At present there are 82 data centres in Ireland. They use up 6 TWh of electricity, which is 21% of all electricity produced. There are 14 data centres under construction, and a further 40 centres have planning permission. By 2030 there is potential for 100 additional data centres in Ireland. It is now a major challenge. There is concern that the fact they use 21% of the electricity will put pressure on the electricity suppliers with regard to being able to cope with the demand. The companies involved in data centre…

I note the Department has progressed this matter. However, I am concerned about the time period with regard to developing this policy further. We are under pressure with increasing demand for electricity. Therefore, we need more facilities in place to generate that electricity, whether it is through solar farms, wind turbines or new forms of generating electricity. We need to fast-track it now because the economy is growing at a far faster rate now than anytime before, and data centres are making a huge contributio…

The issue I wish to raise, which I am aware was raised in the House recently, relates to the number of places for dental students in Ireland. In UCC in 2023, 61 students qualified as dentists. Of these, 25 were European, including Irish, and 36 were from outside Europe. In Trinity the same year, 41 students qualified. Of these, 25 were Irish or European and 21 were non-Europeans. We have a huge shortage of dentists who are prepared to provide a service for public patients, yet they are providing treatment if you at…

I fully accept that the Minister of State and her Department are working very hard on this issue, but there is a crisis here. We have got to deal with it before the college places are awarded in UCC and Trinity. That is the reason I am asking the Department to engage with them. The other issue that needs to be dealt with - and this is a case where both the Department of Health and the Department of higher education need to work - is that there needs to be a clear plan put in place to deal with the number of dentist…

May I just mention-----

The average time from when a medicine is approved by the European Medicines Agency to it being available in Ireland is 617 days. Between 2004 and 2025, 402 new medicines were approved by the European Medicines Agency, of which 71% had applications made in Ireland. In other words, for 117 medicines approved by the EMA, no licence or approval has been applied for here. It is the whole delay in the process. I fully accept additional staff are being taken on, but the period the process takes is far too long, especially…

I can go back to 21 years ago when my legal office and another legal office identified a major discrepancy where over 80% of people’s pensions were being deducted in public nursing homes. We identified that the health boards and the Department of Health did not have legislative powers to do that. As a result of that challenge, over in excess of €450 million had to be refunded to 20,000 families. That challenge subsequently led to the creation of the fair deal scheme. The whole idea of the fair deal scheme was that …

I raise the process of approving housing whereby we have to go through voluntary housing agencies, then through the Department of housing and finally through the Department of public expenditure. I am dealing with one project with 217 apartments for which the process started in September last year. It has gone through Clúid, the housing agency, through the Department of housing and is now in the Department of public expenditure. I fully understand Departments have to make sure taxpayers are getting value for money,…

I appreciate that.

I thank the Minister for coming to the House to deal with this issue. This is a really difficult time for children but, in particular, for parents because children place their trust in their parents. The parents in this case placed their trust in the consultants and took their advice in coming to a decision about the best way of managing the medical care required. Simon Thomas, who has been with the British Royal Hospital since 2007, carried out the review of operations performed in Crumlin, Temple Street and Cappa…

I thank the Minister of State and I am sorry that we are dealing with this so late in the evening. What action is the Department of higher education taking to increase the number of dental training places in our universities? This is in view of the fact that no increase has occurred in the past 25 years while the population of the country has increased by 1.6 million people. Moreover, will the Minister of State explain why 44% of training places in our universities are made available to non-EU students? I will give…

I thank the Minister of State for the reply. I would like clarity on the RCSI. Will those students be fee-paying students or will they come under the education system and be the same as any other students? I always thought that RCSI was full of fee-paying students. Second, an extra 20 places is not sufficient and the figures show that. The number of dentists now offering public services has decreased from slightly more than 1,400 down to 810. We have lost 600 and we will lose another 200 to 300 in the coming months…

As the Minister knows, Ballincollig, which is in my constituency, won the Tidy Towns competition in 2024. This involved a huge contribution from the community over many years. A really strong community spirit has been created. The problem I now have in my constituency, in places like Blarney and Glanmire that have had huge population increases, is that we have not set aside facilities to be developed for the community. Glanmire, which has a population of more than 20,000, has no real community facility. I know we w…

I acknowledge that Department officials work really hard and are getting good value for the money that is allocated. When money is allocated to a community group, it will raise a whole lot more money itself to develop and grow the facilities. My big concern is where there is a huge increase in housing. The Minister talked about the allocation in Blarney, which is very welcome. The money has been well looked after and well spent there in developing the facilities. In the future, 2,500 more houses will be built there…

Another place the Minister should visit the next time he is in Cork is the Glen Resource Centre. I was involved a long time ago in getting funding from Europe to start the centre. There are now more than 80 organisations using it. This is because of the contribution of the local community in developing and growing it. It is an important facility in an area where there was a lot of local authority housing and we would not have been able to raise funding. We got the funding from Europe under a capital programme to de…

As I understand it, a total of nine diseases are included in the heel prick test for newborns in Ireland, with approximately 120 babies identified each year as having rare diseases. However, Ireland is falling significantly behind the rest of Europe. For instance, Italy tests for a total of 48 diseases. Countries such as Austria test for 31 diseases, while Poland and Portugal test for 29. In 2023, the national screening advisory committee, NSAC, recommended that severe combined immunodeficiency, SCID, and spinal mu…

In 2009, I was in Gaza after Israel went in, following the changeover of the US President. It went in on 27 December 2008 and kept bombing until 18 January 2009. On 20 January, the new US President was sworn in. I was there in February 2009 and saw the devastation of less than 28 days of bombing, when 1,400 people, 400 of whom were children, were killed. I was reporting to a subcommittee of the European Parliament on the atrocity that had occurred. Now, that has been multiplied by 100, with over 45,000 people dead,…

It is extremely frightening to see a 36% increase in the number of herds restricted over a two-year period and the whole increase over the past five years. It is important that we do everything possible in the shortest time to reduce the numbers as well as the reasons they have increased so dramatically in such a short period. I know officials in the Department, the veterinary profession and farmers are working hard but everything possible must be done to deal with this issue in as short a time as possible. Over th…

Will the Minister provide an update on the Department’s recent discussions with the TB forum to address the increase in the incidence of tuberculosis on farms?

I thank the Minister. As I outlined and as the Minister said, between 2022 and 2024, there was a 36% increase in herds restricted. That is a huge increase. More than 6,000 farmers have lost 40,000 productive animals within a short period. The breakout of TB has a huge effect, especially in my area, a lot of which is urban but is also rural, where there are large dairy farms. When TB hits a dairy farm, the level of restriction that has to be put in place and the economic and emotional effect on a family are horrendo…