By J. P. Anderson:
THE CABINET moved into the final phase of framing the budget yesterday at a meeting which lasted for more than four hours. Ministers will not meet again until Tuesday.
A Government spokesman said yesterday that nothing would escape the microscope in these particularly difficult times. He added that Ministers were preparing for what will probably be the toughest budget in many years.
Another indication of the very difficult economic background to this year’s budget emerged last night in a review of the construction industry for 2007 and the “Outlook 2008–2010”, conducted for the Department of the Environment by DKM Economic Consultants.
The review published by the department forecast that house prices would continue to fall significantly over the year ahead and that the number of housing units built would fall to 25,000 in 2009 from 43,000 this year and 78,000 in 2007.
“The stark reality now is that the deterioration in economic conditions over recent months plus the contraction in residential investment to date this year are likely to see real GNP decline by up to 1.5 per cent. The recovery in 2009 is also now expected to be delayed. Moreover, international economic events are not helping the situation,” it added.
The review said that the root of the problem lay in “the substantial correction in the housing market”, which began about the end of 2006. The housing market was currently experiencing weak demand, low sales rates, increased cancellation rates and falling house prices.
“While house-builders have responded by cutting production, the stock of unsold homes has risen to levels well above historical norms.
“With only 15,386 dwellings commenced in the first seven months of 2008, house building levels are expected to drop to 25,000 units in 2009 from 43,000 this year.”
Residential construction is expected to fall back to only 9 per cent of GNP this year from 16 per cent at the peak in 2006.
“Domestically as average house prices fall, Ireland is expected to follow international experience in respect of property cycles, implying that average house prices would need to drop back by some considerable amount.
“Depending on the severity of the drop in house prices, the average house price could fall by anything from 20 per cent to 46 per cent, reflecting the increase in real house prices in the run up to the peak.
“However, the Irish housing market has already lost virtually all of the gains made in the three years up to the peak (January 2007) as real house prices had fallen by 18.5 per cent from the peak by July this year. But further losses seem inevitable.”
The review said confidence levels in the construction sector were at an all-time low as new business levels continued to weaken, the pace of employment losses was accelerating and companies remained pessimistic about the future outlook.
THE FAMILY of a woman who died in the toilet of the AE unit at Dublin's Mater hospital earlier this year after waiting hours for a bed has urged the public to turn out in large numbers for a protest march against health service cuts on Saturday.
The march through Dublin, being organised by an alliance of trade unions and patient groups, is being timed just days ahead of the budget in the hope that the Government will heed pleas to avoid savage cuts in health service spending next year.
Colm Seville, a brother of the late Beverly Seville Doyle (39), a mother of three who died at the Mater hospital in January, said his family was still waiting for answers from the hospital many months after their sister's death. This was despite several phone calls to the hospital.
He said his sister wasn't feeling well but was left on a chair in AE in overcrowded "Third World" conditions.
In the early hours of the morning she went to the toilet unaccompanied and collapsed and died. She was a private patient but it didn't save her, he said.
"We have a two-tier health system here and neither one of them work," he added.
A spokesman for the hospital said yesterday that the Mater was co-operating with the Dublin city coroner's office who will in due course hold an inquest to establish the cause of the woman's death. No date has been fixed for the inquest.
Mr Seville was speaking at a press conference yesterday in advance of Saturday's march, which begins at Parnell Square at 2pm.
Des Bonass of the Unite trade union, which supports the protest, said saving the banks seemed to be more important to the Government than saving the public health service.
Liam Doran, general secretary of the Irish Nurses Organisation, said that even in these difficult financial times the Government has got to learn from the lessons of the past.
"In 1987 we imposed health cutbacks. We took two decades to recover from that. If we impose cuts upon cuts upon the Irish health service our agreed endeavour to deliver a world-class health service will be put back another 15 to 20 years. We cannot afford to make that mistake," he said. "The Government took a correct decision that the economy couldn't afford to have the banks fail. This campaign and all the participants in it would say that the Government can equally take the same decision now in respect of the public health service . . . the health and wellbeing of the nation is as important as that," he added.
THE GOVERNMENT'S decision to cut a number of support services for ex-offenders will place vulnerable men at risk of homelessness and addiction problems, support groups warned yesterday.
The Department of Justice confirmed yesterday it was withdrawing funding for the Harristown House addiction and counselling centre in Castlerea, Co Roscommon.
It is also cutting funding for the Kazelain project in Sligo which provides accommodation for former offenders and homeless men.
