 Mae'n credu Icon Beir, i'r ysgolwydig am yllunio fanol â'r cysylltu, ac rwyf wedyn ymweld i'nfirenodd. Rwy'n cymryd yn rhan i cwynhau eu gwirionedd o'r Ysgrifeth ffrwdio Europaidd ac ein ff incomeysiwn hwn yn ymddangos i'ch amddangos. Yn ymddangos i'r cyffredinig, yw John Fitzgerald, ywllteb yn y Prifes dresseddau ar y blackmail a Mary Shirley, sy'n gallu gyhoedd y cynwyllt â gennym. Rwy'n gweithio i'n rhan i'r panell, fel miraeth i'r Can you even give some opening remarks before we move into the main Q&A session? All right, as the minister said the economy has been growing fairly steadily and rapidly since the second half of 2012, employment is growing at 2.5% a year, GDP, GNP growing at maybe 5% a year. If this continues by the end of next year we will be approaching full employment and the current counterbalance payments deficit may be moving back into deficit ydy'r Byeol, yn ymwneud fwy yw'r cyflwyno'r cyfathau. Rwy'n mynd i wneud ar gyfer yr ystod, y dyfodol yn gweithio i'r fforddau o'r cyflwyno a'r gweithio i'r byw yn gweithio y 15,000 o ffawr y mae'r cyflwyno'r cyflwyno'r cyflwyno yw ddwy'r byw'r cyflwyno'r cyflwyno. Ymgyrch yn ychydig, mae hynny wedi'u cyflwyno'r cyflwyno'r cyflwyno'r cyflwyno'r cyflwyno'r i gynllunio i'r gwybodaeth cymdeithasol ac i'n edrych gan 1.5% i gwelltynion gydagodol i'r graddau. Under those circumstances, the Irish economy will need substantial action, physical action, taken by the government to take money out of the economy. I am very concerned that the commission is caught up in the rules, rather than looking at common sense. This happened in the last decade. In 2003 the ESRI recommended that if the government wanted to build cyd-dweithio pobl yn ymlaen, rydym yn ei addysg honno, os ydych chi gweithio pethoedd amddansol, dan y gallwch ei ddechrau. Yn ffrwd y bobl yma, rydyn ni wedi'n cael eu bod yn ei adlathio'r ofyn syddodol ond y bobl yn y ffrwd roedd y bobl yn e'n gweithio. Rydyn ni'n credu amddansol y cweithio 2018, yn angen i'r oed meddwl i ddweithio i ddweithio'r oedd a'r oedd ein gweithio a wnaeth eich adedlog, ond dyna rydyn ni ser菩 Lewis yn gweithio ei chyfnod. Rydych chi'n meddwl yn y cyffredinol? Maen nhw'n ydych chi'n bywyd y cyhoeddiant hynny? Yn y gwael ei meddwl ar gyfer y rhain ar y rhain, yn 2346, ar gyfer y cyffredinol, ar gyfer y rhain, mae'n hynny'n meddwl y gallwn chwarae yr rhain, ac yn dechreu, ond rwy'n meddwl unigoddiad cynnigau gyffredinol. Rhywun i'r bydd xinwch yn ei chweithio ar hyn o ran y rhain the rules and they need to eliminate the structural deficit. I think the commission needs to wake up and use their common sense, their macroeconomics role in the rules and recommend to the government because it's going to be very difficult for this government in the next budget to raise taxes. If not in the next budget, certainly in the following budget, to take one or two percentage points of GDP out of the economy by raising taxes, they're going to find it difficult. They are going to need assistance from the commission in doing the wise thing and I'm afraid the guidelines don't do that. Thank you. I suppose similar but a slightly different note. First thing to say and I suppose to start in a positive note that I actually agree with some of the recommendations, the country's recommendations particularly in terms of what they say with regard to health and childcare, with regards to the need for more permanent restructuring of non-performing loans. I suppose they're all very positive things and these calls are all very much grounded in the need for additional investment in the Irish economy and I wholeheartedly support that but I suppose the elephant in the room is the fiscal rules and I suppose John made the very potent point there that there is such as the blinkered thinking about surrounding the fiscal rules at the moment. There we're not thinking logically about how the Irish economy needs to develop over the next number of years. I suppose it's interesting to see the media coverage about the country specific recommendations and how Ireland is exiting the excessive deficit procedure. Yes, it's an important institutional milestone but I suppose I'd have to disagree with the minister and say I don't see it as a game changer because at the end of the day the structural deficit targets that we have in order to try and meet our medium term objective by 2018 are going to impose very tight budgets on us over the next three years. I suppose the key question is how are we actually going to introduce those very tight budgets and do all the spending that they're recommending so there's an issue about speaking out of both sides of the mouth. So I would really have to take issue with the commission's recommendation of the 0.6% adjustment in this upcoming budget particularly on the point where you look at the experience of the past number of budgets. I think the second thing is it fails to recognise the head start that we got last year in terms of the 2.4 billion anticipated resources into the public finances and indeed how about 80% of that came into the base was attributed to structural as opposed to just being cyclical. So I think it's an important point to make that ultimately that we're being blinkered so much by the, there's such a focus on the fiscal rules that it's impossible to see how we're going to be able to meet those spending movements that they say we need to commit to over the next several years. I think the second thing to say is it's interesting in terms of the timing of the publication and of course you know it has to happen at this time of the year but it came just 14 days after the publication for the government and I suppose an interesting benchmark to see well what's going on. Is the incoming government how much of it is going to deliver on the recommendations that have been issued to this country and in particular with regards to the tax space and the recommendation to broaden and strengthen the tax space. And I suppose the three you know particular areas of concern in terms of income tax and I suppose I'm relieved that the new