I wish to continue on the point made by Deputy Ó Ríordáin. I absolutely agree that the citizens' assembly needs to lead to actions. We all engage very extensively in communities in our constituencies and note that the wrath and ravaging of drugs are very evident and on the increase. The profile of youngsters who develop a drug habit and become welded to it has definitely changed at constituency level in so far as I can see it. At times, we are all guilty of profiling people, which is wrong, but I recently saw a you…

I thank the Minister of State for bringing the Bill before the Dáil. It is very important legislation which brings a legal remedy to the McFarlane v . Ireland case before the European Court of Human Rights, and puts us back in line, because we were in breach of Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights. Essentially, the legislation brings in a compensatory factor for people who have had their right to a fair hearing delayed beyond an acceptable time period both in criminal cases and in other matters. It …

Schools are willing to play their role by providing autism classes. Increasingly, the response from the Department is that they provide modular accommodation. I think schools deserve more and it needs formal investment. I ask the Taoiseach to respond.

I wish to ask the Taoiseach about the impact the Ukrainian refugee situation has had on tourism. It is estimated that the current impact is approximately €1.1 billion in terms of hotels tied up with contracts. We in County Clare are very proud to have played a major role so far in providing accommodation. Approximately 6% of the population of the county is made up of Ukrainians or international protection applicants. The many businesses in the tourism industry that are not tied into these contracts are suffering. S…

As I said during an earlier contribution, we in County Clare are very proud of the response we have made over the past 16 or so months in providing refugee accommodation. There has been a sea change in the approach on the ground, from an official point of view, over recent months. Twelve months ago, there were boots on the ground from many Government agencies, which were co-ordinating this very well and sharing a lot of very useful information. There was huge public buy-in. If we fast forward to last week and the s…

This question was transferred to Deputy McAuliffe. I wish to come in at the end if that is possible.

I will add to what my colleague has been saying. The most expensive years are probably the years when someone heads off to college. As many people now will no longer be living on campus because of the shortages of college accommodation, they will be commuting. The costs are astronomical for parents. If you are below a certain income threshold, there are many really good supports that the Department of Social Protection provides. If you are wealthy, you can ride out those financial years that are quite difficult. Ho…

We will back the Minister.

As a teacher I love this initiative. It is transformative. The quicker it rolls out, the better. There is one small flaw that I would love to see the Minister address. The data set that designates a school as a DEIS school is based on Pobal statistics which are linked to the census that happens every five years. A child factored into census 2022 could very well be a teenager or possibly even an adult depending on their age. It does not truly capture the transience of the rental market. It does not capture the trans…

I welcome the mayor of Ennis, Clare Colleran Molloy; Councillors Paul Murphy and Mary Howard; Carmel Kirby and all the Ennis 2040 team; and especially the students who have come here today from Coláiste Muire and St. Flannan’s College in Ennis to spell out their vision for Ennis 2040. It is a sad irony that, on a day when so many young people from Ennis have come to Dublin, a 44-year-old woman, the same age as the Taoiseach - still a young age - named Jennifer Hynes is languishing and wallowing in Mowlam nursing ho…

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. I congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, for the work he is doing in his Department to lead on the strategy. It is essential that we widen and deepen our skills space here in Ireland. I note that the European Year of Skills centres on the whole idea of reskilling 6 million people in the area of digital and green technology skills. Given the scope of it, how we apply this in an Irish context can be broadened and deepened. What I repeatedly see in …

This amendment has been clearly outlined. I hope the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will allow me to speak on a tangent to the amendment.

I will speak to it. This is an interesting amendment and I will wait to hear what the Minister has to say. What I would really like to say, and I need to disclose that I am-----

I absolutely will. It is always important to embody the Irish language as much as we can. I am an organic farmer and want to disclose that on the record. It is important that there is a market for finished organic beef because at the moment, a large number of people are entering the organic scheme and there is no finishing market for them. They are going to conventional sales. The Sixmilebridge mart ran its first organic sale in recent times on 1 April. That is a good market into which people can sell. However, tha…

It is important where at all possible to use Irish names for State or semi-State bodies.

I have an unusual question. Today I have brought a petition from County Clare, which has been signed by 113 family descendants of the late Peadar Clancy, who was a great Irish patriot. These are the signatures of grand-nieces, grand-nephews, great-grand-nieces and great-grand-nephews. There is a Sinn Féin cumann in Ennis, County Clare, that uses his name without family consent. They have written to the Sinn Féin headquarters and they have been flatly ignored. Commemoration has to be done with the consent of familie…

Is that agreed? Agreed.

While the Good Friday Agreement is a shared story for every citizen of this island, I acknowledge from this side of the House the role our party, Fianna Fáil, played in that period, and, in particular, our former leader Bertie Ahern. Central to everything we say and think about the Good Friday Agreement must be the victims of violence in Northern Ireland, that is, the 3,700 who lost their lives and the just under 50,000 who were maimed and injured during that violent period of history. I recently travelled to North…

I will add to what previous speakers have said. In particular, where new building projects are happening, the Minister needs to insist that accommodation is co-located with major new builds for nurses and doctors who work in a hospital environment. I recently tabled a parliamentary question to ascertain where there was old nursing accommodation that is not being used in each hospital group. There is a little of it. Some is being transformed for office space. Where it exists, we need to seize the opportunity to reco…

My question relates to Ennis General Hospital and the new protocol introduced in January of this year whereby patients could be brought to the medical assessment unit by ambulance to alleviate the pressure being felt at the time at University Hospital Limerick's emergency department. I would like an update on how that has worked so far and what other plans the Minister has to improve this facility and indeed emergency healthcare in the mid-west.