Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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5. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the strategic goals of his Department's Strategy Statement 2021-2023; and if he plans to update them. [20328/23]

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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6. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the strategic goals of his Department's Strategy Statement 2021-2023; and if he plans to update them. [22855/23]

Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party)
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7. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the strategic goals of his Department's Strategy Statement 2021-2023. [24231/23]

Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
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8. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the strategic goals of his Department's Strategy Statement 2021-2023; and if he plans to update same. [22804/23]

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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9. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the strategic goals of his Department’s Strategy Statement 2021-2023; and if he plans to update them. [22864/23]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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10. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the strategic goals of his Department’s Strategy Statement 2021-2023. [23071/23]

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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11. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the strategic goals of his Department’s Strategy Statement 2021-2023. [23073/23]

Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail)
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12. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the goals of his Department’s Strategy Statement 2021-2023. [23075/23]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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13. To ask the Taoiseach when his Department will publish a new Strategy Statement. [23215/23]

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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14. To ask the Taoiseach his intention to establish additional units or divisions in his Department to those outlined in the Programme for Government. [24618/23]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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15. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the strategic goals of his Department’s Strategy Statement 2021-2023; and if he plans to update those goals. [24730/23]

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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16. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the strategic goals of his Department’s Strategy Statement 2021-2023; and if he plans to update those goals. [24733/23]

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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17. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the strategic goals of his Department’s Strategy Statement 2021-2023; and if he plans to update those goals. [24736/23]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 5 to 17, inclusive, together. The priorities set out in the Department's Statement of Strategy 2021-2023, reflect the role of the Department to assist me as Taoiseach and the Government to ensure a sustainable economy and a successful society, to pursue Ireland’s interests abroad, to implement the Government’s programme, and to build a better future for Ireland and all its citizens. In accordance with the provisions of the Public Service Management Act 1997 the Department of the Taoiseach is currently developing its new statement of strategy for the three-year period from 2023 to 2025. This will reflect the important role of the Department in advancing national whole-of-Government priorities over the coming period.

On housing, we will continue to drive progress on the Housing for All plan. The Government has recently agreed on extra measures to make it cheaper to build and refurbish homes, speed up home building and drive down building costs. These measures will build on the momentum we are already seeing with work starting on a record number of 7,349 homes in the first three months of the year and 10,000 in the first four months.

On the cost of living, the Government is helping households and businesses through recent targeted welfare, childcare and education measures, on top of substantial provisions in budget 2023, including the temporary energy business support scheme, TBESS. Poverty restricts a child’s opportunity. Our vision is to make Ireland the best country in Europe to be a child. The new child poverty and wellbeing programme office has been established in the Department of the Taoiseach. It will enhance co-ordination across the Government, provide strategic leadership and bring enhanced accountability to the child poverty reduction agenda.

The humanitarian response to the war in Ukraine is being led at senior levels across the Government, at a national and local level. To manage increasing pressures on accommodation and services, a cross-departmental senior officials group in the Department of the Taoiseach is co-ordinating actions agreed by the Government. Sourcing suitable accommodation on an ongoing basis, at scale and at speed is extremely challenging. Since the start of this war, more than 83,000 people arriving from Ukraine have availed of temporary protection in Ireland.

The programme for Government sets out a strong framework for climate action and places it at the heart of the work of all Departments. The Department exercises a leadership role to ensure climate action is an important area across all Government Departments. Last week, the Cabinet approved the 2023 public sector climate action mandate, which will see the public sector playing a leadership role as a catalyst and advocate for ambitious climate action across the building, transport, waste and energy sectors.

We recently marked Europe Day, which had an extra significance for Ireland this year, marking fifty years as a member of the European Union. Our membership has played an important part in our country’s development since 1973 and has proven a dependable partner to our nation in the past and recent turbulent times. The Windsor Framework, which was recently agreed between the EU and the UK, can play an essential role in protecting the Good Friday Agreement and in providing economic opportunities to Northern Ireland. My focus now is on getting the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement up and running, across all three strands. The shared island unit has been engaging with all communities through a comprehensive dialogue series on how we could better share this island. It has also been commissioning research to deepen the understanding of the whole island, in economic, social, cultural and political terms.

Over the past two years, we have allocated nearly €200 million from the fund to projects and investments that respond to the common interests and concerns of people right across the island, including climate action and biodiversity conservation, regional development, innovation and deepening our societal connections. Both the shared island unit and social dialogue unit were established as provided for in the programme for Government.

Ten Cabinet committees that reflect the range of cross-Government priorities that the Government will continue to advance in its lifetime have been established. The Department’s new strategy will be finalised and published over the coming weeks.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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As quite a few Members wish to contribute, I request that they all be brief and stick to one minute each if possible. I call Deputy McDonald.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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There are 4,500 young people waiting for first-time child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, appointments. That is an increase of 112% since the Government took office. This is despite the number of children with medical referrals being refused by CAMHS having jumped by 12% in the same period. There are 11,000 children awaiting appointments for primary care psychology, more than 4,000 of whom have been waiting over a year. It is hard to fathom how child well-being could decline so radically under this Government if it is actually a whole-of-government priority. A survey was undertaken by the Disability Federation of Ireland within the community healthcare west area. One person who participated in this reported that their son was referred to primary care occupational therapy in October 2020 but still has not been seen. They were told last week that they will wait another two years. Another person whose preverbal five-and-a-half-year-old son was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, ASD, when he was three. He has never seen anyone in the public system. Cara Darmody was referred to earlier today. She is a 12-year-old child campaigner from Tipperary. She is here in Leinster House again today to raise issues on behalf of her brothers and the other thousands of children who continue to be failed. In what tangible way will this new unit address these catastrophic failures?

Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party)
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Under core activities in the statement of strategy, policing reform and community safety are cited four times. This week, the Commissioner of An Garda Síochána stated that the far right is not growing. That may appear to be the case from the Commissioner's office, but to migrants it very much feels like it is growing. The Constitution protects the right of people who live in this county to conduct themselves without being harassed or intimidated. Legal protections for the right to protest do not apply if protestors behave in a threatening manner or use violence. I draw the Taoiseach's attention to the fact that 2022 was the worst year across Europe in the context of attacks on people from the LGBTQI community. These two issues are not unrelated. Hate crimes are up by 30% in this country. What is the Department of the Taoiseach doing in the context of policing reform and community safety to ensure that people feel safe?

Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
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The socialist left does not accept the framing of the prebudget debate as an either-or between public spending increases and tax cuts for middle-income workers. We say that both should be done at the expense of higher taxes on high earners and profits. I want to ask about proposed the €1,000 tax that will be put back in workers' pockets at budget time. I suspect that Fine Gael is all talk and no action on this. After all, in 2016, the then Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform promised that the universal social charge would be abolished. Seven years on, the charge is still there. Is the Taoiseach prepared to scrap the universal social contribution for every individual earning less than €100,000 a year and create a new 30% tax rate that would be paid for not by curbing spending on public services but by extending the tax base by putting in place a new 50% tax rate for those earning more than €100,000?

Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail)
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I want to know about the strategy we are putting in place to tackle the astronomical profits being collected by energy companies. This morning, we learned that SSE Airtricity, one of the providers in the Irish market, accrued profits of €2.18 billion. That comes after the ESB recording 12-month profits of €847 million. This is all in the context of historic increases in energy and electricity bills. There are two things we can do straight away. First, many people now have smart meters but at the moment, the cheaper rate, namely, the night-time rate, begins at 11 p.m. We need to put pressure on the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, to bring the time forward to 8 p.m. in order that more people can avail of the cheaper rates. In addition, the companies should be forced to introduce cheaper rates. Second, we need to expedite the windfall tax legislation in order that these massive profits can be given back to people in the form of credits or whatever to ease the burden on consumers, both households and businesses.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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How can we ensure that children, people and families can have access to a No Wrong Door system in the context of being able to access the autism therapies and assessments they require? This needs to happen, because we know there are silos in operation, particularly in the context of primary care, children's disability network teams or CAMHS. People are not worried about where they access the service, once they can access it. We all accept that there is an issue in regard to workforce planning and that positions remain unfilled. However, we need to make a determination regarding the best service that we can offer while trying to rectify the other issues. We need to put a plan in place because we are failing people. There is not a lot of trust out there and that is a major issue.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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John Barry is a Limerick man in his 60s who had to retire following a heart attack and who subsequently suffered a debilitating brain injury. Mr. Barry has been given notice to quit by his landlord who had a long-term leasing arrangement with Limerick City and County Council. The landlord is evicting Mr. Barry on the grounds that he needs to move a family member into the property, while at the same time advertising another property we owns as being available to rent. This is clearly a disgraceful ruse. The landlord was in an arrangement, a contract, with Limerick City and County Council. Of course, the eviction notice came after the tenant won a case before the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, concerning the fact that the landlord was overcharging him for gas. Mr. Barry is being evicted on grounds of retaliation. The issue raised with me by people in Limerick who are helping Mr. Barry is that the landlord has managed to pull out of a contract he had with Limerick City and County Council for a long-term lease at 21 days' notice. Why is that allowed? Why is this treatment of Mr. Barry, a vulnerable, elderly man with disabilities, allowed? Why would the contract arrangements relating to the lease allow a landlord to evict someone? These contracts should be much firmer.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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I wish to ask the Taoiseach whether his strategic goals include allowing Ministers to mislead the Dáil. In February 2022, the Minister, Deputy Coveney, appeared before the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence in regard to an event that had taken place at Iveagh House. He was asked three times by myself and Deputy John Brady whether he had deleted any texts relating to that event. His replied, "I have not deleted any texts" and "All I can say is that I have not deleted any texts". In response to a question as to whether he had deleted any texts, he simply said "No". However, two months ago, the Office of the Information Commissioner issued a decision in regard to a freedom of information appeal relating to these matters. It indicated that the Minister's special adviser had said that the Minister had deleted a text message from this device and claimed that the sender was "trolling the Minister". The so-called troll was actually the journalist who exposed the breach of public health guidelines at Iveagh House in the first place and was of sufficient standing for the Department of Foreign Affairs to engage with comprehensively. Does the Taoiseach agree that the Minister, Deputy Coveney, should correct the record of the house?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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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.