political arrangement has in some ways I suppose altered or reduced the scale of the scales and vision with regards to abolishing the universal social charge. Even though there's about a billion of a difference I suppose in terms of what was originally proposed and what we're likely to see now play out I think with regards to housing. You know the price fees are the cap on on the local property charge expired in 2019 where we're going to go from there. It's not at all clear to me that there's going to be any appetite to try and increase the local property tax at that particular point you know it could be just after election or coming into an election. And I suppose the third big issue is with regards to and it's not a tax but of course it's with regards to Irish water and water charges and how we're going to try and fund the 5.5 billion capital programme in water over the next number of years. So I suppose just to conclude I think there's some positive things in terms of you know where we need to go with regards to spending commitments in the Irish economy over the next number of years. Ultimately we know that we need to spend to improve the productive capacity of the economy but I don't see any evidence of how leeway we have to do that given the constraints that are upon us at this point in time. I think the headline figures underestimate the strength of the economy. The debt has been funded at an incredibly low interest rate because of other factors in Europe. If you look at the debt burden in Ireland today compared to the debt burden exiting the crisis in the 1980s it's about 8 percentage points lower or 7 percentage points lower. Basically the story is not about the debt and the security of the debt it's being refunded long term. If the economy continues to grow they sell off the bank and so on. So the commission are so caught up and I think your question reflects this in the past and if you look at their forecast for Ireland they consistently forecasted their job and then they knocked one or one and a half percentage points because in the past the risk was under the form. People are not so used to that they're not looking at the risk of Ireland over the form and I think that we need to refocus to a more balanced view of the word and debt is private sector debt is a significant burden and a significant problem. Public sector debt is being dealt with. OK, so just a question from Mr Allen. Hello my name is Michael Yew. I'm the coordinator of the Environmental Bureau at the City Coalition of the 20th National Environmental Organisations. Vice-president from the property talked about building a tax base and he referenced and also the council recommendations he referred to the need to spend capital funds on climate mitigation and environmental measures. I guess the question is why aren't the government doing this and why haven't they got to make provisions for these serious issues that come down the tracks in terms of climate change particularly but also in terms of controlling property development through side area taxes. Thanks for the question. I mean it's it's an interesting one right because what we're trying to do in terms of one of the measures that we did in both in terms of taxation side and charging in relation to water and that side of what we're trying to do and we're going through some difficulty there. We now have the current situation where you know water charges have been suspended temporarily pending a review by a commission but we still have all this work that needs to be done in terms of investing in infrastructure and really getting people to believe in the polluter pays principle and that's posed a significant challenge over the last number of years and it's going to continue to be a challenge for the coming couple of years. I mean I'm just to be absolutely clear about it Phoenix air believes that we should be paying for our water and there should be water charges there and when you look at the recommendations from the commission I talked about having a broad tax base. That's part of having a broad tax base. It's part of also having consumption taxation. So it's been a worrying development that we've now found ourselves in a situation where we've got to suspend those taxes and that the political dynamic at the moment might seem that despite what the commission recommends when it's set up when it comes back in nine months time that we might be moving to abolish water charges which we are very worrying development in a regressive step in so far as investing in you know in protecting ourselves and climate change and looking at the environment. I think the program for government does identify some of the challenges there that we need to address and that we need to try and find consensus on how we address them. Very recently the Minister for Health set up this whole party committee in the Eroctor's to look at a 10 year plan for health spending and our health service in general and the initial stages of the program for government or for the size of government formation talks. That's exactly what we were talking about in relation to climate change and having that exact same approach because we are going to come up against problems. I think it is a 2020-2021 when we move into that cycle if we haven't done anything by then we're going to have serious problems post 2021. So that risk is recognised and we're about two or three weeks up and running. So once we have that chance we're going to move into that space very quickly and just the last part of the question that you raised in relation to housing and different taxation. I mean it's vacant site levy in place due to common force in 2018 and the idea of that is to ideally get people who are sitting on vacant sites to develop those sites so that we can use it for housing and for the needs that we have at the moment in relation as well to office space and other areas. But it comes back a bit to a challenge that I think John Fitzgerald has kind of outlined in terms of, you know, we have some immediate challenges in this country. A real