I thank my colleagues for sharing time with me. It is important I speak on this issue. Many Deputies have rightly spoken about the challenges faced by children in Temple Street hospital and those who are under the care of CHI and the certainty they need in terms of future procedures and operations. Those who were under private care of the consultant at the centre of this controversy and those who were being treated under that clinic are in just as uncertain a position. Many of them are completely unsure what the ne…

I thank the Minister for the update on CLÁR funding. There are many groups eagerly awaiting the announcement of the next round of CLÁR funding. It is great to hear it will be in the coming weeks. One of the groups eagerly awaiting an announcement is Castletownbere GAA. As Deputy Griffin will know, football is everything down on the Beara Peninsula. Castletownbere GAA basically had to come up with roadside parking over the past while. Kids getting dropped off at the GAA pitch have to be dropped off at the roadside, …

I am representing Deputy Cathal Crowe. The question relates to the plan for offshore island development.

I thank the Minister. She referred to her trip down to the Beara Peninsula. She popped to Bere Island for a quick visit. We could have brought her to so many islands on that visit, including Cape Clear, Sherkin Island, Long Island and Dursey Island, which she is also very familiar with. All those islands have common challenges. The Minister referred to many of them. In the first part of my question, I would like to refer to the challenge of housing. Island communities are trying desperately to attract people to liv…

I thank the Minister, as always, for her colourful response. I know there is great passion. The Minister got the sense about the islands. I would really like the gateway housing innovation on Cape Clear to be considered further because it was a great idea. Cape Clear is an island that the Minister would be more than welcome to visit. To get people back living on our islands and encourage people to move to them, we need to be innovative and think outside the box. The other challenge we have on islands is the provisi…

I raise the issue of the lack of rural taxis. Every weekend, especially during the summer months, throughout west Cork, in towns such as Bandon, Clonakilty, Skibbereen, Bantry, Kinsale, etc., young people are out, have had a great night, have been to the restaurant, to the pub, and have been socialising. When it comes to home time, however, they are in limbo. They are stuck and they have nowhere to go because there is a complete lack of taxi services. This has been an ongoing issue for quite a while. If we do not r…

I wish to ask the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage about the measures he has put in place to improve water services since June 2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

I thank the Minister for his response. I have seen first-hand the difference the investment in Uisce Éireann and in water services has made in many towns in my constituency, such as Castletownbere, which has a brand-new wastewater treatment plant, Courtmacsherry and Timoleague. The state-of-the-art wastewater treatment plant in Castletownshend near Skibbereen has just been finished. I have seen villages and towns get wastewater infrastructure they never had before. In fairness to the Minister, he came through on a …

The Minister has described the situation perfectly. We went there with news that these two schemes could be availed of by the local authority. I think we all took heart from that because I do not see how you could get more urgent than a situation in which sewage is coming up through the surface of a children's play area, which has been closed. Shannonvale is not a big village. It has only that one public space, that safe space, for families and for kids to play in and it has been ruled completely out of bounds beca…

I support Deputy Aindrias Moynihan. The Gearagh is a magical place. While it is only up the road from Clonakilty, it takes me about an hour to get there. I was lucky enough to see the penduline tits there. What is a penduline tit says you? The first penduline tit ever recorded in Ireland landed in the Gearagh last year. An incredibly rare Eurasian bittern was also found there. The Deputy is right; the Gearagh is a Mecca for rare migrating birds and a perfect habitat for them. When the water is at a certain level it…

The reason I brought up this matter is twofold. Similar to Deputy Canney, I am aware of the difficulty young people have in getting planning, the hoops they have to jump through and the back and forth involved in trying to get planning. Sometimes they are not successful. There is another aspect of this on which we had a debate recently in the Dáil. We even had a vote on it. I genuinely believe there is a place for Dutch cabins, log cabins and that type of dwelling in rural Ireland. I can understand in some sense th…

We will keep the love-in going for the Minister of State.

I wholeheartedly agree with Deputy Leddin's comments on what the Minister of State has achieved. Deputy Leddin spent his entire statement speaking about how great the Minister of State is. I will not do that. These are statements on progress in the National Parks and Wildlife Service and, by God, there has been incredible progress in the organisation. I know it is an organisation in which staff morale was pretty low. It was coming from a very low base. People were frustrated. Wildlife enthusiasts were frustrated wi…

I raise the issue of loans being sold on to vulture funds and the hardship it is causing people in Ireland. People and businesses in Ireland take out loans every day. There is also a practice whereby loans are sold on to vulture funds every day. They are restructured and sold on without any communication with the customers. Citizens are left completely exposed to these piranhas of the financial world. These people need protection from us and the State, especially in instances where people are offering to pay twice …

I am not sure how familiar the Minister of State is with west Cork.

That is very good. I would usually be trying to sell the place to her. I would tell everyone how great the place is and would say that it has everything, yet, unfortunately, the one thing it lacks is an abundance of GPs. That is why I am raising this Topical Issue. The Minister of State is familiar with the area. It is a vast area and it is geographically unique. In many places, there will be one GP and one GP practice, maybe with a couple of practice nurses, covering a vast area. This is the problem. It is putting…

The Minister of State mentioned the extension of GP visit cards to more than 50% of the population. Approximately 500,000 more people will be eligible for GP visit cards. This is fantastic and it is going to mean that those who most need GP care or assistance will have access to it. It goes a long way to addressing what has been a huge issue within our health service for a long time, namely, affordability. This is reformative and it has to be welcomed on all fronts. There is always a "but" and this measure will com…

I was very interested in the Minister's response to Deputy Stanton's question. There seems to be a theme of underspend within the Department of Transport. I understand that part of that probably relates to the fact that a lot of these projects must be shovel ready. On that note, there is a project that could have a massive benefit nationally, namely the EuroVelo routes. This is a cycling route that extends from the Continent right up to Scandinavia, with the west coast of Ireland, in particular, being part of that.…

Will the Minister provide an overview of the progress made to date under NSO 7 of the National Development Plan 2021-2030 and will he make a statement on the matter?

I thank the Minister.