John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, to the House to discuss the Estimates. It is fair to say they contain good news and the Minister outlined a number of areas which will see significant increases in expenditure. Much of what was announced in the Estimates is welcome. However, question marks hang over other key areas and I intend to raise as many of them as I can. At the end of his remarks the Minister referred to reform and value for money, and improvements have taken place in a number of areas. Nonetheless, while the new system of multi-annual capital envelopes, introduced by the Minister, is a step in the right direction, the Government is paying only lip service to reform. When a crisis arises an announcement is made, such as that last year on consultancies. The Minister referred to this matter in his speech. It arose from a specific problem with which the Government was faced and it was forced into action. The Government is still lagging behind in the area of genuine reform and value for taxpayers' money.

The Minister outlined increases in expenditure for the Department of Health and Children. It is the usual mantra of Government to outline significant funding increases that have taken place for that Department in the past ten years, yet the services provided are not improving by a commensurate amount. In many areas they are not improving at all. In his speech, the Minister said waiting lists for many operations are now down from years to months. In my area, however, there are waiting lists to get on the waiting lists for many routine procedures. These waiting lists can last for anything up to 12 months before a patient can get a consultation. The figures have been massaged. The huge increases we have seen in funding for the Department of Health and Children have not been reflected in the level of service people get from hospital facilities throughout the country.

Despite increases in the numbers employed in public services — which, by and large, is not something I would like to see — key positions still need to be increased. The Government has not kept up to speed in increasing the numbers of front-line medical staff, including doctors and public health nurses. The growth in such staff positions has not been commensurate with increased expenditure, while administrative posts seem to have absorbed much of the funding increases in recent years.

The Estimates include an increase of more than €1 billion in funding for the Department of Health and Children, most of which is taken up by salary increases arising from the benchmarking process, which has been discussed at length in this House. Nevertheless, we have not seen a significant improvement in hospital services.

The Minister also outlined increases in funding for transport, including a number of road projects. He referred to significant savings in journey times, which was rather amusing. There would be little use in pointing out that to people who, yesterday evening, were caught in four or five hour tailbacks in this city owing to a roadworks problem. I welcome the investment in road projects but it will come to nothing if roadworks are carried out only during the daytime, which is the case with the M50, rather than having a 24-hour work programme.

The Minister also outlined the Government's record on housing and the increase in funding for housing next year. The Government's record on social and affordable housing is abysmal. Housing is the biggest single disaster area for which the Government has been responsible in the past ten years. The average worker in Dublin cannot afford to buy an average house because prices have risen astronomically in the past decade. The paltry increase announced in the Estimates for social and affordable housing does not convince me of any renewed effort by the Government to ensure those on lower incomes will be better able to afford a house in future.

The Minister also outlined the Government's increase in funding for environmental issues. As far as I can see from the Estimates, however, the increase is a minor one, particularly for local authority sewerage facilities. Last year, the increase was of the order of 6% or 7% while this year it is lower than that, according to the Book of Estimates. That is certainly a step in the wrong direction if the Government is serious about environmental protection and the nitrates directive, in particular. Local authorities are among the biggest polluters in the country because many towns and villages often do not have any sewage treatment facilities. Sadly, the paltry increase announced in the Book of Estimates will not address that significant problem in the future.

The Minister referred to an increase in funding for education, with particular emphasis on special needs. There has been a significant rise in the numbers of special needs assistants in schools, for whom resource hours have been provided. However, the increased funding for the National Educational Psychological Service is paltry. Last year it was 2% while this year the figure is similar, although I am not sure of the exact figure. Large swathes of the country have very little coverage from that service. For a relatively small expenditure significant improvements could be made in the future development of children with special educational needs.

Approximately 250 children in the primary education sector suffer from Down's syndrome. Up to five or six years ago, those children were automatically entitled to resource hours. Under a change introduced by this Government, however, that automatic entitlement was removed. Resource hours must now come from the total allocation to schools attended by such children, which is a disgrace. We are talking about a small pool of children who could benefit from a significant investment to ensure adequate support at a crucial stage in their early development. That would have positive effects into the future, ensuring that when they grow up they will be able to live fully independent lives. When the Minister announces his budget in two weeks' time, I ask him to emphasise that area.

In his earlier remarks, the Minister referred to the guidelines for numbers employed in the public service. I fully agree with him that for key service areas, such as health and education, there is a need to increase frontline staff, including doctors, nurses, teachers and special needs assistants. The Minister also said this was being rebalanced by employment in local authorities. This matter was discussed on today's Order of Business. Many local authorities are suffering as a result of this embargo, particularly in the areas of planning and road development. The Minister should ensure the embargo is not applied in those areas in the future.