immediate challenge is the risk of Brexit, what may happen. That's right on the near horizon. But stepping back from that and when we passed the referendum on the 20th of June, regardless of the outcome, we also have a huge problem here in terms of infrastructure and infrastructural development. And a lot of money needs to be spent and invested in our infrastructure and that is going to be money coming into the economy. That is going to be the creation of jobs and then the impacts resulting from that as well. And I'm not sure how you square that circle in terms of what John's talked about. I mean if the economy is overheating or if it's about to move to a point where by next year or end of next year we're moving into a dangerous situation in terms of overheating. At that same time we're going to be moving into increased capital expenditure because we need to do it in terms of schools, roads, homes, you know, hospitals. So I'm not sure how we're going to address that. Sorry if I could just come in on John's earlier point and also to speak to Marie's point a little bit there. Maybe just provide a little bit of the commission's perspective on our take on the fiscal rules and how they apply to Ireland. So just to clarify, moving from the excessive deficit procedure into what we call the preventive arm of the stability and growth pact is a bit like going from a really exceptional situation that Ireland has been in for the past six years. Seven years into what we would call normal times. And the logic behind the fiscal rules as they apply in normal times in the preventive arm is you benchmark your progress towards this thing that we call the medium term objective. And the vice president said this before against the potential level of growth in the economy. And the logic, that's a lot of fancy jargon, which basically boils down to when your economy is growing really, really fast, that's the time to exercise fiscal restraint. When your economy is not growing as fast, that's the time where you have a little bit more scope for engaging in fiscal spending. Now in order to actually do that on a technical level, and this is where we do tend to get very technical in our analysis sadly, it's difficult to break it down in simple terms, is you have to measure a thing called potential output. And the problem with that is it's a notoriously difficult animal to get your hands around. So that's where it gets very technical and that's where I think it's very easy to be frustrated with how the rules work and how they apply particularly to small open economies like Ireland. Our overriding message to that is why we will set out those parameters in the fiscal rules and it is our job as guardians of the treaty to promote that. On a policy level our message is these are guidelines and prudent fiscal management does not prohibit a member state from going beyond those guidelines and really acting in the spirit of what I think John was suggesting when he said, look at the strength of the Irish recovery and think about maybe reining in spending a little bit more. So when you're unsure about calculating these very technical things that really is the time to think about fiscal prudence. What specific measures it takes your government to take to address these issues? That's one question. The second issue is what kind of, since there is so much shortage in housing, there is a problem that if we see the prices of selling or buying or rent are excessively high. So what kind of incentives your government would be in in order to promote investments towards this sector? And third among all these restructurings proposed by the Commission, developed by the European Union, there are some hints concerning corporate tax. Is your government ready to examine the possibility of aligning the corporate tax with the levels of 17% proposed by the German? Thank you very much. That's a very, very interesting question there and I don't know which would have found maybe perhaps maybe take the second one first on housing. Marie, maybe the incentives you think that should be required for investment to resolve housing crisis? Well, I think it's very interesting from the government top asks that the government be judged, its performance be judged on whether it actually ultimately resolves the housing crisis and homelessness, which sets the bar very high in terms of how we measure its success or failure over the next number of years. Look, the housing crisis is multifaceted and I think there's certainly no magic bullet, but ultimately the government has to get involved, the state has to get involved in house building. And I suppose I hear the term crisis being bandied about again and again. And to me a crisis is defined by when we actually employ abnormal measures and not the measures tried and tested of old. So, I know that there is, well, the housing committee, they're up, this is doing a lot of good work at the moment. Certainly there's about four pages and the government dedicated to housing and talking about a whole raft of measures, but ultimately I'm not at all convinced that it will actually crack the nut of trying to remedy our housing issue over the next number of years. Because I think ultimately we need to deploy significant levels of state investment, state driven investment. It cannot be arm's length in terms of depending on tax breaks. Yes, of course, the private sector will need to be part of it, but the state is going to have to drive it and significant amounts are going to have to be deployed to that. And ultimately that we have healthy mix between private and social housing built across the country. But I'm not at, like, there's 100 million euros of a housing point about to be put in place. Some is vast in excess of that are going to have to put in place if we're going to be tired of 100,000 houses over the next five years. Can I just say, tax incentives are not the way to go. I recently discovered my grand-dance notes from her lectures from AC Pigu, one of the greatest economists of the past, from 1922. And in bright lights she had highlighted