What has happened is that people have heeded the advice they received from the CMO and the Government. They are reducing their social contacts and, as a result, they are cancelling bookings in restaurants and pubs, attendance at events in bars and travel. In many ways, that sector, which has been the worst, hardest and longest hit, is now, once again, taking a hit for the team. That is why we need to support it and it is why we will do so. I point out to the House, however, that the EWSS costs €400 million a month.…

We need to make sure there is no dead weight and that is what we are working on at the moment.

I can do so. There is an initial allocation in the budget of €40 million for next year and, if that is needed and spent, then more can be found. We are not going to have a situation whereby we set up a scheme in the first few months of next year, get it up and running in the spring and summer and then tell people in the autumn it is being suspended. That is not going to happen. If we get to the point where the €40 million is spent, at that point additional money can be allocated, and that can be done through a vari…

I saw reports on the television news a few months ago about this adventure centre in County Wicklow closing. I had not heard that it has been able to secure insurance and can now reopen. That is really good news and very welcome. Having reopened, we want it stay opened, and having affordable and available insurance is going to be part of that. The first and biggest step in terms of insurance reform is the new personal injury guidelines, which have considerably brought down the awards people are paid when they incur…

I certainly will raise this matter with the Minister for Health, whom I will see today or tomorrow when we discuss the new advice from NPHET. I really welcome the fact that Deputy Devlin used the term "third dose". I really think we should stop using the term "booster dose". It is increasingly clear that this is a three-course primary vaccination, as is the case with many other vaccines. The use of the word "booster" implies it is in some way discretionary. Getting the third dose does not restore immunity to the le…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. I will certainly take it up with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. We may well need to expand the capital budget of Irish Water so it can get more work done around the country. It has been expanded already. Initial indications suggest that Irish Water will underspend its capital budget by €100 million this year, which is a substantial underspend. Perhaps there are good reasons for that, related to Covid-19 and plann…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. I received a briefing about it a week or so ago, but it is probably out of date at this stage. I will certainly talk to Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte about it, as she is the Minister of State with responsibility in this area. I will ask that she takes whatever necessary action is required to maintain and retain these important services for the people of south Dublin.

I am not an expert in the field at all, but what the Deputy said is concerning. The pattern of development in Dublin is unusual. It is almost as a low-rise city in the centre and it is increasingly becoming high-rise city around the M50 ring, which runs through the Deputy’s constituency and mine. Logic would suggest that some of the equipment would be in the M50 area to the west of the city. However, I am not an expert on the issue at all and I do not want to speak beyond my knowledge. I will take this up the Minis…

I have not yet sent my letter, a Cheann Comhairle. On the Deputy’s question, I want to give him an assurance, and an assurance to the families and children of Ireland, that this matter is in hand. Santa, his wife and his staff are fully vaccinated and they will be exempt from any travel restrictions that have to be imposed between now and then. My Department will leave no stone unturned in doing absolutely everything we can to make sure that there is no disruption to supply chains, or any kind of trade rules or iss…

On Deputy Munster's query, there are ongoing delays at the Passport Office that we are all familiar when it comes to the processing of passports. The Department of Foreign Affairs is taking on additional staff, although there are some issues with people working from home, which is making a little bit more difficult. However, additional staff are being taken on to speed the process up. We encourage people to use the online service where they can. It seems to be working more quickly than the passport express service.…

There has been extremely high and sustained demand for Covid-19 testing at community test centres over the past number of weeks. This reflects both the high prevalence of the disease in our community at the moment but also the fact that there are many other respiratory illnesses and viruses circulating in the community. With so many people, hundreds of thousands of people every day, experiencing symptoms of cold, flu, Covid-19 and other illnesses, no system in any country could cope with this level of demand. That …

The problem we are facing is that we have a pandemic that is not under control and is unpredictable. We have capacity to carry out approximately 30,000 PCR tests a day in our swabbing centres and even more than that in our laboratories, but there are limits to capacity in any system, in any country. When we have a situation where, on any given day, there could be hundreds of thousands of people with respiratory symptoms, there is no capacity that could deal with or cope with that.

That is why we have to prioritise and it is not the first time we have had to do so during the pandemic. From time to time, we have to prioritise testing those who need the test most. We are prioritising those with a GP referral and symptomatic close contacts of people who have Covid. From time to time, NPHET has had to change the testing criteria and that may be necessary again because there is only so much capacity any testing system can possibly have. It is no different north of the Border and in other parts of …

We have been increasing the number of hospital beds in Ireland since 2015.

We have 900 more beds today than we had before the pandemic began. There are 600 people with Covid in hospital.

We have 44% more doctors in Ireland than we had ten years ago.

There are 300 ICU beds now and we have funded for 340.

I thank the Deputy for raising these matters. First, I am somebody who believes in home ownership. This is a Government that believes in home ownership. I am not sure that is really true for many of the people opposite or on the left of politics in Ireland. Some 70% of people in this country own their own home and we want that to be a reality for people in their 20s and 30s. A huge part of our Housing for All policy is making the dream of home ownership a reality for more people in Ireland of all ages, particularly…

I am glad to see today that the Central Bank has announced it will allow lenders to take part in a shared equity scheme, which I think will be of benefit too.

I think it is entirely reasonable for the Deputy to criticise the Government and my party. I do not think it is reasonable for the Deputy to say that her party should not be criticised or be subject to any analysis or criticism at all. That is very one-sided. I ask her to reconsider that comment. We have 70% home ownership in Ireland. We have one of the highest rates of home ownership in the world.