John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister to the House. He has gone through the Estimates in detail and I wish to deal with the allocations for the different Departments. I was struck by some of the Minister's remarks. Those who have examined these Estimates and those announced by his predecessor over the past six or seven years have remarked that they show a lack of any obvious effort at improving the standard of public service and any root and branch reform of the public service as delivered to the consumer. Both the Minister and his predecessor have failed to make any genuine effort at reforming the critical public services of health, education and justice. The Minister stated in his opening remarks that throwing money at problems will not resolve them. He is right and everybody in this House would agree with that comment. However, in his remarks he made a great play on the fact that in the time the current Government has been in office, it has more than doubled public spending. The Minister cannot have it both ways. However, it is nothing new for this Government to try to have its bread buttered on both sides.

The Minister outlined the 32,000 extra positions that have been created in the health service. He found no difficulty in stating that only 6,500 of these were new nursing positions. Where are the other 75%? The vast majority consist of administrative staff in the health boards. Consumers of the service in 1997 and those who are still using it today would say the service has disimproved. Why has that happened during a period when there has been such significant increase in public funding for the health service? Why has it happened that the health service workforce has increased by 50% yet the service has disimproved? How is it when one walks into an accident and emergency department in this city or anywhere in the country, one would be lucky to get a seat in a waiting room let alone a trolley in a corridor? However, money is being lashed at the service. To make the remark that throwing money at problems does not resolve them is something with which we all agree but the Minister should put it into practice. His Department and other Ministers in the Government should also put it into practice. Deputy Cowen is a former Minister for Health and Children.

The Minister spoke about the value and importance of child benefit. Over the past two budgets since the Government was re-elected it has reneged on the commitment to increase child benefit. It has not done what was promised in An Agreed Programme for Government and in the election manifestos. These Estimates are big on talk and low on delivery.

In 2005 there will be a total of 92 extra gardaí on the streets despite all the waffle and hot air from the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform about the 2,000 extra gardaí he promised to deliver. The extra allocation of money to the general medical service will at best raise the number of persons under 70 with some access to primary care from 23% to 28%. This is far short of the position in 1997 when 31.5% of this group qualified for the full medical card. Primary care will still remain a costly luxury for the low paid. The capacity problems in our hospitals are not being confronted, with capital budgets down sharply for a second year in a row. The often-repeated commitment of the Taoiseach to deliver on our commitments in respect of overseas development aid has been abandoned and cast adrift. The Government's capacity to deliver in the infrastructural area is unravelling. For the second year in a row there will be a real cut in the amount of infrastructural investment. Last year the Government proved unable to spend almost €350 million of the budget assigned for critical infrastructure.

Those who hoped that the era of stealth taxes was over will be disappointed by these Estimates. The imposition of a substantial real cut in the funds available to local authorities, will lead to substantial increases in commercial rates, possible increases in development charges and other charges by which local authorities will seek to gain revenue to make up the balance that has been lost in these Estimates. These Estimates do not mark a period of serious reform in the approach to public spending. The same problems that have made budget day such a charade, persist. All the focus is on small changes in individual budgets rather than root and branch reform.

The Estimates will bring the increase in current spending by this Government to €21,000 million since 1997, as outlined by the Minister in his opening remarks. The only innovation in this year's budget will be the announcements in respect of capital spending projects. There is an even further move away from the notion of an integrated infrastructural plan centred on the spatial strategy, with projects selected on the grounds of sound appraisal. Instead these capital projects are now to be thrown around the Cabinet table in a horse trading exercise with Ministers jockeying to be the first to the local newspapers with the happy announcement. This happened last year in the Minister's own constituency in the case of Deputy Parlon, his ministerial colleague.

I wish to refer to specific Departments. The increase in health spending in the Estimates is just over €7,045 million. As outlined by the Minister, much of this money will be spent on administration instead of on frontline delivery. The Government has failed to target resources to the people who are in real need. After seven years, the Government has finally acknowledged that its own spin has been a lie. The Opposition has been consistently told that the reason over 100,000 medical cards were withdrawn and the promised 200,000 medical cards were not delivered was because of the economic success of this country. The Government has finally acknowledged that it has participated in denying access to primary care to 230,000 people since it came into power. While economic progress has been achieved, inflation in the area of medical care has been much steeper than any economic progress in that same period of time. The Government seems to have finally come around to the Opposition's point of view on this subject. Increased funding for the acute hospital sector and the health boards will be largely spent on pay rises and benchmarking awards, resulting in few improvements in the level of public services provided in the acute hospital and community care sectors.

Yet again the Government has resorted to increasing charges in the health area. The 25% increase in charges for private beds will ultimately be covered by higher health insurance premiums. Those without health insurance will face significantly increased costs for hospital stays and patients with a high medication need will face a drugs bill of more than €1,000 per annum.

The Estimates show an increase in permitted total expenditure for local government of just 1%. This will not cover inflation, let alone the increased wage bill local authorities face as a result of the benchmarking award which would necessitate an increase of 3%. The net result will be higher charges to households, increased waste and development charges and higher levies.

