We are going to be here in three weeks' discussing this. Can we not pre-empt the problem?

This is a problem in our Parliament at the moment. We raise problems, we are shut down, and then we come back and get apologies. This is ridiculous.

The subject matter before us is education as a whole.

The subject matter we should be discussing is education as a whole.

What we are going to see in the next couple weeks is schools being closed.

When we are discussing school strikes in three to four weeks' time it is right that we should remember this moment.

We should remember this moment in a couple of weeks-----

-----when this happens.

We will discuss them when they happen then. When Humpty Dumpty falls off the wall, we will all come running.

On Polymetrika, what is the Minister’s understanding of this company? Why did it get this role? When I looked it up on LinkedIn today I could find one employee. Please tell me it is not just one person who is in charge of this whole process. How many employees does Polymetrika have and how did it get this contract?

In terms of software design, and I had to check with experts today so some of these terms might be quite technical, it relies on three standardisation processes: clarity of specification with a formal sign-off for same being a responsibility of the client, that is, the Minister's Department; professional coding, in this case by a company that her Department decided was the best in the business for this particular type of business; and, critically, quality user acceptance testing following which the client, the Mini…

I commend my friend and colleague, Deputy Whitmore, on bringing forward this motion on child poverty. It is an issue we all care deeply about and hope to address in the lifetime of this Dáil because we have waited far too long. More than 200,000 children are at risk of poverty, 90,000 children are living in consistent poverty, and behind every one of those children there is a parent, often a mother, who is afflicted by that exact same poverty and in many cases suffering and going without so the child does not have …

Yesterday, Dr. Ronan Glynn sent out an excellent graphic and talked about how we should all reduce our contacts. He outlined how one case of the virus could lead to 56 cases. It was an excellent graphic and it was incredibly appropriate. I want the Taoiseach to speak to those who cannot reduce their networks. In particular, I am speaking of schoolteachers, special needs assistants and people who are in contact with numbers of people daily. They cannot reduce their networks. What is the message for them? In our scho…

My question also pertains to the live events sector so I ask the Minister to excuse me while I ask it again and elaborate on further issues in the follow-on questions. It is to ask the Minister for Social Protection if her attention has been drawn to calls from the live events sector to reinstate the pandemic unemployment payment at a full rate per week for those workers in view of the fact that the sector is closed or dramatically reduced under the public health advice.

With respect, with regard to pre-Covid earnings, what people working in the live events sector would be earning now as we approach the end of the summer and the festival season is very different from what they would have been earning in February. I want to give the Minister a snapshot as a case study. Electric Picnic, which would be on around this time if it had been able to go ahead, is worth €6.5 million to Stradbally, €20 million to County Laois and €36 million to the country as a whole. In the absence of approp…

I do not doubt for a second that the Minister is endeavouring to be as fair as possible but are we being as fluid or as malleable as possible in terms of protecting particular sectors? The live events sector is more vulnerable than most, which is why the calls for the increase in the pandemic unemployment payment to be particularly targeted at sectors such as this one are very important. In addition to my question about fairness, parts of the performing arts have access to funding from the Arts Council and other fo…

The Social Democrats will support the motion and commend the Sinn Féin Deputy for bringing it to the floor. It is an eminently sensible motion and does not lend itself to a grandiose speech. Most of us who live and operate within the city are brought to our senses several dozen times a day with the reverberations of fireworks and all that that entails. We can feel lucky we are not those with sensory issues who have been really impacted by them. As has been said several times, while fireworks have always been a feat…

I thank Deputy Joan Collins and the Independent group for bringing forward this very appropriate and apt motion. The motion is five paragraphs long and within those five paragraphs is a very clear roadmap for how we can make better the lives of workers throughout this country who are experiencing an anxiety that is being accelerated by the fact there does not seem to be a sense the Government has their back. Both Ministers have been present during this debate. This is the fourth time in the past few months we have …

I am spokesperson on a variety of issues for my party, such as education, social protection and the arts. This is the first occasion on which I have seen a Minister being present for opening statements and then leaving the Chamber before the full Opposition has had a chance to engage. It debases parliamentary democracy. We have to be better than that and hold ourselves to a higher standard. I will begin by highlighting some of the slogans that we used to convince ourselves that we were on the right track. Some of t…

Does the Minister of State remember his first truly political engagement? When I was walking today through the north inner city to get down here, I was reminiscing upon mine. It was about 2008, I was in first year in university and I was taking an interest in my community for the first time. I went to an incredible community leader named Fergus McCabe to tell him I would like to get more involved. He suggested I go on the North Inner City Drugs and Alcohol Task Force. A great guy, he was a big help to me along the …