Willie O'Dea
Limerick City · Fianna Fáil · Ireland
“In Limerick, women who need maternity services have long enjoyed an excellent system. It is called a midwife-led series of community clinics. Effectively, what it means is that a woman will deal with the same midwife during the entire course of her pregnancy.”
“While we welcome the fact that the Minister for Health has been quite proactive in following up the accident and emergency difficulties in the mid-west following the HIQA report, I nevertheless want to draw attention to the report and the statement from the medical board of University Hospital Limerick, UHL, yesterday, which pointed out t…”
“Recently the courts exonerated a number of gardaí from the mid-west region. They had been subjected to a seven-year investigation for being involved in practices that were commonplace in every single Garda district from one end of this country to the other. They were they only people who were prosecuted.”
“Twenty years have elapsed since the financial criteria for qualification for civil legal aid were last set. It was in 2006. It is estimated that someone who purchased goods or services in 2006 with €100 would have to pay €250 to €300 today, which means that two of every three people this State judged eligible for legal aid because of thei…”
“Surely there are no commercial considerations in asking whether the site has been acquired, when it will be acquired and whether we will be told when it has been acquired. It is also proposed that a project management board be established to drive this project forward, which is essential.”
“Will the Taoiseach comment on the ambulance service in the area? Two private hospitals were built in Limerick after the last 96-bed block was commissioned. They were built in two or two and a half years. It took six years, from start to finish, to build the 96-bed unit.”
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“In Limerick, women who need maternity services have long enjoyed an excellent system. It is called a midwife-led series of community clinics. Effectively, what it means is that a woman will deal with the same midwife during the entire course of her pregnancy. In the past 48 hours, without any notice to anybody, the HSE has pre-emptively decided to terminate that service, allegedly because of a shortage of staff. I cannot overstate the anxiety, angst and distress this has caused. I have been inundated with phone calls to my house, my office, etc., from women, some of whom have been pregnant for quite a while. Is it possible to get this reversed? That is what people want to know and it is what people have asked me to raise here today. Will the Minister check out the situation and get back to me as quickly as possible?”
“While we welcome the fact that the Minister for Health has been quite proactive in following up the accident and emergency difficulties in the mid-west following the HIQA report, I nevertheless want to draw attention to the report and the statement from the medical board of University Hospital Limerick, UHL, yesterday, which pointed out that patient safety was still a huge concern. As a matter of fact, it concluded that the problems surrounding patient safety had not improved at all since the HIQA report, which is now eight months old. The board made certain recommendations as to what could be done in the interim, on a short-term basis, until the situation regarding patient safety was stabilised. One of the recommendations is that the recruitment processes in the mid-west HSE area be changed.”
“Recently the courts exonerated a number of gardaí from the mid-west region. They had been subjected to a seven-year investigation for being involved in practices that were commonplace in every single Garda district from one end of this country to the other. They were they only people who were prosecuted. During the course of that seven-year investigation, the gardaí were suspended, interrogated, vilified and had their names dragged through the mud. The net result of all this is a huge legal bill for the State and Garda morale in the mid-west on the floor. Does the Taoiseach think Garda management has questions to answer about this very ill-advised, partisan and heavy-handed prosecution? If so, when do we expect those answers to be forthcoming?”
“Twenty years have elapsed since the financial criteria for qualification for civil legal aid were last set. It was in 2006. It is estimated that someone who purchased goods or services in 2006 with €100 would have to pay €250 to €300 today, which means that two of every three people this State judged eligible for legal aid because of their financial circumstances would no longer qualify. I have been dealing with people who can barely buy groceries for the week and they are judged to be too affluent or wealthy to qualify for civil legal aid. That is an indefensible situation. What plans does the Government have to deal with it?”