the fact that a tax on property ends up on the land owner. That if we give away vac concessions it's going to go to the property developer, not the buyer. So tax concessions are not the way to go. It is operating on the supply side. And as Marie said, it's a multitude of different policy measures are needed. I think when we talk about tax measures perhaps not being the way to go. This was discussed, there is an element in the programme for government about potentially looking at something to do with that when it comes to housing and to land. And there was a debate over whether that was the right course to take. And now that we're in this new politics these decisions will very much be for things like the dedicated housing community that have been set up. I mean it's a supply side issue. One of the problems that we've dealt with in Dublin City for a number of years is the amount of void properties that the council manages. These are properties that are empty. They're not being used and not being turned around quickly enough in between different tenants. We've also got a huge amount of empty stock in the city. I mean it's incredible how long some of those properties have been vacant. And Simon Cove news in this for housing has said he's not afraid to take on radical ideas and radical solutions. There's also a possibility that the European Investment Bank might have a role to play or the new Junker Fund. But there'll be difficulties there in terms of if we're moving into public-private partnerships because of some of the changes that seem to be coming down the line through Eurostown and how we're going to be accounting for public-private partnerships. And I know that T-Shoc's written to the President of the Commission and the President of the Council about this because there's a risk at the moment that current projects in the pipeline that are meant to be off balance sheet could be brought on balance sheet and there's a risk that the projects that are off balance sheet already might be brought on and they'll have a significant impact in terms of the management of our public finances if that were to happen. And so I know that we're hoping for a perhaps a bit more open and transparent dialogue around that. Just on the alignment of the work with tax rates? Well no, I mean 12.5% rate is not for changing. But what we've been trying to do and what we're keen to do is to lead internationally with the OECD on their BEPS programme and also in relation to the elimination of the double Irish. I think that's quite important because it's important for our own brand and how we sell ourselves abroad. Before an open economy like Ireland, our 12.5%, it's of national importance so it won't change. There are many other questions and Alan and then this gentleman is just a line of questions. Thank you Alan for his concerns. I think John is right to criticise the application of the rules that they are. Even if we have a property articulated common fiscal policy for the eurozone, there isn't enough leeway in the rules the way they're written for the kind of progress that Germany should make under the CSR to deal with the problem in the other member states. I mean we've boxed ourselves into a totally impossible set of rules but I've disagreed with Graeme. It's all very fine to say that when things are growing, when an economy is growing fast, it's trying to be physically conservative. That in general, yes, when an economy is growing fast just coming out of a recession, you need to have a bit more certainty about the way you go about it and that is not there in the rules that they are. The commissioner talked about the tax base and he mentioned, as far as I remember what I got him about, he talked about taxation on consumption, on services and property. I think he's probably right. I think, although not a lot of people believe it to be, I think the 52% margin of the tax base is about as far as it could go. I had the pleasure of myself many years ago of applying a much higher margin of tax rate. I didn't get a huge profit with the result of that. 52% margin of tax rate isn't over any Christian or Hague that you have to deal with. That means in this economy we should be looking at increasing taxes on consumption, on services and on property. Mary mentioned in passing property tax. There will be a major relevant, any increase in property tax here. We are about to do something very stupid about tax on services on the top of our economy water, whether it's temporary or permanent. It is going to be a good over the stake between the government. We've been there once before. Remember we abolished water taxation in 1997, just when it had begun to work. And we have a pension for doing that in this moment. And then go back to other taxes on consumption. This is actually rather easy left. Our tax rate is not low compared to other countries. If the experts are to be believed and people like me spoke with it to be further oppressed by a huge increase in taxation, it should reduce the income. The only two taxes that you can make a good case for now on any economic or environmental grounds are taxes on tobacco and tax on water fuel. And I don't see that there's going to be leeway in budgets this year and next year to make major changes there. And as I say, if you make one of the major changes, it actually should be reducing revenue. On investment, I think there are empty reasons for investment. I wish internet that the public service unions would stop talking about increases in personnel in public services as an investment in public services. It's not, it's a provision of public services, not investment. But we would have to get realistic about investment. Even if we were to move a bit outside the buildings as John, I think, would physically suggest, it would be on the investment side. I agree with Barry, most of the housing has to be from public services. We need a major programme of publicly funded housing both to deal with the immediate crisis and to stimulate the private sector into some kind of action. But we're going to have to make