat down to discuss this major issue for parents with young children right across Ireland?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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In relation to the assessment of capital needs in the health sector, that was very much covered by the capacity review that was commissioned by the Minister for Health. The capacity review was in the programme for Government. It is referenced specifically in the Sláintecare report. The capacity review was published in January. It outlines the kind of increase in capacity that we need in terms of acute hospital beds, critical care, social care beds for the elderly and also what is likely to be required in terms of increases in staffing levels in primary care and other areas. That capacity review very much informed the NDP and Project Ireland 2040. In addition, of course, we already know what we need in terms of ICT investment in the health service because that was covered in the eHealth analysis which was published before that.

It is fair to say that what is put in Project Ireland 2040 for health is very much evidence-based and very much based on those reports and reviews. What we see in health is a commitment of almost €11 billion over ten years, doubling the capital expenditure for health over ten years and allowing us to make those game-changing investments that are needed in areas such as information and communication technology which is really in deficit in the health service, the acute hospitals and primary care.

Service level commitments are in the HSE service plan for 2018 but we do not have any long-term service level commitments. Deputy Micheál Martin makes a valid point in that regard. Perhaps that is something that we need to put into the Sláintecare implementation report as to how we believe this ongoing increase in spending and ongoing investment in health infrastructure should result in outcomes for patients because that is what matters most. When we talk about outcomes for patients, it should not only be about waiting lists and overcrowding, important as those issues are. We need to talk about matters such as patient experience and survival rates for cancer which are important too.

In terms of the establishment of a Cabinet committee on Irish unity, that is not a good idea. First, there is not a majority in Northern Ireland at present in favour of a united Ireland.

We are in the middle of very sensitive Brexit negotiations and may continue to be for a number of months, perhaps even more than a year. We are trying to defend the Good Friday Agreement from some who are seeking to undermine it. We are also trying to get the Assembly and the Executive up and running. The establishment now of a Cabinet committee on Irish unity would be unhelpful in our efforts to defend the Good Friday Agreement in that we would be saying we are looking beyond it. We are not. The Good Friday Agreement is the best way forward for Northern Ireland. I also think it would be provocative towards unionism. While there may be occasions on which one may need to provoke people, I would not do it for the sake of setting up a Cabinet committee. It would have to be something that would result in a real outcome for people. This is why I do not favour a Cabinet committee on Irish unity.

Regarding the Good Friday Agreement more generally, the Government is absolutely committed to the agreement. It is an international agreement. It is in part made up of the British-Irish Agreement, after all, between two sovereign states. I have noted that some hardline Brexiteers, albeit not members of the British Government, have sought to undermine the Good Friday Agreement in recent weeks. I further note that these are the same people who insist that we must respect the result of their referendum, which was approximately 52% to 48% in favour of Brexit, and we do respect that. However, I remind them that we had a referendum as well on the Good Friday Agreement, for which 94% of people in this jurisdiction and 71% of people in Northern Ireland voted. I therefore ask these people to respect our referendums and the sovereign and democratic will of people in Northern Ireland and Ireland with regard to the Good Friday Agreement. I very much welcome the statement made by the Secretary of State, Karen Bradley, in the House of Commons yesterday in which she boldly stated that the UK Government is steadfast behind the Good Friday Agreement, whatever some other people may say.

I think there is a problem with money messages. A huge amount of legislation of variable quality is coming through this House and no money has been voted by the Oireachtas to implement any of it. We have a huge disparity between the quality of legislation that comes from Government and that which comes from the Opposition and the rules in this regard. An Opposition Member, or a Private Member sitting on the Government benches, can produce a Bill on Thursday, publish it on Friday and have it debated in the Dáil and passed through Second Stage the following week. The Government cannot do that. It must ordinarily produce heads, then draft the legislation in consultation with the Attorney General's office and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, have the Bill go through pre-legislative scrutiny, publish the Bill and have it debated in this House. That is the proper way to do things, and there should be equality of standards between what is produced as a Private Members' Bill and what is produced as a Government Bill. We should not accept a lower standard of legislation from the Opposition or from Private Members than we expect from our Government. A former Secretary General, Mr. Dunning, did a report in which he put forward very workable proposals as to how we can improve things in order that we have less legislation coming through but legislation of a quality that could become law. I encourage those parties that have not yet accepted that report to do so. We will then be able to make changes and get more Private Members' legislation through and I will be in a position to issue money messages.

I will have to follow up on the 100-bed unit for older people in Connolly. I am not sure what is the up-to-date picture. My recollection is the same as Deputy Burton's, that is, that it was to be built and that the older units would not be closed until it was built, but I welcome the reminder about this important local issue and I will definitely follow up on it today.

Deputy Martin mentioned earlier the issue of the selection of the President of the European Commission. I support the Spitzenkandidat system. It is a good system. I think it is more democratic to allow the outcome-----

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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We have had no debate on it here.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I do not think it requires a protracted debate-----

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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We have had none.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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-----but it is a good system. We used it the last time and we should use it again.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Do we have time for the third grouping of questions?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I would certainly welcome Deputy Martin's views and the views of other parties on the matter. I believe the results of the European Parliament elections should be reflected in the selection of the Commission President.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I thank the Taoiseach. We need to move to the third grouping of questions, beginning with Question No. 6.