“Will the Taoiseach comment on the ambulance service in the area? Two private hospitals were built in Limerick after the last 96-bed block was commissioned. They were built in two or two and a half years. It took six years, from start to finish, to build the 96-bed unit. It is projected it will take another six years to build the next one. The Minister, Deputy Chambers, has proposals to move on and expedite these large infrastructural projects. Does the Taoiseach envisage those will have an impact, such that that job will be done much more quickly and efficiently than has happened in the past? We wanted to know why two 96-bed units were not built together. We were told that would bring the budget to over €200 million, which would require going over a lot of other barriers and would delay the project.”
“This is almost double the current capacity of University Hospital Limerick. As the services are centrally located in Limerick, there is a huge problem with the ambulance service because a very far-outlying area surrounds Limerick, from the west end of Clare up to the very top of Tipperary, etc. As a result of that, we are exposed every day to lurid tales of people waiting five or six hours, or longer, for ambulances. These are people who urgently need to get to hospital. Is it proposed to revamp the ambulance service in conjunction with these new recommendations so that people will not be waiting in those circumstances for any longer?”
“Surely there are no commercial considerations in asking whether the site has been acquired, when it will be acquired and whether we will be told when it has been acquired. It is also proposed that a project management board be established to drive this project forward, which is essential. It has been some time since the HIQA report was issued. Has that management structure been put in place and if not, when will it be put in place? In view of the urgency of the situation and the fact the safety of patients is central to these recommendations, will the Taoiseach give the House an assurance that sufficient capital will be provided to enable this project to go ahead within the required timescale in view of the fact that the ESRI has projected that over the next 15 years, a further 600 model 4 hospital-type beds will needed in this region?”
“I welcome the acceptance by the Government of the Minister for Health's proposals relating to hospital facilities in the mid-west. These proposals were based on the HIQA report, which stressed patient safety. It said patient safety was central to its proposals, which means time is of the essence in implementing these proposals. We are all concerned about patients. I pay tribute to the staff, who have worked with great dedication and courtesy in UHL in what continue to be very difficult and sometimes intolerable conditions. It is now proposed that a new building be erected in the vicinity of the Dooradoyle site. Has a site been identified and acquired for that building? When the Minister was asked about this yesterday, she said she could not talk about it due to commercial considerations.”
“Over 20,000 people live in the area and there is a tsunami of antisocial behaviour because the area is not being properly policed.”
“There has been much commentary about Government plans being stymied by bureaucratic inertia and delay. I will give a textbook example. After years of effort, we finally persuaded An Garda Síochána of the necessity for a new Garda station to serve the Castletroy–Monaleen–Annacotty area, a rapidly growing suburb of Limerick city. The Government accepted this, and I have been informed that capital funding has been provided. For a period going on two years, we have been consistently informed that the OPW and Garda are liaising on the matter. This liaison is threatening to go on longer than many marriages I have come across. I ask the Taoiseach to use his good offices to bring this liaison to an end and move the project forward.”
“If the Minister and the Government achieve their objectives of strengthening the base of the economy and expanding our infrastructure, I am sure they will be able to meet all the commitments outlined in the programme for Government over the next four years, and possibly go further.”
“The budget, by and large, has been designed to strengthen the economy so that it will be able to meet the commitments in the programme for Government and the commitments that lie ahead, which are very considerable. From that point of view, I applaud various measures in the Finance Bill, such as the improvement in the R&D tax credit which is vital in the age of artificial intelligence. To remind the House, the cuts to VAT, with the exception I mentioned, are about jobs. The concessions for developers who are developing apartments are about creating more homes in the middle of a housing crisis. The concessions on investment are about persuading people who have money to put it into the Irish economy at a time when it badly needs it. That is the reality of this budget.”
“The reduction in VAT from 13.5% to 9% will benefit all the businesses that are affected. It will benefit them on a yearly basis and they will save so much per year, given the difference between 13.5% and 9%, year in, year out. Unfortunately, those beneficiaries include a number of huge multiples, which I do not think should be benefited in this way, quite honestly. What was the thinking behind including those multiples in the VAT cut? Was consideration given to the idea that perhaps the right thing to do was to reduce the tax based on turnover, so those over a certain turnover would not benefit from the tax reduction? There is a ferocious difference between a small coffee shop or one or two-person hairdressing salon and Burger King or Supermac's. I would like the Minister to answer that.”