choices. There isn't a snowball's chance again that we can get the kind of investment people are looking for in housing over the next two to three years. And at the same time have large investments in the provision of health infrastructure, schools infrastructure or transport infrastructure. We are actually going to have to make choices. And if you look at, listen to the public debate as it has been going on here since well before the last election. People are not talking about choices, they're talking about everything at the same time. And, you know, looking at the public debate as it's gone on up to down and looking at the situation in our legislature, I don't see any appetite for making those choices. The vast majority of the noise is again in the water charges. The vast majority of the noise will be for increasing investment all across the board without any corresponding increase of tax. And even if we maintain U.S.C. own change, there is still not enough revenue there to support the level of services that we are aiming for. So we are going to have some huge problems. The final point I'm going to make is a question with what are the CSR recommendations for Germany, particularly on the investment side, and is the commission confident that they will be up here to. Thank you. Actually Phillip is going to answer just Alan, your last question. I'm the chief organiser that the Vice-Political Forces have referred to. So anything that has to do with commission issues or Brussels? Please give me that to me. On Germany, the commission recommendations is to use fiscal space to run a slightly more expensive distance, and to expand public investment. So I think that is also in line with what was said in Mr Glass here. We have a mighty expenditure of fiscal standards at the EU area level, which is appropriate to certainly add fiscal space to the commission things. They should use it, and they are certainly also stoked in Germany to improve public infrastructure. So why not use the money that we have and spend it? So that's a recommendation. The degree of implementation in Germany of such specific recommendations, of course I can only speak for the past, is not very high. So clearly overall also there is an issue about CSR, so such a specific recommendation, implementation ratios. They have been relatively low, but I think we have made quite some progress by focusing on them more and bringing these discussions exactly to the countries, into the countries, and make sure that we pick up on issues that are of political relevance. In the past we had recommendations on issues which were just not politically interesting with this country. They were maybe economically relevant, but to get the ownership to get countries really moving, we have to pick up on them in the country, so I think we have made progress. I would also like to use the opportunity because there has been some talk about fiscal rules, and they are very close to my heart, coming from Brussels. I've done a couple of events of this type in other capitals, and you won't believe it, but in every country you go to you say, well your rules are fine, but we are different. No matter where you go, we have a large budget to countries, with a federation of about 50%. We have countries with small budgets, around 3% GDP. Everybody tells me, yeah, yeah, these rules, yeah, we basically agree, but you know for us it's different. You know for us we shouldn't count investment or we shouldn't count this or that. They are working, no? Rules are rules because they are applied across all countries. So there's no single rule for every country that is a rule anymore. So we have to make certain provisions that are applicable across countries. That's my point, 74. The idea of the rules is set some minimum levels. Give you a speed limit saying, you know, you shouldn't go faster than that. If on your domestic side you think this is still not included and we want to be even more included, fine. There will be nobody standing for that. On the specific case of the projection by such as Gerald. Okay. Then you talk about where are we in the economic cycle? Are we already at the peak of the cycle? Are we at the risk of overheating? Our assessment is there is still a negative output gap, so we are still below what we could produce, to still have unemployment, which is coming down, but you know it's still a little high. Innovation is not visibly exploding. There are no reasons to assume that, you know, this growth rate that we protect for next year is sustainable and we should not unnecessarily try to calm it down. Of course if you implement huge investment tax, things will change, but the government has only been in place very short, so we will not make a judgment on that. Thank you. Minister Emery, I know you don't want to go in on that. Thank you. Just very briefly on the last speaker. I'm not so sure about the one size fits all approach myself but in relation when it comes to calculating the structural budget balance, those red lights weren't there using the methodology. They weren't there in the Nordic's and Johnson's show point of the side and I'm not sure maybe they're not there now either and I suppose as a preference I think on the Irish side to look more towards the expenditure benchmark route. If you're to look at a route, I just want to come briefly on what Alan Duke said. I mean I'm still too new to politics to disagree with Alan Duke's. Definitely still too new to Phoenix Hill. At one point, and I do with almost everything you said Alan, I think investment in people is an investment in public services. I do. I think there's some investment there that's needed personally. I suppose similar to the minister. I'm not sure that many of us would have said when we came to Bosch for the fiscal compact treaty in 2012 that the rules are fine. I think most of us will recall at the time that there was the degree of conditionality with regards to accessing the European stability mechanism, which we thought we might have to do at the time. So I think there were huge concerns about the