Joint Committee on Public Petitions and the Ombudsmen debate -
Thursday, 26 Sep 2024

Next item is the consideration of public petitions. I propose that the petitions considered by the committee at this meeting and previous meetings may be published; and that the replies from the Department and other bodies may also be published. Is that agreed? Agreed.

We have five petitions for consideration today. The first is No. P00001/24 entitled “To give practical application to the right not to attend religious instruction in school” on behalf of Atheist Ireland. It states:

The Constitution and Legislation relating to the right Article 44.2.4 of the Irish Constitution "Legislation providing State aid for schools shall not discriminate between schools under the management of different religious denominations, nor be such as to affect prejudicially the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending religious instruction at that school”.

The action requested by petitioner is to guarantee the constitutional right to attend any school in receipt of public funding and not attend religious instruction and put guidelines in place statutory or otherwise in relation to administering the right to not attend religious instruction in all schools.

The secretariat wrote to the Department of Education on 12 February 2024 seeking a response advising of its views within 14 days. The secretariat received a response from the Department of

Education on 30 May 2024. Summary notes will be uploaded to the webpage.

The committee recommends that we publish the response from the Department of Education and that the correspondence from the Department of Education be forwarded to the petitioner for comment within 14 days. Do members have any views?

To be fair, the petitioner has written one of the most detailed petitions we have received. It is important to note concerns where legislation is insignificant or contains potential gaps in its provision. I appreciate that the Department has responded with a detailed response and we look forward to hearing back from the petitioner in due course. Is that agreed? Agreed.

The next petition is No. P00008/24 "Employment Equality" from Mr. John O'Malley. It states:

Employment Equality

The importance of equality is a corner stone of EU democracy. So accordingly, an EU citizen would expect that advertising in relation to vacancies in the workplace should be fair true and accurate even in national Governments within the EU.

However, when it comes to the expenditure of Union funding, in this case substantial - an EU citizen would consider that it should be Mandatory. The Agricultural Appeals Office constructed by the Department of Agriculture is not complying with same. There could be a certain amount of tolerance in the past, but the evolvement of the ‘Carbon’ challenge has made this no longer acceptable.

The three main issues where the current criteria are not acceptable are listed below----

(1) The application for the post of Director clearly displays that the Post is not Independent. It is confined to State employees with no emphasis on academic qualification (in historic terms this was commonly known as the ‘Boys Club’)

(2) Some of the best qualified personnel are excluded, for example the Judiciary who arbitrate on all legal matters in Ireland. As you can see from the criteria in relation to Appeals, the final decision is based on a legal interpretation by the Directors legal advisers. The - by and large small farm businesses are not in a financial position to challenge the decision which is a legal decision. It could be argued that most, if not all farm businesses would accept the Directors ruling if the adjudicator was a member of the Judiciary.

(3) As you can see from the attachment - the Director and also the Appeals Officers appear to have no academic qualifications and it appears that all have evolved from within the Department of Agriculture in a confined manner.

(4) The core values of Employment Equality Framework Directive (2000/78) have clearly being breached.

The action taken to resolve the issue of concern before submitting the petition was to submit it to the Minister for observation. The background here is following consideration of the petition at the meeting of 13 June 2024, the correspondence from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine was forwarded to the petitioner for comment. The petitioner submitted a response, which is in the summary notes.

The committee recommends that the correspondence from the petitioner be forwarded to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine for comment within 14 days. Do the members have any views?

We need to understand that the clarity that the petitioner has been seeking is in regard to a farmer's ability to challenge an appeal decision which might involve the High Court. I presume the point the petitioner is making is were the position of director available to a member of the Judiciary, it might help in dealing with those kind of problems. We will see what comes back.

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Petition No. P00034/24, entitled "Future of the Dean Maxwell Community Nursing Unit, Roscrea", was submitted by Donnacha Delaney. The petition states:

That the Government provides the HSE with the requisite capital funding to build a new long-stay residential care unit for older persons in Roscrea so as to maintain and/or increase current long-stay bed capacity in the town, before any change to the current service provision offered by the HSE's Dean Maxwell Community Nursing Unit are implemented.

The action requested by the petitioner is that the Government needs to ensure that the HSE is funded to provide such a much-needed capital investment and to ensure that its future for the next 50 years is secured for the people of Roscrea, for the benefit of both present and future generations.

The action taken to resolve issue of concern before submitting the petition was that the petitioner wrote to the chief officer, HSE mid-west community healthcare.

The background here is the secretariat forwarded the correspondence from the Department of Health to the petitioner. The secretariat wrote to the Minister for Health, the CEO of the Health Service Executive and the Secretary General at the Department of Health requesting them to outline the long-term plans for the Dean Maxwell nursing home unit based on the new plans proposed for St. Conlan’s community nursing unit in Nenagh and Mount Carmel in Roscrea as agreed in the meeting of 23 May 2024, and received responses.

