I endorse Deputy O'Connor's remarks. I know of people who had to change their plans and move home. They now hope to go on to education but they are unable to produce a utility bill as evidence of independent living. They had to move to their parents' house due to the emergency and that should be taken into consideration.

As the Minister will be aware, a cohort of people have reached, or are about to reach, pension age, and they have been paying social insurance contributions towards contributory pensions. Now they have found that because their insurance records were broken while they were in receipt of the farm assist payment, they are only entitled to reduced contributory pensions. I believe that this is a small cohort of people. I am very anxious that those people who had to go on the farm assist payment because of reduced farm i…

As the Minister quite rightly pointed out, the farm assist scheme was introduced in 1999. Deputy Ó Cuív, who is here, some others and I were strong advocates for changing the then smallholder's farm assistance payment because it was based on historical farm income. The farm assist scheme was quite rightly introduced to take account of present income circumstances. As we know, there can be a very sudden change in farm income circumstances, perhaps due to an outbreak of disease in a herd, a sudden drop in internation…

I welcome the Minister's approach. I would be glad to sit down with her and Deputy Ó Cuív to go through the particular lacuna in the legislation. This is a crunch time for this small cohort of people because they are approaching pension age. I hope we can make progress on the issue and ensure that these people are not denied their maximum pension contribution. As we know, they work very hard. In many cases, their incomes were below the living standard for many years, through no fault of their own. They worked very …

I congratulate the Ministers on their appointments and wish them well in the important work they will be doing on behalf of all of us over the next number of years. As the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, is well aware, our inland waterways are an important natural resource and we want to ensure that we maximise them for the potential of our people and visitors to our country. There was substantial investment in our inland waterways in the 1990s and early 2000s, and it is now time to re-energise the inland waterwa…

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. Over the past number of years it has been a source of concern to me that there has been a decline in boat movements on some of our inland waterways. When the Minister of State has the opportunity to meet various representative bodies I am sure he will become aware of this issue. We want to ensure that we arrest the decline in the number of people using our waterways. When infrastructure is used it needs ongoing investment and maintenance, including repairs to banks, weir…

I thank the Minister of State. I am familiar with the Drumshanbo development. The development of that great facility is a credit to everyone involved, including Waterways Ireland, the local community and statutory agencies. The Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, and I have a particular interest in the restoration of the Ulster Canal. Some work has been done and it is essential that there is further development this year in preparing outline designs and preliminary investigatory work in order to facilitate the prepa…

I take this opportunity to wish the Minister and the Ministers of State well in their important work. As we all know, in recent years there have been increased incidences of flooding causing major problems for households and landowners. Unfortunately, the two counties I represent, Cavan and Monaghan, have been adversely impacted on many occasions. The minor works programme, which provides some funding for local authorities to carry out remedial works is of great benefit and I would like to see the programme expande…

I thank the Minister of State for his response. Cavan County Council has identified 11 sites that require urgent attention. If the Minister of State could ensure that the applications are approved, the overall cost to the OPW would be less than €300,000. Up to 60 households would benefit from such improvement or remedial works. Some people have to leave their homes at stages during the winter and others do not have access to their homes or farms. Up to 60 households are directly affected and if the remedial works w…

Cavan County Council and its officials have an excellent relationship with the officials of the Office of Public Works, OPW. I have attended meetings, along with other public representatives, between the council and the OPW and have seen that good co-operation. I would like to ensure the applications are progressed as quickly as possible. We have a larger scale project which would benefit Cavan town and its surrounds. It would come under the CFRAM, catchment flood risk assessment and management, programme. Over the…

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this important matter for debate. I wish the new Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, well in his work, which is so important for many individuals, families and communities throughout the country. I have worked with the Minister of State on the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement and on the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly over the years. We both saw at first hand the value and importance of going out and meeting with groups and communities …

I thank the Minister of State for his response. I welcome that the Minister of State is taking up my suggestion to visit and meet the groups and practitioners who are literally at the coalface. I hope the Minister of State will be able to visit Cavan and meet that group early in his Ministry. I expect the Minister of State would be highly impressed by their work and commitment. There are people working there who went through the service and who are now helping to deliver services to people who have addiction proble…

Through parliamentary questions and in various health-related debates in this House, I raised with the Minister on several occasions the need to upgrade and extend the emergency department at Cavan General Hospital. For a considerable time there has been a yearly increase in attendance at the hospital, which covers counties Cavan and Monaghan. Patients also attend from parts of Leitrim, Longford and Meath. The inadequate accommodation obviously creates additional pressures for patients and staff. That, in itself, p…

The EU-UK joint committee meeting tomorrow, at which there will be consideration of the implementation of the withdrawal agreement, including the critically important protocol on Ireland-Northern Ireland, will be extremely important for people throughout the island, but particularly for communities in my home region on both sides of the Border. Given the backdrop of negative comments and analysis, we cannot, unfortunately, be confident of progress. The findings in the recent report of the British think tank, The UK…

I wish to emphasise my very strong belief that we need to address the Covid-19 pandemic issues to the greatest possible extent on an all-Ireland basis. Having a memorandum of understanding between the health Departments North and South is welcome, essential and needs to be built upon. Perhaps we need more measures to be implemented at sectoral level through the North South Ministerial Council to give out a clear message on the value and importance of the all-island approach across different areas of our daily lives…

The Minister can communicate with me in writing.

Acting Chairman, I was supposed to have two and a half minutes. The Minister read out a reply to Deputy Calleary.

He could have sent it to the Deputy. The Minister got as much time, as the clock was stopped. I am not blaming the Minister but the system is a farce.

The Minister took up as much time as the Opposition.

The Minister could have emailed his reply to Deputy Calleary. It is totally unfair. It is not acceptable. I will raise the matter with the Ceann Comhairle.