I am following up on last week when I asked a question about masks. I refer to the 2 m social distancing on public transport having been reduced to 1 m without the mandatory wearing of masks or criminal consequences or fines. It is welcome that that happened this Monday. I use buses and public transport all the time. I was on the bus yesterday and everybody was wearing masks and I was on the Luas today and everybody was also wearing masks. The drivers, however, were expected to tell people that they could not board…

Special needs assistants should be included as well.

I am coming in now. Deputy Thomas Pringle was supposed to speak but I am stepping in for him. I wish to focus on our health services because that topic is high on the agenda given the pandemic we have been facing in recent months. A report published last month found that the European Commission made 63 individual demands of member states to cut spending on healthcare provision or privatise or outsource healthcare services between 2011 and 2018. The reason was to meet the arbitrary debt and deficit targets enshrined…

In 2018 and 2019, the families of children with the rare muscle-wasting disease, spinal muscular atrophy, launched a campaign to have the drug, Spinraza, approved. The public and Deputies were targeted so they would support the campaign to ensure patients in Ireland would be reimbursed for the clinically proven and licensed drug. Many Deputies, including the Taoiseach and the now Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, supported the families in question. The Deputies raised the issue in the Dáil and supported…

I thank the Taoiseach. Some 18 people have started the treatment and 12 are still waiting. This was the case before the restrictions were introduced and it is important we deal with this. It is a small number of people who need this treatment urgently. I would really appreciate the Taoiseach following up on this with the Minister. I will send the correspondence to him.

Phase 3 brought the further opening of the economy, with more workers going back to work, and one of the ways they go back to work is on public transport. I have noticed, and people have come to me saying this, that fewer than 50% of people are wearing face masks on public transport. We reduced the 2 m social distancing rule to 1 m on public transport, yet we are lagging behind on the legislation to make the wearing of face masks mandatory on public transport and in terms of how we enforce that. I ask the Taoiseach…

I am due to speak next. The Independent Group has eight minutes.

I watched "Prime Time Investigates" last night and it was harrowing and sad. I wish to express my solidarity with the families of the patients who died and the staff who were with them, who became their carers, who took care of their medical needs, who became their communicators and who literally became their undertakers. That is the role they played over that period and that must be recognised, not with a clap and with people standing in the street. They have to be looked after now. Those workers were distraught. …

I welcome the Debenhams shop steward here today. I have said many times about past Governments, and particularly about the Labour Party, that when it came to propping up Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party wrestled with its conscience and its conscience never won. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael could have been forced into this position a long time ago if the Labour Party had not propped them up, as they have done. The Green Party, in endorsing this programme for Government, is betraying all those who voted for f…

As I only have four minutes, I will also avoid the niceties. I know that front-line workers and public officials have done a lot of work. I wish them well in their work in the next period because they are possibly going to face a difficult situation in hospitals and elsewhere. I refer to the letter from Patricia King, the president of ICTU, to the Taoiseach yesterday. The letter refers to the problems that could be faced by hundreds of thousands of low-paid, non-unionised workers who do not have a contract for sick…

First, I express my thanks for the warm and friendly response I received on the doorsteps in Dublin South-Central during the general election campaign. Second, I thank the people of Dublin South-Central for using their canny voting skills to re-elect me to the Thirty-third Dáil. I am humbled and delighted. The main issues I encountered on the doorsteps were the dire housing crisis; the health crisis; the for-profit childcare crisis; work-life balance; pension age; access to services such as physiotherapy, speech th…