“The top 20% probably pay about 75% or 80% of all income tax, USC and PRSI. The Irish income tax system is steeply progressive. What I would like the Minister to do when replying to this debate is rededicate himself to the Government's original objective of reducing the burden of income tax on the people who work in this country. That would mean aiming to have a system whereby people did not enter the higher rate of income tax until at least €50,000, or perhaps €55,000, and even at that, they would be behind most of our competitors. I want him to rededicate himself to that and ensure that at the end of the lifetime of this Government, income tax will have reduced rather than increased, if the economic situation permits, of course. There is one other thing I want to ask the Minister.”
“However, it means that for the average Irish taxpayer, there are now four sources of deduction - basic income tax rates and the other three things I mentioned - nibbling away, week in, week out, at their wage packet, like squirrels. In addition, the Irish taxpayer enters the higher rate of tax, the 40% rate, at a very modest income of €44,000 per annum. That is way out of line with most of our OECD colleagues, or competitors, if we want to call them that. It means, essentially, that for the ordinary secretary, garda, nurse or teacher, half of anything they earn over €44,000 will go in income tax. There are parties in this House who actually want to increase income tax, particularly for higher earners. The reality is that 10% of the top income earners in this country pay 70% of all income tax, USC and PRSI.”
“Those basic rates of income tax are supported by a supporting cast of other charges, such as, for example, the PRSI that has to be paid. Some 14 years have now elapsed since the Government of the day introduced the universal social charge as a temporary measure. It was supposed to be temporary 14 years ago but 14 years further on, it looks to me to be as permanent as the Irish rain or, maybe, the Rose of Tralee. There is no chance of getting rid of it anyway; that is for sure. Of course, from 1 January, workers will have to make a further contribution to the auto-enrolment scheme. Looking at all of those things individually, they all have merit individually.”
“This means the reintroduction into the Irish economy of the phenomenon that we had during deep recessions of the past, namely, the phenomenon known by economists as fiscal drag. In other words, by not increasing tax allowances and tax credits, and to account for projected increases in wages, you ensure that people's tax is actually increasing. Effectively, what this represents is an increase in income tax. The corporates and companies in this country, mainly foreign ones, have a very benign tax regime, but the same cannot be said for ordinary taxpayers. They do not live in the same tax nirvana. The Irish income tax system looks simple at first glance, with 20% on a certain amount of income and then 40% on the balance. Of course, nothing in this country is that simple.”
“The projected expenditure on infrastructure in this country will be three times per head of population what it is in Northern Ireland and twice per head of population what it is in the United Kingdom. Having said all that, nevertheless, I am disappointed with one section of the budget. In deciding to hold back from pouring too much money into the economy, the main victims seem to have been people who pay income tax, whether they are self-employed or employees. I would say to the Minister that there were other options, such as the banks, the vulture funds and so on, as an alternative to punishing the hard-pressed Irish taxpayer. Effectively, what is happening is that tax rates and tax credits are not being increased and are effectively frozen at what they were last year.”
“I suppose that argument can validly be made because it is costing almost twice as much to run this country now as it was costing six, seven or eight years ago, which indicates that the subsequent Governments have been investing massively, and that public and State involvement in the economy has increased tremendously over the past decade. The Government was faced with a dilemma. It was advised that it was risky to put more money into an already expanding economy at full throttle. However, it had to take that risk because, with a rising population, challenges like climate change and so on, the infrastructural deficit is so extreme that the economy of the country would grind to a halt if the Government had not decided on massive spending on infrastructure. That is where we are at right now.”
“It is absurd to suggest that any Government in its right political mind would suddenly decide that for all those people who voted us into office and whose votes we will be seeking the next time, we will punish them and give all the benefits to a tiny minority of wealthy people, many of them abroad. That would be political insanity. It is taking the whole thing out of context to make that argument, quite frankly. The budget was delivered against the backdrop of a whole lot of economic advice from all sources - the ESRI, the Central Bank and so on - that the Government was spending too much.”
