Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Now it is time for our Friday Gathering.
Chapter 2: Who are the guests featured in this episode?
This week I'm joined by Shane Moynihan, Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin Midwest. Piers Daugherty, Sinn Féin TD for Donegal and Party Spokesperson on Finance is joining us from our Dura Biaga studio in Donegal. Louise Byrne, Political Correspondent with the Irish Examiner and Sinead O'Carroll, Editor of the Journal.ie. Good morning, you're all very welcome. Thanks a million for joining us.
We heard from Health Minister Jennifer Carroll-McNeill earlier about this row over the Rotunda, public-only consultants providing private care. Sinead, I think you were listening to that. What did you make of it?
Yeah, she's obviously, most people would have described it as a feisty interview. I think the masters of the hospitals listening, particularly the Rotunda and the consultants listening, would have, I believe, thought that they were on notice. The main takeaway for me was...
that actually this is less about a two-tier system and more about the state being the indemnifier and the insurance provider. It reminded me of a piece that John Crown actually wrote a few years ago during COVID for the Irish Times saying, that's what we should be moving towards.
We should be moving towards a social insurance system rather than the sláinte care system because we should be kind of looking for the hospitals to compete against each other. We should be looking for that level of productivity, the idea of consulting contracts without productivity. actually doesn't get where we want to get.
What I would have liked to hear as a woman and as a user of the maternity health care system, how do you make the public health care system act like the private health care system? And she got into that a little bit by saying, you know, the consultants will be there to work the hours. But that's not the entire...
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Chapter 3: What is the controversy surrounding the Rotunda and public-only consultants?
reason that the public system doesn't operate in the same way as the private system and the women who we've talked to over the last few weeks last week and said why do you use the private system they say continuity of care if we've had difficult pregnancies before and the idea that we'll have the same doctor and that is we didn't get the answers you asked and we didn't get the answers okay Louise I mean there's a lot in this but the overarching theme is that some women want the right to choose where does this go from here
And I think, you know, why should those women not have the right to choose? And I think Sinead is right. And it's a funny one because you can see where the minister in some ways is coming from. If there's a contract agreed, the contract should be followed as the contract is written. However, how did the government not see this issue coming?
I thought it was interesting that the master of Hollis Street said that a lot of their consultants aren't on those public-only contracts for that reason, so they can keep providing the private care. And I think there's going to have to be some kind of agreement here. I don't think pulling funding from the hospital is in any way, shape or form the right thing to do.
It's not as if it's some, you know, state body caught up in some financial scandal. This is we're talking about women's health care here. And, you know, speaking to people about during the week on this, it's really, really simple. Why can we not get access to the same doctor all the time in the public system as we do in the private system? Why do I have to keep going in?
If I have had traumatic experiences, why do I have to keep telling that over and over again to a new doctor every single time I'm in? So while you can understand where Minister Karen McNeill is coming from and wanting the contract to be followed until the public system can act like the private system can.
it's not going to work and she's going to lose the argument and i think the the question is where does it go from here because i it no one seems to be backing down and it is a little bit chicken egg then she's saying i can't get it to operate like the public the private system until i have the hours and the consultants working in the same so i can understand that but the the the thing where it just keeps coming back to is but we have two-tier systems across the healthcare and
And she was saying we don't, but we do because they have private hospitals.
So it goes back to the insurance issue again. So is this just about insurance? And how do they not see the issue coming is the other question. If there's no private maternity hospitals, there used to be, that is not now, but if there's no private maternity hospitals, how do they not see this issue coming? Especially when this conversation first came up a year ago.
But why are we having this feisty fight about women's healthcare when we don't have about anything else that we've privatised in this country? Like, why is this the one that we're going to, like, really have to fight on and take choice away from women?
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Chapter 4: How does the public healthcare system compare to private healthcare for maternity care?
And consultants should be no difference. They're paid additionally because of that type of contract.
Louise, I mean, it's a big threat, isn't it? I mean, she wasn't banging on about it, but it's clearly in the locker. But it'd be a huge call, wouldn't it?
huge call and I mean I know what Jane is saying of oh she didn't quite go that far but she didn't quite take it off the table either and even you know sometimes having the threat or the idea of the threat there is enough to make people work and I mean who would suffer if that money is taken away from the Rotunda it's mothers and it's babies and I the Minister did say that was her priority absolutely but I mean you know we can't just we can't punish mothers and babies because doctors are working outside their contract that's a ridiculous idea
I think even though it's within her powers, I think it's physically impossible for her to defund. But I think where the real threat, David, in your interview with her was she talked about the meeting that she had, which in terms of extended funding and the extra things that they were hoping and thinking to do with the rotunda.
