This matter needs to be more of a priority because this service provides vital care and is needed by people not just in west Cork but in other rural areas. I understand these things can take time but there is also a lack of joined-up thinking and utilisation of resources, which can be frustrating for people in those areas. SouthDoc services are under pressure and, at the same time, Bantry General Hospital's medical assessment unit only opens from 9 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. Extending the opening hours of this unit is not o…

I am regularly contacted by residents in west Cork concerned about trawling in Bantry Bay and Kenmare Bay. I have to explain to them that this is permitted even though it is in the programme for Government. We know it is legally sound. Since the court ruling in October 2020 overturned the policy directive, I have repeatedly asked the Minister to resolve the issue by bringing the directive process into place again. Two and a half years later, when will he do that?

When the Minister says his team now has to assess the situation, I am not really sure what needs to be assessed at this point. He says he is committed to banning this, but the issue remains that inshore trawling is currently permitted and will be for some time until the Minister resolves the matter. The Government says constantly that it is committed to banning this activity. Inshore fishers support such a ban, as do marine and tourism businesses, coastal communities and environmentalists. Why is the Minister not a…

But the Minister knew for two years that that ruling was coming.

Respectfully, the Minister has had a month to act but he has had two years to assess or to plan or whatever he is saying the Department is doing now. I thank him for the reply but, in essence, it is the same kind of holding response I have got for two years at this stage. Will he just confirm that he will begin the process to establish the policy directive, and when will that be? What steps is he taking this time to ensure the Department does this correctly so we do not end up in the same position again? I have pre…

Exactly. We already know that.

Now I would like a different response.

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. Yesterday, we had an extraordinary spectacle at the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach. One of the most senior and highest paid civil servants in the State engaged in an arrogant two-hour dismissal of an independent expert report commissioned by his line Minister. The Secretary General of the Department of Health, Robert Watt, was clear. He rejects "most" of the findings of the report by Maura Quinn, the former chief executive of the Ins…

Will the Tánaiste answer the questions?

Respectfully, the Tánaiste just talked around all those questions for the entire time of his reply. I asked him how Mr. Watt's position can be tenable and whether the Tánaiste or the Government intends to take any action to make him accountable. Another aspect of this whole fiasco is deeply troubling. In April of last year, Mr. Watt refused to appear before the finance committee to discuss the matter, so the committee had to seek compellability powers from the Oireachtas to force Mr. Watt to appear before it, which…

I will go back to my previous questions. The Tánaiste did not answer them. Does the Tánaiste think Mr. Watt's position is tenable? What is the Government doing to hold him to account?

This is not relevant.

We will take that as a "No".

We are in a housing emergency and the Government's housing policy is a disaster. Almost 12,000 people, including more than 3,300 children, are now living in emergency accommodation. Rents are skyrocketing - up 13.7% in 2022 - while at the same time the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage has failed to spend more than €1 billion from his capital budget. The Government is in denial. It is ignoring the homelessness figures, the regular protests and even warnings from employers. The Government is refusi…

The housing disaster is causing devastation among workers and families all over the country. Increasingly it is an enormous problem for businesses too. Every major business group has now pointed to housing being their most serious concern. Chambers Ireland recently warned that the acute shortage of housing was causing companies to take drastic action. It said big businesses are now considering buying up entire housing estates for their workers. IBEC has identified the problem as being not just a chronic lack of sup…

I did not say no one could afford a home but that only those on the highest incomes can do so. I am not judging the Minister on one year in government but on 12 years of Fine Gael Governments. He was Minister for housing during that time. The criticisms of the Government’s housing delivery are not just coming from the Social Democrats and other Opposition parties; they are coming from business groups. The Minister saying they have confidence in housing policy does not make it true. They are looking at the Governmen…

I am saying they are concerned about housing.

You just told me they were not.

A projected budget surplus of up to €16 billion has been announced for next year, which is in addition to the €8 billion budget surplus for last year and the €10 billion for this year. The Government has all this money to solve the housing disaster but somehow its problem is spending it. We know the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage has failed to spend more than €1 billion of his budget. He tried to bury more bad news yesterday. The targets for social and affordable housing were missed yet again i…

We are in a housing emergency and the Government's housing policy is a disaster. Almost 12,000 people, including more than 3,300 children, are now living in emergency accommodation. Rents are skyrocketing - up 13.7% in 2022 - while at the same time the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage has failed to spend more than €1 billion from his capital budget. The Government is in denial. It is ignoring the homelessness figures, the regular protests and even warnings from employers. The Government is refusi…