“All I hear is criticism of the Government to the effect that it has broken all its promises because it did not do in its first budget what it promised to do over five budgets. To me, that is a manifest absurdity. I have heard high-octane vitriol about stuffing money into people's pockets and it being for the rich, the developers, the landlords and whatever else. We live in a democracy in this country. We all want to get elected. Governments have to govern but they also have to get re-elected. Nobody goes out to penalise all the renters in the country. There must be 50 times more renters in this country than landlords, and a lot of the landlords we are accused of supporting are foreign landlords anyway.”
“Subsequent to the election, the Government produced a very ambitious programme for Government, which made many commitments to improve the lot of people in this country. Of course, the extent to which the Government can meet its commitments is contingent on a successful economy, and that should be obvious to everybody on all sides of this House. The Government decided to strengthen the economy and make sure the economy was in good shape despite the headwinds, volatility and uncertainty we face. It decided to use the first budget to put investment in place so it would be able to deliver, over the course of its lifetime, the improvements outlined in the programme for Government. I have listened to the budget debate and the debate on the Finance Bill today.”
“It is about getting new investment into the Irish economy at a time, as I have said, of significant and unprecedented global headwinds and volatility. On VAT, I am disappointed that the Minister was unable to find some way to cut out those who do not need that decrease. Perhaps when he is responding, the Minister would indicate how much tax is going to be forgone in favour of those particular multiples. The Minister knows who they are. This is going to be a yearly thing. What efforts were made to discriminate and to stipulate that people would only get the reduction if their business had a turnover of below a certain amount?”
“What Government in its right political mind would decide to favour a handful of property developers over the hundreds of thousands of renters out there or taxpayers as a whole? The incentives for apartment developers are not about the developers; they are about creating more homes for people in the middle of a housing crisis. The tax break, the 9.5% VAT, is not about swelling the profits of small cafés and restaurants, etc. It is about protecting margins and jobs. There are 150,000 people, representing 150,000 families, employed in the hospitality industry. Many of those businesses are struggling to survive. The reduced tax on investment is not about rewarding elites or anything of that nature.”
“There is a real risk. Nevertheless, it was a risk that the Government had to take because of the infrastructure deficit in this country with a rising population, facing various challenges, including climate change. The infrastructure deficit is so bad that if the Government had not taken this approach, the economy of this country would grind to a halt. We hear all this nonsense about the budget being a boon for developers, landlords, the wealthy, corporations and God knows who else. The incentives provided in the budget are not about increasing the profits of businesspeople or wealthy individuals; they are about incentivising those people to invest their own money in the economy and help to address some of Ireland's most urgent structural problems. We hear talk about favouring property developers, etc.”
“The Government's objective in this budget was to underpin the economy at a time of great volatility, uncertainty and danger in order that it would be in a position to deliver on its commitment proposals over the next four budgets. It is wrong to pretend that this is an austerity budget; it is anything but. Spending has continued at an enormous rate. It costs almost twice as much to run the country now - some €120 billion - as it did just seven or eight years ago, which indicates massive Government expenditure. The Government proceeded with the proposals in this budget against the advice of the ESRI, the Central Bank, all the other economic institutions and various independent economists. All of the latter stated that it is very dangerous to increase spending when the economy is at full throttle. I agree with them on that.”
“I could not believe my hears when I heard a member of Sinn Féin saying that a lot of people in his constituency are telling him that it is not even worth their while to apply for the carer's allowance. I find that hugely ironic. Under the new means test, a married couple can have an income of €100,000 per annum and still get the full carer's allowance. They can earn up to €115,000 and still get partial carer's allowance. All I can say is that I envy the gentleman in question. He must be representing a lot of wealthy constituents who are so far over €100,000 that it is not worth their while to apply for carer's allowance. I wish I could say the same for my constituents. The reality is that this is the first of five budgets.”
