Nicole Ryan (Sinn Fein)
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The Minister has ten minutes for his opening statement.

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach and all the Members of the House for the opportunity to attend today to discuss the important work programme of my Department. I will cover several key priorities and my colleague the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, who will be shortly, will touch on the elements of the Department's work related to her remit in her closing remarks.

My Department operates from the centre of government to drive the delivery of better public services, living standards and infrastructure for the people of Ireland. The remit of the Department encompasses three broader areas: governance and oversight of public expenditure, building capacity across the civil and public service and delivering effectively across key departmental policies. These strategic goals are central to the Department's new statement of strategy out to 2028. It is part of what I set out to the Government last week in the context of actions that will be delivered in the time ahead.

Turning to public expenditure governance, a key priority for me and my Department is to promote and support the efficient, effective and sustainable use of resources in line with the annual budgetary parameters to support economic and social progress. This is particularly pertinent now as we focus our efforts on budget 2026. In the lead-up to 7 October, I have been meeting with a range of important stakeholders, from the national economic dialogue to the pre-budget meetings with my ministerial colleagues. It is clear to me the Government has an opportunity to make the right decisions to build further resilience in the Irish economy. This is particularly important given the uncertain geopolitical context. The medium-term expenditure framework I recently published puts in place a strong architecture to frame our budgetary plans for the coming years. This important framework takes a wider multi-annual view that complements and guides the annual budget cycle, enabling us to anticipate and prioritise effectively for the challenges and opportunities ahead.

The framework also provides insights to guide future budgetary decisions. Among these is the importance of capital expenditure in economically strategic areas to support housing delivery and to facilitate future economic growth. The framework also acknowledges that the achievement of policy outcomes requires public expenditure in tandem with other policy levers, including taxation, regulation and reform. Placing reform at the heart of all we do is something I have prioritised as Minister, and this is reflected in my Department's new statement of strategy. Over the summer, I wrote to all my ministerial colleagues and my Department issued a circular on the key value-for-money obligations that Departments are required to adhere to as they progress their own priorities. I think we can all agree that we need to invest in delivering the public services and infrastructure that people rightly demand, but we cannot do this at the expense of accountability and value for money.

This is why I have directed my officials to undertake a review of the public financial procedures to strengthen rules around how public money is used and to place accountability at the heart of decision-making. This approach is consistent with the work my Department does in progressing and promoting good governance, openness and transparency for the governance of State bodies, the regulation of lobbying, the protection of whistleblowers and through freedom of information. To ensure public expenditure achieves effective outcomes, my Department also monitors expenditure from climate, well-being and equality perspectives, produces expenditure and policy reviews with spending reviews, and produces organisational capability documents to ensure our Departments and offices have the capability to deliver on their objectives. Taken together, these elements form the basis of a public expenditure management system that is robust and has taxpayers' interests at heart.

Through our Department's goal in building capacity, we are developing a public service that can meet the long-term needs of a changing society. We do this through pay, pensions and HR policies, including legal responsibility for the appointment, pay, superannuation and conditions of all civil and public service staff and boards of public bodies, multi-year public service pay agreements, and a range of policies supporting a more agile and inclusive workforce, such as an apprenticeship programme for the public service.

To support effective delivery, my Department is driving an ambitious programme of public service reform through the better public service transformation strategy. It is also leading on digitalisation of public services to create a more integrated, user-friendly and efficient service and promoting and advancing the use of new and emerging technologies, including the importance of artificial intelligence. The focus on digitalisation is reflected in the Department's new mandate and in the enhanced policy remits under the public service transformation division and our Office of the Government Chief Information Officer. One example of where the Department is leading on digitalisation can be seen in the recent publication of our guidelines for the responsible use of AI in the public service. My Department's focus on delivery can also be seen in the extensive work programme under way to progress momentum in infrastructure. We have delivered a national development plan review and allocated an historic level of resources targeted at areas of known infrastructure deficit. Departments have now been tasked with developing sectoral investment plans to directly link funding to the projects that can be delivered across their sectors in the next five years.

In tandem with the new infrastructure division, my Department is working with deployed sectoral experts and an accelerating infrastructure task force to identify the barriers delaying project delivery and the solutions to overcome them. The State must get back to delivering infrastructure at speed and at scale and the removal of barriers will be critical. The approach to delivering policy solutions is good evidence of the Department's ability to respond with agility and flexibility, just as we have for Brexit, Covid, the war in Ukraine and the cost-of-living crisis. We delivered then and I firmly believe we can do so now. We have the resources and the opportunity to make real progress and we must follow through.

Nicole Ryan (Sinn Fein)
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Before we move to our first speaker, I welcome Councillor Patrick Meade, Cyril Carter and Paul to the Gallery. They are here with Senator Rabbitte. I call on Senator Joe Flaherty.

Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for coming in today. Undoubtedly, one of the biggest challenges facing this State is the scaling of our infrastructure. I appreciate we have record levels of capital investment, but it is only reasonable and fair to say the national development plan 2025 to 2035 will be a defining one against the backdrop of rising population and bullish economic growth. It is vital we meet these challenges in the areas of transport, water and energy head on. It is just under €276 billion of capital investment. With this funding, we have the chance and opportunity to build a nation fit for purpose and fit for the future. It is an investment that can and should set us apart as leaders among our European neighbours. We can reach our climate goals but more importantly, we can build a nation truly for all and one where no sector, community or townland is left behind. I know the Minister shares these sentiments and beliefs and deeply values them.

I was pleased to hear him speak of better public services, but I believe all agencies of the State need to be working much harder, more effectively and should be absolutely focused on the challenges of our times, be these housing, infrastructure or climate. There is doubt that the body politic and many Government Departments and agencies were severely damaged by the fallout from the OPW funding calamity last year. I fear too many Government Departments and agencies are now gripped by paralysis now when it comes to making hard decisions. All too often, there is a sense now that nobody wants to make the big decisions, and this is crippling the delivery of services nationwide. It is also important to say, however, that we have many incredibly dedicated and hardworking people across these Government Departments, agencies and local authorities. These are people who have consistently worn the Irish jersey and want the very best for this wonderful country and people.

