I thank the Deputy. At this stage, I hope that we have managed to cover almost everyone who has been left out of the CRSS with different schemes. We are considering including event catering in the new events scheme, which will be published later this month. The "B-RSS", "BRSS" or whatever we are going to call it will have a much wider reach than the CRSS. It will be for companies whose turnovers are down by 75% or more, but they will not need to have a rateable premises. It will be based on their turnover, which wa…

I would not accept that characterisation. This is a tender to extend local employment services into parts of the country where they do not currently exist. It is an improvement and expansion of services. It is open to a local employment service in one county to tender for the contract to provide services in another county. Payment by results is not a bad idea. It has proved its worth in other areas. There is considerable variation from one county to the next in the results that local employment services get. Some a…

I appreciate the need to get driver testing going again, both the theory test and the practical test. This is being provided for as part of the reopening that will occur across June and July. Approximately 40 more driving testers are being recruited. I am not familiar with the issue at the centre the Deputy mentioned, but I will let the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, know that he raised it, as she has responsibility for this area. Perhaps she will be able to explore with Deputy Mythen and the other local Deput…

I am pleased to hear the Deputy is not the only Deputy in Kerry who fills potholes. I imagine he does not charge as much as the others, but I am sure whatever they charge is a fair price. The LIS is essential for rural Ireland in improving roads that are not taken in charge but are effectively public roads. Funding for it has now gone up to €10.5 million for this year, which is up 5% on last year. Since 2017, €68 million has been spent improving and restoring 2,400 roads throughout the country. As the Deputy said, …

I agree that students and leaving certificate students have had a very difficult year. In fact, this year's leaving certificate students have had two years of disrupted learning as a consequence of the pandemic. The news that the results are coming late, in the first week of September, is unwelcome, but I understand that despite the best efforts of everyone involved it is the quickest it can be done under the new arrangements. I can certainly guarantee that nobody will lose their place in this jurisdiction as a con…

I will have to check that with the Minister for Health. It might not require legislation in the House because it is a European regulation and, therefore, may have direct effect. Thankfully, the systems that issue the Covid and vaccine certificates have not been affected by the cyberattack so we should be able to issue the digital green certificate, at least for people who are fully vaccinated. It is a bit more complicated where people have had tests and gone to private laboratories and so on. I am not really sure a…

This is a matter for Kildare County Council rather than central government, but the closure of a playground for 18 months, without any alternative arrangements being made, sounds a very long time. It is not a matter over which we have any jurisdiction, but I will certainly make inquiries and ask Kildare County Council to look again at its plans.

I understand exactly where the Deputy is coming from. We want to improve our outdoor facilities so we can enjoy a safe outdoor summer. Everything from playgrounds and play areas to public spaces and hospitality venues should be able to operate outdoors. The grant is administered by Fáilte Ireland, which is under the remit of the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Catherine Martin. I am not really sure what the answers to the Deputy's questions are, but they are valid questions a…

No.

I thank the Deputy. I will start by recognising the Deputy’s work down the years in highlighting this issue, which has been very helpful to us in government in enabling us to act on this issue. The proposal that the Deputy makes is worthy of consideration and would be a matter for the Minister for Finance rather than for me but if the Deputy would like to share it with us or produce a paper or document on it, if he has not done so already, we would be happy to give it consideration. On the face of it, it sounds lik…

I thank the Deputy and he will acknowledge that in the past, the Government has accepted legislation from him on the insurance issue and we will be willing to do so again and to work with him on this and give his proposal full consideration. As I did not hear what the insurers said at the committee, I do not want to comment directly on what I did not hear them say but if they said that they had already factored in the personal injury guidelines into their premiums, I would find that hard to believe. How would they …

The people have every reason to be hopeful about the summer ahead. The number of people in hospital is below 100, the number in ICU is below 50 and cases are stable at approximately 400 or 500 a day, as I predicted they would be several months ago, without falling much below that given the level of reopening. We are ahead of ourselves in terms of where we thought we would be regarding hospitalisations and cases. For that reason, we can look forward to a very positive announcement on Friday regarding the reopening o…

It is worth pointing out that the vaccine programme is run by the HSE rather than NIAC or NPHET, although obviously NIAC and NPHET have a role. They are much the same people, a lot of the time, writing letters to each other but that is another day's work. The Deputy asked that NIAC should explain its advice as to why we should continue to have a 12-week interval between the two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. That is a reasonable request. In fairness to both NIAC and Professor Butler, they have been very willing …

I am afraid I have not seen the report and I was not notified that Deputy Collins was going to raise it. Therefore, it is difficult for me to comment on it but I will take a look at it in the coming days. I wonder whether it is a comparison of all the local authorities in Ireland because it is the case that quite a number of Dublin local authorities do not receive much in Government grants. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown is an obvious one and my county council in Fingal has received very little, almost nothing, in Governme…

I will certainly look at the report, but it is very strange for any Deputy in this House to call for an independent inquiry, to state what the outcome should be and then to state what the punishment should be. That is nonsense, Deputy Collins. That is not what an independent inquiry does. An independent inquiry looks at something independently, it does not have a predetermined outcome and it certainly does not have predetermined sanctions for people. I think the Deputy is taking a very strange approach to this, if …

The pandemic has taken a toll on many people’s mental health for many different reasons, including isolation, loss of work, loss of income and bereavement. Thankfully, we have not seen any increase in suicide rates during the pandemic period. We worried at the start that this might happen. However, there have been increases in things like calls about domestic violence and referrals to our services. For that reason, Government has put in many additional resources for mental health across the country. Our mental heal…

The Deputy has my assurance that I will make inquiries about this today. It is only May. I do not understand how the budget could be gone. The national budget for the HSE this year is €22 billion. We are going to struggle to finance it in years ahead but it has never been bigger. The budget for mental health is €1.1 billion and has never been greater. It includes plenty of provision for improvements and new developments. I will make inquiries on the matter today and get back to the Deputy as soon as I can.

There are 334,000 people on the PUP this week. They need that money. In the vast majority of cases, this is because they are unable to go back to their jobs because of the pandemic. In the past week, 25,800 people came off the PUP because they were able to go back to work. That is really encouraging and I want to see that trend continue in the weeks and months ahead. It is my firm view that it is too soon for us to start withdrawing or phasing out the PUP because so many people do not yet have the opportunity to go…

I am worried about this matter too. Based on what I have been told and my own assessment, the cyberattack has had a greater impact on cancer treatment and care than the pandemic did. Cancer care was largely maintained throughout the pandemic but the cyberattack has really disrupted it. Cancer services, radiology, diagnostic services and radio-oncology are being prioritised for restoration. There will need to be a catch-up plan to make sure that we undo a lot of the damage that has been done as a consequence of the …

The Government's position, based on the advice of the Attorney General, is that legislation of that nature is not permitted because trade is an EU competence. I know there are alternative views but it is certainly the view of the Government's legal adviser - it was also the view of his predecessor - that legislation of that nature would not stand because trade is an EU competence, not a domestic competence. We also need to bear in mind that there are other occupied territories throughout the world in addition to th…