And I don't think that was an accidental mention in the interview that that's where the actual threat is.
Good job. Somebody was listening. OK, I want to move on to the economy because we had a picture of the state of our economy yesterday with the release of the CSO's national quarterly results and the Lasers Exchequer returns. A 9.1% increase, Shane Moynihan, in corporation tax collected this year compared to the same period last year.
And then we have figures in the Irish Times this morning for the amount. The amount is just staggering, paid by individual companies. Eli Lilly... Paid the Irish exchequer €5.7 billion last year. Pfizer, €870 million. Regeneron, €556 million. Johnson & Johnson, €517 million. Meta, €489 million.
Those are staggering figures, but when they're concentrated in so few companies, it must give you cause for concern.
So the first thing I would say, David, is that it's important that these figures, when they come out and they're discussed, that we remember that the economy isn't something that just happens. It's not just handed to us. It is something that we have to watch and we have to monitor and policies are important around that.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of the government's stance on maternity care contracts?
And there is, and I think we need to have more assessment in relation to that. Particularly, it's good to see that youth unemployment is actually dropping. But what we are seeing in these figures is actually female unemployment is actually increasing. And the level of female unemployment over the age of 25 has increased by 40% in the last year. So that's a worry.
And I would actually, I'm not sure if it's true, but I would say that childcare is a major reason why that is happening, given the economy that we have at this point in time. So there's issues that can be addressed, that needs to be addressed. And one of the biggest risks that we have at the minute is the cost of living crisis that the government's ignoring.
Okay, we might get into that. But Shane, the point Pierce already is making is that you're spending lots of money, but you're spending it on the wrong things. You're giving it to the big boys.
Well, I'd say a few things there. First of all, it's always interesting when I hear Piers talk about the real economy, because when we stand up in the Dáil and speak about jobs, growing Irish companies, growing the economy, there's tumbleweed usually on the opposition benches. We don't hear that from Sinn Féin. No, it isn't nonsense. I never heard you once.
Ten years you've been finance spokesperson. I don't think I've ever heard you speak about how to grow jobs. But anyway, that besides the point, let's return to the fact around where the spending is, where the targeted measures we took in the last budget in terms of the working family payment, in terms of increasing the fuel allowance, supporting people who needed help most.
I think we need to have that front and centre as we're going into the next budgetary cycle. We've also made sure that we've built up two large funds to withstand any shocks that might happen in the future. So resilience is about as much for this economy as anything else.
On the point around female unemployment, I would point out that the participation rate in the labour force among women has increased.
It hasn't increased to the rate it has to, and obviously childcare is a factor in that, and I think steps are being taken, and we'll probably discuss that in a few minutes, about how we do support women to get back into the workforce and to make sure they don't have to exit because of childcare responsibilities, because that shouldn't happen. But I think to paint this as a fact that...
Ultimately, this comes back to, we have seen the reduction in youth unemployment. We need to continue the work there. And I think a lot of the work James Lawless is doing around investing. It's still 10%. It is. I mean, it's also one of the lowest levels in the EU and it's lower than comparable to the UK as well, David.
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Chapter 6: How does the current economic situation affect maternity healthcare funding?
And the state is now taking more of a role in delivering that state-led childcare. We'll have eight of those sites up and running next year. And that will scale over the next three or four years as well. But in addition to that, we need to bring providers with us to ensure that we have that capacity. And we need to make sure that we retain. And they aren't just childcare workers.
They're early years educators in many cases. And we have to make sure that pay reflects what's being made available to the population.
There's 45 million, I think.
Half of what's being assigned to providers is to give pay rises and to make that sector attractive as well. Of course, we would all love to see a situation where we get a fully funded national childcare service. But we also have to live in the here and now of what we have.
And that's about bringing the providers in the capacity with us, making sure that we retain the staff and ultimately bring down the cost for parents, because that needs to be our priority.
OK, Piers Doherty, 183 euro a week. You want to see it at 50 euro a week. How much would that cost? Where is the money going to come from?
The full cost of including not only early educators in terms of a childminding sector, but also childminders is £448 million, and that's the cost that we got from the Parliamentary Budget Office. You're right in saying this, David. We put this in the political agenda. We outlined very clearly how you can actually deliver 10-year-old-day childcare, 50-year-old-a-week childcare.
And, you know, it was copied by other political parties. The commitment was given by Fianna Gael that within six months that they would deliver the roadmap in relation to this. We're, what, 16 months beyond the election now, and they come up with this brainwave that they will, you know, they will fix it at, what, €800 per month per child. Like, this is nuts.
And it's a complete breach of the commitment that they gave in terms of the electorate. This is why we're seeing, in my view, why we're seeing 16,000 more women unemployed compared to this time last year, because childcare...
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