All too often, our leadership in Departments and across local authorities is dented and thwarted by the election cycle and the transition of key officeholders. I regret seeing a wave of conservatism gripping many senior managers when it comes to the delivery of key services. I have seen the Minister engage over recent months with many of these leaders at Department and local authority level. He is in no doubt as to the passion and commitment of many of our teams across our Civil Service. I think he has a critical role now, along with the Taoiseach, in delivering a new and energised level of leadership across our State. There is no doubt that we need to be prudent and we certainly need to meet our budgets. Now more than ever, though, against the backdrop of that €276 billion, we need to be brave and maximise this unprecedented opportunity. We need a wave of enthusiasm and fervent leadership sweeping through all Departments. I am in no doubt that the Minister can personally lead this change, but there is also a huge onus on all his Cabinet colleagues to follow through on his lead. It is incumbent on all Ministers now that we drive change, set challenges and consistently strive to over-deliver.

This is an unprecedented opportunity for this country. If we were to listen to many of the Opposition Members in these Houses, and I do not see too many of them here this afternoon, they are almost Trump-like in their analysis when it comes to describing Ireland, yet this is one of the most successful advanced economies in Europe, one that has flourished in just over 100 years of independence. It is one that has triumphed in a post-Covid era, found the positives in the aftermath of Brexit, and met the challenges of war in Ukraine and an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis with resolve and commendable leadership. This was thanks in large part to the efforts, vision and foresight of leaders such as Micheál Martin, Michael McGrath and the Minister, Deputy Chambers.The media and, all too often, as a result, wider society are fixated with the President of America, Mr. Trump. The reality, though, is that he will leave office in 2028. We need to work on and retain our unrivalled relationship with the US. We have been consummate diplomats over the years and never were these qualities more in need. There will not be a flow of FDI companies from Ireland; rather, we are likely to see more because we have what the US and eastern European nations do not have, that is, a young, skilled, highly-educated and adept workforce. One does not build that workforce overnight. For us, it was a result of generational investment and leadership, in large part from Micheál Martin in his time as Minister for education.

The detail of the €276 billion NDP will be critical. Missing links of infrastructure need to be delivered. The Minister will forgive me for reminding him of the N4 upgrade, on which he was very proactive in his time in the transport Department. That needs to be finalised.

We need to calibrate rural and urban Ireland. We have far too many Government agencies still within the confines of Dublin city. We have staff on low incomes within those Departments struggling to make ends meet. There is a consummate need, and a demand, for a major decentralisation campaign and to move many of these Departments out of Dublin. The midlands was promised a just transition when we fast-tracked decarbonisation and closed our peat generation plants. We have yet to see the benefits of that. The obvious solution for that is a sustained and planned decentralisation and taking as many Government functions and Departments out of Dublin and move them to the midlands, primarily Longford, Westmeath and Offaly.

The Minister has set out many eye-watering details of this NDP. It is the largest ever capital investment plan in the history of the State and it will enable the delivery of thousands of new homes, provide more childcare and school places, invest in children's disability services and ensure better healthcare for all. That is the Ireland we want. That is the Ireland we have been gifted and this is why we now have an unprecedented opportunity to deliver.

It is expected in the lifetime of this Government that the Minister and his much-respected colleague, the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, will alternate roles. However, I make the point that these are, indeed, unprecedented times and I would suggest and argue that Deputy Chambers should remain in the Department of public expenditure role for the lifetime of this Government. The new accelerating infrastructure task force is chaired by Deputy Chambers and has been established by him to oversee the Department's programme of reform and unblock barriers and accelerate infrastructure delivery. It is a critical component in the Government's work programme and is rigorously focused on tackling the most important barriers to the delivery of critical economic infrastructure.

We saw T.K. Whitaker's economic development plan in the sixties which in large part delivered the country's first golden age and predated the Celtic tiger, but critical building blocks were provided earlier by the visionary Seán Lemass, who sent emissaries to Europe for investors to come back to Ireland and set up factories in the wake of the Second World War. Indeed, we saw one of those in Longford, with the Hirsch Ribbon factory. We then had the Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, who brought us into the EEC, which is now the EU, a move that was vehemently opposed by the main Opposition party until the early 1990s. There is a constant, though, in that generational and evolving narrative, and that is Fianna Fáil. That is why it is so critical that we have the Minister, Deputy Chambers, at the tiller at a time when Ireland has truly become the gateway to the Europe. Now we have an opportunity to set ourselves apart as the poster boys for Europe in terms of health, education, disability services, infrastructure and climate.

Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
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How do I follow that wonderful piece of publicity for Fianna Fáil? My good God, it was amazing - a history lesson along with all of the compliments.

This is the first time I have addressed the Minister since he took over the Department. Slightly off the subject, as director of elections for my former good friend, Jim Gavin, I wish the Minister well as he heads out into the hustings with a very fine former member of the Defence Forces, a man I was proud to have met many times. I really do wish him well. I am sorry that the campaign got off to such a toxic start but I believe Jim, Heather and Catherine will now get down to the work.

In 2011-12, around about the time the Department was formed, it did great work. It saved this country at its worst times. I remember condemning it to hell when I was president of the Teachers Union of Ireland for having the audacity to cut the salaries of my colleagues but what was done was done to save this country and those in the Department were excellent people in a job at the time. As to whether I could say the same today, I do not think so. Secretly, I hate to tell the Minister's officials who are sitting behind him there that departmental people say to me it is all the fault of the Department of public expenditure and that it is the animal in the room that will allow them do nothing. Therefore, let us talk about value for money, which is one of the roles the Department has.

Let us talk about the search and rescue contract that was awarded to Bristow. It was supposed to be up and running in July of this year. Everybody said - I said it for months before the contract was awarded - that it could not possibly deliver on the promise it was giving. It is an €800 million contract and we all know it will probably go to €1 billion or €1.5 billion by the time the ten years is up. The oversight of that contract is now a matter that will go before the Committee of Public Accounts and I sincerely hope we will get to the bottom of some of the shenanigans that took place. The Minister's officials cannot be on top of all of these issues. I am merely pointing out that when it comes to governance, the Minister would not have enough staff if he had 1,000 staff to keep an eye on what is going on.

