I ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment to report on the mid-west regional enterprise plan.

I thank the Minister of State for his response. The objectives of this regional enterprise plan are to be lauded. I want to focus on Tipperary town, which is a black spot in my county for employment. I have to be critical of the IDA. Zoned land is extremely scarce in that town and we have a number of employers in the town who are seriously under pressure for space to expand. The IDA has sold off some of its portfolio but still had a small portion of land in the town. When the county council endeavoured to negotiate…

I very much appreciate the Minister of State's reply, but we have one business in that town that is expanding rapidly. I was in that man's yard a couple of weeks ago, and the cramped conditions the staff are working in are unbelievable. A number of years ago there was another budding employer in Tipperary town and again he met obstacles and found it impossible to get the infrastructure he needed and he relocated to a different town. We cannot allow this to happen in Tipperary town this time. This employer has 50 em…

I thank the Minister of State and Leas-Cheann Comhairle for taking this Topical Issue matter this evening. We were at a protest in Templemore last Saturday. We have been contacted by numerous constituents in the area who are extremely concerned about the general practice of Dr. Hennessy not being filled by the HSE. Dr. Hennessy had a significant practice over many years and he served the locality well. The HSE failed and it has not tried hard enough. My request to the Minister tonight is for the HSE to provide an e…

I thank the Minister of State for her answer, but I am not over happy with it. The reply I received from the HSE stated that Templemore is a rural setting and it was finding it impossible to get a replacement. This is a town that is on the Dublin-Cork railway line and only about five or six miles from the Dublin-Limerick motorway. It has a great educational infrastructure and would be an attractive place for any young GP to begin a practice. This situation is replicated throughout rural Ireland. The HSE is failing …

I acknowledge Deputy Carthy for allowing me to share his time on Topical Issue matters and I thank the Minister of State for being present. This scheme was brought in for hard-pressed beef finishers in 2019, who suffered continuous bad beef prices over a prolonged period. The conditions of the scheme were extremely bureaucratic for hard-pressed beef finishers. The fact that it was undersubscribed is a sign of how unattractive the scheme was for farmers. For a scheme for beef finishers to be undersubscribed, told it…

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. He said there is never a scheme without conditions attached. In 2020 we had a far more straightforward scheme. I accept that EU money was not put into the 2020 scheme, but it was a far more straightforward scheme and the money was used up. Before we finish this 2019 scheme a third of the money that was allocated to hard-pressed beef finishers will not have ended up in farmers' pockets. That is a serious indictment of a scheme that was introduced to provide for hard-press…

A report on water quality was issued today. It is clear that municipal authorities have a lot of money to spend on their infrastructure. I want to talk about organic waste from agriculture, especially from intensive farms. There is an awful lot of modern technology out there with modern methods to deal with this waste. I would be very critical of various Departments that have not embraced this technology. We need pilot projects across the country to show exactly what can be done as regards energy creation and creat…

I welcome these amendments from the Seanad. They will bring some fairness to this climate action Bill. I want to support this in terms of peat. With regard to the madness there, we have had discussions at the Oireachtas committee I chair on peat extraction in this country. It makes absolutely no sense that the horticulture and the nursery sectors are not able to acquire locally harvested peat. It is nonsensical and it has to stop. While we have increased issuing of licences for felling and thinning, the licences be…

In May, I raised the unacceptable closure of the medical assessment unit in Nenagh hospital due to staff shortages. Thankfully, I have been informed by hospital staff that the unit has been fully operational since then. In response to a parliamentary question, the HSE informed me that work is ongoing to recruit a permanent team and a consultant there. It also stated the medical assessment unit was closed for patient safety reasons due to staff shortages. This is a two-way street. Patients need this medical assessme…

-----with a permanent functioning team behind them in order that the medical assessment unit in Nenagh Hospital can be fully operational at all times.

I represent a rural constituency but even in a constituency like mine there is a desperate need for social and affordable housing. Demand is far outstripping supply in every part of my county. In the last two months, the Minister announced three social housing schemes in Roscrea, Cahir and Carrick-on-Suir. Unfortunately, we need much more. In the last year, house prices in my county have risen by 19%. This is completely and utterly unsustainable. Deputy Fitzmaurice spoke about cost increases. Unfortunately, costs h…

Last Monday, the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Rabbitte, visited the MooreHaven Centre in Tipperary town with Councillor Roger Kennedy and me. The centre provides day and residential services to 111 service users with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities. Since 2018, it has been in discussions with the HSE to enable it to provide urgent respite and residential care services. The centre is now in a position to provide residential care infrastructure but it needs the HSE to grant funding…

I move: “That the Bill be now read a Second Time.” I am pleased to be allowed to present the Veterinary Practice (Amendment) Bill 2021 to the Dáil. The urgent need for this amendment to the Veterinary Practice Acts 2005 and 2012 has arisen because the Veterinary Council of Ireland made significant changes to its code of professional conduct regarding the ownership of veterinary practices in 2017. The Veterinary Council of Ireland appeared before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture and the Marine, on 21 Ma…

I thank the Minister and the other Members of the House for some of their comments about the work required to bring forward this Bill and the work of the agricultural committee. There are three other members of the committee here and I enjoy working with them. We have done a lot in that committee in the past 12 months. I will address a few points. The Minister and the Minister of State made the point that the Companies Registration Office has identified a significant number of veterinary practices that are now inco…

I have raised the issue of resources for mental health clinics in north Tipperary a number of times. We have three mental health clinics in north Tipperary, including Thurles, Nenagh and Roscrea. General practitioners have contacted me this week who are extremely frustrated about the lack of resources there. Two consultants are assigned to them but retaining those consultants is virtually impossible because of the lack of teams behind them. We need psychiatric nurses, counsellors and psychologists. Without this bac…

For 70 years, CAP has been a price support, guaranteeing top-quality food for European consumers at a low price. There has been a fundamental change in policy at European level, though, and CAP is moving towards becoming an environmental payment. This will have consequences for European consumers. Food price inflation has to follow if primary producers are to stay in business. In the current round of CAP negotiations, three issues are still on the table for finalisation - the eco-schemes, convergence and front-load…

This is an extremely important piece of legislation. As we are discussing this tonight, 160 million people in the world are starving in famine conditions. As we speak, 2 billion people in the world tonight do not have an adequate diet. While we have to, therefore, recognise that as a country we must face up to climate change and reduce our emissions, we also must accept that we have a responsibility to produce food in this country. We are the most sustainable producers of dairy in the world and the fifth most susta…

I have a number of mental health matters to bring to the Minister of State's attention today, some of them unique to my constituency in Tipperary, whereas others can be seen on a national level. I recognise the work put in by the Minister of State to the Jigsaw project in Tipperary, which will be based in my home town of Thurles. Since being first elected to the Dáil in 2016, this is something I have fought hard for. At that time, Deputy Helen McEntee was the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health …

Epidyolex is a cannabis-based medication used to treat particular types of severe seizures. I have been working with a young 14-year-old girl and her family for a long time on enabling her to get access to this life-changing medication. Her father has previously appeared on the media where he gave a heartbreaking description of his daughter's situation and how it has been made so much worse by HSE inaction and bureaucracy. This young girl has an aggressive form of cancer and as a result also suffers from drop seizu…