David Cullinane (Sinn Fein)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I also welcome the opportunity to have this discussion. The area of statistics and data is one of the least glamorous of Government but it is one of the most important. It is vital when one considers that service provision is often based on information, population figures, and other data much of which comes from the Central Statistics Office. It is disappointing that there are not more Senators here to discuss these issues because it is important in the context of a range of discussions we have had in this House in recent months.

To take the example of children's rights, we had a discussion on it recently and different figures were given for the number of children who had gone missing in this State. Advocate organisations had one view, the Minister concerned has a different view and the Department has a different figure, so the figures did not stack up and there was a contradiction in many of the figures that were given. We had a good discussion on the sex trade - although I do not like to use those words - last night but again the figures were disputed in terms of how many women were working in that sector. Advocate organisations represented in the Visitors' Gallery had one set of figures and the Minister concerned had a different set of figures. We had a discussion about the Swedish model of criminalising prostitution and facts and figures were presented where some people used figures for one set of purposes and other people used them for a different purpose. It shows that figures are important.

Senator Barrett made a telling point about the information that was available to the then Minister for Finance, the Taoiseach and the Government at the time of the bank guarantee when critical decisions were being made by the then Government in regard to the banks. A mountain of evidence and data was available that it would be a bad decision and that billions of euros of taxpayers' money potentially could be wasted if the wrong decision was made. Despite the mountain of data that was available, it is interesting that it was the Financial Regulator and the banks that provided misinformation to the Government and to those who were making the decisions. That led to the catastrophe we now have and we are all living with the consequences of that. That more than anything in the history of this State shows up the importance of information and statistics.

There is also an important point to make about Government policy. Statistics underpin almost everything a Government does and every decision made by politicians, law makers, those in Departments and Governments. Senators have given recent examples but I will give a number of further examples. A debate on decisions to amalgamate the VECs made by the Minister for Education and Skills is ongoing. The criteria used to arrive at decisions include the distance staff have to travel, the number of students who come through the VECs and the number of schools in a catchment area. We have the amalgamated VEC of Waterford and Wexford in the south east. One of the main criteria it seems the Government used to decide that the headquarters should be based in Wexford was that people from Wexford, if they had to travel to Waterford city or county, would have to travel longer than 45 km, which would be in breach of the Croke Park agreement, but people from west Waterford and Waterford city would have to travel to Wexford. It shows that the statistics can be used in different ways to justify what many would see as a political decision. That was the point being made by a number of Senators, namely, that it is important when we have accurate data that they are used in a fair way to underpin policy and decision making.

A previous Senator mentioned cancer care. I cite the example of the south east which, with a population of 460,000, has the critical mass. I recall meeting a delegation of councillors from Waterford city who had met Deputy Micheál Martin when he was Minister for Health and Children. He was opposed to the notion that the south east region should have its own centre of excellence for cancer care because he felt there was not the critical mass to justify it. It was only on closer inspection when we examined international best practice that the Government changed its mind and decided there is a case for the south east and for proper cancer services for Waterford. That led the Government to changing its mind.

I will give some more examples. In a recent discussion at the Joint Committee on Health and Children committee I raised the issue of the dependency many people have on prescription drugs, Benzos in particular. It is important that we are informed as to what is happening, and the Minister must be informed as to what is happening. I asked the Minister if there were data on the patterns of prescriptions in this area. The Minister agreed it was a problem and that it needed to be resolved but the way to resolve it was to know where the problems are with over-prescription to ensure the Department is in a position to deal with it but the information was not available. That highlights the need for all Ministers and Departments to be properly informed because if we do not have those patterns the Government and the Minister is not in a position to comprehensively deal with what is a complex issue.

A Senator mentioned the need for co-operation North and South. That is critical because for me the Border is a line on the map. Mention was made earlier of the north west region but it is critical that we have information that is being gathered by the Assembly and that the Assembly has information gathered and available from this State. If we consider transport, for example, a good deal of cross-Border work has been done in that area. The same applies to the area of health where there is co-operation between the respective health departments to ensure people have the best services. That applies not just in health but in education or whatever.

I support the call for a stronger link between the Central Statistics Office and its counterpart in the North. That is important. It is important also that we pay tribute not just to the staff of the Central Statistics Office, which I agree with previous speakers is a very professional service that does a great service for this State in that it allows all of us to have access to information which empowers us and enables us to have more informed debates in this House, in the Lower House and in council chambers across the State as well as in general discussions, but there is also a wealth of civil and advocate organisations that do research and make data available. Those data are as important as the information we get from the Central Statistics Office.

It is interesting that when we had discussions on a range of issues, and I gave a number of examples of the discussions we had recently, the wealth of information given to us by those advocate organisations was incredible and allowed us to be better informed in terms of the decisions we make.

I do not single out any political party either in this Government or the previous one but it was a member of the Government party who made this point already. It is important that decisions made by Government are made on the basis of information, data, what is right and not political decisions. We have seen far too many political decisions made where, if there is a Minister in the constituency, he or she might be better placed to get funding for transport, a health or education service. That should not be the case. It should be based on criteria, equality and what is right for all the people of this country. That is reason we have a national spatial strategy and such policies are in place but often, and I gave the example of the decision on the VECs, those policies, spatial strategies, facts and information which are available to Ministers are put to one side and political decisions then made which is wrong. It does not matter which party is in government. All parties should make sure that when decisions are made they are based on criteria, fact and on wanting to deliver for citizens on the basis of equality and not on whether there is a Minister in a constituency.