With the same group, the Irish Coast Guard, there was a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General about the purchase of vehicles. The report condemns the fact that €18 million was spent on buying vehicles. Let me put it this way. They had a particular vehicle. I will not put a name on the vehicle or anything else. The vehicle was found to be unsuitable for the work of the Coast Guard. A case was made, I am sure, to the Department of public expenditure, to replace the vehicles. The vehicles were replaced with exactly the same vehicle. They got rid of a vehicle and they purchased exactly the same one. If it was not good enough to do the job the first time around, how the hell did they buy it the second time? The Minister cannot be on top of that. I am pointing this out from the point of view of how difficult it is for the Department of public expenditure and reform to have its finger on every pulse in the country. We have to trust individual Departments to do the job that they are entrusted to do. I brought these issues up. Over the past four years, I spoke in this House more often than I care to remember about the runaway lack of governance in the Department of Transport, particularly in relation to the Irish Coast Guard. Nothing has changed.

I firmly believe we should have Deputy Chambers in finance, give him the two Departments and get it back to where it was. I am not so sure I would agree with my colleague that the Deputy should be there for life, but we would give him a couple of years anyway. That would be my view on it.

Seriously, if we look at legal actions taken by citizens of this State dating back way before the Minister's time and, indeed, my time, there are examples of the State legal teams fighting legal cases that are unwinnable to the last moment. There are cases that we can draw back on where final settlements were made on the death bed of people who took the actions. We need to look at how all of that fits into corporate governance. I know the State is obliged to defend and look after the resources and money of the State and must defend any action that is brought against it but, surely to God, when they know it is an action that it will fail, they should stop and say, "No more. We will not fund something that has no chance of winning. We will go and settle it and solve whatever problem is there." That is the sort of Cabinet discussion that has to be had, where we sit down and we look at it.

In fairness, on the money that the Minister has allocated to defence, I have been looking at what has happened, particularly in Haulbowline in Cork where a tremendous transformation has taken place.On the money that is being paid to our Defence Forces personnel, a 3-star private now starts on about €6,000 a year more than a teacher. That is really amazing. It is great stuff.

The Tánaiste announced about three weeks ago that he went to the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation looking for €3.7 billion to modernise and increase the Defence Forces and he was delighted that he got €1.7 billion. I was brought up in a country where if the Taoiseach or the Tánaiste said they were going to do something, no Minister would have the audacity to say "No". They would simply say, "Get the cheque book out there. The Minister wants €3.7 billion. Where do I sign?" I had this argument with one of my family the other day. I said, "What a hard neck. The Tánaiste made a statement and DPER said no." My family member turned around and said to me: "Hang on a minute now. You're telling me DPER is there to mind the purse strings of the State, and on the other hand you say the Tánaiste can spend whatever the hell he wants." I am sure what actually happened is that he was told, "You can have the €3.7 billion for defence, but if you get that, we are taking €1 billion out of health and another €1 billion out of somewhere else." Perhaps that is what happened.

We need a little bit more honesty about what goes on in the Department. When we joined the EEC, which later became the EU, it was government practice and political practice to blame Europe for everything. "It is not our fault; it is Europe's fault. We did not do it; Europe did it." The current mantra throughout the country when we talk about public services - even hiring a secretary; it does not matter - is that, "We would do it. We have no problem doing it, but it is DPER. DPER has our hands tied." Departments need to be a little bit more honest with us. If they are looking for specific funding for something and the funding is not available, they have to explain why the business case they brought to the Department of public expenditure and reform failed. Why was the Department able to turn around and say, "We cannot fund that"?

In fairness to the Department - my former union members will probably kill me for complimenting the Department on anything - but if the Department of public expenditure and reform is to stay and we are to remain with the two Departments – the Department of Finance and the Department of public expenditure – then the Department of public expenditure should not have to explain itself as to why projects or business cases did not survive. What should happen is that the Department whose business case was rejected needs to understand why it was rejected and then to be honest enough and tell the public that when it put forward a particular set of proposals it was not accepted, and lay out the reason it was not accepted. It is not good enough to have one demon in the room and to blame that demon for everything. If I want-----

Nicole Ryan (Sinn Fein)
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Senator Craughwell's time is up.

Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
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I am nearly finished. I have always tried to work on the basis of not asking a question unless I had a fair idea of what the answer was going to be. Similarly, when it comes to the Minister's Department, I would like to see it come out of the doldrums of being the devil incarnate in the corner and be seen as somebody who is minding the State and looking after State resources.

Cathal Byrne (Fine Gael)
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I acknowledge our guests in the Visitors Gallery, including my friend, Councillor Paddy Meade, and his guests the Carters. My understanding is that both his father and his brother served as TDs in the Dáil in the past. They are most welcome to this Chamber.

I thank the Minister, Deputy Chambers, very much for joining us today. I pay tribute to him, the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, and the officials in the Department on the work that has been done to date.

I am the Fine Gael spokesperson on public expenditure and infrastructure. I want to raise three main points today. In the last line of his speech the Minister said: "We have the resources and the opportunity to make real progress and we must follow through." This Dáil term and Government must be about delivery in housing and disability services but also in infrastructure. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with the resources we have to make sure that we are in a position to deliver. I very much welcome the fact that we have the new infrastructure delivery unit in the Minister's Department, which he chairs, the Cabinet subcommittee on infrastructure, which he also chairs, and also the accelerating infrastructure task force.

I am a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Infrastructure. In recent months we examined some of the key blockages. I am aware the Department is doing that at the moment. I want to speak for a moment on that. We must get to grips with judicial reviews and the fact that anybody across the country can lodge a planning objection to any piece of infrastructure, anywhere in Ireland, and after it goes through the planning process they can take a judicial review. At no point in the entire process is the interests of the public good considered. It is one thing to have a legitimate objector to a piece of infrastructure with a genuine reason that directly impacts on the person, and the lives of their family, but we have spurious objectors across the country, who have no connection to an area and no direct impact as a result of the infrastructure project taking cases and judicial reviews. The Department must get to grips with that. The public interest must be at the forefront of a judicial review. There must be a genuine legitimate reason and basis for a case to be taken.