nature of the rules that the minister said and particularly with regard to the methodology and I suppose it's only really now, because we have exited the excessive deficit procedure that we're really seeking to see the impact of that over the next number of years. That's great. I definitely don't remember any background in the investment in various European countries. That's important. We're able to watch closely the analysis and the operation. It's quite the same time it was working here. We would say that's been found and we would say that it was mentioned in that process at this point. A wide perspective including an all iron perspective and one thing I need to be noted about the document to be commissioned is that it will be provisioned if the UK votes to Brexit won't take it to June. That is the real element of the rule that is supposed to refer back to Mary's point. I'd just like to draw attention to two things that haven't been mentioned in the commission which I'd like to welcome. One is in Paris seven, the health care system. The fact that 40% of the population paid the health care system and actually don't access it very much ourselves. In relation to European Union as a whole we must be weighed down in a difficult situation that the health care system is paid for by the few but is not accessed by the few. I don't know what can be done through this. I don't believe nor will everybody including I think the president that it's simply a matter of increasing resources and it's one personnel at the health service what is really an issue that seems to be a systemic distinction between management on one hand and front line medical and paramedical services on the other and that's something the government is addressing but it is a very serious issue and I'd be interested to know that the minister and the panelists came to that. The second thing is legal services. In Borksgold, the joy care did go into the issue of today's distribution system costs and legal services has serious drags in the economy and they are here to not only in relation to decision making in regard to commercial disputes which hold up decisions like companies that differ from the economy but also decisions in relation spectacularly and in the infrastructure of values constantly held up by education and by schools so I'd be very interested in the panelists for the best of that and perhaps on the juice also but not in this financial aspect none of these previous have as Minister for Justice where I've had the pleasure of working with them on it. The legal service is one of the longest rules come out of the programmes and the longest things get on the statute books. The bill itself, the legal services bill when it was first drafted was a huge piece of legislation and it was contained reforms across every aspect of the legal services and how people use legal services how they regulate themselves and it got into difficulty at different points in time for different reasons, some on the political side but it was passed and what we're seeing now I think is the beginning of some important changes on the cost side of legal services and the cost of accessing legal services the state did drive a pretty ambitious programme of driving down costs because the state itself is a significant purchaser if you like, of legal services and on that side we did our best to try and drive down costs while making sure that it was cost-competitive and that we could have a properly functioning legal system and in relation to the speed sorry, the other issue of accessing the courts I mean the courts of appeals is now being set up there's further work to be done there in relation to moving more quickly through the court system where things have been done around personal injuries on that side as well but the legislation is still new if I could say that and there is still work to be done Brexit being the elephant of the room absolutely and we're sitting here we're not passively waiting for it to happen or what might happen to John himself authored a co-authored a very detailed paper last year with the department that's been done internally in the last number of weeks as to the potential implications the risks, the opportunities if there are any and so we're looking at that also from a political point of view ministers from the government are getting involved in the debate we've got to be careful about how we do that as well because obviously this is a sovereign decision for the people of the UK but there's somewhere in the region of 400,000 Irish people living over there who have a right to vote there's somewhere in the region of 230,000 this isn't living here without the right to vote we can play a constructive role with them we can play a constructive role up in the north of Ireland which I hope to do next week when I go up myself but you're right if there's going to be an exit by the UK there's going to be significant consequences not just for our economy but also for the geopolitics of the European Union as well and then for managing the kind of crises that are going to continue like the refugee crisis which is so important which will continue and then on the other the point you made in relation to the healthcare system it's very frustrating and when we came into government in 2011 we had a plan, a 10 year vision we thought of the time for reforming the healthcare and reforming access to healthcare we know that we don't get the return that we get that other European citizens get for the amount that we invest as a state and that's a significant problem we know that more investment needs to be made and I think we know now that we need a new model a model that focuses on care at home that focuses on primary care centres and that's moving towards these ideas of hospital groups and that management structure but the whole purpose I think of the minister's cross-party committee on health is rather than have health continue to be a political football that's kicked around in the dual chamber and kicked around in election time is to find a consensus that will outlive