They are in the summary notes. The petitioner’s response to the correspondence from the Department of Health is also in the summary notes. The joint response from Minister of Health and the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health and older persons as well as the response from the HSE are also in the summary notes.

To inform people, the response from the Minister for Health and Minister of State with responsibility for mental health and older people is as follows:

Dear Deputy Browne,

We refer to your correspondence on 15th July 2024 concerning Petition No: P00034-24: “Future of the Dean Maxwell Community Nursing Unit, Roscrea”.

In order to respond to The Committee’s request for a full breakdown of the actual location of the additional 85 long-stay beds available in the Roscrea area which was mentioned in our previous correspondence to the Joint Committee on 27th June 2024, we have been in contact with the Health Service Executive (HSE) who have advised the following:

• Mount Carmel Nursing Home, Abbey Street in Roscrea, Co. Tipperary has a bed capacity of 31.

• Patterson’s Nursing Home, Lismackin in Roscrea, Co. Tipperary has a bed capacity of 24.

• Villa Marie Nursing Home, Grange, Templemore Road in Roscrea ... has a bed capacity of 30.

The recommendation is that the correspondence from the Ministers be forwarded to the petitioner for comment within 14 days; the correspondence from the HSE be forwarded to the petitioner for comment within 14 days; and the correspondence from the petitioner be forwarded to the HSE for comment within 14 days. Do members have any views?

I am, and this has been ongoing for the past five or six years in Roscrea. It is another service that is being withdrawn from County Tipperary. I approached the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, recently because we have had the same thing with St. Brigid's in Carrick-on-Suir.

Regarding Dean Maxwell, they confirmed earlier in the year that the facility would continue for the patients who are there for as long as they are there, but they have given no long-term commitment. Gradually, we will lose the facility.

The community nursing home in Nenagh was mentioned. There was supposed to be bed capacity there for the Roscrea and Nenagh area, but UHL, with the overflow, has taken that over and privatised it again. They say it is for 12 months, but I do not think anybody believes it will be 12 months. The licence is for 12 months but I can see being extended because of the overflow in Limerick, which will not disappear anytime soon.

There were also talks of Mount Carmel in Roscrea being taken over. There has been no mention of that recently. Like we said about St. Brigid’s and every place else, all the mantra from Government is people being looked after in their own location, in their own community and the whole lot. Here we are either sending them to private operators or sending them out of their own towns. All of that needs to change.

I agree. I sat on Sláintecare committee. It was about going back to publicly led, community-led services.

I think that answer is a bit wishy-washy, to be honest. The Chair is possibly right. You can make all the assumptions you want but when they tell you that they will be in the Dean Maxwell for their lifetime, there is no guarantee that once a bed becomes available, it is filled. It is slowly being pulled out of the public domain and put into the private sector. I know we sometimes have to rely on the private sector, but we should not be totally reliant on it. We see the exact same thing going on in Midleton and we had it with the Owenacurra Centre, a 22-bed respite. The only way they got the people out of there was because of the flooding from Storm Babet. They had the people out. It was their opportunity to move them all over the place.

However, I will always give credit. I met Bernard Gloster briefly here and I spoke with him. There was an application for a new ten-bed to go back into that site, so it being reutilised, but with ten beds. They have also purchased two other properties. I think by the time we are back up we will have maybe 21 beds, if we are lucky, or maybe 16 - it depends. However, I am worried they are moving away from the public.

While where there was opposition to the community nursing unit in Nenagh, people were kind of prepared to travel there. However, that is even gone now because of UHL. I spoke to Donnacha Delaney last week at a public meeting. There is a lot of anger there. We will see what comes back from the Minister. We just need to keep an eye on it.

The next petition is P00035/24, "Mogeely interim flood relief", is from Gleann Fia, Mogeely, County Cork, residents' association. It states:

While we wholeheartedly appreciate Cork County Council's attempts to respond to the scale of the problem for all of East Cork, we feel we can as a community assist in the solution for our area. There is currently a culvert under the Killeagh Road which becomes overwhelmed from water entering it from the woods on higher ground.

The action requested by petitioner is the proposal is to hold any overflow of water at the lowest point of the land until levels drop in the stream across the road. The action taken to resolve issue of concern before submitting the petition has been that the Gleann Fia residents’ association has met with local councillors, TDs, the landowner, Cork County Council's county engineer, several engineers in the roads and flood protection unit and have also been in contact with Coillte and Inland Fisheries Ireland with regard to plans to create an interim solution. We are being told that tranche 2 must be initiated before any interim measures can be looked at. The local landowner is in agreement to assist Cork County Council to alleviate the threat in any way it sees fit.

The background is that the secretariat forwarded correspondence from the Office of Public Works to the petitioner for comment within 14 days as agreed in the meeting of 4 July 2024, and received a response from the petitioner, which is in the summary notes. The recommendation is that the correspondence from the petitioner be forwarded to the Office of Public Works for comment within 14 days. Do members have any views?