The Courts Service of Ireland told the infrastructure committee that virtually no cases are dismissed at the first stage, which is whether there is a legitimate public interest in taking the case. Such legislation must be prioritised by the Department, in conjunction with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

When the ring road in Galway went through the planning process, it went through An Bord Pleanála and a judicial review was taken in 2022 on the basis of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act (Amendment) 2021, whereby the Friends of the Irish Environment successfully overturned the planning permission granted by An Bord Pleanála for the Galway ring road on the basis that Galway City Council and Galway County Council did not consider an alternative to building the motorway. I cannot understand that at all. A motorway exists to provide a route for motor vehicles to travel along. What is the alternative to the motorway? Why was that allowed to happen?

That section of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act refers to no mitigation measures being taken to reduce emissions. The impact of the decision has been seen in my constituency in Wexford, where I come from, which is awaiting the development of the motorway from Oylegate to Rosslare, which would allow the M11 to run the entire way from Belfast directly to Rosslare Europort. The impact of the court case and the fact that the judicial review was successful has added 18 months to the planning process for the building of the Oylegate to Rosslare motorway because Wexford County Council, in conjunction with TII, now has to consider the impact of building a motorway on the climate targets set for transport and what mitigation measures can be taken so that individuals would travel by public transport, cycling or walking as opposed to using the motorway. That section of the legislation must be reformed to prioritise the fact that, as a country, we need motorway infrastructure to be developed and we cannot be hamstrung by judicial reviews taken on the basis that alternatives are not being considered for active travel such as walking and cycling, when constructing a motorway. The planning and design phase of the project started in December 2021 and the latest update I received states it will not be in a position to seek planning permission from An Bord Pleanála until the end of 2026. There is no way a motorway project for a 30 km stretch of road, which has been subject to design and where the route has been selected, should be delayed for five years. These are some of the infrastructural blockages that I have seen as a member of the infrastructure committee, and that the Minister sees in his role in the Department that we must get to grips with as a Government and as a country.

I want to raise a number of issues in Wexford relating to the national development plan. I acknowledge the fact that the Minister, together with the Minister, Deputy James Browne, and me, visited Wexford General Hospital on Friday. He met with Linda O'Leary, the hospital manager, representatives of the HSE and many of the very hard-working staff. Planning permission has been awarded for a 97-bed unit and construction is to commence at the beginning of next year. Other demands were made at the meeting for progress on beds, the emergency department and laboratories in Wexford General Hospital.I hope that as part of the new national development plan, the necessary funding will be awarded to make those a reality. On the question of mental health beds, I want to highlight that we have 178,000 people living in Wexford. During the summer, that number increased by up to a quarter. At the moment, if a person is in need of a mental health bed, they have to travel 60 km from Wexford to Waterford. Currently, there are no acute mental health beds in Wexford. There is no 24-hour service run by the State. The only ones are those operated by the voluntary sector, including Talk to Tom. As part of the national development plan, I would like to see the introduction of a small facility of perhaps ten to 20 beds in Wexford to deal with the mental health crisis we are currently facing.

Finally, I want to highlight the Enniscorthy flood relief project. The Minister of State, Deputy Moran, visited the town to see this project. Enniscorthy was flooded in 1924, 1947, 1965, 2000, 2025 and most recently in 2021. This is an example of where the Department set aside €65 million in 2015 but because of delays and bureaucracy in the planning process, we have not been able to deliver the project. The money is there but the project has not been given planning consent.

Nicole Ryan (Sinn Fein)
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Before we move on to our next speakers, on behalf of Senator Flaherty, I welcome to the Gallery, Cyril Carter whose father Thomas was a TD between 1921 and 1951. He represented Sinn Féin, Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil. Cyril's brother Frank was a TD from 1951 to 1957 for Fianna Fáil. I also welcome Councillor Paddy Meade. Our next speakers are from Sinn Féin and I understand that Senators Murphy and Tully are sharing time. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Conor Murphy (Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the opportunity to comment on the statement made by the Minister. I notice that like myself, he is moving quickly from one place to another but I welcome the presence of his ministerial colleague. The important matter he raised was setting the framework of the budget and future budgets. There has to be a recognition in doing that, which was not alluded in his statement, of the challenges that families are currently facing, and have been for the past number of years, in relation to a range of matters. The cost-of-living crisis is being contributed to by high energy, food and rent costs and by lack of access to housing, and has only become exacerbated in recent times. Any attempt to frame budgets for this year or the following years needs to be in terms of consideration that need to be front and centre regarding the real challenges that people have been facing and continue to face at this time.

The Minister referred to the importance of capital investment in economically strategic areas. I am sure many of those who live in the more rural areas will welcome the news that there will be a certain geographic focus in that. The question relates to supporting housing development, which continues to be well under the required level to assist people who are waiting to get housing built and to try to get access to housing for themselves and their families. At a meeting of the Oireachtas committee on housing yesterday, Dr. Michelle Norris, professor of social policy at UCD and a member of the Housing Commission, criticised the Government's approach to spending on social housing as being highly problematic. She said that the boom-bust pattern of spending on social housing is socially problematic because when public spending fails, waiting lists and unmet social needs expand. Figures from last year from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, IFAC, show that an additional 80,000 construction workers will be required to see through the State's infrastructure deficit. Those are real challenges. While there is a reference to the need for capital investment to support housing delivery, we need to see a real sense of recognition of some of the challenges that have been present for many years and that need to be taken seriously and addressed when setting the framework for the budget.

Energy was not mentioned in the Minister's statement. He referred specifically to housing delivery and future economic growth. Energy costs have been at the heart of the cost-of-living crisis. They are not only an issue for households and families; they are also an economic issue for businesses trying to do business and for investment. Serious investment is needed in energy infrastructure to make sure that we have more access to renewable energy to bring energy costs down for the broad population and also to support economic growth.