This so-called caring Government has shown its true colours in its treatment of the disabled and elderly. In 2003 the number of disabled person's grants approved was 6,153, at an average cost of slightly below €6,100. In July this year more than 11,000 persons had applied to local authorities for the grant. If 10,000 of these applications are approved at the same average cost as in the previous year, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, will need to allocate €61 million, rather than the €52 million he has been allocated in the Estimates.

The paltry increase of 3% in funding for the task force on special housing aid for the elderly is barely enough to cover inflation. The allocation of an extra €348,000 would only cover 116 grants for the installation of central heating. I could name 116 people in County Kilkenny who should receive this grant, yet this allocation is proposed to cover the whole country.

Taxpayers, the disabled and the elderly are all victims of the new strategy of the Minister for Finance. The former Minister, Deputy McCreevy, may be a Commissioner but his thinking has not gone away.

Earlier, the House divided on the issue of overseas development aid. Overseas aid is not an abstract concept or simply a column in the Estimates but the most practical way in which people, through their Government, can assist those who need help most. More than 1.3 billion people globally live in severe poverty, 800 million do not get enough food and 500 million are chronically malnourished. Of the 23 million people with HIV-AIDS, more than 93% live in the developing world. It is shocking that over the past decade 2 million children have died in armed conflict.

Ireland's commitment to meet the target for overseas aid was made before the United Nations four years ago and has been restated many times since, notably during the UN Secretary General's recent visit to Dublin. This commitment has come to nothing, however, in light of the statement by the Minister for Finance that he has lowered his target for development aid to 0.5% of GDP, far below what was promised. He has not even indicated whether a new date has been set to achieve the target level of 0.7% of GDP or whether the commitment has been shelved indefinitely.

The marine area will also suffer as a result of the Estimates. The Government has shown its indifference to the marine tourism sector by not allocating a cent in funding for the marine and natural resources tourism programme. While the Estimates indicate that €2 million has been allocated to the sector — a cut of 30% — this money will not be spent as it is ring-fenced for four infamous marina projects at Kenmare, Roundstone, Rosses Point and Cahirciveen, which were given the green light without EU approval by the former Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Deputy Fahey. The allocation is unlikely to be spent because of the major difficulty created in Europe by the manner in which the former Minister announced the four marina projects in question. They did not form part of a €25 million EU approved programme to develop and transform coastal tourism in Ireland shelved two years ago because of the economic climate at the time. With public finances showing an improvement, surely the Estimates provided an opportunity to dust off the scheme. The new Minister of State at the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Deputy Gallagher, who has responsibility for the marine, fell at the first hurdle due to his abject failure to secure funding for this vital sector.

The Estimates show that the position with regard to the provision of adequate school buildings is deteriorating. Cuts are indicated in all divisions of the schools building programme because the Government has demonstrated in recent years that it cannot spend the moneys allocated for new buildings. In 2003 the underspend of the Department of Education and Science on school buildings amounted to more than €60 million, while the equivalent figure this year will be €50 million. Given that children continue to be taught in damp and dilapidated conditions, in some cases without adequate toilet or physical education facilities, it is a disgrace that the Government is not sufficiently committed to spend the money allocated to provide proper school accommodation.

Where spending increases are indicated they are welcome, particularly in the provision of assistants for children with special educational needs. The Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Hanafin, will be measured by what she achieves in tackling ongoing educational problems, rather than by how much she spends.

As matters stand, the number of children failing to make the transition from primary to secondary school is growing at an alarming rate, as is the drop-out rate at second level. No proper system is in place to quantify whether the schemes in place are meeting the needs of the disadvantaged. It is clear that the appalling rates of literacy difficulties in our schools are not being tackled. The Minister for Education and Science will have to set real targets to ensure that funding allocated in 2005 reaches those who need it most and delivers tangible results.

Once again, the bad deal brokered by the Government with the religious orders is costing the taxpayer dearly. Following the increase of €115 million in funding for the Residential Institutions Redress Board this year, a further €50 million will be allocated under this subhead in 2005. Despite everything we have heard from the Minister in recent weeks about a major increase in funding for education, the latter figure accounts for one tenth of the overall increase in the Department's budget for 2005.

The Fine Gael Party is disappointed the OECD review on third level education policy was ignored in the Estimates. The results of the sharp cuts in funding for third level institutions in 2003 and 2004 will not be reversed by the paltry increases signalled in the Estimates.

A close examination of the Estimates reveals that the provision of an additional 2,000 gardaí, as repeatedly promised by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, is not even close to being delivered. The Minister reiterated this promise a couple of weeks ago but there is nothing in the Estimates to indicate any significant move to recruit 2,000 extra gardaí is likely. The meagre 5% increase in the allocation for Garda salaries is largely consumed by inflation and existing pay agreements. The Minister's claims of 2,000 gardaí are nothing more than a hollow promise.

The provision for Garda equipment has increased by a paltry 2%. Taking inflation into account, this figure amounts to a decrease in real terms. Members will have heard stories of gardaí using their personal mobile telephones rather than the equipment provided by the Department. The 2% increase under this heading is clearly insufficient. The wages and overtime allocation for the Prison Service has increased by a staggering €37 million, despite the much-vaunted assault on costs in this sector launched by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform last year.

I have significant problems with the Estimates, as presented. How rich do we have to become before we leave a lasting improvement in public services? I am not convinced the Estimates, as published, will provide a solution.