I will be supporting this motion (“That Dáil Éireann calls on the Government to abolish household water charges and fund investment in water and sanitation infrastructure through progressive taxation.”), indeed, I have signed it. People power strikes fear into the heart of the establishment. That is what has been happening over recent years through the Right2Water and Right2Change protests. Hundreds of thousands of people have protested locally and nationally over two years. They have brought about circumstances in which three out of every four people are refusing to pay water charges. Water charges are an austerity tax and represent double taxation.
At every hands turn, the establishment was expecting the movement would go away. It has not gone away. Last Saturday week, the marching of tens of thousands of people in Dublin sent a very strong message to the establishment, the Government and Fianna Fáil that we want abolition, not suspension. We want Irish Water abolished and a referendum to enshrine public ownership of water into the Constitution. Privatisation is the objective of the Government, as it was of the previous Government. It is the objective of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party and it has to be stopped. The agenda has been driven nationally and from Europe. We are now in a position in which a majority in this House is for the abolition of water charges. We should abolish them now, and do so through this motion this evening.
As I stated, the water tax is an austerity tax and is double taxation. It is particularly difficult for ordinary people, those on low incomes and those on social welfare payments. The majority who say they are opposed to water charges have an opportunity to vote in favour of this motion, which has been tabled by Sinn Féin and many Independent Deputies.
I welcome the Private Members’ motion and the debate on the issue of overcharging of pharmacy fees by a large pharmacy chain. It is a very disturbing development and it would appear very senior people in this large pharmacy chain set out to overcharge the taxpayer.
I want to ask the Minister a number of questions.
First, has this matter been referred to An Garda Síochána for investigation? If not, why is that the case and will it be referred? This is a very disturbing development. Individuals regularly come to my office who have bills from the Department of Social Protection for small amounts of money as a result of overpayments that were made to them as far back as ten or 20 years ago. If this matter has not been referred to An Garda Síochána for investigation, it certainly should be, and as a matter of urgency.
I welcome the Minister’s indication that this is not a settlement or compromise figure of any kind, but a definitive figure established following detailed investigation of the claims that were made. It is important to thank “RTE Investigates” and the whistleblowers who came forward and ensured that this development became public. How many other lies are there? Are there further ongoing investigations by the HSE relating to other pharmacy chains? If so, when did those investigations start? Are they proceeding or have they concluded? How many other pharmacy chains are involved, if there is such involvement? Obviously, the Minister and the Members wish to be assured that the HSE has staff and procedures in place to police this issue properly and, indeed, the general issue of pharmacy fees. Is the Minister satisfied that the HSE has proper accounting and audit functions in place as a result of this? Is he satisfied that this could not happen again?
This is a very disturbing development, particularly when one considers the situation with the health budget over the last number of years and the devastation the Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government and the Fine Gael-Labour Party Government brought to the health service over the past ten years or so. These moneys could have gone towards dealing with many serious and urgent issues in the health sector to which I intend to refer. I make no apology for mentioning South Tipperary General Hospital in my constituency. That hospital had its budget cut by 25% over those years. It lost €13 million and endured staff cuts of over 100. Despite all of that, it is a progressive hospital. The staff make huge efforts by working above and beyond the call of duty but they are struggling to provide a safe service in a underfunded and under-resourced hospital. The activity levels have gone through the roof and the hospital is bursting at its seams, working at a 120% capacity rate every hour of every day. Indeed, in the medical department the rate is even higher at 150% capacity. That is with average length of stays that are comparable to the lowest national levels.
All of this means that the emergency department – as the accident and emergency department is now known – of the hospital is flooded with people each day. There are 23 patients on trolleys in the corridors of the hospital today. On many occasions during the summer months, the hospital had 30 or 35 patients on trolleys. There were 47 patients on trolleys at one stage. The €12 million relating to the matter under discussion could have gone towards supporting the hospital. Indeed, some of it should go towards that. The hospital is absolutely underfunded. The patients on trolleys each day are located in corridors and in public areas of the hospital near the lifts, vending machines and restaurants. It is absolutely unacceptable. The hospital has a shortage of beds. Its difficulties with under-capacity are accepted by everybody. There is a proposal with the Minister for the approval of a 40-bed modular unit as an interim solution to the problem. I call on him to approve that proposal and provide funding for it immediately. He is due to visit the hospital, at my invitation, on 24 October. I appeal to him to ensure that he makes the money for that unit available. The amount is €2.4 million, a fifth of what we are discussing here in these fees. When the Minister visits the hospital, I ask him to announce the funding for that development and, indeed, capital funding for other upgrading and developments at the hospital.
Obviously, there are other areas to which the moneys we are discussing could have been directed. One area is prescription charges. In the general election campaign of 2011, the Fine Gael Party promised that it would abolish prescription charges, which were 50 cent at the time. By the time it left office, the charges were €2.50 or €25 per month. They are payable by people who have medical cards. They have very low incomes and are unable to pay them. The moneys overcharged on these fees could certainly alleviate that problem. We are all aware of the situation with home helps, who are hugely under-funded and whose hours are cut, the lack of home care packages and the withdrawal of medical cards. These are areas that could and should have received funding and certainly could have been supported by this €12 million.