Local authority funding has received an airing in the past week or so. Last year, the Minister was rightly criticised in this House and elsewhere for the 4% increase proposed in the Book of Estimates for the local government fund. This year the increase, at 2%, is only half that. Whatever the final inflation figure is for 2006 it will be significantly more than 2%. In real terms, therefore, the Minister is announcing a decrease in the local government fund for next year. I hope all citizens of the State are aware local authorities will experience serious cutbacks in the services they provide, unless they increase revenues from their own sources, because the Government is cutting the local government fund.

There have been many discussions in this House on development charges, which are a real and verifiable form of stealth tax introduced by the Government. Unless there is a larger increase in the local government fund on budget day, local authorities will be forced to increase these charges which are the most unfair form of taxation in the country. Development charges may make some sense in urban areas where services such as connection to a sewer or water main are provided, but in rural areas, where one is lucky to have a pothole filled outside one's house and one may be compelled to pay €8,000 to €9,000 as a development charge, they are beyond the bounds of belief and unacceptable.

The Minister referred to pupil-teacher ratios. This is an area in which the Government made a strong commitment in the programme for Government, particularly regarding a reduction in the number of pupils relative to the number of teachers at primary level. However, no significant improvement has been made. Additional funding has been announced in the Estimates to deal with this issue and it remains to be seen what effect it will have. More than 70,000 primary school pupils in the country are still in classes of more than 30 students and this flies in the face of the commitment given by the Government in advance of the last election. I do not think the Minister's announcement in the Book of Estimates will see a major decrease in this number, although it may see a minor one.

I have often raised the issue of domestic violence and it has been discussed on numerous occasions by Senators from all sides. Last year I criticised the Government on its announcement of a 3% increase in funding for agencies dealing with domestic violence. This year the increase is 2% and I put it to the Minister that this is a pathetic figure, particularly given that violent crime against women, an example of which was seen at the weekend, is increasing dramatically.

I have questions concerning a number of other agencies and seek answers from the Minister. An 11% decrease in funding for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions consists mainly of administrative cuts, but there are cuts in other services also and perhaps whoever is responding could address this issue. Likewise, the Office of the Ombudsman sees a 5% decrease in funding. Again, the bulk is to come from administrative cuts, but other services will also be affected by such a significant measure.

The Minister mentioned a 10% increase in funding for the Department of Education and Science and an 11% increase in funding for the school building programme. There have been significant advances in this area over the past few years but, in real terms, inflation in the construction industry is running at 10% so the Minister's announcement on school building represents a 1% increase. I am trying to point out the real impact that these increases will have on schools being built and refurbished in the next year.

Under the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, the CLÁR programme sees a 12% to 15% decrease in funding. This programme was originally only available in the west but has been extended to parts of my own constituency in Kilkenny in the past 12 months and I am sure it is available in the Minister's constituency. Why has funding been cut so soon after the programme was extended?

With regard to the Department of Agriculture and Food, the area of forestry has seen significant cutbacks in the past couple of budgets and, once again, the Book of Estimates sees a 3% decrease in this sector. Given the Government's pledges on greener energy sources and its commitment to alternative income sources for farmers, this makes no sense. It should increase funding in the area of forestry.

Continuing on matters agricultural, a 5% decrease in the farm assist programme is to be made available via the Department of Social and Family Affairs. The Government has been quite successful in driving off the land farmers who might have been able to avail of that fund, but I know a number of people in my own region who have benefitted from it. Perhaps an explanation for this decrease could be given later.

There have been some significant increases in funding under the heading of the Health Service Executive. The Minister referred to consultancy fees and ICT projects in his comments, but the €70 million increase in funding for information systems and related services may not sit well in this regard. Could this be the personnel, payroll and related systems, PPARS, fiasco all over again or is this a new version of it? Are we still throwing good money after bad as we did regarding PPARS over the past few years?

I have already mentioned the area of funding for local government and this is one of the areas where the Book of Estimates fails. A dramatic cut of 70% is to be made in funding for the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland and there may be a reason for this. I hope whoever responds can provide an explanation.

The increase of 3% to 4% in the capital programme for the provision of sewage and water schemes throughout the country is a negative step in real terms, given inflation in that sector. I ask that this issue be considered on budget day.

There are welcome announcements regarding increases in funding for several Departments in the Book of Estimates and it would be churlish of me if I failed to acknowledge this. However, when one considers the greater scheme of things, specifically the corrosive effect of inflation, particularly in the construction industry, the announcements and increases are not all they may seem to be. In this regard I am yet to be convinced of the Government's commitment to significant systems reform in the public service. The Department of Health and Children receives the largest allocation every year and I see no obvious signs that the Government is serious about reforming systems there. Unless this is done there will be huge increases in funding into the future without a commensurate improvement in services provided.