“In the programme for Government, the Government has committed itself to improving the situation in relation to income tax, disability, education, justice, etc. In order to bring about that improvement, it has committed to do these things over a five-year period. It was quite wrong for the speaker who has just left to say that the Government broke its promise in not getting rid of carer's allowance means test in year one. It was the Fianna Fáil Minister who introduced the carer's allowance. There was no such thing as carer's allowance until we introduced it. The means test has been improved massively. It has improved significantly in this budget.”
“That is not the way to approach a peace process, in my view. Something has to be done about the West Bank. Obviously, it is not part of this agreement but something has to be done about it. There is continued aggressive encroachment by Israeli settlers, tens of thousands of them at this stage, actively supported by members of the Israeli military, without any sanctions or any effort by the Israeli Government to deter them. That simply cannot continue. I say again that if the Israelis continue to treat the Palestinians as they have done since the foundation of the Israeli state back in the 1940s, then there will be more groups such as Hamas in the future and endless conflict.”
“Incidentally, while I recognise the work done by President Trump and his team, I am very disappointed with the take-it-or-leave-it attitude of the Prime Minister of Israel and the President of the United States. There are several aspects of this agreement that need to be teased out, such as the question of Israeli withdrawal and the timescale for it and the fundamental question of Palestinian statehood. All of these issues have to be thrashed out. Instead of the Israelis saying they know there are things that have to be discussed, the Palestinians are being told that if they do not sign on the dotted line, as my colleague Deputy Crowe has said, Israel will not only withhold food and medicine but will rain down fire and brimstone on their heads and use the military power of the United States to help it continue unabated with the slaughter.”
“We have had ad hoc brutality, 70,000 people dead, 20,000 of whom were children, people starving to death and food withheld; the Tánaiste spelled it out very eloquently. Then we have the threadbare excuses. A member of the Israeli military will appear on television when somebody hits a hospital instead of a military target and say that somebody in the military made a mistake and that they will have an inquiry into it. How many of these inquiries have been held? Have the results ever been published? Has anybody ever been held to account? I very much doubt it. Then there is the second excuse, that they killed X number of civilians but were targeting a Hamas terrorist. That is something akin to dropping an atomic bomb on a crowded shopping mall to get rid of one shoplifter. That is the level to which this has descended.”
“I suppose from one point of view that is understandable, but it must be borne in mind that if something does not fundamentally change in the Middle East, and if the way in which the Israelis treat their Palestinian counterparts and neighbours does not change, then the conditions that brought Hamas, and before Hamas the PLO and other terrorist organisations, a number of which are still in operation out there, into existence do not change, it will not matter. Even if every single member of Hamas comes in tomorrow and surrenders, other similar organisations, whatever they wish to call themselves, will spring up. There is no doubt the events of 7 October were barbaric beyond belief. However, to describe the Israeli reaction as proportionate or measured is to deprive language of meaning.”
“Like everybody else, I welcome the efforts to bring peace to the Middle East. I hope the present peace agreement takes hold. I am very disturbed by reports that the Israeli Prime Minister has unilaterally sought to change certain fundamental aspects of that agreement. If so, he is acting in very bad faith. The Israelis say they have achieved their war aims but I am not entirely sure what their war aims are. Their only stated war aim is the destruction and elimination of Hamas.”
“This report was undertaken as a result of a meeting that Deputy Cathal Crowe and I had with the previous Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly. We told him there was no need for a report but, nevertheless, it has taken 16 months and the situation continues to worsen.”
“During the week, the HIQA report on the inadequate accident and emergency services at University Hospital Limerick was published after HIQA had considered the matter for 16 months - it took 16 months to produce the report. The report told us what we had already been telling the Government for several years. It refers to a significant inpatient bed deficit in University Hospital Limerick and a growing demand for services, which continues to grow strongly. This is all presenting a risk to patient safety, and I can quote many cases where it actually compromised patient safety. The report concludes by saying that urgent action and investment are needed. I understand what the Minister said in his previous reply to my colleague. Nevertheless, I ask the Minister to assure us that there will be no avoidable delay.”
