-----in order to prevent it from joining NATO, which would be its choice, not Russia's, in my view. Whether we agree with NATO expansion or not, I think it is up to individual countries and their democratically elected governments to decide whether they want to join. It should not be decided in Russia or other places. We of course discussed NATO in our conversations. All three are members. We are not. Most of the countries that I meet in Europe are interested to know why we are not members and how we would defend o…

The new national children's hospital will be completed later this year and will be open and treating children next year. When it is open, it will be an incredible state-of-the-art hospital. It will care for our children for the next 50 to 100 years and it will be comparable if not superior to many of the best children's hospitals in Europe and around the world. It will be our first digital public hospital, with 300 individual rooms for every child that needs to be admitted and space for their parents to sleep in th…

The hospital will be open later this year. October is the target month. It will be open to patients in 2025. The sum of €2.2 billion is the maximum allocation made by the Government for this project; we will not be allocating any more. Some €1.4 billion has been drawn down already and an additional €0.8 billion is available to complete the project, commission it and open it to children. That will happen next year.

I share the Deputy’s distress and horror at the events that we are seeing unfold in Gaza. The ground assault on Rafah should not happen; 1.5 million people are taking refuge there, most of them already displaced from other parts of Gaza and some displaced on more than one occasion. There is a serious risk of a massacre occurring in Rafah if a ground assault were to occur, and that would be a gross violation of international law on top of all the other violations of international law for which Israel is responsible.…

We have taken considerable actions to date and we will take more. As I stated, the Attorney General will represent Ireland at the International Criminal Court in The Hague on 22 February to make the case against the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. We are in discussions with other EU member states about recognising statehood and doing it in a meaningful way. Spain is the main country with which we are discussing that. It would not be fair of me to disclose the names of the other countries; it is for them to do…

As I said earlier, there is a ceasefire proposal on the table negotiated by the Egyptians, Qataris and Americans. It is our strong view that Israel and Hamas should both accept that ceasefire proposal. It will allow the killing to stop. It will allow refugees, or at least some of them, to return to their homes and it will allow aid, which is desperately needed by Palestinian civilians, to get in. It will also facilitate the release of more than 100 Israeli hostages who have been held for more than three months now,…

There are countries in the world that invade other countries, that engage in international terrorism - countries like Russia and Iran for example - and they do not need the sanction or tacit support of the West or western countries to do that. That is a position Deputy Boyd Barrett is entitled to hold, but it is not the case that there are not countries that are anti-West, that do not invade other countries and do not engage in international acts of terrorism. That is just a simple fact.

In relation to the single-state solution, I think that is naive. It is a really nice idea. It might be the kind of thing that Deputy Boyd Barrett and I would sign up to, being secular people, but it is very evident to me that the people of Israel do not want a single-state solution, they want a Jewish state, and most Palestinians, many of whom voted for Hamas in the last election, want an Islamic state. That is the reality of it. I heard what the Deputy said - that the West should impose it on them - but is that no…

As I said before and will continue to say, migration is a very sensitive issue and is abused by politicians all over the world to gain votes. Often, that is based on misinformation and hate-mongering. I will say it again - migration, in the round, has been a very good thing for Ireland. If it was not for migrants coming here to work in our health service, build our houses and look after our older people, we would not be able to provide the kind of services we provide now. Far from being the cause of our problems, m…

There are now gardaí in airports in other parts of Europe working with authorities there. We increasingly check people coming off planes, not just at border control. We are liaising with airlines to make sure their staff are properly trained. There are fines which we impose on airlines if they allow people onto aircraft undocumented. We are seeing a reduction in the number of people coming through Dublin Airport undocumented. We estimate, and believe based on evidence, that the majority of people who seek internati…

The Deputy was in full flow and speaking very quickly so I may have misunderstood him but I think I heard him say that the numbers were 4,000 in 2022 and 3,000 in 2023. That is a drop. Moving from 4,000 to 3,000 is a drop.

I have explained to the Deputy exactly why that drop has occurred.

It is because of actions taken by the Government. If somebody enters the country through Dublin Airport without documents, one of two things happens. Either they get sent back, and that happens all the time, or alternatively, if they apply for international protection, they are entitled to have that application assessed properly and as quickly as we can. That is what we do. It is not correct to make the automatic assumption that if somebody enters the county in an undocumented manner he or she has committed a crime…

Many of these people, perhaps even most of them, are trafficked. That is the truth.

We do not find bins full of destroyed passports or documents and we do not find them flushed down toilets. Most of these people, Deputy, are trafficked. They have been subject to a crime themselves and the Deputy should admit that.

I thank Deputies for their contributions. It is not the practice of the Government to expel ambassadors. We still need to be able to speak to the Israeli ambassador about two things: first, the Irish citizens who are still caught up in Gaza-----

-----and, second, the safety of our troops on the border with Lebanon and on the Golan Heights. As Taoiseach, I have a responsibility to think about the safety of our citizens and our troops on the borders of Israel. Arson is a serious crime that is punishable by up to ten years in prison. Garda investigations are under way and we expect there will be prosecutions. I agree that we need to see prosecutions and convictions. It is deeply ironic that people who oppose migration and connect migration with criminal activ…

I agree that the TV licence is outmoded. However, it remains the law. I encourage people to comply with the law and continue to pay it. It is not just about RTÉ; it is about other forms of public service broadcasting, Irish language programming and, indeed, programming for children and the arts. The Government will make a decision this year on a new funding model, which will either be a household charge collected by Revenue or Exchequer funding. I had a chance to read the Sinn Féin policy.

There is a nice picture of the Deputy and Deputy Pearse Doherty in it but it is pretty comical. I am sorry to say that but it is.

Parts of it are copied and pasted from the Future of Media Commission report. Sinn Féin's proposal to introduce an amnesty for people who did not pay is deeply insulting to people who comply with the law and do pay.