Hear, hear.

I will briefly break a tradition. I am holding a sign I have up in my office, which says "Vote No to the Hanly Report". It is there as a reminder to me that 25 years ago, I marched through the streets of Nenagh holding that sign, to protest against the downgrading of my local hospital, the one in Ennis and St. John's Hospital. People can blame that report for me coming into Dáil Éireann. I jest, but it was an inspiration for me. The mid-west - Limerick, Clare and north Tipperary - has been discriminated against whe…

I appreciate the Tánaiste’s reply but we need more certainty. This has gone on way too long. His Government needs to make a decision now to have a model 3 hospital. The idea of sending everybody through the UHL emergency room is downright bananas. It is crazy. It is criminal. We need to upgrade the model 2 hospitals in Nenagh and Ennis, 100%. However, a decision has to be made on the principle that the mid-west would have one model 3 hospital. The mid-west has a growing population and a population that is larger th…

Agreed.

More than half of the submissions relating to a recent EU inquiry into the evaluation of whistleblower protections came from Ireland. There were 40 such submissions. This is concerning. The length of time - whatever the outcome - it is taking to process disclosures, the manner in which some of them are being dealt with and the toing and froing involved is not good for the State and it is certainly not good for the individuals involved. I want to raise the case of Noel McGree, who first pointed out wrongdoing in the…

It is all a mirage.

I welcome this motion brought forward by the Social Democrats. It follows motions put before this House before. The Labour Party has raised this numerous times, particularly for young carers, who are really discriminated against. If I may reach back into the annals, there was a Deputy, Willie Penrose, who raised this matter here for at least a decade if not longer. He argued that in real terms this was self-financing because of the fact that people were kept out of acute healthcare settings. I believe the Minister …

I know the Minister, Deputy Calleary, ended by saying the Government will strive to reduce child poverty. What he should be saying is it will aim to eradicate child poverty. Not enough debates in here are about philosophy, but ultimately this is a debate about political philosophies. If you want to break that down into layman's language in relation to this issue, it is about whether we should be doing everything we can to prevent children from being homeless, sleeping with their families in a car, which I have had …

This is just a transfer of a number of functions and also capital in relation to the purchase of accommodation in regard to provision of accommodation for IPAS. I would make an observation in relation to it. As referred to by Deputy Carthy earlier, we had interaction yesterday in the justice committee in regard to value for money in the purchase of properties, which will be seismic but over will create greater value over a number of years, it is believed, given the ongoing volumes of people coming into the country.…

I did not ask the Minister to, in fairness.

I am glad to see the Minister of State back in here because we spoke about this in March so I am sure he is fully on top of it and has some good news for me. This issue is very personal for me. I have said here before that I fought for this. St. Conlon's Nursing Home was very personal for me. Many members of my family had their last days there. It provided an incredible service and the staff were amazing. However, HIQA wanted to close it because it was not meeting requirements. We had to fight to get funding and a …

The Minister of State is one of the more diligent Ministers of State when it comes to trying to be genuine in his answers. I have been asking parliamentary questions for months looking for a date for when this is to be opened. The Minister has not provided me with that and it is the Minister who is responsible, not the HSE. The Minister is answerable to this Dáil in this Chamber and has refused to answer that question. I want that stated on the floor of this House. I have had to chase the Ceann Comhairle. The Minis…

So do I.

I hope the Minister of State is right about October.

This is good legislation and the Minister should be commended for it.

We will be supporting it 100%. I also compliment CAB, its officers and the people who work there. They do very sensitive and dangerous work and their anonymity is important going forward because these criminals and their organisations have long views. It is incredibly important that we protect the people who work for CAB. I want to acknowledge something that shows how politics works at times. CAB came into existence because of Ruairí Quinn, the former Labour Minister, working with the former Minister, Nora Owen, on…

I know the Taoiseach is going be very sad next week when my great county of Tipperary defeats, in fairness, his great county of Cork in the all-Ireland. I just want to condition him for that. I hope that sadness does not permeate elsewhere, particularly as the Government is doing the NDP and the summer economic statement. There has been a bit of conditioning coming from the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach over the past few days. As we know now, there will be no cost-of-living package etc., but the Tánaiste has said that…

You already have your car signs printed.

Humble. That is displayed everywhere.

What will be the structural reductions?