I want to raise the issue of childcare. Yesterday, we heard that 40,000 children are on waiting lists and that over 1,000 childcare facilities have closed over the past six years. I am raising, in particular, the issue of the numerous parents in my own constituency who have contacted me because they are terrified that their crèche, UniKids Childcare, in the National Technology Park, Castletroy, will likely have to close due to core funding issues. The launch of the Government plan to provide State-led early learnin…

Hear, hear.

I will start with what I welcome in the Bill, namely, as Deputy Kelly just noted, the disregard for people convicted of same-sex activity pre 1993. It is really important that we get this done and get it done quickly because those people are getting older. I commend the work done by my colleague Deputy Nash, who was heavily involved in organising, first, the apology, which was the start of a suite of measures to right a terrible historical wrong. The measures in the Bill to disregard those convictions are incredibl…

Deputy Healy-Rae must be working remotely.

Tá díomá orm nach bhfuil an Rialtas ag tabhairt tacaíochta don rún seo agus go bhfuil frithrún curtha isteach ag an Rialtas agus ag an Aire. I am disappointed for a number of reasons. I am disappointed because the amendment as it was presented to us makes no reference to what we have said about remote and flexible work. The Minister of State referenced it in her speech but the amendment to the motion does not reference that. We are lucky in one sense that we have the Minister of State with responsibility for AI wit…

I thank the Minister for his speech. To try to be somewhat constructive, we had good news from the Government this week with the €250 million announcement in my constituency into water treatment in Bunlicky near Mungret, County Limerick. That is important because once the work is done the capacity of that plant will be able to serve 285,000 people. This is more than double what it can do at the moment. This is vital because the population of Limerick is going to go up by 50% under the targets that are there. As a c…

I wish to advise the House of the following matters in respect of which notice has been given under Standing Order 39 and the name of the Member in each case: Deputy Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin - To discuss the crisis of mental health and lack of services in Wexford. Deputy Michael Murphy - To discuss eligibility for the vacant property refurbishment grant. Deputy Paul McAuliffe - To discuss the existing rights of victims of crime following the release of a perpetrator from prison or an institution. Deputy Albert Dolan…

Before I call the Minister, I caution that, notwithstanding the sensitivities of the case, we should avoid naming people who are not in the House. I call the Minister.

For a number of weeks, it was not possible to log on to the X app without being confronted by extremely disturbing sexualised imagery. Grok has created thousands of these images with a significant number being child sexual abuse imagery. This is not an online phenomenon. Online abuse is a gateway to offline abuse and exploitation. X's European headquarters are less than a kilometre from this Chamber and the fact that company benefits from our favourable taxation arrangements for tech companies means the State has s…

Will the Taoiseach commit to come back as soon as possible on what he said about convening a Cabinet meeting?

It is very strange that the majority of us here seem to be from Carlow and Kilkenny. The Labour Party and I welcome the general thrust of what the Minister of State is trying to do with this Bill. I stand here as someone who has struggled an awful lot with nicotine addiction. It is something that personally I have found very hard to overcome for a number of years. I have been on again and off again. I have been smoking cigarettes and have been off cigarettes, I have been smoking cigarettes and I have been off cigar…

I wish the Ceann Comhairle, all her staff and everyone across the House a very happy Christmas. There is a chronic shortage of pathologists to carry out post-mortem examinations in Ireland and pathologists are withdrawing from the post-mortem service as they are not contractually obliged to provide post-mortems. The Minister for justice will be aware of this due to an internal briefing paper. This Christmas in Limerick, unfortunately, we will have no pathology cover between 23 December and 29 December. Anybody who …

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire. In the spirit of Christmas, I too have no particular issue with what is being proposed here. Broadly speaking, I support anything, within reason, that helps somebody to turn a vacant commercial property into a permanent home. I also support measures that would make it easier for people to increase the provision of animal housing and exemptions for stand-alone slurry storage, within reason. I caution this by saying we have had a number of issues in Limerick in recent times in relation …

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, and I also thank him for calling that out. I mean, this is Dáil Éireann; it is not Kilmallock cattle mart. Every Thursday we are treated to the same thing.

I heard it.

Today I again raise the issue of overcrowding in our emergency departments. Last week, we saw 14 ambulances queued up for up to eight hours outside Wexford hospital. As a local representative for Limerick, this healthcare crisis is something I know the Minister is also familiar with. In our city of Limerick on 3 December, UHL management once again urged the public to avoid the emergency department as 350 people attended in one day. Last month the Minister for Health opened another 96-bed unit at UHL, which has done…

I thank the Minister for his response. I am glad he acknowledged options A and B were happening anyway because we did not need the HIQA report for them. We need the Government to commit in the longer term, beyond the next five years, to option C because we need a new stand-alone hospital in the mid-west. The Minister referenced staff burnout, which I am very concerned about, as well as staff leaving. I am concerned that the opening of the new Bon Secours Hospital in Towlerton will cause more staff to leave UHL. In …

I have only been a Member of Dáil Éireann since December of last year. In the short time that I have been here, I have witnessed the Minister and his Department do things like this at the last minute, railroad them through without giving us, as Oireachtas Members, enough time to properly consider what the implications of these changes are. This is an entirely inappropriate way of doing what the Minister is trying to do. We had a briefing this afternoon. I am very grateful to the departmental officials for giving us…

I support these amendments. They are sensible amendments and they lay out what is wrong with this scheme. Although this is legislation to lift the cap and the cap needs to be lifted, the fact is that lifting the cap alone, in combination with what the Minister is proposing here, is not enough. We know what works and we know what does not work. The end-to-end Fingal pyrite scheme has worked really well. It has been effective. It does not get talked about very much. Pyrite does not get talked about much any more here…

It is not at all clear to me what this amendment will do because this is something that I have dealt with in my constituency with one of my constituents whose property is a semi-detached house and the house next door does not meet the damage threshold. I do not even know how the Minister will realistically get builders to do this work. It is incredibly complex. It involves essentially splitting something that in essence cannot be properly split because what is in one block has to be in the adjoining block and the d…