the party and government that will outlive these and that can continue to be implemented regardless of who's sitting in the chair Thank you We've got 10 on set for questions so I know there's a gentleman here and then off to the doctor Do you want me to say something on healthcare? I suppose the interesting thing is the recommendations highlight the uncertainty with regard to the future direction of the health system I suppose I very much welcome the initiative Minister Harris in terms of going to see cross-party support for a common vision We don't know where that's going to go of course but we have to give the government the doubt at the point of time I suppose to me the really important thing is that in this country we have a public hospital system and a private primary care system and ultimately unless we crack that nut over the next number of years we won't begin to resolve the endemic issues in terms of financial management within hospitals and all the other issues and the rapid pressures in the Irish health system so ultimately I suppose I think there is a possibility now of putting in place a new direction but we'll get to see what's going to come out of that So one question here and then there's two I'm just reading the words of the first recommendation about increasing the cost of effectiveness and the quality of the hospital expenditure I don't actually say increase the amount of it but it needs to be 3-4 billion extra every year for our community I'm just wondering the back value of the capital fund does a chance to meet what extent can we really ramp up the rest of the foundation of the capital expenditure without the choices I agree with you on the need for investment and it's got to be funded out of taxation so I hope that Ibeck recommends increases in taxation to fund that Okay, we're going to get in this video here and then that should bring us very close to time but I'm already deep on the society's interests before and I'm just I'm confused and frustrated I'm hearing a lot of very rigid messages and juices We're sitting here in Dublin too a block away from these kids and I'll get the stars down then because they're long period families can't afford to get them on the bus but that's too grand We're sitting here where people will never even consider making it a third level because guess what? There's group career guidance at a second level due to cuts that were made but I have here to say that the policy and coherence with regard to labour market activation which sounds like laughing to people who are told you know what, you need to get yourself more hours in Tesco or you're only going to be a kid on your own to make your own tea and do your own homework this is the reality in all the parent households and I'm angry at a level that's quite emotional at the moment because I'm hearing a lot of difficult people battling around fiscal rules in Brussels I'm sick of fiscal rules in Brussels if we can't have a government that's open to you minister here that you need to say to us that you can survive, another white element is how long will this government survive won't they even say that to you I want you to say more than generic things about this health service which is, and disgrace, and bizarre and people here will laugh at a level described into them I want leadership, I want coherence and I want long term vision and Alan is right, how on the hell are you going to prioritise it because you're either in or outside the rules Minister how much you've been straight Alan talked earlier when he talked about the current state of the legislature but the whole potential political instill how are you going to manage and execute the choices and circumstances where the government is bounced into new legislation is actually on the mortgage rates when the government goes to vote earlier this year I mean how are you going to manage and execute those choices when there is that level a moment if I can just to reply from Vincent de Paul on our question I mean language is so important around this, okay and in terms of how we communicate and I felt proud as myself meeting yesterday evening when a motion was raised about mortgage arrears and people being evicted from their homes and I stood up and I spoke in numbers and figures and was almost killed by my own parliamentary party because I wasn't communicating at all to them and if I had gone out and said it outside of the room I wouldn't have been communicating to them either it's one of the reasons why at the moment in politics around the world not just in this country the centre is not holding people are the people who kind of maybe represent the centre in some way have lost that ability I think and I'm one of them I guess to effectively communicate what we're trying to do and why we're trying to do it and it's lending itself to populist arguments but also because of what's actually happening so you're right, if we talk about labour market activation what the hell does that mean to most people and Catherine Byrne spoke about this last night who's our new minister for the drug strategy about taking a white sheet of paper approach to everything that we're doing we have got the fiscal space to fund what we're committed to in this programme for government it's about 6 billion in public investment committed between now and 2021 if the government gets to that point in time that's in public spending capital spending on top of what's already in the capital investment plan that was published last year which is a gentleman of reference to we'll be reviewed next year and there might be an opportunity to see how much more you can spend guidance councillors yes it's in the programme for government and that's one of the investments that we're going to make and that's where the money is going to go and when we talk about investing in people being in investment in public service that's what it is early learning initiative there is a fantastic programme being done out of the national college here in the docklands just in this area I don't know if people here some