I join the Deputy in extending my deepest condolences to the families, friends and school communities of the children who died from strep A. It must be any parent or family's nightmare to have a healthy child one day who gets an illness and is gone a few days later. I cannot imagine what that must be like. The Government is committed to extending free GP care for children. I never felt children should be means-tested based on their parents' incomes. One of the things the former Minister of State, Kathleen Lynch, an…

There was no such incorporeal meeting that I was party to and no decision has been made that I am aware of to suspend teachers' career breaks.

Let me say this. I think the provision for career breaks is a very important one. There are lots of good reasons people may need to take a career break, often personal and family reasons, as the Deputy appreciates. The fact that the provision for career breaks exists in the public service helps encourage people into the public service and is more likely to make them stay than leave. While there may be an examination of some of the exact terms, conditions and rules around that, there is not a proposal to stop career…

The plan has not yet been brought to Government but I am informed by the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, that we will publish the national action plan against racism early next year, hopefully in January or February. I note the Deputy's comments. Migrants are welcome in Ireland. If it were not for migrants, we would not be able to staff our public services. Many of the big companies that employ many people and pay a lot of tax would not be here if it they could not recruit people from abroad. Migrants enrich our society…

I can give a commitment that the Government will examine that. A lot of progress, as the Deputy said, has been made in Waterford in recent years, particularly with the major improvement in trolley waits. It is now one of the best performing hospitals, in part because of the good clinical leadership and management there, but also the additional resources in the Dunmore wing. With a rising and ageing population, if we do not continue to expand the hospital, we will fall backwards again. We will examine what can be do…

When a complaint is made, it is appropriate that in the first instance there should be an internal investigation, and that is often what is done. There are, however, independent bodies. HIQA, for example, is an independent body that can carry out investigations in certain circumstances.

We are also, at the request of the Ombudsman, examining his proposal to allow his office to examine clinical matters, which is not currently allowed.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue, which I know he has raised before. Deputy Carey has also been briefing me on it in the past couple of weeks. It is a good thing Clare County Council is agreeing to take on these heritage sites. They will need money because work needs to be done on those sites and we want to bring them up to standard. There is a process ongoing to resolve this. I am not personally across it, so I do not know whether the right thing to do at this stage is to appoint an arbitrator or not. How…

My grandmother always told me not to tempt fate so I prefer not to assume that I will be elected Taoiseach again on Saturday week, but I thank the Deputy for his kind words. I agree that this is an issue that we need to turn around, next year hopefully. I have served as Minister for Health, I am a Deputy and I am Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and I find it very hard to explain to parents and to patients why there are treatments that are available in Britain or in other European countries that are n…

That is a very good question and like a lot of the best questions, it is hard to answer. It is fair to say that we have some of the tools but not all of them. That is what we will have to focus on now that we have the new enterprise White Paper. We set out the ambition very clearly in that regard. We need to move towards implementation, and we will do that as soon as possible.

I am afraid that I do not have up-to-date information on that issue at present, but I will let the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, know that the Deputy has raised this issue in the Dáil, and I will ask her to come back to him directly.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I am sorry to hear about that lady's experience. I worked in KDoc in Naas once upon a time and it is a good service most of the time. Perhaps particular issues relating to staff or some other matters arose. If the Deputy passes the lady's details to my office, with her permission, we will follow it up with KDoc and the HSE.

The scheme is now open to applications. We expect businesses will receive the first payments before Christmas or by the end of the year and they will be backdated to September. Payments will cover approximately 40% of the increase in electricity or gas bills. I know that still means a big increase for businesses, but it is significant help and it is what was approved under EU state aid rules. We are doing our best to ensure people know about it through business organisations, through the Revenue Commissioners and t…

We appreciate that the retained fire service is stretched. The Minister is examining the matter at the moment. I will let him know the Deputy raised it in the House and ask him to revert to him directly.

I am aware of the medicine. It is a treatment for hyperemesis gravidarum, which is a serious and debilitating illness in pregnancy if someone has the misfortune to experience it. I do not know the rationale for not allowing GPs to prescribe it. GPs routinely deal with pregnancies of all kinds, especially in early pregnancy. I am not sure whether there is a good reason for it and being unaware, I will not comment any further. I will certainly ask my office to take it up with the Minister for Health's office and reve…

The Government expresses its absolute solidarity with the people of Iran who are seeking democracy and human rights and fighting for equality for women, LGBT people and people of all religions. I express our solidarity with them. We raise these issues with the Iranian Government and with the Iranian ambassador to Ireland. Regarding our plans to reopen an embassy in Tehran, a chargé d'affaires has been appointed and is representing Ireland in Iran from the German embassy. In general, we take the view that it is bett…

I thank the Deputy. I acknowledge that Ireland faces a cost-of-living crisis, as does most of the world, and we are seeing inflation at levels not seen for a generation. That impacts different people and households in different ways. People who drive and commute are affected in a serious way because the price of petrol and diesel is so high at the moment, notwithstanding the reductions in excise duty. For that reason, any increase in tolls is extremely unwelcome. I represent a commuter constituency, Dublin West. A …

The briefing I was given was that there had not been an increase in the maximum toll for nine years. That may well be incorrect-----

-----and I will get that double-checked today. In terms of information, I was not informed, nor were the Taoiseach or the Cabinet, but I accept the doctrine of collective responsibility and if Ministers were aware, then the Government was collectively aware. The question now is what we can do about it. I would like to be able to give a cast-iron commitment today but it would not be responsible to do so until we have explored the options. I think what the Minister, Deputy Ryan, said was that he would not like to see…

I do not think it is correct to say what the Deputy said about every metric. I will just mention two, as she raised metrics. We anticipate this year between 20,000 and 28,000 new homes being built. That does not include derelict homes being brought back into use and student accommodation. Approximately 26,000 to 28,000 new houses and apartments will be built in Ireland this year. That is the highest in ten years and we need to increase that figure again next year. Although we have a long way to go, the most encoura…