Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil leis an Seanadóir Clonan as an rún seo a chur os comhair an Tí. This is a very important motion. We have heard heartfelt statements from lived experience, particularly that of Senator Clonan. It is a welcome opportunity to raise these issues; to discuss, as the Seanad does in a reflective way, where we are as a country; to challenge the Government; to raise important issues; and to see how we can do better.

The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, is busy with Dáil and official business. He hoped to be here but times changed and so on. Up until ten minutes beforehand, he was hoping to be here. He was going to take the debate as he is the Minister with responsibility for young people and children. He sends his apologies that he cannot be here.

Young people in Ireland, despite all the challenges, have shown themselves to be resilient, capable and creative. It is young people who have led the way in ensuring that Ireland is a more caring and compassionate society, for example by supporting and driving through marriage equality; by repealing the eighth amendment; by speaking about mental health, as Senator Ó Donnghaile mentioned; and by pushing governments to take stronger action on climate change. Senator Clonan has very eloquently outlined the challenges that people with disabilities and their families face every day in this country.

In the past the voices of young people were silenced, sometimes shamefully. The importance of learning from the past by building a society where we do not fail children, as happened in previous decades, means that the voices of children and young people must be heard and taken seriously by all of us. Ireland has now become a world leader in listening to young people. We have a national strategy for children and young people's participation in decision-making, the first such strategy in Europe. We have Comhairle na nÓg which is actually having a real impact. In recent years, the Irish Second-Level Students Union, ISSU, has become centrally involved in exam planning, which is what you would expect. Comhairle na nÓg worked hard on the youth travel card with the National Youth Assembly of Ireland and the Rural Youth Assembly. Our national LGBT youth strategy was a world first.

Young people should and do offer us a definition of our modern republic that we must all aspire to, faced with the challenges that have been outlined, rather than scorn or deem unrealistic. I am not going to deem any of the challenges that have been mentioned by Senators as unrealistic or impossible to meet. Young people face great economic and climate challenges, structural inequality and a more unstable world than I enjoyed in my youth. When we were in college, and Bill Clinton was in the White House, it seemed like every global problem could be resolved through talks with the Americans. That was the way we viewed things, but that seemed to change at some point. I am acutely aware of the difficulties in areas like education, health and building a family life. We can all do better for everyone, regardless of background.

A common theme, apart from what Senator Clonan spoke about in terms of disability services, was housing, which is obviously a key problem in this country. I am conscious that young people are disproportionately more likely to be renters and face severe challenges in getting and keeping accommodation. The number of young adults experiencing homelessness in Ireland has increased, and we are deeply concerned about that. The programme for Government commits to developing a youth homeless strategy and we have the Housing for All strategy. We now have the highest number of first-time buyers since 2007. I accept fully that the average age of a first-time buyer has gone up - there is no question about that - but we have the highest number now since 2007. Our top priority is to solve the housing crisis and get more houses built.

I will make a few more points before I read the script that the Minister has provided and reiterate the sentiments that he wanted to emphasise in his role as Minister with responsibility for children and young people. Our emigration rates are significantly lower than they were when I started secondary school. The only contribution with which I had a quibble was that of Senator McDowell, when he spoke about the golden era of the 1960s when an 18-year-old cleaner could buy a house in Tallaght. I accept that the average age of home buyers has gone up, but I must say that in 1960 my mother was taken out of school at the age of 13 to work in a café. My father lived in a house in Drogheda with ten children and two adults and the father was a garda. Senator McDowell talks about the idea that there was some golden era that was richer, but that is not the case. This is a transformed country, despite the problems that have been outlined by people in this debate. I accept that there are problems and I do not reject them but this is a transformed country for every sector of society, including young people. In 1960, there were 2.8 million people, young and old, in this country. We now have 2.5 million people working. The country has been absolutely transformed beyond all recognition. We have one of the highest rates of participation in third level education. There is a cohort of young people in Trinity College Dublin, UCD or the technological universities which simply would not be there in Britain or France because the rates are much lower in those countries. I do not say all of that to reject any of the challenges that the Senators have outlined or to reject the stories that they have told, which I accept are utterly heartfelt and are designed to rightly challenge us to pursue even better policies, but simply to make the point that this is a transformed country.

I will turn to homelessness, which is of huge concern. We have a Government youth homelessness strategy. The aim of this strategy is to help people between the ages of 18 and 24 who are homeless or at risk of being homeless. It is recognised that the causes of youth homelessness as well as the experiences of young people in emergency accommodation system are totally different from those of the older homeless population.The strategy is looking at the causes and experiences of homelessness among young people with a view to putting in place strategic interventions to prevent entry into homelessness and improve services and supports to help people get out of homelessness. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is currently finalising actions and liaising with key stakeholders, including the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. We hope the strategy will be published next month. This is part of the overall Housing for All strategy to get more houses of all types, not just private houses, houses for first-time buyers, social houses, affordable purchase or affordable rental. We constantly challenge ourselves to build as many as possible, notwithstanding the challenges we face, because that all feeds into it.