Finally, I support the proposal in one of the amendments for a national State pharmacy to provide medicines and drugs at cost levels similar to those of our European partners.
I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Road Traffic Bill 2016 and I welcome most of its provisions. The purpose of the legislation is to improve safety on our roads and reduce fatalities and injuries to road users by introducing several measures. They are the detection of drug driving via mandatory testing; the creation of new offences for driving or being in charge of a vehicle under the influence of specified drugs; the lowering of the speed limit in estates to 20 km/h, which I will come back to; and the agreement between Ireland and the United Kingdom on mutual recognition of driving disqualifications, which is very welcome.
I congratulate the road safety organisation, Promoting Awareness, Responsibility and Care on our Roads, PARC, which was established in 2006 by Susan Gray, who lost her husband in a road traffic accident in Inishowen in County Donegal. The group comprises people who have been affected by road traffic accidents and has been campaigning since 2006 on various road safety issues. It supports families of road traffic victims and has been involved in a series of very successful campaigns, including the mandatory testing of drivers involved in fatal and serious collisions, which was introduced in June 2011. They were also involved in the campaign to test unconscious and incapacitated drivers in fatal and serious collisions and the law was changed in that regard in November 2014. They published a booklet called Finding Your Way, for families affected by road traffic accidents, which is widely available to all stakeholders, including gardaí, and is updated on a regular basis.
I acknowledge the work done by that organisation, particularly by Susan Grey who founded it, and the work of the people working with it throughout the country. They include Mr. Alec Lee from Clonmel in my constituency. I should also mention the good work that Deputy Broughan has been doing in conjunction with PARC for a number of years.
The Minister should have bitten the bullet on the housing estate issue and made the 20 kp/h speed limit mandatory. Young Jake Brennan died at six years of age following a road traffic accident in a housing estate. His family have been campaigning for some time for the introduction of mandatory 20 kp/h speed limits. The opportunity to do that in this Bill has been lost. The current position is that local authorities have the option to introduce a speed limit of 30 kp/h. The Minister has reduced that to 20 kp/h in this legislation but the record of local authorities on the 30 kp/h limit is woeful. In fact, few, if any, changes in that regard have come through local authorities over the years. This option has been available to them since 2014 and the guidelines were updated and reintroduced in 2015 but it is all on the basis of it being an option and encouraging local authorities to do it or recommending that it be done. However, it has not happened in the case of the 30 kp/h limit and I am certain there will be no hunger to do it, certainly at local authority official level, in the case of the 20 kp/h limit. There is still time for the Minister to change that provision in the Bill and to make the 20 kp/h limit mandatory. As mentioned by Deputies Eamon Ryan and Catherine Murphy, the redesign of estates and of traffic within estates together with a mandatory 20 kp/h limit would be hugely advantageous for residents, their families and particularly for cyclists and pedestrians. I hope that during the progress of the Bill through the Oireachtas the Minister might take the view that this provision should be made mandatory.
There is another issue relating to road safety worth mentioning, although it is not mentioned in the Bill. I raise it particularly in the context of my constituency of Tipperary. It is the repair, maintenance and standard of roads in the country. The woeful standard and the lack of repair give rise to potholed roads, with the roads almost undermined, difficult to travel and in many cases causing serious difficulties in vehicles. There can also be road traffic accidents as a result of the condition of the roads. This issue must be addressed urgently. It is a question of funding and resourcing local authorities to enable them to maintain and upgrade the roads.
The Minister has been in Tipperary and visited Tipperary County Council in Clonmel on 28 July. The situation in Tipperary is quite clear. Even though there was a Minister and a Minister of State from Tipperary in the previous Government, the county fell behind significantly with regard to roads funding. The ratings for the various road categories in Tipperary compare very unfavourably with the national mean. For example, local primary roads are 5% less than the mean, local secondary roads are 11% less than the mean and local tertiary roads are a full 17% less than the national mean. The reason is that the roads grants profile for Tipperary from 2007 to 2015 has been one of continuous reductions. In 2007, the regional and local grants amounted to €608 million while in 2015 they were down to €294 million. The amount was more than halved in that period. Various other grants show similar reductions. For example, regional and local road grants for restoration and improvement went down from €13.6 million in 2007 to €8.6 million in 2016 while regional and local road grants for restoration and maintenance went down from €4.7 million in 2007 to €2.4 million in 2016. In fairness to Tipperary County Council, it increased the resources from the county to provide for roads by almost €1 million over that period. There is a huge need for additional funding for roads in County Tipperary. The Minister has been made aware of the situation and I hope that in the forthcoming budget he will be in a position to increase the road grants for the county significantly to ensure that the standard and maintenance of roads in the county are at a reasonable level.
I should mention the N24 national primary road which runs through Tipperary. As I told the Minister in Clonmel, it is a significant economic and social corridor for the area but it is also a very dangerous road. There have been significant road traffic collisions on the road, many of them sadly fatal. Promises and commitments have been made to provide bypasses for both Tipperary town, where the traffic comes right through its centre, and Carrick-on-Suir. I ask the Minister to address that matter as well.
Workers & Unemployed Action 