No one is-----

Absolutely.

No.

That right is being upheld.

Whether it goes into tomorrow will be up to the Ceann Comhairle.

Baineann mo cheist le haltraí fiaclóireachta agus go háirithe maidir le haon dul chun cinn atá déanta ó thaobh na bpost seo a bhaint ó liosta na bpost neamhcháilithe. My question relates to dental nurses. I ask for the results of any review carried out by the Minister of State's Department with a view to removing dental nurses from the ineligible occupations list, and the plans to review that.

I thank the Minister of State for confirming that the decision is to be made in November. At least we have the time span. Looking at the background to this - and it has been brought to my attention by someone who wants to come into the country - I will say at the outset that we should not have let this crisis happen in the first place. We should have had enough graduates of our own and we should have dealt with this before. We are now at this point in our lives. In March 2022, Irish Dental Association research show…

I would say it is a crisis because we know that in Galway, for example, we are getting phone calls regarding dentists being unavailable under the medical card scheme. There are any number of complications from the absence of dentists. I understand that the review takes place every single year. The answer to the last question I had was regarding the review in 2020. We have had 2021 and 2022, and now we are in 2023. This crisis - the absence of dentists, dental nurses and hygienists - has existed and has been going o…

Like previous speakers, I would like to express my condolences with the family of Kim Damti and also to condemn the actions of Hamas in the targeting of civilians. I have absolutely no hesitation in doing that. However, when we do that, we must also condemn Israel and its actions. There is no way out of that. Their language and the language of the Israeli Defense Minister is simply appalling. The Tánaiste mentioned the Old Testament, and the Israeli Defense Minister talks about the Palestinians as "human animals an…

Who decides what is roughly ten minutes?

Deputy Higgins is theoretically sharing time.

My question relates to applications of citizenship. What should be a joyful process and a wonderful experience has become mired in delay. What measures has the Department taken to reduce the backlog? The response to a recent question from a colleague on the Government side of the House confirmed that there is a backlog of 15,000 on the waiting list. How far back is that? It mentions 2021 and 2022. Does it go back even further?

I certainly welcome the citizenship ceremonies. However, my question is very specific in relation to the delay caused by the backlog. I would be grateful if the Minister of State could be more specific. I welcome the fact that there are extra staff but I understand that this section lost staff because of the passport crisis. What resources are being used within the Department to handle these applications? The backlog is unacceptable. I have a specific case in mind which is always helpful. That person has been waiti…

I appreciate that this is a legacy issue. I know some cases are complicated. However, let us be blunt and straight here; it is a legacy issue. As well as staff not being available because of the Covid pandemic, staff were also reassigned to other matters. Have they been brought back into this section? When does the Minister of State expect the backlog to be cleared? In the example I quoted, the person has been waiting since March 2021, which is over two and a half years. This person is working away but is totally r…

Just generally, how long does the e-vetting take?

In my time I hope to generally deal with three or four topics and then go to the issue of the Irish language. It takes a while, not just a few days, but a few weeks to analyse a budget. Notwithstanding the good points and the payments that are being made, I would like to give some of the reaction. The European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland described the budget as a wasted opportunity. It said that by prioritising short-term one-off payments over adequate and sustainable permanent measures that would enable Ireland t…

We will now move on to the Department of Justice and the Minister, Deputy McEntee, who has five minutes.

Minister, you are sharing time with your two colleagues and there are just six minutes left for both colleagues. You have five minutes.

There are three speakers on the list. It is up to you. Sorry to interrupt the Minister. I call the Minister of State, Deputy James Browne.

While there are positive measures in the budget, they are all once-off in nature. It fails to take into account the background in which this budget is being passed. This is my seventh budget since I was elected in 2016. Since then we have declared a climate emergency and a biodiversity emergency. We have a serious and volatile geopolitical situation. We have had a Covid pandemic, and the message from that was we simply could not proceed with business as it was. We had to have a new model. We had to have transformat…