Yes. That is in my own area and I have been dealing with them. The proposal came in back in March. They mentioned the culvert on the Killeagh Road that goes down into the woods in Castlemartyr. They are afraid of a knock-on effect. If there a surge of water diverted down into the next village, it could do damage. In fairness to the residents, they work with the landowner, the farmer and so on and so forth.

I raised the culvert and the overflow on the land yesterday under a Topical Issue with the Minister of State, Deputy O’Donnell. I told him this is the fastest quick-fix we can get for this area. These are timber framed houses - very different. You cannot put floodgates or anything on these. It does not work. They got their engineers reports from Germany. Unfortunately, these families are on their lastchance.com. They cannot afford to take water into their house ever again, not in the volume they had. We know there are no guarantees with flooding. At least with the landowner we have the option to take the water away from the estate and hold it. It can be held for long as it can. It can be drip-fed back out. I said this to the Minister of State yesterday and he is having a meeting with Cork County Council on it.

The Chair mentioned tranche 2 of the funding. Money has been set aside for what they call minor mitigation works. I hope that minor mitigation will try to facilitate the people of Gleann Fia and the farmer, and do that job immediately. At least it is a preventative measure. I would not like to be a family who has a mortgage and home, who is very proud of their home, and who thinks they will be goosed if they there is one more flood. If we had the option of that water not entering the estate and staying on the farmer’s land until such time that we can let it off in a proper manner, it is a no-brainer.

I know the OPW must do this and deal with Inland Fisheries Ireland and so on. All of that work can go on if they hold the water away from the culvert. I understand the frustration and I will keep fighting that. There are other issues with flooding in Midleton and the surrounding areas.

I told the Minister of State yesterday that we need a quick fix to this. Tír Cluain needs floodgates because they will work there. Moores Bridge is gone. I had a very good private meeting with Cork County Council at which we discussed the OPW and others. They have resolved the issues there but a lot of the organisations are not pulling together, such as the OPW and Inland Fisheries Ireland. I understand they all have jobs to do but the priority here is that preventative measures be put in place as fast as they can. There is a yellow warning for rain today. We do not want to hear that in Midleton. I can guarantee that. I have met people and have had late night meetings on Wednesdays until 10.15 p.m. and have listened to those families and their fears after putting everything back. I appeal to all the Departments involved in this issue to please work with the residents of Glenn Fia and the farmer who has so kindly given that option. It is the only quick-fix option for these people. I do not know how we approach getting it in. I have already asked the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, to examine this issue and I have already flagged this with Cork County Council, so I hope this will be resolved as soon as it can be. While not the perfect one, it would be an absolute disaster not to implement a solution to prevent these people's homes being flooded between now and next March.

I know totally agree with the Deputy. I can understand the frustration of the residents there that there is a solution, although it may only be a short-term one, where even if it is over this winter only that flooding could be avoided, and that after trying everything possible for the solution to be provided for it then to be withdrawn.

Petition No. P00040/24 is a request for mental health facilities from Ms Ann O’Mahony. It states:

I am petitioning for help for my sister who is living on the streets the past four years due to her mental health we have had her sectioned under the mental health act and she was released the same day, she hasn’t showered or changed her clothes in over 4 years, she is now walking the streets in her bare feet and weighing only 5 stone[s] ... This petition is our last hope as a family to get our sister and daughter the help she desperately needs.

The petitioner has taken the following actions before submitting the petition: contacted An Garda Síochána, the GP, a mental health facility, the southern health board, solicitors and TDs. The background to this is that the secretariat forwarded the correspondence from the Department of Health to the petitioner for comment within 14 days, and wrote to Mental Health Commission for further advice, as agreed in the meeting of 27 June 2024, and received a response from the Mental Health Commission. There is a summary note on that.

The committee recommends that the correspondence from the Mental Health Commission be forwarded to the petitioner for information. Based on the correspondence received from Mental Health Commission, we should close this petition as there is nothing further that this committee can do. We will notify the petitioner of the decision to close the petition. On behalf of myself and the rest of the committee members I apologise that we cannot do anything further for this family. It is not in our remit. I seriously hope the GP, An Garda Síochána or the Mental Health Commission can respond to the family and help them. It cannot be nice, or it is not in any way natural, to see a family member and a family crying out for help but there just does not seem to be any help there for them. I wish the family all the best going forward and apologise that, after writing on their behalf, the committee is not able to do anything further for them. Do other members have any views?

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with the Chair. My background is as a former spokesperson in mental health and I have been working for developments in mental health for 30 years. It comes to a stage when society lets people down and yet we are here. How many times have we said this is the lastchance.com committee? Genuinely, I feel sick that this is what is happening and unfortunately we cannot take this petition any further. There is more than one person out there who is suffering. I genuinely do not know but I wish everybody the best. I would not leave here with confidence today but this is what it is, so I thank the Chair.