Richard Boyd Barrett urges cost-benefit checks on spending

I don't want to delay this bill any further and I understand this bill does need to be passed notwithstanding the debates we might have about it. It's quite a little bit odd if anybody would oppose it because this is money that we have to have spent to keep the show on the road. We might want to spend it differently or we might want to spend more but we do need this money to cover the costs of the things that the public services and so on that carried us through this year and but I do just want to and I understand that the committees scrutinise stuff but not everything is scrutinised as forensically as it should be so it is I think appropriate to use this last opportunity to question certain things about whether we have done a proper cost benefit analysis as to whether we're spending the money in the best way possible to deliver the outcomes that we want, whether the expenditure has actually achieved the objectives that we desire or if there might be better ways spending the same money and getting better results for things and I would certainly hope that any government would be open to thinking about those things. So first of all on the sports thing I just want to say briefly I'm 24 million I didn't say it was lost I think the deputy across there used the phrase whatever it was it's going back I didn't use that phrase yeah I didn't use that phrase my point simply is that 24 million is a lot of money when I know that a lot of clubs are looking for stuff and in many cases didn't get it and I think it highlight it's simply an opportunity to highlight the fact that I think it would be a good investment to have a more proactive approach when it comes to trying to support sports in the community. I've said this before that there is often a bit of a computer says no approach when clubs go looking for money and that if you don't take certain boxes that they say no or reasons are found to say no and and I think reasons should be found to say yes when it comes to providing the money for community based grassroots sports clubs that are looking for more facilities because to me it is absolutely obvious given the growth particularly of participation of girls and women in sport which has grown exponentially and is a fantastic thing that we there's a there's a big catch-up to be done in terms of the facilities necessary a lot of the facilities I mean even before we had the high level of women's participation in sport a lot of the sports facilities in this country were pretty awful you know you know I I changed playing my playing soccer and GA as I did in containers and the side of fields and all the rest of it's still quite a lot of that going on but when you have large numbers of women getting involved in sport you you have to have decent quality facilities I mean you should have them anyway but it becomes even more important so I think there needs to be a more proactive approach is the point I'm making making to giving the funding necessary to provide the best quality facilities for grassroots sports which are often severely lacking severely lacking and I'm just marking that as an important issue that should be prioritised the other thing I mean I won't go on as you say we'll debate it over the next while but do you see there hasn't really been a cost-benefit analysis of this and while you responded I don't necessarily agree with you to some of the points I'm making I don't think you're really fully responding you see at every single level when you look at the breakdown and I think it was produced by the Department of Finance I know it wasn't it was the housing housing so in fairness it's not your department that came out in September but it makes interesting reading minister and if you look at the breakdown of the cost of construction of a house all the different things that are almost every one of them are if you like people are being brought into the process from the outside now of course there's going to be contractors and private businesses and I'm not suggesting they aren't going to play a role always in the construction in this country in the construction of housing and many many other things I'm not saying that what I am saying is when you need to build the amount of housing that we now have to build and where with the deficit that we have we're going to have to be able to do this on scale and even people who are very middle of the road and a very very long way for me ideologically and politically are saying that our private construction industry at the moment doesn't have the capacity they just don't have the capacity so we're going to have to grasp that nettle and we're going to have to have construction companies that have the scale to build the tens and tens of thousands of houses and those houses have to be affordable I mean part of the reason for the last crash is because even when we got up to 70 to 90 thousand houses a year they were delivering them at astronomical prices banks were lending money to people who couldn't really afford to buy at those prices and eventually the whole pack of cards came crashing down right we better not go down that road again but we could go down that road because you look at the prices that are in that document I don't believe they're sustainable I really don't I think to be talking about a house of 450,000 just to build it 550 for an apartment of 590 for an apartment in the city to build them that's not sustainable we're going to have to find a way to drive down the price of constructing housing and if you have a company of scale you do get economies of scale you know this surely as somebody who's the minister for finance there is a thing I did economics for the leaving cert I know about economies of scale right you get economies of scale so that's why I think we need to seriously look and at least do a cost benefit analysis and say could we drive down the costs by not having you know when even you clearly have a labour shortage as we have at the moment the money expended on trying to recruit people find people train people and all the rest of it and then you look at models like DSB in its heyday of having large numbers of having large numbers of apprentices trained it was an attractive job to go into so you don't have you know we don't we couldn't have our electricity infrastructure operating on a boom slump basis could we we couldn't we don't have the bitter memory of what happened the last time so we have to make it attractive again so there are a lot of reasons in my opinion to look very seriously I would say it's an urgent necessity but to not be sort of flippant about it and look seriously at whether this in fact is an absolute necessity in order to deliver the housing at affordable levels and the infrastructure we need to address the major problems facing this country very last point because maybe the last chance I'll get to say it before the door and this is in this and again it's like out out terms and I've raised it with you many times Minister but the problems in terms of the money the public money which I want spent in the area of arts and culture and particularly in the area of the film industry it's still not