Members of the Houses are currently on the flotilla bring much-needed humanitarian aid to Gaza. The vessel they were travelling on was attacked and hit four times last night by the Israeli Defence Forces. I ask that the Minister for State raise with her Cabinet colleagues, particularly the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and that they protest the framing of the flotilla by Israel as an aggressive action, which is providing the justification for ongoing attacks on those on the flotilla. I ask that the Tánaiste raise this matter and that the Cabinet speak with one voice on it, particularly given that Members of the Oireachtas are involved. The flotilla should be allowed to continue its journey to provide much-needed humanitarian aid and that this in some way influences the Israeli Government to do what is necessary to allow humanitarian aid and to stop the genocide in Gaza and the attacks on those in the West Bank as well.

Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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I want to concentrate on a couple of issues. The first is third level student accommodation. At the moment, it is reckoned that we are short 25,000 to 30,000 beds. This means students are forced to compete with workers and families in the private sector. As a result, they are paying extremely high rents. The rents in some student accommodation are becoming very high. The Higher Education Authority, HEA, projects that the gap could grow to 68,000 by 2035. That is an alarming figure, so we need to see increased investment in student accommodation. We also need to see an inequity addressed regarding the technological universities. Currently, universities can borrow, usually from the European Investment Bank, to build on-campus residences, but the technological universities cannot. The Technological Universities Act 2018 foresaw a borrowing mechanism but this has still not been put in place. In 2021, the Government said that it would implement that but there is still no mechanism in place. Perhaps this could be addressed so we could see student accommodation being built.

UCD has a considerable amount of student accommodation but it is quite expensive. It is the most expensive in the country. Recently, it was announced that the second phase of the village would progress, which is welcome. Taxpayers' money amounting to €67.7 million is being invested in that. However, I am hugely concerned about the cost of this accommodation. It is being built on university land, so the land is not costing money. It is reckoned that the cost is approaching €250,000 per bedroom. That is extraordinary and needs to be addressed, because this is taxpayers' money. Will it mean that the cost will be passed on to the students so that rents will be higher? While I welcome the investment of taxpayers' money by the Government in this, it cannot just be spent like that, where it is way over what it should be.

The other issue I want raise is collective bargaining. It is seen as a fundamental right in nearly every country of Europe. It is recognised by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, it is still not considered a right in Ireland. While people have a right to join a union, there is no compulsion on employers to recognise or engage with that union. The reason I am raising it with this Department is that Government contracts to companies that will not engage with a union should not be granted to them. We have the example of BT, which has the contract for the emergency call answering services.It refuses to engage with its workers in a collective bargaining situation and has actually actively targeted those in the workforce and engaged in union busting. I really feel that government contracts should not be given to any company which will not engage with a union. We need to see legislation introduced that will compel all employers to engage with unions. It exists in the North and many other European countries. We need to see it implemented here.

Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I welcome the opportunity to have a few moments to speak on this very important issue. I will be very focused on housing, wastewater and disability. In my remarks on housing I will focus on Galway County Council, which has only 66 acres of land zoned for housing. At Monday’s meeting of the local authority, the director of services informed the councillors that 70% of the 66 acres cannot be built on because it does not have infrastructure and if the council did build on it, it would cost €76 million. There are 3,000 people waiting on a housing list and the director of services is saying that 70% of the 66 acres cannot be built on. This is not a shortage. They should know that this €76 million in infrastructure funding is required. The councillors were not expecting that response. It is something that we as a Government need to address, particularly at the moment as county development plans are going back out. We need to ensure that this issue is addressed.

Turning to wastewater, I again raise the issue of Galway County Council. Two and a half years ago, it was awarded €10 million for Clarinbridge and Craughwell to upgrade the sewage treatment plant. In July, Uisce Éireann wrote to the local authority to say that it would have to make a contribution of 15%. Between the VAT and the cost of the contribution, Uisce Éireann is looking for €5 million from the local authority. We talk about value for money or trying to be progressive but, two and a half years on, nothing has happened. It is at a standstill. I do not fault the Department by any means but it is giving €2 billion to Uisce Éireann for it to write a letter in July when there has been dialogue with the Department and we need an intervention at the level of the Minister of State to assist the process.

Turning to disability, I am delighted the Minister of State is in front of me on this because she will clearly understand what I am going to talk about, namely, Stewarts Care in her constituency. It does wonderful work with horse therapy in Kilcloon. Sometimes agencies do not inform Departments on really good value for money. Maybe they do not collect and quantify the detail the way they should. When children go to equine therapy, it is a therapeutic intervention, not just fun. It is fun but it has a value. It is hard to believe that in Liskennett in County Limerick, on the Cork border, 1,000 hours of therapeutic intervention is done weekly but not recorded and nor is a value placed on it. The HSE is not gathering that piece of information. The same goes for Kilcloon in the Minister of State’s constituency. The reason I mention this is that we can do pragmatic alternative therapies. When you have one OT, six horses and six healthcare assistants, you are delivering a therapeutic intervention times six with one qualified therapist. It is the best value for money going. This can have a regional spread, particularly in a growing area. There is Stewarts Care in the Minister of State’s constituency, while St. Joseph’s Foundation has Liskennett and I think Kanturk is coming on stream. These are phenomenal interventions. Clondalkin also has the opportunity with primary care to do equine therapy. We also need to look at Toghermore, which will cover where Senator Scahill and I are based as well as Mayo as a regional hub for equine therapy.

Nicole Ryan (Sinn Fein)
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I offer my sincerest apologies to the Cross-Party Group, which I skipped. It is the first week back. Our next speakers will be from the Cross-Party Group. I believe the Senators are sharing time. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats)
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The revised NDP could and should have been a turning point and a moment to finally reset our approach to housing and infrastructure delivery in Ireland. Unfortunately, I see very little ambition or vision in the revised document. One of the biggest infrastructure challenges we have in Ireland is housing. We have over 16,000 people in homeless accommodation and that includes a horrible figure of 5,000 children living in emergency accommodation. It is a shameful record that we are breaking month after month. Of course, that is not telling the whole picture because there is overcrowding in people’s homes, women living in refuges and a generation stuck in their bedrooms, none of whom are counted in those numbers. When we are talking about this we need to emphasise that it is not abstract. These are people - families, children and older people - who are all living with this continuous trauma of having no place to call home. Yet the NDP contains no radical change of direction, no credible path to end homelessness and no real strategy to deliver genuinely affordable homes at scale.

