Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I was becoming a little depressed in listening to my colleague from Sinn Féin. She fails to recognise the wage increases across the country in the past two or three years have resulted in increases for those on lower incomes.We have also brought stability to this country in that unemployment has come down from over 15% to almost 5%, which is a huge change. We now have the highest ever number of people employed in this country. As a result of that we have more income coming into the State and can therefore pay for more services.

In paying for more services, one of my concerns is value for money. The Minister has heard me raise this before, and I will keep raising it. I refer to value for money in our health services. I am very concerned about the fact that we have taken on an extra 12,000 people in our health sector in four years. I have said, and will say again, that this is greater than the entire workforce of the Irish Army. I am concerned about the disproportionate way in which they have been taken on. Administration and management staff in the HSE have increased from more than 15,000 to more than 18,000. We have also increased the number of nurse managers from more than 6,000 to more than 7,600, which is an increase of 1,100 nurse managers. As I see it, we now have a problem in the HSE. Remember, it is the taxpayers who are funding this. Technically 25% of the entire HSE workforce is now in administration or managerial roles. That is another area where I talk about value for money. We do not appear to be able to recruit medical people. We have difficulty attracting GPs. Our GP contract is so important to making sure our front-line staff are able to deal with issues in the community rather than inside the hospital structure.

We have to look at the issue of value for money. I believe we have done very well on job creation, stability and delivering on services. We must also make sure that whatever money we pay to whatever Department is apportioned in the right manner. I am not convinced that is happening in the HSE and in the policy areas we are dealing with.

I wish to raise a second issue. I was at UCC yesterday. There was a discussion of capital investment in our universities and the needs in that area. I fully agreed with what was said. This is connected to the area of health. I refer to the number of medical students we are turning out in this country and the cost per medical student. I have worked out that it costs the State about €150,000 to bring a student through our university system from start to finish. We are not getting any return on that investment. Some 800 students qualify in medicine in Ireland per annum. The total cost over a five-year period is €120 million. I am a bit concerned that we are not getting a fair return on that investment of €120 million. Those are two issues of concern in medicine. We are spending quite good money on what we consider to be a long-term investment but we are not getting any return. It is something we need to start examining. When we highlight and prioritise third level education, which is very important, we must always look for the best return for the State. Members might consider other areas such as trades, the building industry, carpenters, bricklayers and people in that area. The Government has done a lot of work on that. If we put funding into that area, we will get value for money because that is the area where there is a shortage of people with major skills. It is very important that we do everything possible to assist in those areas.

I have outlined some of my concerns. There is another issue we must look at, though I know the Minister cannot deal with it in this Bill. I have met a number of building contractors. I have dealt with builders for more than 30 years in a legal capacity. I am very much aware of the cost of building. All of the builders say to me that they cannot build apartments in this country outside of Dublin because it is not cost-effective. We have to look at that. I was speaking yesterday to someone who is building office accommodation that will accommodate 3,500 people. He wants to build apartment blocks for some of the people moving into those offices. He said it is not financially viable. We should look at that issue. I know the Minister cannot do it in this Bill but it is something we need to plan for in the long term. There is a problem with building apartments, particularly outside of Dublin. The cost is too high so it is not economically viable. I ask the Minister to take those points into account.