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

I thank the Cathaoirleach and the Senators for their contributions. I will try to respond to as many issues as I can in the order they were raised. Senator Chambers said that while our country is by any objective measure a very successful one - at least, when the UN calculates its international ratings, it usually puts us in the top ten countries in the world, in terms of not just economics but also human development, education, health and all the other things that matter - she rightly said not everyone feels that in their lives. Areas such as housing and childcare are ones in which we need to make a lot more improvements. When it comes to childcare, the Government has three objectives, one of which is to make it more affordable for parents. We made some progress on that this year and we can expect more progress in the budget in a few weeks' time. The other objectives are to make it more available by making more places available - in my constituency, that is a big issue, with people just not able to get a place at all - and to improve the quality, which is down to making sure we have good staff and that they are well paid and have proper career progression. I understand some of the issues that have been raised by Senators and Deputies about small providers and the financial pressure they are under. I am sure there is a solution but I am not sure exactly what it is. Money does follow the child, in the same way it follows the patient, or a child in education, but we make special provision for small schools and rural general practice, so there must be a way we can resolve this issue but it has to be in a way that is affordable and that works.

I was delighted Senator Chambers mentioned auto-enrolment. It is not something that excites the public very much but it is really important. It is a project I helped progress as Minister for Social Protection many years ago and, as is often the case in politics, where you get something started, you tend to feel attached to it for a long time. I am determined that this Dáil and Seanad should get that legislation done in the next year because it will transform pension provision in Ireland. A lot of people in Ireland are dependent on the State pension, while a lot of other people have both the State pension and an occupational pension. We are all among those people who have an occupational pension, and we do pay for it by making significant pension contributions, as we should. The same goes for pretty much everyone in the public service and everyone who works for a multinational or a big company, but there are huge numbers of people, pretty much half or even more than half of people who work in the private sector, who have no pension provision beyond the State pension, and that is not fair or right. It creates almost a pension apartheid between public sector workers, on the one hand, and people who work for big companies and private sector workers, on the other. In general, of course, people who work part time, often women, are the ones who do not have that occupational pension, and that should change. They did it a long time ago in Australia, where it really works, and they have done it in the UK. It will mean everyone who works will have an occupational pension in addition to the State pension. They can opt out if they want to - that is their choice - but we know from other countries that most people do not opt out. People are slow to sign up to a pension scheme but once they are in, they never leave it. It will be a transformative change that people will be very glad we made in 20, 30 or 40 years' time, and that is in many ways what politics is all about.

Senator Chambers also mentioned the issue of enlargement of the European Union. That is going to be a big challenge and we will need to talk about it at some stage. A lot of new countries are going to join the European Union. It is not going to happen within a couple of years but it is going to happen within the next decade or so, and it will mean change. The institutions and the voting system are designed for 27 member states and are already quite cumbersome. The budget will totally change. Countries that are now net beneficiaries and net recipients in eastern Europe will become net contributors, and it will also totally transform the Common Agricultural Policy. Think of all that farmland in Ukraine alone. These are enormous changes and pretending they are not going to happen is not at all an option. We have to start to plan ahead for what the European Union of 2030-something will look like and it is going to be quite a different place.

A lot of Senators raised the issue of access to therapies for children, one of the most difficult issues we all deal with as politicians. One of the things I find hardest to explain to my constituents and parents is why they cannot get access to therapies for their children and the truth is I have no good explanation. It is certainly not a lack of political will or compassion. It is not a lack of funding, although it might have been in the past. It is to do with much more difficult issues to resolve, such as finding the trained professional personnel we need and also changing our systems in order that they will be more modern and use new technologies. That is a lot harder to do and it is a big piece of work we will have to embrace over the next year or so, and I know the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, is particularly and personally committed to exactly that.

Senator Garvey mentioned the issue of climate action and I am totally at one with her on this. We have to stop seeing climate action as some sort of obligation, a legal target we have to meet or something that is really painful. I often hear people talk about climate action as though it is some sort of old-time religion, whereby we have committed sins and if we do not now do our penance and take our punishment, there will be an apocalypse and the world will end. It does not, of course, have to be that way and, in fact, it is not that way. Climate action is an enormous economic opportunity for Ireland to go for our moonshot and move from being a country totally dependent on imports for fuel to being one that produces energy for the world, with new industries throughout the country, not just in the big cities. The Senator referred also to our quality of life, with less commuting, cleaner air, more green spaces and trees and all the other things we all believe are desirable. We just need to start changing our thinking in that regard and how we talk about it. It is an economic opportunity, not a punishment for our decadent ways of the past. She spoke also about enabling people to live upstairs in buildings and I know a lot of the difficulty in that regard is down to fire certificates and access but if other countries can do it, surely we can do it too.

Senator McDowell raised the issue of Seanad reform. As Senators will know, I supported abolition. I think a small country can get by successfully with a unicameral system but, as I have also said, that matter has been settled. We had a referendum on it and it is not going to be revisited, at least if I have anything to do with it. Nevertheless, one of my biggest concerns during the referendum was that people who were campaigning for a No vote were promising there would be reform and that reform would happen quickly, that there would be consensus on it and that it would be easy. I always felt that there would not be consensus on reform and that that was going to be one of the difficulties-----