What we have is not a blueprint for transformation. It is a slim document of less than 50 pages offering big numbers but very little clarity or detail. There is precious little detail about what projects will actually be delivered or when and how we will avoid the delays and overruns that have become the norm, such as the National Children’s Hospital scandal. The Government’s problem is a lack of ambition but also a lack of delivery. Time and again we have seen big promises and targets that quickly slip out of reach. Housing delivery has completely stalled. Of course our energy and water systems are running close to capacity and in many areas are at total capacity. That means that in places such as where I am from in Carlow or Kilkenny, people cannot build new developments in the towns they are from.

We have not had any major transport projects completed. The result is felt by every family but particularly those unable to afford a home, those stuck in traffic and those who worry whether the infrastructure they rely on can cope with the increased demand.

Infrastructure needs to be planned as a whole and housing, transport, health, energy, water, education and childcare need to be considered holistically so that communities can properly thrive. Otherwise we are simply building isolated projects rather than building a future for this country. People deserve certainty. They do not need slogans; they need homes, transport, schools and hospitals. They need them to be delivered on time and within budget. The Government must stop announcing plans with little detail and, rather, start building an Ireland that people can live and work in.

Before the Minister of State came in, Senator Flaherty said the Opposition just likes to complain about Ireland and how awful the country is. I do not feel like that at all. I am very proud of Ireland and I believe it could be a brilliant country but I honestly think that people are struggling now. If Senator Flaherty has not seen that on the ground, perhaps he is not canvassing or knocking on doors in the same communities I am, where people do not have places to live and cannot get childcare facilities close to their jobs. Good luck if you are a disabled person in a wheelchair trying to book yourself onto a train to go to work or travel to another part of the country because there is one slot available on four carriages on a train route. That is just the reality of many people in this country, particularly people with disabilities. It is really important to highlight that.

Obviously, we have a massive issue around procurement. I hope to get into more detail on that with the Minister when he comes before the infrastructure committee later. We have an endless challenge with procurement in this country. I mentioned the National Children’s Hospital but we have other examples. We need to understand what is going wrong with our tendering processes, why so many change orders are being put in and what is happening at the level of the different companies responsible for this.

I also want to lend my support to what Senator Tully said about collective bargaining. We should not be issuing public contracts to any company which does not have the right to unionise or collective bargaining. We have a two-tier system in Ireland whereby for workers in the public system, such as teachers or nurses, it is fine and they can have collective bargaining but someone in the private sector might not get that same right. We need to instil that as a right. We have the minimum wage directive from the European Union. We need to instil that and legislate for that. Until that is done, there should be no public contracts delivered to companies which do not have the right to collective bargaining.

Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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Earlier this month, the Northern and Western Regional Assembly released a report on the status of priority infrastructure projects. The Northern and Western Regional Assembly does amazing work in identifying not only the needs and gaps in provision but also the possibilities that could be implemented. There are a number of absolutely crucial transport infrastructure projects which have been identified for years in the north west but are still not shovel-ready.

What is missing in Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal that we have seem to have no transport projects ready to go?Our region is bursting with untapped potential in terms of our natural resources, landscape and extremely talented workforce. We could compete with any region in Europe but there have been years of underinvestment in infrastructure projects that is preventing us from achieving our potential.

I know we are talking about public infrastructure and finance, it is often asked where the money will come from. It is a fair enough question. Where are we going to raise finance? However, in a country where there is so much real poverty, levels of homelessness, child poverty and food poverty, and low- to middle-income earners paying high levels of tax and not receiving the services they should, there is a whole class of people groaning underneath the weight of their wealth without paying any meaningful level of tax at all. According to Oxfam Ireland, there are now 11 Irish billionaires. During 2024, their combined wealth increased by a staggering €35.6 million every single day. I have to agree with Jim Clerkin from Oxfam that this wealth is not deserved and is not based on merit. It is based on greed and a desire to acquire, possess and hoard. It is a level of greed that would even put world's imperialists to shame.

Billionaires worldwide use clever accounting and tax avoidance - not actual tax evasion - to get away with not pulling their weight. Not only that, they are actually doing real harm. Every euro they acquire is held onto tightly, taken out of our system and squirrelled away. Although billionaires have been allowed to exist and thrive under modern, unrestrained, unregulated capitalism, their behaviour will undoubtedly cause the end and collapse of capitalism. Money is designed to flow around the financial system just as blood flows around the circulatory system. To have a blood clot in the circulatory system is potentially fatal and may require surgery or clot busting medication. Blood clots are the enemies of good circulation but billionaires are the enemies of a well-run, functioning society which requires buy-in and contributions from all of its members.

Why am I talking about it now? We know there are massive infrastructure projects that need to happen. We know housing needs to happen. We know one in five children are living below the poverty line but taxation has become a dirty word for political parties. Raising taxes for those who are already struggling cannot be an option. We should have a progressive system, like they have introduced in Spain, to protect those who are asset rich but cash poor. It can be implemented. We can broaden our tax base. Internationally, a system has been proposed to the G20 that will involve the collection of a 2% wealth tax on global billionaires. We could demonstrate that it is possible to raise taxes for billionaires, continue to grow our economy and deliver services, housing and infrastructure projects. Spain is doing it, and we could do it too. At the moment, we are still allowing the world's billionaires to continue to acquire, hold and pile up wealth. This affects our public services and there is a direct correlation between poor public services and poor infrastructure projects and untapped wealth that we are not using. They should not be allowed get away with it.

Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)
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At the outset, I join in the welcome to Councillor Paddy Meade, who has just temporarily left us, and the member of the Carter family, who are a very distinguished family in terms of public service in this country.

