I am sharing time with Deputy Paul Murphy. I have no questions that require an answer now, but I wish to make a few comments on the climate crisis in light of the Covid-19 crisis. It has been said by many commentators that the Covid-19 pandemic is only a slight foretaste of the type of disruption to society and economics that we can expect as we move further down the road to catastrophic climate change. There are certainly many lessons for us to draw from it on what will work for climate and the far-reaching radica…

I will ask questions only of the Minister, Deputy Creed, because in the past I have found it a fruitless exercise to question the Minister, Deputy Humphreys. I want to address what I believe is the situation. I believe the Minister has failed utterly to take seriously any warnings from Deputies in the House, to investigate them or to enforce basic health and safety regulations in the largest meat processors in the State. The figures are quite breathtaking. There are 16 clusters and this week, Dr. Colm Henry told us…

I will accept written answers, please.

It is a study by a university, it is not a Trump response.

It is a very important study by a university and the Minister should be familiar with it.

Is mór an náire é don Rialtas seo gur theip air cúram leanaí a sholáthair dár n-oibrithe sláinte i lár na paindéime seo. The failure of the State and the Government to provide basic childcare for our front-line workers, particularly nurses and doctors in the middle of this pandemic, is breathtaking. After eight weeks of spin and public relations management - two months in which the problem was recognised - there has been an abject failure to deliver any kind of childcare for those on the front line. This is because…

Yes.

The Minister can comment on my commentary if she wants, but I just want the answer to the question.

Compensate.

Who did not accept them or why were they not accepted? What was the reasoning?

I want to return to the issue of the Debenhams workers. I have seen the correspondence between the Minister and Mandate, as I am sure many Members have. I will pick up on Mandate's last letter in which it notes that when the legislation was amended in 2007 no legislator sought to amend the particular aspects of the Act relating to the responsibility of the liquidator. It also refers to a European Court of Justice ruling that provided that the obligation to engage still applies even where a company has been wound up…

The Minister can respond in writing because otherwise it will take up too much time. There is a legal aspect in the letter that Mandate sent her about a European Court of Justice case and I ask that she expand on that. The onus is still on KPMG.

Will maternity leave be extended?

I am sharing my time with Deputy Mick Barry. If I ask questions, I am happy to have them answered in writing if I run out of time. I cannot believe the answer that Deputy Humphreys has just given to Deputy Catherine Murphy. It is outrageous. The Minister patronised her for a good section of the time by telling her that this document I am holding tells a person how to sneeze, how to distance, how to mask up and use PPE. We have been listening to that for eight weeks, and in the course of those eight weeks, many Depu…

-----and they are very different. I want to tell the Minister why they are different. She should read the article in today's edition of The Guardian about workers in the meat factories. I hope it pulls the strings of the Minister's heart, because it pulls mine when one listens to those workers talking about the experience they have been through. At least one worker has died and hundreds have been infected. According to the article in The Guardian : “One hundred per cent, I know I got it in the factory,” [one worker…

No, they did not. They were made within the period of lockdown.

This is not so.

Some are coming from Deputies like me.

I noticed but I did not say anything.

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry and I will make a statement within which there will be a few questions the answers to which I am happy to take in writing. We have been raising the question of the treatment of residents in direct provision for a month now and I want to repeat that I believe this Government has failed miserably to protect the rights of our most vulnerable during this Covid-19 crisis. I believe that any examination post Covid will show this to be true. We have gone from 62 cases in nine clusters t…