It is convoluted.

Why not go the full way?

Hear, hear.

We had some lengthy discussions on this subject while debating a Private Members' motion we proposed on Tuesday night. As the Minister of State will be aware, I take this issue very seriously. The HSE has been found to be in breach of the law in regard to both preliminary assessments of need for children with disabilities and the submitting of section 13 reports under the Disability Act 2005 to the Minister for Health. Will the Minister of State outline when is it expected those reports will be received? Is it the …

I have to say, I find that answer unsatisfactory. Sometimes when I hear responses to parliamentary questions, I have the view the Government does not understand the magnitude of the crisis. I already have that view of the HSE. Moreover, the HSE has broken the law. My job is to hold the Government to account and the Government has to hold the HSE to account, and the Minister for Health, when responding to this issue on Tuesday evening, made the same point. The Minister of State stated that not submitting these secti…

I have two final questions, which either the Minister or the Minister of State might address. Are the current preliminary team assessments still being carried out? Some parents have indicated they have received letters to say they have been paused. We have a right to know if they have been paused. Will the Minister or the Minister of State give us a guarantee that they will not dilute the 2005 Act? A very senior HSE official, when she was appearing before the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integ…

None of my questions on this issue was answered, which is wholly unsatisfactory.

The Minister has accepted the reality that we have a real crisis in some of our hospitals and in healthcare generally with overcrowding. Some of this is related to Covid, but it also relates to waiting times, which the Minister has accepted are unacceptable. We also have a challenge in recruiting staff. There is a target of recruiting 10,000 personnel this year and the HSE states that we might recruit 5,500. I ask if the Minister will consider offering a job guarantee to all health graduates.

The Minister might submit that to me or email me the full response. That is useful. We have to be more proactive and energetic in engaging with health and social care professional graduates and medical graduates when they are graduating. We should have HSE officials working with them in their final years. That would be really important. A job guarantee for all professionals would be important. All of this is in the context of the crisis in hospitals. The Minister will be aware that today there is a call from some h…

The public health advice is that you wear a mask in certain settings. I encourage people to do so but it is important for the Minister to set the message out.

I wish to restate my position, which is that people should abide by the public health advice and wear masks in all of the settings where they have been asked to do so. Is there any advice from the CMO to return to the legal mandate for mask wearing or any other public health measure? Will the CMO engage with the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health - that would be important - and the healthcare trade unions? As the Minister mentioned, there is frustration and fatigue in the healthcare system and there are many pres…

We all want to do everything possible to support the people of Ukraine. I think that Ireland has been very generous in its response taking in as many refugees as possible. That is what we should do. We all support that in this House. We also need to look at the individual needs of all the refugees who are coming here. The Minister for Health has responsibility to ensure that their full health needs are met and that there is a full audit of those needs. What are the short-, medium- and long-term plans that are being…

I welcome the Minister's response. The response has been good and swift. There is always more that we can do but the generosity shown by Irish people and the speed with which the political system has responded to the needs of those coming from Ukraine has been exceptional. There are two elements around health. We need to make sure that people who come here get access to the very best healthcare treatments. The Minister has said that primary care is the start and that medical cards will be issued to those who need t…

That is very welcome. If there are any Ukrainian refugees who want to work here they should be entitled and enabled to do so. A difficulty we have had for people coming from all different countries over many years is in professional registration when matching our regulations with those of the countries from which they are coming. Are there any difficulties there? Are there people who have come already who are now going to work in the healthcare system? If any problems have been identified, will they be resolved? Th…

There is time and there are plenty of opportunities for the Opposition to hold the Minister and the Government to account, but there are also times when we must thank the Minister and acknowledge the work that has been done. The shining of a light on women's health, the establishment of the task force and the putting in place of this plan and strategy will really benefit women. I refer to measures being undertaken already, because action plans are not always implemented when they are published. The measures to be u…

I had written a speech but I wish to respond to the Minister's speech instead. There was nothing new in the Minister's speech. We were expecting a bit more. I must say that everything in his speech has been said before. I did not hear anything in the speech that adds to what we have already heard. I do agree with something the Minister said. He said that a red-line issue for him is that there can be no religious interference and that we need to get the issues of governance and ownership right. He said he will not b…

Hear, hear.

The Minister of State came to the wrong debate. We had this debate earlier today.

If they are speaking to the subject matter of the debate.

We had that already.