-----the beds are not there and the staff are not.

When will the 1,500 rapid-build beds this Minister promised be delivered-----

-----and how many of those will be delivered in 2024?

First, I want to commend the Women's Parliamentary Caucus, and the chair and vice chair, on their work on this comprehensive motion that raises a number of issues across the formal and informal care sectors. I welcome the debate today on behalf of Sinn Féin. I express our support for a rights-based approach to care, and the right to care. I am glad that the Minister of State supports the principles in the motion but I have three major problems with the Government's doublespeak on these issues. First, Government par…

The Irish people, or at least the vast majority of them, will never be led by extreme voices when it comes to immigration because Irish people are fair and welcoming. We have seen that over the course of many years. Properly managed immigration enriches a society. We see this in our hospitals with nurses, doctors, healthcare assistants and specialists right across the health service coming here from a vast array of different countries to work in our hospitals. People support that and benefit from it. However, while…

It is not a point of order.

I move amendment No. 1: In page 3, between lines 14 and 15, to insert the following: “Amendment of section 7F of Principal Act 2. Section 7F of the Principal Act is amended, in section 4A, by the substitution of the following paragraph for paragraph (c): “(c) In respect of each of the following applicable 3 year periods— (i) the 3 year period from 1 January 2020 to the end of 2022, (ii) the 3 year period from 1 January 2021 to the end of 2023, and (iii) the 3 year period from 1 January 2023 to the end of 2025, the …

I thank the Minister of State for all that. I also thank her officials for the work that has gone into this Bill. It is debated annually. It seems to be Groundhog Day in that we have the same discussion on it every year. It has to be done; it is going to be on our annual cycle of Bills. Its purpose is to review the risk equalisation mechanism. As the Minister of State said, it deals with the stamp duty levy on policies and risk equalisation credits payable to insurers for 2024. We support the substance of the Bill …

I am sharing time. I thank the Minister of State for her opening statement. This is an annual Bill to review the risk equalisation mechanism which supports the community-based health insurance market. It revises the stamp duty levy on policies and the risk equalisation credits payable to insurers for 2024. As a principle, risk equalisation ensures that costs are constant across the lifespan of the individual. Where possible, it seeks to ensure that age, gender and health status do not influence the cost of an insur…

I move: That Dáil Éireann: notes: — that the Government's mismanagement of the health budget has led to a disastrous embargo on recruitment into frontline posts; and — the memorandums sent by the Chief Executive Officer of the Health Service Executive (HSE), which directed a severe escalation in the recruitment embargo across the health service, and which noted that the embargo "will create difficulties" in the face of "an enormous increase in demand"; further notes that the disastrous decision of this Government t…

The Minister is scraping the bottom of the barrel now.

€1.3 billion is a lot-----

The Minister for Health was looking for more money.

He is obviously taking the soup.

Every single patient and healthcare worker in this State should watch back the Minister's response to our motion here today. What they will see in the Minister's response is that he spent most of his time attacking Sinn Féin. He points to the North which, obviously, Ministers do every time they are under pressure. What the Minister failed to point out is that in the last two elections in the North, Sinn Féin increased its vote to record levels, which should tell the Ministers across the Government where the people …

We got caught out last week. That is why we are here now.

The Minister will be aware I tabled the same amendments on Committee Stage. I withdrew them in recognition of the clarity he brought and the logic of his argument at the time. I still think I was right to withdraw them at that point. However, on reflection, I welcome that an Teachta Smith has tabled similar amendments with the same intent. From memory, the Minister's argument was that An Garda Síochána does not have a system to record these warnings in the first instance. There is a system to record an offence or a…

There is an obvious logic in what the Minister is saying in that, as Minister for Health, he does not want to involve himself in justice issues or operational issues that pertain to An Garda Síochána and, in general terms, that makes sense. He has to accept, however, that what we are talking about here are health regulations and a health Bill that is coming from his office, and there has been engagement with the Department of Justice and extensive engagement with An Garda Síochána. In fact, the Oireachtas Joint Com…

That is a bit of a stretch.

That is not what is being proposed.