delivering on the industry development test test it's not delivering on it it's not delivering on it it's not delivering the income and employment security that the crew deserve and need and that the actors writers and performers in film and our creative sector if you like deserve I was looking actually interesting on the CEO district you know average salaries for people in different areas of the economy the second lowest is 16,000 a year for people working in the arts right so most people working in the arts are on 60 an average of 16,000 it's a miserable poverty income that's pretty terrible for a country that really whose reputation to a very significant extent depends on our fantastic literary cultural artistic heritage that most of the people who work in that area exist on very very low incomes and have very precarious employment situation and we could be doing better and the equity the writers guild directors guild have been saying if the government is putting money if the government is putting money if the government is putting money into this area and want to develop the industry and indeed the film money that we put into this industry is supposed to be conditional on industry development you can't have industry development if the people who are the core of that industry have absolutely no security whatsoever many of them just leave the creative people just leave and say what's the point in being a writer or a performer or director when it's such precarity that I have to put up with and incomes are so low so they have asked that the public money that goes into areas like film should be much more strictly conditional on the producers meeting the industry development test for them that means guaranteeing that they are not given crappy contracts where they are forced they are not given to the future residuals to the future residuals as all of those people used to get in the old days they used to get residuals you know often for the rest of their life they don't get them anymore but they are critical when you're on that sort of low income and living that precarious existence and similarly for the crew and now again this week there's more of those workers are in the labor court and they go in and the film producer company that you give money to who set up the DAC for the films films they worked on multiple marches in to the labor court and says I'm not their employer I set up the DAC I set up I did set up the DAC I got money from the government to make this film on the base I was going to create quality employment and training but they're not my employees even though it's obvious that they are the employers because there is nobody else and they got the money from the stage now I just don't believe it's fair to do that many of those people minister live in your constituency a lot of them live in your constituency and they have been blacklisted out of the industry because they asserted their right to the recognition of their service for many many years and I think the government should do something about that and it wouldn't take much they just tell the film producers stop doing this we're not giving you the money unless you recognize the service of the people who are in that industry and acknowledge that you are the employer and that you don't hide behind the DAC I think you should make that change and I think it would be good for the development of the industry as well as for the people who work in it so yes I'm all for the expenditure and indeed for more in that area but I think you should make it conditional on giving decent employment conditions and rights to the people who work in the cultural arts and film sectors and thanks to all the deputies for the different issues they raise so I'll just begin with Deputy Snuddig who raised an issue that I'm very familiar with because he raised it with me on a number of occasions I think it is just worth putting this issue in a bit of context here out of 104.3 billion euro that's included within this piece of legislation we are referring to 2 million euro of that 104 billion euro but what Deputy Snuddig is doing is however raising important issues of principle because he is saying that this is money which in his view is not subject to the normal form of our act of scrutiny and he wants to know why and he then wants to know is any scrutiny applied to it so firstly it is the case that this particular estimate is presented to an Oireachtas committee it's done by me it's part of the public expenditure vote so it's done by the Minister for Public Expenditure however it is also the case as Deputy Snuddig has acknowledged that when I'm asked what is this money used for I'm not in a position to inform the Oireachtas in relation to it and it is a long-standing precedent in relation to this particular fund that it is not subject to the normal kind of disclosure that every other euro of your that that is spent of our country's money is however that is not the same as saying that it is not subject to any form of scrutiny because it is what happens because of the unique nature of this particular fund is the Minister for Justice the Minister for Defence provides a certificate to control it in order to general indicating that the money is being used in the way in which it is intended to be used the controller in order to general considers that certificate and then decides whether to provide a degree of authorisation to it or not and the controller in order to general has and has published in their normal accounts a statement that effect so while I'm not able to go into the kind of detail that I do about this money and its use it is still subject to oversight in a different way and the outcome of that oversight is published and there is a statement from the controller and order general in relation to us in relation to the point that was made by Deputy Boyd Barrett firstly in relation to the housing issues that he touched on he talked about you know the there's no need to be flippant in relation to it I was being anything but flippant I was responding back to the arguments that he made and I do stand by them I was making the point that while he can advance the case for the state to be involved in directly building homes through a new organisation that's an absolutely legitimate argument to make I was simply making the point though that in making that case he shouldn't suggest that the state is not involved in directly building homes because it is but it's just done through our local authorities it's done through Dublin City Council the Leary County Council in his case and it builds many thousands of homes every year and the question that I would put to him which I'm sure we're going to be able to debate at another point is that if this organisation would be brand new would it be taking the place of what our local authorities do would it be competing with the local authorities or would the local authority be subsumed into this new organisation and the contention I'd make here this evening is the best way of us directly building homes is indeed true our local authorities and if he wants the state to play a big role in the management of land and I think he's right that's why we have the