The level of death and destruction in Gaza demands us not just to talk but also to act and do everything possible. What is happening is genocide and war crimes. Gaza is not just a warzone; it is a horror zone. The State of Israel is a terrorist state. Its Government has stooped to a level of depravity never seen before. It is shameful, and that Government will never be forgiven lightly for what it is doing: 53,000 dead, thousands buried beneath the rubble, families missing, neighbourhoods missing, hundreds of thous…

We need to pass the occupied territories Bill, step up efforts at EU level and use our position as a neutral State on the international stage.

I, too, welcome Cara and Mark to the Public Gallery today. I will be speaking about the issue that concerns them later in the day. It is a scandal that Cara has to be here again to protest on the issue. The issue I want to raise with the Taoiseach is the absence of primary care. It is over eight years since the Sláintecare plan was agreed for a public health system by all parties in this House. It was due to be fully up and running by the end of this year, by 31 December, but, of course, we are so far from the full…

Will the Government start resourcing primary care in County Laois and other counties?

Money.

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply, but we also need GPs. Mike O'Callaghan of the Irish College of General Practitioners said that we clearly have a deficit in our GP numbers and he listed out a number of counties, including Laois. The last time I checked, we were way below what is required. Primary care centres and health centres in other countries include a whole range of services - physiotherapy, occupational therapy, dental, chiropody, mental health services, etc. - but we are miles away from that comprehensiv…

Will his Government commit to the capital funding needed to construct a new primary care centre in Portlaoise? The site and the design are there. Will the Government provide the funding for new health centres for Mountrath and Rathdowney and upgrades in Borris-in-Ossory and Graiguecullen? Will the Government increase the number of GPs per county? There is a commitment in the programme for Government to explore the recruitment of HSE-employed GPs. We need to go further than exploring it; we need to do it. The progra…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important motion and to commend the campaign team and Cara and Mark Darmody. They should not have to be here. This should have been sorted because people have been raising it for over two decades. The waiting times are scandalous. Under the Disability Act 2005, the waiting time is supposed to be a maximum of six months, so the law is clearly being broken here. A total of 15,296 children are overdue their assessments of special needs. Only 4,162 were carried out by the HSE …

I thank Deputies Paul Murphy and Ruth Coppinger for bringing forward this important and timely Bill. Ireland is well behind other EU states in terms of the rights of workers to be represented by a trade union. In most other EU states this is legally guaranteed. Ireland is completely out of line with most of its European neighbours. This right has been resisted by successive Governments and big business down through the decades. While the Constitution guarantees the right to be able to join a trade union, an employe…

The importance of the driving licence issue cannot be overstated, in particular for workers in rural areas. For example, in County Laois, many workers have to get to work in Portlaoise, Mountmellick, Portarlington or Graiguecullen and they are travelling from outlying areas such as the Swan, Ballinakill, Errill, Rathdowney and other areas where there is no public transport early in the morning, or any area in the Slieve Bloom mountains, such as Camross, Clonaslee and places like that. It is important that we fix th…

This is a public body accountable to the Minister.

We need to employ more testers. In the meantime, in the short term, we should give people overtime to clear the backlog and deal with this issue.

The time should be reduced to six weeks and not 12 weeks.

It has taken a long time to get the Government to accept that there is a housing crisis. The Minister of State's predecessors would not accept it, but I think it is now accepted. We have huge constraints when it comes to water, wastewater and electricity infrastructure. In County Laois, the county I am most familiar with, 13 towns and villages require improved capacity. I will name them. In Portarlington, people have particularly complained to me of the lack of water pressure in Slí na Móna and the Ballymorris Road…

I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward this progressive motion. It is a case of here we go again. We have a shortage of school places for children with special needs, and there are huge gaps. In addition to the obstacles with the lack of nearby school classes in their catchment area, children are experiencing exclusion and extended absences from school. In some cases, they are receiving no supports. The impact of that disengagement from schools is catastrophic for the children and for their families. If a ch…

I congratulate the Minister of State on his appointment. The revision of the national development plan is supposedly to accelerate the delivery of housing in particular. There are a couple of things needed to accelerate that. The first is the need to replicate existing plans so the same plan for social and affordable housing and other houses can be used in Waterford, Laois or Donegal. The private sector is doing this. If we look at what it is building, it is replicating the plans all over the country. However, what…

I raise the child disability network teams and the chronic situation regarding their staffing. There are vacancies across the State. They run between 22% and 29% according to replies I have received from the HSE. In County Laois, however, the situation is far worse. I will read the figures for the shortages: occupational therapy in network 12, which covers most of the county, is 33% staffed; speech and language therapy is 46% staffed; physiotherapy is 50% staffed; therapy assistants and dietetics are zero staffed. …

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply. Yes, the education situation has improved over the last two and a half decades. I accept that. We have more to do there but we were starting from zero where we had nothing. However, in the HSE overall, there is a great problem between budget and services. No one will dispute that a considerable budget is going in. Certainly, I will not argue with it. There is a problem at the other end when we see what comes out in terms of services. There is a fog in the middle. Where does the …

The issue I wish to raise with the Taoiseach is the need for special needs places, and specifically the case of St. Francis School in Portlaoise. There is a big commitment in the programme for Government regarding special schools and increasing places. We all welcome this but it must be more than aspirations. St. Francis School is a relatively new facility but it was too small the day it was built. There are children going there from all over Laois and the school is in urgent need of extra space. There are nine chi…

St. Francis School in Portlaoise. The Taoiseach might take it up with the Minister to really push this on. It is very important.