I welcome my good friend the Minister of State, Deputy Emer Higgins, to the House. She certainly does not let the grass grow under her feet and will act on these recommendations, please God. I will start by listing out some critical projects in my own area and I am anxious these are dealt with and brought to the relevant places. The bypass of Virginia is in progress and I want a running commitment to that. I will quickly tell a light-hearted story. There is a young man who is a distinguished public representative in Cavan, Councillor T.P. O'Reilly, who celebrated his 50th birthday a little while ago - a couple of years ago. He told me that when his Dad was a young man, he was refused planning permission to expand his retail outlet in Virginia on the grounds it would interfere with the route of the Virginia bypass. That was approximately 60 years ago, so it is timely we give that legs at the moment and keep it going.

The next project I will mention is the wastewater treatment plant in Virginia, which is critical. House building in the most beautiful town in Ireland has ceased in the absence of this wastewater plant. We must make sure that finishes. The east-west link, the Dundalk to Sligo road, is an important connection. The Rathkenny bend realignment is expensive but it needs funding and needs to go on. Progress on the N55 needs to continue along with the Cavan north west greenway. These are crucial projects.

The upgrade and maintenance of regional and local roads in Cavan has suffered hugely in terms of money. There has been historic underinvestment in them. We now have that historic underinvestment aggravated by inflation, extra costs, wages etc. but inflation in general. It is a particular issue for rural communities but it is very real for people trying to live in rural communities. I know the very idyllic place the Minister of State lives in herself from my travels as a Senator. I know she has an appreciation of beyond that, and where rural people want to access their house, the local improvement schemes, LIS, in rural areas are crucially important. We need extra investment there and Cavan specifically has a huge waiting list that goes back approximately five or six years. We need that dealt with.

I have great regard for the Minister of State, Deputy Kieran O'Donnell, who is doing great work in this area. With the ageing demographic, I want to bring to the Minister of State's attention the need for more retirement villages in this country. I invite him to look at one that is a classically good one in Mullagh, County Cavan. We need these enclaves of purpose-built housing near services and medical services for older people. We have a good former Minister here in the Chamber who was responsible for the disability sector while in this Department, particularly responsible for people with special needs and disabled people, and they need more of this purpose-built housing around the country. Those are the things I wanted to cite.

I did not casually or lightly list off those projects at home. They are critical to a lot of people. I ask the Minister of State to please see they get a mention and actioned. I appreciate that.

Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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I welcome this conversation. I thank the Minister of State for coming into us today. Unlike my esteemed colleague, I did not get the chance to visit the rest of the country on the canvass for the Seanad, so I will talk about Roscommon and my area. I concur with Senator Cosgrove about the plan the Northern and Western Regional Assembly produced as well as a call for overall balanced regional development. Unfortunately, the plan the Senator referred to has very little reference to Roscommon in it. The infrastructure projects are very lacking in that. One project that was in the county development plan and the previous plan was the N5 from Scramoge to Ballaghaderreen, which the Government and the previous Government have significantly invested in. We expect it to be opened early next year but it will have an impact on the other roads that come from it and the other areas.

Since I was a young boy, there has been reference to looking after the N60 from Roscommon to Ballyhaunis. In the 2022-2028 plan, it speaks of an upgrade of that route and looking at developing a strategy to upgrade that route. That was a copy and paste job from the previous plan and the plan before that. With the upgrades that have happened on the N5, we are about to put significant traffic on that particular road. That will probably be at a specific junction that is already at creaking point in Castlerea. It is a place called "Hell's Kitchen corner" in Castlerea. The traffic will come from Frenchpark and the N60. It will not be able to deal with the volume of traffic turning right towards Williamstown, Dunmore, Ballyhaunis and that particular area. I recently conducted an accessibility survey with the Brothers of Charity rehabilitation care in Castlerea. That particular junction was highlighted as a major issue for all of the service users in Castlerea. To think that we are about to significantly increase the traffic using that is a very big problem.I wish to mention the N60 once more in relation to that.

I also concur with my colleague on purpose-built housing and age-friendly housing. It will open up a lot more housing in rural Ireland such as in my area. While talking about disability services, I would like to mention the potential for a disability service in Castlerea, County Roscommon in an old derelict building called Hanley Hall that the diocese is open to making available for that purpose. CBS Roscommon, Roscommon Community College, Abbey Community College in Boyle and Elphin Community College are all earmarked for expansion but by the time the expansion happens, we will have to look at additional expansion. Can this be factored in? The time it will take to deliver these school projects means they will already need more capacity by the time they are ready, especially sports facilities. We are lucky enough. Senator Brady spoke yesterday about an athlete from Longford who performed very well at the weekend. In the past two weeks, we welcomed home 75 kg world champion Aoife O'Rourke to my own town, Castlerea. We have athletes performing above their potential. An awful lot more could meet their potential if we had the facilities within our education system, which we are already investing in.

Joe Conway (Independent)
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The reason I deferred to Senator Scahill, even though I think I upset the lineage, is I was unprepared and I was trying to marshal a few figures. I want to celebrate the fact that we have the opportunity to comment on expenditure and the whole ambit of what we are doing with our money and productively. I draw the House's attention not for the first time to the expenditure on our defence budget. The last time I looked, it was about 0.25% of the national budget. It seems to be the fashion of the day. Senator Cosgrove spoke about how billionaires are treated in Spain and I would like to mention how Switzerland treats its neutrality. As opposed to our 0.25% expenditure on defence procurement and the Defence Forces, Switzerland, a neutral country, spends between 7% and 8% of its national budget on defence. My mathematics say they spend 30 times more per capita than we do on their neutrality. We face an ever-present threat. I have said time and again in this House that the bad actors on the eastern side of the European Union are not going to be deterred or suppressed by soft talk and blandishments. History has taught us that tyrannical people in the Kremlin, Mr. Putin and his ilk, do not seem to respect the norms of sovereignty and independence of the people of the various republics in Europe. It seems there is an ever-present dimension of trying to destabilise the European Union and replace it with what they see as their hegemony. To counter that, we have to, no pun intended, bite the bullet of increasing our level of expenditure and integration with European Union defence and, if necessary, with NATO as well. Mr. Putin would not in any way be deterred from interfering with our undersea cables, for example, just because we fly the flag of neutrality. We have to consider, however unpalatable it might be, that there is a strong urgency to invest in our defence budget. I was gratified to see a quiet announcement by the Department in the past few weeks without any great fuss or bluster that we are transferring non-lethal assets to Ukraine. That is praiseworthy. I applaud the work of the Government in that regard.