Land Development Agency to perform that role but I know that's and also an organisation that Deputy Boyd Barrett doesn't support in relation to Deputy McGrath he was refuting arguments or to use his word rebutting arguments that I wasn't making I never for a moment said that the state hasn't played you know doesn't have questions to answer in relation to the use of the country's money I said we do I acknowledge that in my contribution back to him earlier on I was simply making a point that I think Deputy O'Donoghue was acknowledging and if I'm putting words in your mouth you'll stand up and you'll correct me about the fact that there is cost price inflation happening that is not caused by the state now you'll make the point back to me in the concrete levy and I'll come on and address that in a moment but I think you would acknowledge if you do intervene again that there are things happening now in relation to prices within the economy that our government is not this government or indeed any government is not in a position to be able to constrain you know I can't determine and the government can determine you know what is the price of concrete we have added to a bit but there are other forces going on that are very separate to Ireland at the moment that in turn are having a really big impact on the issue that Deputy O'Donoghue raised that I'll come on to in a moment but that's the only point I was making back to Deputy McGrath earlier on and I'll make the point again because it has to be made that a carryover is not the same thing as the money being lost in fact it's the opposite if a department has a carryover it ensures the money is there for them in the following year but in the absence of a carryover they wouldn't be able to spend the money next year and the reason why it can it happens is that if you have a department that for example is involved in building a bridge or building a road sometimes the costs fall in a different way during the year to how they would have been planned and that is why it's at the heart of this and you know Deputy McGrath you know continues to suggest that if a project overruns in any way that that is due to incompetence or inefficiency at times there are issues there that you know I'm accountable to the house for but at most the vast majority of the case times I'll still argue to the Oireachtas that our country's money is used in the way in which the Oireachtas does intend it to be used and you can see that in the quality of new school buildings that are being delivered you can see this in the quality of the public and social housing that our local authorities are building you can see this in the impact now of the national broadband plan and the impact that is having on towns and villages and then finally Deputy O'Donoghue like raised a really important issue that is actually a really big part in the housing difficulties that we face at the moment which is as you said that over the space of a short number of years the cost of building a house the cost of building an apartment has gone up by so much now you're a builder you're actively involved in this in the way that I'm not so I suspect I'm going to tell you a few things you already know I know well but I do want to put them on the record of the house because you've raised important issues part of that is the issues I've already talked about what is happening in raw materials part of it is that we do have certain standards that we want to be met that I think are worth meeting for example in relation to energy efficiency but it then has an impact on the cost of the home and to pretend otherwise would just be to deny that there are trade-offs if we want homes to be built that have a higher energy rating and I believe it's worth doing that because over time it will be good for the cost of building your of heating your home it will go down I believe it'll be good for your health I believe it'll be good for our efforts to get climate emissions down but there is still a cost for it the state absorbs some of us but the person who's buying the home also has to face some of that cost as well but then what you went on to do then is to say well should the state play a role then in in lending that home that that money to to deal with the cost of the additional credit that is needed to deal with the cost of building the home having gone up what I would say to you Deputy O'Donoghue is that is the reason why we have help to buy and that's why we increased the value of help to buy which we did early in the term of this government recognizing that help to buy gives back to a taxpayer some of the taxes they've already paid we link it to only new homes and we include within that self-builds because of if your son or somebody else is building that home directly for themselves it's still adding to housing supply and it's the home they're going to live in but the very reason we have helped to buy and then increased the value of us is to respond back to the issue that you are raising and we also have in the first home scheme that was set up between the department of finance the department of housing and our banks a way in which for home purchasers of certain levels of income trying to buy certain homes the state actually does play a role in trying to bridge the gap between what they can afford and the impact of the macro potential rules and that's a way of doing it but as I said Deputy you have called out a big issue which is affecting the supply and the affordability of homes and but we do have schemes in place to try to respond back to us and I'm sure you'll have views in relation to their adequacy you may well argue they should be bigger in value or so on but we are trying to deal with the issue in a way that I've just described so here look there's been plenty of issues that have been raised here that are not about the spending of money but are really important to the well-being of those that we are trying to serve and I've done my best to respond back to all of them the final point I just want to make is Deputy Boyd Barrett talks about the need you know to support sporting and voluntary organisations I mean if this like the sports capital funding that we are making available at the moment in very large amounts of money is a huge effort to do that and far from the computer say no I think in many cases the computer is saying yes because of the quality of the applications that are coming in really amazing applications being made by nearly entirely voluntary organisations all over the country and then earlier on in the week the government made available large scale infrastructure funding a lot of which will be going to organisations that are a lot more than voluntary that are running really big sporting activity which is either about sporting excellence or also trying to continue to support voluntary organisations so a lot of issues raised to count Corda but this is an awful lot of money again I want to thank the house for the cooperation in passing it and to go back to a point I made earlier on even though the amount of debate here today may be relatively small these figures have been debated elsewhere in the Iroctis at some length during the year thank you