I will raise the issue of the Kolbe centre in Portlaoise, County Laois which is in urgent need of a new building. The Minister might outline the funding progress on that.

I thank the Minister for her reply. I cannot emphasise enough the need for a new building. At present, this special school, which deals with children with very complex needs and serious levels of disability, has only one permanent bricks-and-mortar classroom. Everything else is prefabricated and some of it is in a very poor condition. It is not totally weatherproof, it is not soundproof and some of the prefabs are just too small. It is very difficult to heat and, with the current situation regarding energy costs, t…

The Minister will understand, coming from the education sector and given her job now, the different stages of planning, design and delivery of a school. There are a number of hurdles within the process and a number of stages that must be gone through. I ask that her officials give this priority. I acknowledge the Minister of State. She will be in the constituency, in Laois, on Friday and she will be very welcome. It is really important that we get it done and that the funding provided is sufficient to cater for any…

I thank Deputy Tully for bringing forward this proposal. Waiting lists for assessments of need for children across Laois-Offaly have been spiralling out of control for years. In Laois-Offaly, according to figures supplied by the HSE, just 17% of assessments of need applications were completed within the legal timeframe of six months. Overall, in CHO 8, the figure is 16%. These are shockingly poor outcomes. A constituent of mine contacted me this week and told me, as she did again this morning, about her situation. …

I refer to the commitment on page 47 of the programme for Government in respect of children's health. The school dental scheme in County Laois has collapsed. The dental treatment services scheme, DTSS, for adult medical card patients has collapsed. There are no dentists in the county providing this service or who will take on new clients, so the dental scheme in the county is non-existent. The reply to a parliamentary question on the DTSS confirms that no dentists are willing to take it on. The reply to a parliamen…

It has been privatised. We are providing the budget but we have no service. Can we not train and employ a few public dentists to provide this service?

We are providing the budget. There is no service.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion. The carbon tax as it is designed is an unfair tax. It is punishing ordinary workers and families who lack disposable income to pay the extortionate costs of retrofitting their homes or purchasing an electric car. The point is that you cannot tax people to stop them doing something if they do not have an alternative or cannot afford the alternative. Why are grants not being made available to buy second-hand electric cars, for example? It is difficult to imagine a bet…

I listened carefully to what the Minister had to say but the reality is that thousands of workers are trapped in private rented accommodation with spiralling rents and no hope of ever getting a mortgage or securing a permanent roof over their heads. Figures released on daft.ie last week revealed that rents in County Laois went up by 11.3% in 12 months while in County Offaly, they went up by a whopping 14.6%. The average purchase cost of a home in 2021 was €225,000. The Government has completely abandoned renters an…

I thank the Solidarity-People Before Profit for putting this motion forward. We in Sinn Féin have consistently called on consecutive Governments to introduce a living wage for workers. A living wage has been outlined as the absolute minimum required for a single person working full time to live with any kind of dignity. In 2019, a Sinn Féin motion calling for a living wage was passed in this Chamber as recognition for the huge contribution low-paid workers make to the economy, but Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Gre…

On page 86 of the programme for Government there is a commitment to having a Prison Service that provides secure custody. On 23 October 2020, a civilian entered the Midlands Prison in Portlaoise in the company of a senior official and was identified as an Irish Prison Service, IPS, official. That person was signed in at the gate as an IPS official. The person entered the search area and I am informed was identified a number of times as an IPS official. That person interviewed and spoke with members of the operation…

I have a copy of the signature given at the gate lodge.

This matter has not been examined properly and it is serious. The Taoiseach should be in no doubt about that.

I ask the Taoiseach to examine the matter and revert to me about it.

The rules were broken.

Yesterday's response was false.

The motion calls on the Government and the HSE to address the crisis in mental health and disability services for young people and children. We know this is a growing problem, unfortunately. The services have been at breaking point for too long and patients simply are not getting the timely and quality care and intervention that they need and deserve. Last week, the issues in south Kerry child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, dominated the news, with more than 240 children found to be exposed to a risk…

I welcome the opportunity to raise this important issue. Day care services at the Abbeyleix community nursing unit, which were attended by more than 100 people, have been closed. The hospital has ceased services to allow for its refurbishment and day care services were being housed in a part of the hospital that was being used for storage, but I am told it is not going to reopen. This has left a huge area of east and south County Laois without services, in areas such as Timahoe, Swan, Ballinakill, Durrow, Rathdowne…

I thank the Minister of State for the reply and agree wholeheartedly with much of what she stated. She set out the case in detail. Even so, when the HSE closes the door, it can be difficult to get it reopened, as the Ceann Comhairle will be aware. It closed the door of the day care centre in Monasterevin in 2014 and that has not reopened. I have raised concerns, and I am sure the Ceann Comhairle and other Deputies from his constituency have too, about the issue of relocation. There is a site at the hospital and, wh…

It can be taken up with HSE estates and management.