“I say to workers that, if they are approached now in advance of 1 January to sign up to a pension scheme, beware those snake oil salesmen who, for short-term benefit for themselves, are trying to bring about a situation where workers will be much worse off in retirement than they would otherwise have been. I wish the NTMA was operating this scheme. While I compliment the previous Minister, Heather Humphreys, and the present Minister, Dara Calleary, for bringing the scheme to its present level and finalising it after a 30-year delay-----”
“The fees these private operators charge - usually about 1% per annum - will be infinitely greater than the fees the auto-enrolment organisation will charge those particular workers. Fees make a huge difference. It is estimated that some of the fees charged by these private providers in the past reduced the final value of the fund by 30% to 35%, which is enormous. I have seen numerous cases where people who contributed to their pension schemes all of their lives found the schemes were worth little or nothing at the end but the providers, who were taking commissions, got their commissions year in, year out as the funds depleted year in, year out.”
“Lower paid workers who are paying tax at the marginal rate of 20% will lose 5% on the tax side. Of course, it is the opposite case for people who are paying tax at the 40% rate, which represents about 30% of the people who will be auto-enrolled. What the people on the upper echelons will gain from that will be easily outweighed by two other fundamental differences between those private schemes and the auto-enrolment scheme as proposed by the Minister. First, the State scheme will be infinitely safer. There will be more flexibility. The scheme will be dealing with regulated funds and regulated companies and will be overseen by the Pensions Authority. Second, the question of the fees will be fundamentally different.”
“I apologise, as I have a frog in my throat. I come here today to bring something to the Minister's attention and, more importantly, to the attention of workers who have not yet been signed up to a company pension scheme. It has come to my attention that there are a number of brokers and pension providers who are approaching companies, particularly small ones, to advise them that they can avoid the auto-enrolment scheme by signing their workers up to a pension scheme now. I urge employers to reject those approaches. I would like the Minister to bring the matter to the attention of workers and their trade union representatives because anything these providers are offering now that will obviate the need to enrol workers into the auto-enrolment scheme will leave them infinitely worse off, in 99.9% of cases anyway.”
“Some 17 months have elapsed since HIQA was tasked with the objective of looking at the totally inadequate accident and emergency services in the mid-west, particularly in Limerick University Hospital, and making recommendations on what should be done. They informed us at the time that they would take a year to report, which we did not agree with but had to accept. Some 17 months have now elapsed. I have a reply from the Taoiseach dated 6 November 2024 confirming that the final report would be available in May 2025. We are nearly at the end of September 2025 and I am very anxious to know when that report will materialise. Is the Government committed to implementing the recommendations when it does?”
“They may technically qualify on the grounds they have an income of more than €11,500 a year from their pension, but when it comes to getting the loan to pay the non-discounted part of the price, nobody will lend them the money and their income does not justify getting a loan of a sufficient amount. I ask the Minister of State to look at those two points.”
“Then, the former Minister, Eoghan Murphy, decided, because it was working very well, that he had to fix it. When he fixed it, he emasculated it. Another former Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, brought in some reforms, which have improved the situation, but it is still more of an illusory scheme than a reality. I would prefer the tenant purchase scheme to be abolished completely rather than maintain the illusion of a tenant purchase scheme because it is clearly not working. I do not have the figures for how many people were approved for it, but I imagine it is only a trickle. Saying that pensioners, or those in receipt of a widow's pension or invalidity pension, etc., are entitled to avail of it is a shimmer and an illusion. It does not happen.”
