Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senators for their contributions. Many issues have been raised and I will try to answer as many questions as I can in the limited time available to me. I apologise in advance if I do not justice to any particular question or issue raised.

Housing was mentioned. We all agree that the core of the solution is an increased supply of housing of all forms, but it is not the solution on its own. In a country with a growing population and in which new households are being formed all the time we evidently need many more houses and apartments. We probably need approximately 30,000 to 35,000 new homes to be built every year. We are getting there. Last year 18,000 new homes were built, more than at any other time in this decade. One quarter was social housing built by local authorities or affordable housing bodies. I am not sure when was the last time either of those things happened. We need to continue to scale upwards. We have set the target of building this year approximately 25,000 new places in which to live, of which approximately one quarter will be social housing because we need market and non-market solutions to the housing crisis, recognising that the majority want to buy and own their own home, but there will always be people who cannot do so. As the market cannot deliver, the State must do it. The Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, and the Minister of State at his Department, Deputy English, are bringing forward legislation to further enhance tenants' rights. We will continue to put resources in to lift families out of homelessness. We probably lift more families out of homelessness than in any previous year, but the same number become homeless every year. Until we break that cycle, we will have a real difficulty in turning the issue around. We should not forget for one second from where we have come from in dealing with the housing crisis. Eight or ten years ago we had a financial crisis in which the banking sector was destroyed and unable to lend to people who wanted to borrow or builders who wanted to build. The construction industry was destroyed and 100,000 construction workers left the country. Rebuilding and turning it around was never going to happen quickly. No matter who is in office, it will take us a few years to get to the point where we will deliver enough housing for people to buy and to be used as social housing.

Some Members mentioned the enormous problems and challenges in health care provision. I do not discount or dismiss them for one second, whether it is overcrowding in emergency departments or long waiting times. We should also provide time for debates to acknowledge some of the good things that are happening in the health service, the phenomenal work being done by the 115,000 people who work in it and some of the strategies and policies that are working, as well as the record investment in health care which stands at €17 billion a year, almost more per head of population than in any other country in the western world. It is not a black hole. A lot of the money is well spent in delivering real results. Let me give a few small examples.

In the past few weeks a new contract was agreed to with staff nurses. It provides for a pay increase for them but, more significantly, the reforms in work practices that we need to make sure the patient receives better care and nurses and doctors will be there when a patient needs them most. At long last and after much effort an agreement has been reached with general practitioners, GPs, to increase resources for general practice by 40% in the next three to four years. It is not just an increase in funding for general practice but also for new services, particularly the management of chronic diseases, the most common diseases managed in primary care, to provide better care for people in the community in order that in the longer term fewer patients will need to go to hospital. We have had seen the progressive expansion of free GP care services, although not as fast as recommended in Sláintecare.

I do not think any of us honestly believes extending free GP care to an extra 500,000 people a year is doable. As it would overwhelm general practice, we are doing it more slowly, but we are doing it, starting with the youngest and the oldest in society, those younger than six years and older than 70. It has been extended to 40,000 children with profound disabilities who previously would not have received a medical card if their parents earned too much, an amazing situation that was presided over for far too long. Children with profound disabilities lost a medical card because their parents earned so much that they went above the limit. We changed this and now 40,000 children with profound disabilities have received a medical card as of right for the first time.

Last year we extended free GP care to those in receipt of carer's allowance and carer's benefit because carers need to be cared for too. This year there has been a 10% increase in the income limits. As a result, more low-income families will qualify for free GP care. Next year we have signalled our intention to extend free GP care to six and seven years olds, to be followed in the following year by eight and nine year olds and in the year after that ten and 11 year olds.

After a period of almost 20 years in which only one new hospital was built in the country, there are three under construction. While we hear a lot about one of them, we do not hear about the other two which are happening on time and within budget. We will get the keys to the National Forensic Mental Health Hospital in north county Dublin soon. It will replace the Victorian facilities in Dundrum. The other is the new National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire which will result in a huge improvement in health care services.

