I asked the Minister of State a question.

I am sharing time with Deputy Paul Murphy. I congratulate the Leas-Cheann Comhairle on her surprise win yesterday. We were all delighted.

Well, it was a surprise for a few of us. I am sure the Minister was seriously alarmed by the HIQA report published on Tuesday. It gave a terrible insight into the challenges and the failures of nursing homes during the public health emergency. I understand from the media that the Covid committee will recommend a review of all deaths in nursing homes. I read the report this morning. It is damning. In fact, it is beyond damning. One statistic, which I will not cite because it is quite a long section, is that 60% of t…

I commend the Debenhams workers who have been on strike for more than 105 days through very difficult circumstances because of the public health emergency. Anybody who has visited the picket line would be inspired and amazed by their determination over 14 or 15 weeks. It has been a very difficult time but their solidarity and support for each other is inspiring for anybody who supports the trade union movement. It is everything that is good about working class people. It is about standing together, shoulder to shou…

I welcome the motion. I commend Deputy Funchion on her consistency on this issue. It is a very good, structured motion. I welcome some elements of the Minister's statement, especially with regard to meeting representatives of SIPTU, and good luck with that. I put it to the Minister that it is not an exaggeration to say that the provision of childcare is extremely fragmented in Ireland, if not almost archaic. There are very high costs and the workforce of educators is underpaid and undervalued. According to the late…

I am sharing time with Deputy Boyd Barrett.

I wish the new Minister well. We will get the niceties out of the way and then we will get political. I think we all agree that by comparison with March, the Irish classroom will look very different in September. The last five months have shown us the major fault lines in our public services in health, education etc.. I refer to the statistic that Ireland has one of the highest pupil-teacher ratios in the OECD. In some cases, one in five children is in a class of 30 or more pupils. If that is the case, it will be a…

The Taoiseach spoke about the issue of access to medicinal cannabis numerous times in the last Dáil, to his credit. It is three and a half years since the Health Products Regulatory Authority recommended that a medical cannabis programme be set up. Last year, the law was changed in this country. For the first time, medical practitioners could legally prescribe medical cannabis. Since then, not one person has been prescribed medical cannabis unless they go through the licensing system. As the Taoiseach knows, this s…

The last two Ministers for Health, Deputies Harris and Stephen Donnelly, said they would come back to me and they have not. At the same time, people are going without, including vulnerable children.

It is a terrible injustice.

I will get the niceties out of the way first by wishing the Minister well in his role. I expressed the same wish to his predecessor, Deputy Harris, four years ago. Once that is done, we can go ahead with not being nice to each other. I want to raise a number of issues, the first of which is the effect of Covid-19 on the nursing homes sector. I welcome the additional provision in the Revised Estimates to deal with the crisis. However, the level of death in nursing homes during the Covid pandemic is a national scanda…

There are times when one has to make a stand, not because it is popular or unpopular but because it is the right thing to do. The omission of the occupied territories Bill from the programme for Government was the time to make that stand. The people of Palestine are tired of platitudes from the EU and the international community. My appeal is that the occupied territories Bill be passed and legislated for by this Government. The time for platitudes is over. The time for showing solidarity to the Palestinian people …

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry. I raised the issue of Palestine with the Minister last week. Israel has vowed to annex the Jordan Valley, which makes up 30% of the occupied West Bank, this time next week. The EU has specifically stated that if Israel makes this move, it will be contrary to international law and decency. If this action takes place, what will the European Union do to penalise the state of Israel? As Deputy Cian O'Callaghan has said, this is against the background of the occupied territories Bill…

The Minister has accepted that we need changes in our public health service and the Covid-19 public health emergency has shown the cracks in our system, such as bed capacity and staffing shortages. The running down of our public health service over the past number of decades has been hugely detrimental to all citizens in this country. The new programme for Government states that it will examine new ways to utilise community settings and create partnerships with our private hospitals to avoid placing increased press…

On countless occasions over the past four years I have raised the issue of the medical cannabis access programme. This time last year the Minister announced that the programme would be functional. That was underpinned for, I understand, the first time in medical history by a statutory instrument which allowed people to access medical cannabis legally. The Minister said he expected people to be prescribed medical cannabis by the autumn. Does he know how many people have been prescribed medical cannabis under the pro…

I will not raise Brexit but the issue of illegal trade. Last week, I raised with the Tánaiste the Control of Economic Activities (Occupied Territories) Bill, which seeks to ban the importation of illegal goods from settlements in the occupied West Bank. His answer was very glib. He said he would not do so. He obviously has form on this. For the record, I think all Israeli goods should be banned from this country. He stated that the Attorney General's advice is that it is not compatible with EU law. That is very ref…

It relates to trade.

There is.

I suggest that there is. In 1986, the Attorney General of this country gave a recommendation that the ban on the importation of South African apartheid fruit and goods was illegal. A year later Ireland was the first country to ban all apartheid goods from South Africa. The Minister of State can put the legislation in question into the programme for Government. The Government can also publish the Attorney General's advice on this. That is in the interest not only of the people of Ireland but also of the people of Pa…

That is a terrible response. The Minister of State is a member of the Government that has refused this legislation, which has been passed in the Seanad and the Dáil. She has an obligation to give me an answer to explain why this legislation is not going into the programme for Government. Fianna Fáil and the Green Party agreed the legislation.