The purpose of the Bill is to address the inconsistency that exists throughout the State in respect of both the availability and type of services that are accessible to autistic children and adults through the implementation of a cross-departmental, multi-agency autism strategy. No strategy has been put in place in Ireland since the European Commission approved the charter of rights for people with autism in 1996. The charter states autistic people should have the same rights as those enjoyed by all EU citizens and…

When this was opened with fanfare in June 2020 we were given assurances that the psychiatry of later life service would be developed there. It is unacceptable that it will now be 2022 before any older person will be able to avail of a service at Castlerea.

It is important to look at the history of the facility as well-----

As I stand here, our people have been waiting three and a half years in acute pain for an orthopaedic appointment and a whopping four and a half years for a respiratory appointment while we are in the depths of a respiratory pandemic. Appointments for services in the community are not much better, with waiting list of two to three years for occupational therapy appointments. We urgently need to do things differently and address these appalling waiting times once and for all.

I appreciate the Minister's comments. Next year, we will spend €40,000 every minute on our health service. We have seen in the past, however, that just throwing money at our waiting lists does not work within our health service. We need to see structural reform and not just reward those who work within our private hospitals. In the programme for Government in 2016, for example, a commitment was secured to look at expanding the Sligo hospital cataract surgery model, which had slashed waiting times by providing the f…

I will give the Minister two more examples. Take the rapid access haematuria clinic, that is, the blood in urine clinic at Roscommon University Hospital, RUH, where 10% of patients have been diagnosed with cancer. It treats 70% of patients in one visit and 100% of patients - all of them - are seen within the 28-day target time for urgent cases, and yet this has not been rolled out anywhere else. Look at the state-of-the-art theatre sterilisation room that was constructed in 2016 at RUH. It has been used for storing…

Buried in Tuesday's budget documentation was an admission that the national broadband plan is running eight months behind schedule. That is two months more than the timeline presented to the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications by the contractor last month. It means that 75,000 fewer homes will have access to high-speed broadband at the end of next year than was originally planned when the contract was signed in November 2019. The yarn that was spun by the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Commun…

While there are plenty of doctors in our Department of Health, there are few technical postgraduates throughout our public service. I hope the one thing we have learned from the Covid-19 pandemic is a greater appreciation of the need for independent scientific advice within our public service and in the Houses of the Oireachtas. The most immediate and urgent need is for advice to allow Dáil Éireann to properly consider the proposed carbon budget and ensure that it is appropriately scrutinised.

We all accept that the field of science and technology is playing an increasing role in our lives, homes, work and even leisure activities. Yet, there remains a poor public awareness of science and opportunities in that regard in Ireland for our people and our economy. I accept that the Creating our Future initiative is a positive development in addressing that aspect. We also need a forum, however, to enable the facts concerning scientific development to be brought into the public domain and to improve public unde…

I am glad the Minister brought up the issue of Government. During my term in government, I had to deal with a vast array of technical issues right across government. We were far too reliant on external advice. While external advice is important, it must complement the expertise available within government itself. Right across our public service, we need focused incentives for those within the public service to upskill and to attract those with such skills into Departments so that we can provide a better understandi…

Inflation makes everyone poorer, particularly those who are on fixed incomes. I want to focus on one aspect of inflation, that is, energy inflation. Gas prices, based on the Department of Finance documentation, are projected to rise by another 50% over the coming months and will then settle at a rate approximately 10% higher than the current prices in the second half of next year. That is going to have a significant knock-on impact on electricity prices here in Ireland. Electricity prices have gone up far more sign…

One in four people in Ireland today cannot afford to heat or light their homes. Electricity prices are way ahead of what they were in 2019 as are gas and solid fuel prices. Families' heating bills have increased dramatically. This has been compounded by the increase in carbon taxes and the subsidisation of data centres. While we need to increase the fuel allowance we also need a longer term strategy to address fuel poverty.

In Project Ireland 2040 I secured a budget of €4 billion to carry out deep retrofits and energy efficiency measures to take dirty fossil fuels out of our heating system by the middle of the next decade. The challenge is in physically achieving these targets. One of the main measures on fuel poverty is improving energy efficiency in our homes. There are 7,000 families in receipt of the fuel allowance who have been waiting 26 months to have these retrofits carried out. The Minister is aware that the Oireachtas joint …

I am afraid the delays were also there at the time of the former Minister, Deputy Bruton. We need to increase the fuel allowance. We need to increase the rate and extend the period. This needs to happen in this budget. This will be a treadmill unless we take a long-term strategic approach to improving the energy efficiency of every home throughout the country. We need to target those who are fuel poor. We also need to develop clustered bungalow housing for older people in our towns and villages so they can sell up …

As the Chief Medical Officer, CMO, pointed out on Monday in his statement on contact tracing in schools, there is a substantially higher risk of transmission of Covid-19 in households compared to other settings, including schools. As a result, families with somebody who is immunocompromised will not now be told if their child is a close contact, exposing vulnerable people to Covid-19 infection. The CMO said that while a public health risk assessment will be carried out to protect vulnerable children in special scho…

If the Minister spreads marmalade too thin on a slice of toast, she will not even taste it. That is effectively what we are doing with teaching resources in super-sized classes. Last year, one in seven primary school pupils were in classes of 30 or more and, in these instances, both the weaker and stronger students lose out, causing disruption in the class which has an impact on the whole class.

I acknowledge the investment made by this Government and that which preceded it. Our core objective needs to be that no child should leave primary school not being able to read and write. Children need to be supported to do that, yet statistics show that up to one in ten children fall into that category. These larger class sizes result in less teacher time for each pupil and, while I accept that the pupil-teacher ratio has come down, we still have a significant number of pupils in large classes. I urge the Minister…

I have raised this matter on a number of occasions since the Minister's appointment and I will continue to do so. The 2019-20 statistics for my constituency show that in County Galway, one in five pupils were in classes of more than 30. In County Roscommon, it was one in six. I do not believe that is good enough. We need to see priority given to the investment required in primary education to reduce those very large class sizes and ensure every child can fully participate in the education system and, when they leav…

Today, the National Competitiveness Council called for an increase in the pace of delivery of the national broadband plan, but the Government's plans to fast-track its delivery have been long-fingered. The Government has accepted the excuse that the roll-out is six months behind schedule due to disruptions caused by Covid-19. The programme's delivery is 50% behind schedule. This is at least in part due to the chequered engagement with public bodies, including some local authorities. The previous Government establis…

The last Government, after a lot of encouragement, designated Athlone as a major growth centre under Project Ireland 2040 and the town is expected to become a regional city over time. However, under this Government we have already seen a reduction in public transport connectivity between the local towns within its catchment and the town of Athlone itself, with the withdrawal of the Bus Éireann route 20 service just as the town's institute of technology secures university status. Where is the joined-up thinking?