I thank the Minister. It is good that a review is under way and that we have an action plan ahead of us. It is important that schools now are in a position to submit data. I know of several schools in County Clare and throughout the country that have carried out a census and socioeconomic profiles such as Ennis Educate Together National School, St. Joseph's Community College, Kilkee, and Holy Family Senior National School. They have their data but have not gone into the Department. We could move this quicker. I imp…

Last July, the Government approved Scariff Community College to proceed to tender for two mainstream classrooms, a metalwork room and a woodwork room. The school is under the patronage of Limerick and Clare Education and Training Board. The principal, Angela McNamara, is excellent, as are the staff. The project has been delayed for a while. I ask that the Taoiseach and my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Foley, might intervene to get this over the line. It is needed. I also have a question for the Minister of State,…

Since the last European Council meeting, things have escalated significantly, certainly insofar as the potential conflict in Ukraine is concerned. It is very alarming every single evening to see the build-up of tanks and 100,000 troops on the eastern border of Ukraine and Russia. It is very intimidating. We see President Putin repeatedly put it up to all countries in the West, including Ireland this week with the potential of ballistics testing in our exclusive economic zone at sea. I was watching the news last nig…

Sorry.

As are all Members of the House, I am appalled at what we have discovered in County Kerry. The Minister of State is a good person with a good team around her. She is securing a lot of funding for mental health and this needs to happen. Two years ago, all of us on this side of the House signed up to the programme for Government. Something I would like to see the Minister of State push in government is the commitment to have a national director for mental health. In 2016, the previous iteration of the Government pull…

Everyone here should fully support the Bill before the House. The Construction Industry Register Ireland, CIRI, needs to be put on a statutory footing. Since 2014, builders, contractors, subcontractors and trades people have, on a voluntary basis, registered and demonstrated their bona fides. What is desperately needed is to put this on a statutory footing, thereby providing in law for the regulation of builders, contractors and specialist subcontractors. Overall, this should result in the development of a culture …

I express my deepest and sincerest sympathies to Ashling Murphy's family. Ashling's beautiful, talented life was viciously taken from her around this time last week. Her death has left a devastating void in the lives of her family, boyfriend, friends and work colleagues and the little boys and girls in first class in Durrow National School. Ashling's death has also stopped the nation in its tracks. It has led to a national debate across kitchen tables and living rooms and it is happening this evening in Dáil Éirean…

It has taken some time but I am glad that, finally, the Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022 is before Dáil Éireann. This legislation has been long awaited by many people. Over many years there have been repeated attempts to draft legislation to provide adopted people with the right to key information about their birth situation. I am a member of the Oireachtas committee which examined this legislation and met over many months with stakeholder groups. It is important to pay tribute to these groups and the indivi…

Scríobh an Teachta O’Dea ríomhphost chuig oifig an Chinn Comhairle ag athrú na ceiste chugamsa.

How many people in Clare, Limerick and the mid-west are currently availing of the EWSS, and how many businesses in that same region are availing of the CRSS?

This has been one of the real successes of the Covid pandemic. It has been 18 months of misery on the health front, for those in employment and those who are trying to shore up a business and keep it surviving at this time. This has been one of the successes in stabilising the economy and it is very much appreciated by those in business. I am glad 6,000 people in Clare are benefiting from it and that the Minister recently announced an extension of the EWSS for a further two months. I am also glad the Covid stabilit…

I thank the Minister for his response. Some hotels will be left out of the scheme. Elaina Fitzgerald Kane has been on the airwaves quite a lot lately. She is head of the Irish Hotels Federation. Her hotel in Adare, County Limerick, is one such hotel that will probably do pretty well coming into Christmas, but will not benefit from the scheme. That is her analysis, something that is replicated throughout counties in the mid-west. The cost of supporting 11,000 jobs in the hotel sector for the month of January is appr…

I wish the Minister a happy Christmas.

The principle of risk equalisation works well and it makes sense in the health realm. It makes no sense whatsoever insofar as flood cover insurance is concerned. In my county of Clare, a county of 118,000 people, one person in 12 is unable to get flood cover on his or her insurance largely due to flood events that happened ten, 12 or 15 years ago. What we have since is a national database of flood maps. We have had umpteen work programmes that have remediated flood areas but still the insurance sector, time and aga…

Fianna Fáil will fully support the Bill. It is an essential element of the financial housekeeping that must be concluded by the Oireachtas within the calendar year. The passing of the Bill will authorise in law all of the expenditure undertaken in 2021 on the basis of the Estimates voted through by the Dáil during the year. The passage of the Bill will also ensure payments funded from voted expenditure in 2021, such as the housing assistance payment, jobseeker's allowance, disability allowance and the non-contribut…

The Department's Strategy Statement 2021-2023 lists the restoration of the economy as one of the key Government priorities. While the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, and countless other sectoral specific supports helped to stabilise the economy and bolster it during the pandemic, the construction sector remains very much in a state of flux with huge volatility in the price of materials. Throughout Covid we have seen a 30% rise in the price of steel and similar increases…

Is the Cabinet insisting on some form of investigation taking place in respect of the leaking of National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, guidance in recent weeks before it came into the public domain or even, at times, before it came to the Cabinet? It is very frustrating. As a backbench Deputy, I sometimes feel like we are fighting fires with some of that information. It is circulating in the public domain and then, hours later, comes out officially and is clarified and subsequently clarified again. As we ne…

This is a positive Bill. It is probably not the most exciting work we will do in Dáil Éireann this week but it is very important, particularly from a consumer point of view. The Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill is somewhat akin to the Finance Bill or the Social Welfare Bill. It arrives in November or December each year. The measures in it are designed to support risk equalisation and sustain community rating in our health insurance market so that older people, whom the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, represents …

As there are no amendments on Report Stage we proceed to Fifth Stage.

A message shall be sent to the Seanad acquainting it accordingly.