Those who escaped Gaza in recent weeks also have relatives in Gaza. My understanding from the Irish citizens who have escaped Gaza is that the Irish Embassy and the Department of Foreign Affairs are actively trying to reunite them with some of their relatives, especially those in dire situations. That would be very welcome. The reaction at the weekend of the Tánaiste's counterpart in Israel, Eli Cohen, to the Taoiseach's tweet was bizarre in how he distorted what the Taoiseach said. The Irish ambassador to Israel w…

But has the Government reprimanded the Israeli ambassador?

I wish to raise an issue I have raised numerous times over the past two years and one I think my colleagues in Dublin Mid-West have also raised. It is the lack of public health nurses in Dublin Mid-West, which is the area I am from. This is particularly acute in Newcastle, Lucan and Clondalkin. As the Minister of State can imagine, public health nurses are vitally important for developmental checks on infants. It is vitally important that parents have the reassurance of those checks. However, for several years, tha…

That is extremely disappointing, to say the least. It does not really say anything at all. I do not know what to say to that. All I can say is that the recruitment freeze is obviously compounding the issue. The Minister of State might be able to answer the following question. Is the recruitment freeze having an impact on the recruitment of public health nurses, especially in the CHO 7 area? I hope she can answer that. My understanding is that 40% of all posts in the Dublin Mid-West region are vacant. That is a huge…

My thoughts, solidarity and support are with the families of the children who were terribly blighted and injured on Thursday. Those brave people who intervened, the ordinary decent Dubliners, whether from Dublin or from around the world, are the heroes, as are the emergency responders. There is an element who for a long time have been fomenting hatred and poison and who hijacked the events on Thursday. These fascist agitators have been doing this for a considerable time. Their vitriol and commentary are utterly poi…

Millions of people across the world have taken to the streets in cities to show their solidarity and absolute horror at what has gone on in the last six weeks in Gaza. Last Saturday, more than 50,000 people went on the streets in Dublin and Belfast to show their solidarity. A whole cohort of people are becoming politicised by what is going on in Gaza. Not only do they see the hypocrisy of the Western powers but also the hypocrisy of the Israeli state. They see that their governments are complicit in their silence w…

The hostages.

I have a short question for the Taoiseach. Will the Government lift the recruitment embargo on front-line workers in the HSE? This is obviously having a hugely detrimental effect on our public health system. Is there a vision to lift this embargo? It is having a terrible effect on day-to-day services that we all rely on.

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling the motion. We are all feeling a bit of shock at the recruitment embargo in the health service. Rather than going into a state of contraction in respect of recruitment and need, we should be expanding, and anybody would agree with that. The embargo is going to have a detrimental effect on our health services, and those fault lines between private and public, which were especially visible during Covid, will be exacerbated because of the historical inequalities in our health system. As a…

Given the murderous assault by the Israel Defense Forces does the Tánaiste's Department intend to continue to purchase goods from Israel whether they are for defensive reasons or for dual-purpose reasons? As the Tánaiste will have seen, Israel is not a normal state. Israel runs on the basis of perpetual violence and oppression. How can any state call itself a democracy while doing trade with a state that has killed more than 5,500 children?

Why would the Tánaiste's Department have any sort of trade agreement with the State of Israel? In the last five years, the Tánaiste's Department has procured more than €6 million of Israeli defence equipment. Some of that is for dual use. Will the Tánaiste tell me - or give me a kind of an answer - as to why in the name of hell would this country want to do any sort of trade with the State of Israel? Over the past nine years the EU has exported €4 billion worth of armaments to Israel. These armaments are to kill an…

There should be-----

That is gobbledygook.

Ireland needs to take a moral and principled stand against the State of Israel. In the past five years Ireland has spent €6 million procuring Israeli goods and services. Surely the Tánaiste is not saying that given what Israel has done in the past in the last six weeks - and continues to do - that somehow this is business as usual. Surely the Tánaiste does not believe that. Israel is not a normal state. The Tánaiste knows that. We cannot have any sort of trade agreement with a state that continuously oppresses a pe…

I did not.

I do not disbelieve that.

At the weekend, almost 50 people overdosed on contaminated heroin. Traces of synthetic opioid were found in samples of the heroin they took. Thankfully, no one has died as a result of the overdoses because of interventions made using a drug called naloxone, which is welcome. There are issues with naloxone, which is a prescribed drug. Experts in the field say it should be more available in the context of treating overdoses. There is another worrying trend, which the House and society should be made aware of. There c…

I have to attend the health committee. It is not going to be possible.

My question is about the waiting time for scoliosis surgery. The Scoliosis Advocacy Network has stated that more than 310 children are waiting for surgery at this time. That is completely unacceptable. I would like to hear the Minister's thoughts on the matter.

That is positive but there are families with children who have been waiting for well over four months. That is completely unacceptable. The Minister's predecessor said six years ago that no child would wait more than four months. That promise has been broken many times. The Minister will understand that it is frustrating for people who have a child waiting for surgery that could be revolutionary for the child when that surgery does not happen. What the Minister said was all positive but the litmus test for families…