There are 120 primary care centres operating throughout the country. This month there will be a reduction in prescription charges for those aged over 70 years with a medical card. For anyone who does not have a medical card, the threshold under the drugs payment scheme, DPS, is being reduced.

This year the number of hospital beds will go back up to 11,000 for the first time since 2009, reversing the policy of previous Governments to reduce the number. It is having an effect. It is not just a question of providing beds because we know that adding beds to hospitals is not the solution on its own. It has not worked in a lot of places, but it is part of the solution. This year we are seeing the lowest recorded number of patients on trolleys in five years, but it is still far too many. I know that there are peaks on different days. The nature of trolley counts is such that it is possible to create a new record such as the highest number on a Wednesday since last year or in a particular hospital, but taken in the round, the number so far this year is the lowest in five years.

There have been real improvements in stroke care, cancer care and heart attack services. More people now survive rather than die from cancer. There is huge work being done in the public health service as part of the Healthy Ireland initiative, Healthy Eating. Legislation on alcohol also passed through this House which will make a big difference.

They are just a few of the good things that are happening in the health service. We should allow some space to acknowledge them in our debates because the focus is often on the negative. While we should not ignore the problems, we do not do a service to the people, patients, taxpayers or the staff working in the health service if we do not allow some space to acknowledge the very good things that are happening.

On Seanad reform, like Senator McDowell, I once supported abolition of the Seanad. Lots of countries have unicameral systems and seem to manage okay, whether it be Portugal, Finland or New Zealand. We held a referendum in which the people decided to keep the Seanad. For that reason, I no longer support its abolition.I have read the report on the implementation of the Manning reforms. I have also read the dissenting or alternative reports from Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and from Independent Senators. The question I have to ask is whether the reform goes far enough. Do we really accept that in the 21st century, vocational panels are the correct model for a 21st-century democracy, when almost every democracy in the world tends to operate on national lists or local constituencies or regional lists. Do we want to continue with vocational panels, which largely derive from a papal encyclical back in the 1930s? Whatever happens, I have no wish to be a barrier to reform and if there is a majority in the Dáil and in this House for what is proposed, I will not stand in the way of that. I give Members that assurance here today.

On the issue of the local property tax, it was mentioned that homeowners in Dublin and in other cities pay more in their local property tax than those living in smaller towns or more rural counties. That is, of course, true. There is more to the story than that in that people living in urban areas receive more local services from the local authorities, whether it is footpaths or street lighting, local parks and grass cutting and so on. I think there is a solution. I have suggested it before, which is that the local property tax should be retained locally. The money that people pay in their local authority area should go to the local authority and stay in the local authority. We will still need an equalisation fund to ensure that less well off local authorities do not lose out but that does not need to be funded from the local property tax, LPT. That can be funded from other forms of taxation. There is a solution whereby LPT stays local but we continue to have a equalisation fund, funded from general taxation for those counties that need it and we give the councils the power to vary the LPT up and down as they wish. There is a 15% limit, a council can vary the LPT upwards by 15% or downward by 15%. Interestingly, as many councils have varied the LPT upwards as downwards. Many probably would not have thought that happened, but whereas some councils have varied it downwards, others, such as Longford County Council, have taken the decision to vary up and invest that money in its county and county towns. I think we can trust local government and councillors to have more autonomy when it comes to the LPT and allow them to vary it by a greater percentage. That is what I would suggest as part of the solution.

On the question of guillotines in Parliament, I think as I mentioned last year after six years as a regular Cabinet Minister across three Departments, I never had to use the guillotine. I never used it even once, even when it is vogue when we had a massive majority in the Dáil and Seanad. I am not sure that I ever said that it should never be used, because there will be occasions where a minority may try to block the view of the majority and that is not democratic either. Lest there be any doubt about it, the Government does not oppose guillotines, guillotines can only happen if the Members of the Dáil vote for it in the Dáil and the Members of the Seanad vote for it in the Seanad.