A spokesman for Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said the decision to close both services followed reviews which highlighted poor value for money and programme outcomes.
He insisted the closures were not as a result of spending cut-backs
"We're living in straitened times," the spokesman said.
"If in an independent report someone finds that a service is badly managed, not offering value for money and should be closed down, it would be a dereliction of our duty to ignore that."
However, support groups, unions and politicians criticised the move, and argued it would cost the State far more than it hoped to save.
"The department is effectively consigning people who may have been helped by these initiatives to lives of addiction, criminality and death," said Peter Byrne, a former patient of Harristown House who is now an addiction counsellor.
Harristown House, an addiction centre beside Castlerea Prison, has a staff of 20, and is funded by the Probation and Welfare Service at an annual cost of €475,000.
The consultants' report on which the decision to close the centre is based acknowledges that the concept of the service is valued by the judiciary, probation services and clients.
The Praxis report also notes that the centre has a 65 per cent success rate in treating addiction and tackling crime and that residents were very positive about the service.
However, it concludes there are serious indications the organisation has become "dysfunctional" in terms of human resources, value for money and quality of service.
It found that the centre as it currently stands is no longer viable and should be closed down to allow for a "period of reflection".
However, Impact union's assistant general secretary Denis Rohan said the closure was "ludicrous". He said the union would seek a reversal of the decision in discussions with the department.
Council for the West chairman Seán Hannick questioned the rationale for "targeting yet another valuable project in the west for funding cuts".
In Sligo, the board of the Kazelain project, which houses 10 men and has eight full-time and five part-time staff, has also been informed that the facility will close at the end of November.
Board member Gabrielle Finan said as a result of the decision the residents would be homeless from the end of next month.
The department said the centre had received over €1 million in grant aid over the past three years, and said funding of this order "must be subject to stringent value-for-money criteria".
It said the Probation Service was working with management and residents to find alternative accommodation for the men. One resident, who said he felt like "I had lost a member of my family" when he heard the news, questioned the logic of the decision, given that it costs over €100,000 to keep someone in prison for a year.
Since it was set up in Sligo 5½ years ago, Kazelain has provided accommodation for an estimated 80 men, the majority of them ex-offenders who were estranged from the families.
It was founded by a local nun, the late Sister Marie Finan, who died in 2004.
THE DIRECTOR of a pioneering childcare service that works with the children of current and recovering drug users has voiced her concern that its funding may be cut in next week's budget.
The Realt Beag centre in Ballyfermot, west Dublin has been operating since February and will be formally opened by President Mary McAleese tomorrow.
Sunniva Finlay, director of Ballyfermot Star, an education and rehabilitation service for drug users and their families which run Realt Beag, said future funding was not certain.
Though grateful for the "high level of funding" from the Office of the Minister for Children and European structural funds, she said "nothing long-term" was certain until next week's budget. "We're hearing core funding could be cut. That could mean cutbacks, maybe redundancies."
Realt Beag's main clients are parents with a drug-using history. "About 20 per cent of the children are not in that group as we want to keep a mix. We have a long waiting list of parents who have no drug history at all. But we want to keep our target which is to provide a service that helps break the cycle of drug-abuse and problems," says Ms Finlay,
There is capacity for 28 children but slow steps are being taken. There are currently 15 - four babies, six toddlers and five pre-school children.
Visitors are struck by the space and bright natural light. Walls, floors and furniture are designed for children, featuring primary colours and smiling cartoon faces.
There is a darkened sensory room with a floor-to-ceiling tube of bubbles, nature pictures, a cascade of colour-changing fibre-optics called "the waterfall" and textured cushions and bean-bags. "Some of the children have bad concentration, can be aggressive, their language can be bad. This really seems to calm and focus them on something new," says manager Geraldine O'Driscoll. Six of the 11 staff have special-needs training and the ratio is about two children per carer.
Among the babies is Jason Vallance's daughter, Lexie (10 months). Jason (34), a recovering heroin addict, has been clean for two years and is in his second year with the Realt Nua programme, run by Ballyfermot Star.
"I was an addict for 13 years - a lot of wasted time, until two years ago. Since then I have done my Leaving Cert and I'd like to do some kind of metal work."
He said Realt Beag is "structured and it's bright and there's space for her to be a child here. In our bedsit there's no space. I find since she's been here she's more noisy verbally, more attentive, she seems more content in herself.
"It's made things easier for my girlfriend because she gets some time to herself and it means I can do work in the evenings."
The service costs Realt Beag over €200 per child per week, but it charges €75 per week.
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