Tomorrow, 12 June, is an iconic day in our country's history. It will be 32 years since Ireland beat England one-nil in Stuttgart. I had the great pleasure of bringing a double decker bus to that city with 22 soccer supporters from Ireland. It gave great joy and great hope to the Irish diaspora around the world, especially in the UK. Soccer, football and sport can be a diplomatic, enjoyable and interesting way to settle differences. Tomorrow will be a wonderful day to remember 32 years of being undefeated by our ne…

I am sharing time with Deputy Emer Higgins, seven minutes and three minutes. I also want to allow some time for the Minister to reply. I was elected by the people of Sligo, Leitrim, north Roscommon and south Donegal this day four months ago. The new Galway of the west issue is a new technological university for the region. I raised the fact that this would be agreed. Last week, I said the institutes of technology in Galway, Mayo, Letterkenny and Sligo would come together. I also welcomed the fact that Dr. Seán Duff…

I am delighted the Minister has stated that this will be submitted by quarter 4. It is very exciting, and I look forward to working with all the ITs involved to progress it as fast as possible. This is very good news.

I congratulate Deputy Dillon on his maiden speech and I wish him every success. It is nice to see a man from the west. Following up on the issue raised by the Deputy, does the Minister have an update on the application for technological university, TU, status for Sligo, the north and the north west, and does he think it will be submitted before the end of the year? I welcome Niall O'Donnellan to the board of IT Sligo. He is an excellent appointment and I wish him well in the work he is doing. I have two matters to …

I thank the Minister for his reply. I am delighted that he has met Mr. Peter Weir. I think we knew him through the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. It is great to see that cross-Border and cross-department co-operation which is vital across the island of Ireland.

He was not around in the early 1980s.

Like the Minister, I wish to express my sympathy to the family and friends of those who have been lost to this disease. My thoughts are with all those who have been bereaved. I thank again all the front-line staff. One section of the front-line staff I wish to thank is the Garda. Last night I was driving home to Sligo and was stopped by gardaí in Castlebaldwin. They asked me where I was coming from and where I was going to. As a citizen of this country whose grandfather was one of the first gardaí in An Garda Síoch…

In December 2015, the former Minister for Justice and Equality, former Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, stated that funding for a new Garda station for Sligo would be identified in the 2017 to 2021 capital plan. In January 2017, the Office of Public Works, OPW, issued an advertisement for a site for the new station, along with Macroom and Clonmel, as part of a public-private partnership project, PPP. In mid-2017, gardaí had to leave the station in Sligo on health and safety grounds. This makes the issue worse. Also in mi…

I join my colleagues in thanking all of the members of the Defence Forces community for their efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic. We have a strong military community in counties Sligo and Donegal, with Finner Camp in south Donegal as well as the Army barracks in my home town of Boyle. The latter has been there since the foundation of the State and before. I was a member of the FCA in the early 1980s and thoroughly enjoyed myself. We went to Finner Camp and Dunree in Donegal. When the FCA upskilled to the RDF in t…

I am sharing time with Deputy Peter Burke. The Minister is very welcome here today. I grew up over a newsagent shop in Boyle. In the last ten years when the recession came, I saw how small towns like that were deeply impacted. When I was growing up, there were at least one or two football teams in our own street. Maybe 150 people lived over shops on our street, but now it is down to one or two. That is the same in every town and village around the country. Now is the time to address those serious situations. The Mi…

I am delighted to have this opportunity to thank the Tánaiste, his Department and all the various Government elements on the Covid-19 response. I have had many telephone calls from parents, relations and even people in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Well in excess of 6,000 citizens have returned. I have no doubt that many of those 6,000 may not go back to where they came from. They will be the vanguard of a new Ireland. They could be the vanguard with their finances as well as their work and life experience. I …

I am here.

Our thoughts are with the families and friends of the more than 1,600 people who have lost their lives due to Covid-19, and indeed all those who have recovered from it. I thank the people of Ireland for the work they have done to help effectively flatten the curve. I wish to bring the thoughts of many of my constituents to the Chamber. The 2 m rule has been mentioned already and I know that a meeting between the Chief Medical Officer and Cabinet is ongoing as I speak. It is something many people are beginning to ar…

I thank the Minister for visiting Sligo University Hospital over a year ago. I look forward to going down with him next time, when we will go in the front door rather than through the emergency department.

It is great to see the Minister of State here today. He spoke about his Leitrim connections. I believe the last time I met him was for breakfast in his adopted family home in Dromahair in north Leitrim. He is very aware of the issues in that county and, indeed, in all the counties throughout the country. I wish to discuss three issues. The first has been raised by other Deputies. Will he outline to the House how and when he expects to be able to reimburse smaller local authorities such as those in Sligo, Leitrim, R…

Over the past few months, certainly with Covid-19, many people are considering living and working in rural Ireland. Many Members in the Houses use the national broadband plan as a political football and now the same people are calling for greater access across the State. They are demanding more connectivity. The broadband operators are seeing 30% more use in broadband. Politicians in this House are using broadband and I do not know how we would have gotten over the Covid-19 crisis only for that huge connectivity. T…

Should we expect the Project Ireland 2040 investment plan to remain intact despite the financial impact of Covid-19? If not, how will it be decided which large-scale infrastructure projects will remain in the plan? I am conscious of the N4 into the west and north west, especially to Sligo. It is one area on the map that does not have motorway access. I understand that this is not in the Minister's brief but I am conscious that as the Minister for Finance he will have a serious impact on the matter.

The Minister is not a member of Fine Gael.

I begin by thanking the Minister, as a former Senator and Deputy, for her vocation and her political and social leadership. She has been a vision for equality and social change and has fought hard to reduce poverty. It has been very difficult for Ministers who lost their seats to carry on so I thank her very much. I agree with other Deputies who spoke about mental health and young people. It is a deeply concerning area, and while I acknowledge that the Minister has addressed it, I want to share in the thoughts of m…

During our previous session I welcomed the Minister, Katherine Zappone, to the Chamber and I thanked her for the work she did. I now also thank the Minister, Regina Doherty, for the work she has done. It is ironic that the two Ministers before us today were not successful in retaining their seats. I thank the Minister, Regina Doherty, and all of her departmental staff for their work on behalf of hundreds of thousands of people. It shows that the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection is one of the b…