Senator Hoey raised the issue of notices to quit. There is a significant problem in that regard at the moment and it is one the Government is working to address in a way that is sustainable and works to protect renters but also ensures housing supply. The State has to be a major supplier of housing, and it is. We want to get the numbers up but we are providing significant volumes of social housing, way more than were provided at many times in the past.

The issue of mental health was raised by a number of colleagues. Sharing the Vision is the national mental health policy and provides the framework for the future development of the mental health system, including for children and young people. It aims to enhance the provision of mental health services and supports across a broad continuum from mental health promotion, prevention and early intervention to acute and specialist mental health service delivery from 2020-30. The 2023 mental health budget will be approximately €1.2 billion, a record budget for mental health services. Funding provided in 2023 will enhance services in a number of key areas, including access to cognitive behavioural therapy, expanding art therapy and online mental health supports for children and young people.

As regards education, Ireland has among the highest participation rates in education in the world. I know there are people who have deferred college places. Some of them have said the housing crisis was responsible for that. The truth is that as the Minister, Deputy Harris, has outlined, deferral rates are in line with previous years. There is a lot of talk about emigration. Emigration rates are substantially lower than they were in 2013, and way lower than they were in 1960. There is hope. I attended the GradIreland fair today. Our best and brightest were there, looking at career options. I was very impressed by the number of people who came to listen to me and a representative of the European Commission talk about careers in EU institutions. Our best people were there, looking to see what options were available to them. A significant number of those options and opportunities were in those country, including in the European institutions in Dublin and in County Meath.

The Government is conscious of the cost of third level education. As a former spokesperson on education, I know this is a deeply difficult debate. In her time as a student leader, Senator Hoey was very vocal in pushing for free fees. We are going in that direction now. None of us wanted to grasp that nettle but it turns out that the public finances are such that we can now do it. As Senators will be aware, the Government announced in the budget a once-off reduction of €1,000 in the student contribution fee because the public finances have been managed in an appropriate way and people have worked really hard, including students, and paid tax to enable us to be able to redistribute this. There is a reduction in the contribution fee for apprentices, a one-off extra payment on the student maintenance grant and a once-off increase of €1,000 to support SUSI-qualified post-graduate students.

When the previous Government was in power, Fianna Fáil's priority in opposition was an issue of which Members will not have even heard unless they are in that sector. The priority of Fianna Fáil and its leader, the current Taoiseach, was to restart SUSI grants for post-graduate students. We worked really hard behind the scenes to bring that about. Those grants had been abolished but they are now back. The maintenance grants were abolished in 2011 or 2012 but we got them back. I would like the grants to be higher. Their abolition had a negative effect on participation rates at third level. Students and researchers told me they were almost lonely in the laboratories or libraries because there were fewer numbers there. We believed it was very disadvantageous to people from a poorer background not to be able to do research or postgraduate study. It was also bad for Ireland Inc as we depend on those students to be able to do the work that modern companies need to be done.

The Government has increased the student assistance fund, introduced a reduction of €500 in the contribution fee from next year for applicants earning up to €100,000 and increased student maintenance grants. We have also changed the non-adjacent and adjacent distances and that has helped many people, particularly in the Dublin commuter belt.

I make the point in reply to Senator Clonan that we discussed the state of disability services all summer with the Taoiseach. I am sure he has spoken to the Taoiseach on the matter but, if he has not, I am sure the Taoiseach would be more than happy to speak to him. We know that things are not working. We know that more money than ever before seems to be spent yet the lived experience, as the Senator described it, is that people are not getting the services. All present know that from our constituents coming to speak to us on it. My wife works as a nurse in respite services for children with intellectual disabilities, so I know what is going on at the coal face. Leaving aside the improvements delivered in the budget, I was speaking to the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, last night. There is a lot of work going on to bring about a structural change in the way services are delivered for people with disabilities to recognise, as the Senator put it, their right to be participating adults and participating citizens in society. That is a priority for us and for the Taoiseach. I know that not everything is perfect but I believe we have made good progress in special education. There are far more special classes coming on stream again. When I was education spokesperson in opposition, I insisted the Government bring in legislation to force schools to open special classes. It was not the case that every school was refusing to do so but some were refusing and may still be. We fought to change that and the then Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton, eventually agreed to it. This is our commitment. We are working hard on it. Having spoken to the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, I have hope that in the coming months there will be big changes in how disability services are delivered. There will always be room for improvement but we will always strive to do our best.

I am proud of what we did in the budget yesterday, which is giving real help to people. It has been possible this year with a budget surplus. We could decide to just go to the markets and borrow even more money and spend it, which would be lovely because we would be able to do many of the things to which the Senator referred. We are aware that there would be consequences to that, however. We have seen from the experience next door that if you go to the markets to borrow money, you have to do what the markets want you to do. This year, because the economy is going okay and people are working hard, we are not going to the markets in the way that would have been necessary a few years ago. That is positive for the economy and I hope it is positive for overall sustainability as well in making sure that we can keep these tax receipts, encourage business to come into the country and, as was done last night in a financial resolutions passed by a vote of the Dáil, save up, strategic funding from some of the corporation tax receipts so that we can protect these services into the future.