On matters closer to home, Senators O'Reilly and Scahill spoke raised sheltered housing and those sort of facilities for our older people. That was mooted in Tramore. The Minister who came down to give a feasibility budget was Jan O'Sullivan. That shows how long ago it was. It seems to be stillborn. I wonder what is happening to these schemes brought along by the enthusiasm of local communities but for one reason or another ran out of steam. I would love if somebody could investigate why this happened and what can be done to regenerate the impetus. The older population is increasing dramatically and they will be sorely needed. There is also a spin-off that a lot of social housing could be freed up as a result.

Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)
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Before I call the Minister of State, I welcome Deputy Cahill and his guests to the Chamber. You are very welcome here today.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Members for the opportunity to attend today and for their engaging and valuable contributions. It is clear from the contributions that there is significant interest in the work of the Department. As the Minister, Deputy Chambers, set out earlier, the Department operates from the centre of government. It does so to drive the delivery of better public services, improved living standards and infrastructure across the island of Ireland. As Minister of State, I have special responsibility for public procurement, digitalisation and egovernment. I work closely with the Minister towards the Department's aims. Delivering reform is central to everything we do in our Department. As Minister of State, a key area I am keen to reform is how the State procures, building on the work undertaken in the Department since it was established. For that reason, the Department has developed a digital public procurement roadmap and is developing Ireland's first-ever national public procurement strategy. That will set out the strategic direction of public procurement for the next five years. The digital roadmap will support some of the key deliverables of the strategy. Our Department's values, which are serving the public interest, transparency, accountability, integrity, fairness and inclusiveness all align with what we are trying to achieve through that strategy. It is a national public procurement strategy. For that reason, it is only fitting and appropriate that the public sits at the very heart of it. A foundational policy position of the strategy is that it must be in the public's best interest. This position is reflected in the ambition of the strategy to improve the lives of those building their lives in Ireland through the delivery of strategic, innovative, sustainable and transparent public procurement that supports competition and value for money. The Minister and I are committed to using public procurement as a strategic tool to deliver wider societal, environmental and economic impact. The Department works with colleagues across government to explore ways we can leverage the collective spending power of the State to drive positive change, deliver better public services and improve the lives of the people of Ireland.

We recognise the crucial role that SMEs, including social enterprises, play in driving economic and societal prosperity. The programme for Government includes a clear commitment to reviewing the public procurement process to work to ensure greater participation from SMEs in Ireland. This commitment is reflected in another of the foundational principles of the strategy, to make public participation in public procurement easier for suppliers and particularly for microcompanies, startups, SMEs and social enterprises. Reflecting another of our Department's values and progressing a programme for Government commitment to make public procurement more transparent, the Minster and I are committed to enhancing transparency at all stages of the procurement process. I chair the public procurement advisory council established in 2024 to advise the development of public procurement across the public sector. This council focuses on six priority areas.One of the key areas is to deliver improvements in data analytics. This will assist with evidence-based policy and will provide more transparency when it comes to public procurement. The work of the council is progressed through three subgroups, one of which, the data analytics working group, is tasked with assisting the council in the alignment of data requirements to facilitate monitoring and examining the potential to leverage the information generally maintained in the contract register as an aid to public procurement data analysis. That work is ongoing.

Earlier, the Minister, Deputy Chambers, highlighted value for money as a key priority for the Department. Value for money is absolutely central to everything we do and it is central to public procurement. It will constitute one of the three themes that will permeate our new strategy. As custodians of public funds, we have a responsibility to spend money in a judicious and diligent way. From a procurement perspective, this includes not just looking at the cost and the price, it also means looking at things like quality, specialist expertise and the social, environmental and economic impacts.

The Minister, Deputy Chambers, and I are developing an ambitious but achievable work programme and we will be delivering world-class public services because we know that involves not only turning public expenditure into outcomes that citizens value, but today it also involves digitally accessible and changing definitions of value for money that include that environmental and social value. We saw that through, for example, our new green public procurement policy. There are challenges and some changes are, of course, necessary if we are to build an economy that is capable of sustainable prosperity, but we have the will, we have the workforce and we have the tenacity to do this.

I want to respond to some of the comments and remarks made by Senators here today and to acknowledge there was a huge call for investment in infrastructure projects and for Ireland's infrastructure in general, whether that is wastewater in Galway, bypasses in Virginia, national roads in Roscommon, sports halls, amenities or societal amenities. That was very clearly heard. There were calls for further investment in our Defence Forces and I am sure the Department of Defence will be making that case in the ongoing budget negotiations, but there has also been a huge focus here today on housing. We have had people put forward the case for more investment in affordable housing, in social housing, in emergency housing, in student accommodation and in older persons' accommodation. To reiterate, our national development plan which was launched over the summer, is all about putting funding into those key infrastructure projects that are going to unlock housing, whether that is unlocking service sites in places like Galway or whether that is delivering new homes right across the country. It is all about making sure we are investing in our water, our energy and our roads with the ultimate goal of improving Ireland as a place to come, to live, to work, to grow old in but also to ensure we are delivering more and more houses. That is something our Department is working very closely with the Department of housing and planning and many other Departments to ensure happens.

Value for money initiatives were also mentioned here today and we had special mention of procurement best practice and how we learn best practice. I think our new national public procurement strategy will be a great example of how we share best practice and how we get better safeguards and better railings there for people to be able to work through. There was also a call for data capturing by agencies like the HSE when it comes to things like equine therapy, and these are really good pieces of feedback because we need to make sure we are not only looking from the value for money perspective to always make sure we are delivering value for money but also celebrating where that is happening, taking the best practice and the learnings and making sure they are shared throughout other agencies and Departments.

I thank everyone for their comments here today. It was a really constructive and engaging debate and it was a pleasure to be a part of it.

Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)
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That concludes the statements for this afternoon. I thank Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, and the Minister, Deputy Chambers, and the departmental officials for their time and engagement here today.