know about this area well but this area has obviously our silicon docks and it's got our Irish financial services centre but it's also got some levels of very high deprivation and the two communities haven't been brought together properly and it's a real shame because it's an opportunity at a time that the investment was being made those years ago that wasn't taken and we're now trying to do it now but things like early learning initiatives which are getting funding increases every year and again it's a commitment in the programme for government it's about putting resources in at the very early ages of life and not just putting them into the classroom where the child might benefit directly but putting them into the child's home in terms of how the parents are interacting with the child how the parents are interacting with each other all those things do make a difference but they do take time as well but education is very much where it's at and in relation to health and it comes back to moving to a single tier system that's what we're trying to do it's a universal health model and so if your child is under six free access to GP care if your parent is over 70 free access to GP care it's going to increase those levels so it'll be under 18 we're also bringing in dental care as well as part of that so this is how we hope to spend the money to try and improve people's lives but coming back to the question of the politics of this and how long will we last we have something new here now we have a proper minority government it's a partnership government Fenegell's the majority in that partnership but we've done it then with a mix of independence we have a confidence and supply agreement with CinaFall and it's not something that we've ever had to do before and we spent a lot of time over the two months of government formation talks looking at how other countries do this New Zealand with a particularly good model given that they're a similar parliamentary system a similar legal system and the first time they did it it took them a couple of months to put it together and it lasted a couple of years the second time they did it took them a few weeks to put it together and it lasted a few years what we have an agreement with is a midterm review with CinaFall part of our confidence and supply we've agreed economic and social policies with them and that will guide us through making sure that our program for government can be implemented in tandem with that I'd love to tell you that we can go five years and that everything's going to be done by 2021 that we have in this program but I can't say that to you because it requires a new approach not just from government it requires a new approach from the public sector and the civil service as well personally I'm not seeing that new approach yet but one of the litmus tests will be the housing committee and the recommendations that come from that if they come with reasonable good objectives that we can actually implement that aren't unconstitutional or aren't illegal then great will have something to go with but if they don't then we're going to have problems getting a proper action plan for housing off the ground and that's one of those difficulties but for me I'm actually I'm actually I think it's an opportunity and I'm optimistic about it because there are some very good parliamentarians there and if we can find a way for those politicians who actually want to get things done rather than prepare for the next election and increasing their voter base by being populist if we can find a consensus among us and actually show progress but it'll be tough, show progress in housing in 12 months it'll be tough, show progress in health it'll be tough but that's a challenge that we set ourselves and we're going to go back to the people who are asked to be judged by that when the election comes and I hope we've got a good message to sell so we're just going to go ask us here and how do you want us to come in on this? Just briefly to Neil's point on the the spending issue and stuff so we do actually say, we do say prioritise capital expenditure and we do mention public infrastructure so I think we have to take a position in terms of prioritisation and what areas we want to look at then and then just to Audrey's point briefly to say clearly the social focus on it the concern we have on the poverty issues and childcare and that that is very clearly set out in terms of the heart of our concerns I'm just a final question My name is Turgio, I'm from Cyftu A question I have is in relation to childcare and the next condition is to improve the provision of quality before the full-time childcare and a great task for people in the question of emissions what is actually the conditions of the standard of the quality of childcare and the model and the conditions are what needs to be done to achieve this model Is there a community in relation to retaining what I'm trying to say about what's happening? Indeed, Jeremy, I think there are with the childcare the availability and the affordability are very important but the quality as well that came across very clearly in our discussions with various stakeholders it's really important that it's not just about putting people in there so that people can go out to work as such that is the most important element is that the care that they're getting in childcare is top-notch they're well, they're capacities it doesn't need to be PhD qualifications but that the people involved in delivering the care are the right people that the work is valued that it's considered to be a high-value work and that it's part of the equation that there's provision made for all these aspects of it so it's availability, affordability but the quality is essential as well We've made it from normal times into potential overhating quite a while but I suppose one of the PhDs is very important today is the level of flexibility given the fiscal rules on your behalf I'd like to thank all of our panels John, Mary and Minister Murphy it was my job to deliver you by 30% next year down the time