Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I agree with what Senator Darragh O?Brien said on child benefit. We need to hear from the Government what its precise intentions are. I, for one, am worried. Universality has always been an important principle. There must be another way by which more privileged members of society can be taxed. Given the importance of the principle involved, I would be sorry to see universality go.

I, too, welcome what Archbishop Martin had to say. He is right about the balanced proposal to be put in the children?s rights referendum. As Members will be aware, I have tabled amendments which I wish to explore with the Minister to see whether they could offer an improvement; nonetheless, I restate what I said previously, that, overall, I am happy with the balance struck. The children?s rights referendum cannot be separated from the debate that needs to happen on the issue of child benefit. Many are going to see the proposal on children?s rights to be put in the referendum as a cynical PR exercise if, at the same time, they see no progress being made in dealing with the failures relating to children, whether it be the HSE?s ongoing performance, the resources available to children in situations where there is danger or deprivation, the actions and failures of social workers and the resource issues surrounding all of these areas.

If there is a fear that the budget will impinge on families we can expect a degree of scepticism, if not cynicism, from families about what is behind the children's rights referendum. I make that as a political point and am not happy about it but I believe it is something the Government will have to take very seriously.
I also note - I am sad to do so - it is being proposed, rightly but sadly, that teachers should receive specialist training in how to manage disruptive behaviour in schools. The National Council for Special Education has made recommendations in this area, as people know, recommending that a teacher in every school would attend a three-day seminar. Already ¤200 million of additional teaching resources was allocated last year to deal with behaviour issues. That is a real tragedy. We should be asking what is going on in our society. However, I wonder why it is always about trying to address the problems and why there never seems to be an enthusiasm to ask why they are happening. When are we going to have a debate about issues such as family breakdown, the negative effects of family instability on children and behavioural issues? We have to be courageous about encouraging stable family life and having a debate that would lead to that if we are ever going to solve some of these problems, the symptoms of which we are seeing now.

I note that the Labour Party members of the Government are not going to ask for clarification about the criteria used by the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, in regard to the primary care centres. I do not understand that. If one thing is clear it is that what we saw in this entire issue was old politics, not the new politics that were performed at the election. I wish our former colleague in the Seanad, Deputy Alex White, well in his new role as Minister of State with responsibility for primary care. I would like to know whether he will be in charge or be subject to the whims of his senior Minister. It is a bad day for transparency and accountability and new politics when the Labour Party Ministers of Government are not willing to ask the questions they obviously should be asking about the criteria employed in the decision around the choice of Swords and Balbriggan.