“All statistics show that but we know it anecdotally anyway. Unfortunately, some parts of the system seem to operate against increasing home ownership rather than the other way round. For example, regarding the local authority loan scheme as it is presently operated, I am sorry to say I have come across several cases where the repayments on the projected mortgage are less than the person is presently paying in rent. Yet, those people are being refused a local authority loan on the basis that they do not have a savings record. In other words, they cannot be trusted to pay less when for years they have been paying more. That does not make any sense to me. I will also briefly mention the incremental tenant purchase scheme. We had a perfectly good tenant purchase scheme for about 75 years in this country. It was working very well.”
“If the Minister of State is minded, or obligated, to bring in regulations on that, perhaps we can get some uniformity of approach through those regulations. The Minister, Deputy Browne, is not here, but he will know from his previous experience, as I do, that judicial review is a perfectly legitimate process. It is recognised and constitutionally fireproof. However, it has been abused on certain occasions. The Minister will know that an applicant for judicial review can use various tactics to delay the process until time runs out. It is only right and logical that loophole be closed, as it were. I will use the time left to bring two other matters to the Minister of State's attention. I would like him to come back to me on both. The vast majority of people in this country aspire to home ownership.”
“From listening to some of the contributions, you would think a developer's word will be sufficient and that the local authority will simply say that if it will be done in a certain period, that will be it, finito , and the developer will get the extension. That is obviously not the case. There are many subjective aspects to the legislation, in the sense that each local authority will have discretion to decide when building commences, what a reasonable expectation of completion is, etc. It is undesirable that two different local authorities, or a number of different local authorities, could interpret those provisions in different ways. That was done in my part of the country, where two local authorities interpreted one provision in the recent planning Bill in two very different ways. That has caused a lot of difficulties.”
“I had some queries on the technical aspects of the transitional sections of the Bill, but time does not allow me to go into them; four minutes is a very short time to debate a Bill such as this. However, on the general thrust of the Bill, there cannot be any serious objection to the notion, if we are trying to expedite the housing programme, that we try to save extant planning permissions. The point was made that three and two years, or five years in total, is too long. I would prefer to see somewhat shorter times than that, but we must bear in mind it is at the discretion of local authorities. It is the local authority that will ultimately decide. A number of safeguards are built in. For example, the job must be done within a reasonable period. The local authority will have to satisfy itself of that.”
“Last year, the Garda Commissioner finally gave his seal of approval to the provision of a new Garda station in the very heavily populated suburbs of Castletroy, Monaleen and Annacotty in Limerick city. I understand that the Government has set aside capital funding and approved capital funding for the project. Unfortunately, the task of identifying a site has been given to the Office of Public Works - this was more than 12 months ago - and the OPW, moving at its usual ponderous haste, has not yet identified a site. In the meantime, the people of that area have been subjected to a tsunami of crime because the area is not being properly policed. Will the Minister, his Department or another relevant Department intervene directly with the OPW to bring this matter to a conclusion? The 18,000 people in the area deserve no less.”
“St. Munchin's College, Corbally, Limerick city, is accommodating two autism special needs classes at present in one classroom, which is completely and totally unacceptable. It has made an application to the Department of education under the ASA scheme for refurbishment funding, which would solve the problem and would, in fact, enable it to accommodate more autistic students in the years ahead, for which there is a huge demand. The Minister in a written reply last week told me the request had been received and is being assessed. I have to say it is being assessed for an extraordinarily long time. Can pressure be put on the Department of education to end this long-running assessment and get a successful conclusion? The need is great and is growing.”
“This has led to a number of very undesirable consequences, not least the massive increase in rents in Limerick over the past five years. Will the Department engage with Limerick City and County Council to redress this imbalance?”
“Research commissioned by Limerick Chamber of Commerce revealed that of the houses purchased in the State over the past two years, 40% were purchased either by approved housing bodies or other entities supported by the State. Contrary to what we hear from some on the other side of the House, that represents substantial public investment in the private housing sector, which is to be welcomed. However, the comparable figure in Limerick city is 60%. In other words, State entities and approved housing bodies purchased over 60% of houses that were for sale in Limerick city over the past two years. That is creating tremendous pressure for potential owner-occupiers, namely those who want to buy their own houses and live private estates.”