Network technicians at ESB Networks who are members of the Independent Workers Union are engaged in industrial action, including work-to-rule and work stoppages. Industrial relations within ESB Networks are a matter for the company, and while any industrial action is regrettable, the impact of this particular action is expected to be limited. The action has been taken by network technicians at ESB Networks who are members of the Independent Workers Union. This union is not affiliated to either the ESB group of unio…

I am not familiar with the rapid one-hour PCR test but I will certainly check it out and follow up on it. It is not a secret that there are differences of opinion with regard to lateral flow rapid antigen testing and rapid antigen testing in general. In the main, public health doctors are not enthusiastic about it but scientists generally are. That has been an issue all along. The report published by Professor Ferguson, the chief scientific adviser, has been endorsed by Government. We are now seeing a great deal of…

I am happy to correct the record in that regard. What I meant to say was that the laws in question were passed by this Oireachtas. I did not suggest that everybody voted for them. I understand that in only one case was an attempt made to rescind a statutory instrument. That attempt was defeated in a democratic vote of this House. On the issue the Deputy raised, I concur with him. Young people particularly those in rural Ireland but also those in urban areas, need to get on the road. There are particular issues with…

I very much welcome the recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly and I thank its members for the work they have done. They have produced a really excellent report, as did the Constitutional Convention and previous citizens' assemblies such as that which considered the eighth amendment. Government will consider these recommendations and the Oireachtas will also want to do so. We will be able to issue a reasoned response once we have done that. It is fair to say that Government will agree with and want to pursue man…

I thank the Deputy for her work on this topic. Anybody who has looked into the matter will understand the complexity of it all. Something being complex is not, however, an excuse not to act. It is our intention to put in place more permanent and durable solutions as opposed to the sticking-plaster version put in place for the Minister and for councillors around the country. One thing we need to bear in mind, which often does not come across in public debates, is that, while it is absolutely wrong that women politic…

I am not sure if there are any specific plans for the Meelick site but I will let the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, know that the Deputy has raised the matter and has some suggestions as to how it could be put into use for the benefit of the community. I am sure he will want to consider them. It is the Government's policy to phase out direct provision and it has committed to doing so but we are realistic that it will take quite some time. We have a housing shor…

As the Deputy will be aware, the Government is developing our first autism-specific strategy. It will be an important step forward. Work on that is under way. I am sorry to hear about the individual cases that the Deputy raised, but the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, who has responsibility for disability services, is taking a real interest in this matter and will do her best to improve matters over the coming years.

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. I heard the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, speaking authoritatively on it a few weeks ago. The PUP is paid directly to the individual and should not fall into this at all. However, there is a basic principle that, when it comes to an insurance policy, one cannot be compensated for the same thing twice. That is why insurers will, in some cases at least, deduct Government grants from insurance payouts. However, that money should therefore be paid by the insurance compan…

This is a fraught area and it requires some discussion, including perhaps in this House. Using vaccine passports or vaccine green passes could have the benefit of allowing us to open up our society more quickly and allow more people to return to work and businesses to open. On the down side, it would create a division in our society between people who are vaccinated and people who choose not to be or cannot be vaccinated. These issues have to be teased out. If this were a temporary measure for a few months while we…

This is the first time in a long while when the issue of trolleys or hospital overcrowding has been raised with me in the House. It used to be something that was raised nearly every week when I was on my feet. That tells a story in itself. The problem of trolleys and hospital overcrowding has not gone away by any means, but it is considerably less than it was before the pandemic. Even though emergency department attendances are back to 2019 levels, we have seen a considerable reduction in the number of people who h…

I thank Deputy Higgins for raising this issue. It is something on which the Government is working. Young people in particular need to be able to get on the road, especially in rural areas but also in urban areas, such as our shared constituencies in west Dublin. We are keen to see a return to driving lessons and driving tests and to enable theory tests to be done online, which would help. Some work is being done on this matter by the senior officials group on Covid. We should be in a position to issue some positive…

I am not aware of whether there is an appeals process. I will ask the Minister to respond to the Deputy's letter. I am aware of this issue. It has been raised with me by Deputy O'Dowd, among others, and we agreed on the need to build that road for many different reasons. It seems to fall between two stools. It is really a transport project, but the application was made under the urban regeneration fund. We need the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and the Minister for Tra…

We will certainly give the matter consideration. I am not sure we can waive the fee for five years but perhaps we can do a bit better than what we have done to date. As a result of the pandemic, many businesses have changed their models. Restaurants are doing dinner boxes and takeaways when they never did so before because they have been allowed to do so. Hospitality businesses are using outdoor space in a way they did not before. That might be a permanent change to their business model. It might create new opportu…

Deputy Bríd Smith asked about the three-year review of the abortion legislation. That is planned. I understand the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, has done some initial work on it. I will ask him to provide the Deputy with more detail on that. The Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, is aware of the anomaly relating to the SUSI grant and is examining it with a view to finding a solution. I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh for raising the matter. Deputy N…

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue of Dolphin Trust. I am afraid I am not aware of all, or even many, of the facts in relation to this issue and I am reluctant to give an answer that may be incorrect. However, I want to express my sympathy to those affected, both here in Ireland and across Europe. These were small investors who have lost money, as the Deputy said. On the questions relating to the Central Bank, the Central Bank, as the Deputy will be aware, is a regulator independent of Government. It is not p…

Obviously, this is a very serious matter, not only for the people who are directly affected. People will have questions and they will want answers. They should get those answers but, unfortunately, I am not the person who can offer those answers because this is not something that I have any detailed knowledge of but I will inform the Minister for Finance that it was raised here and ask him to answer any questions that he can. I think the Deputy mentioned that these were unregulated products. If they were unregulate…

I thank Deputy Ó Ríordáin for raising this issue, which is really important to him and really important to me too. It is true young people have suffered a lot in this pandemic. Different people and different sectors in our society have suffered in different ways. Women have suffered differently from men and older people have suffered differently from young people. Certainly, when it comes to the health impact, older people have borne the brunt of this pandemic in terms of lives lost and people hospitalised or made …

I just think that is a very cheap shot. The Deputy once again is engaging in virtue signalling, trying to make out that not only do we disagree with each other, he is also a better person than me and he cares more. That is just cheap politics, I believe. The number of times one tweets about something is not necessarily a reflection of how important one regards it-----

If the Deputy wants, he can go back and read a speech I gave to the Young Fine Gael conference only last Saturday. A large section of that speech specifically dealt with this issue, namely, how young people have been impacted by the pandemic and what we intend to do. It was covered in the media and the fact that it was not tweeted is irrelevant. That was just a cheap shot, unfortunately.

The Deputy made some very good points. However, while Denmark has had a very good response to the pandemic and is one of the few countries in Europe, or the world, with a lower mortality rate than us, we would not follow Slovakia's or Hungary's response to the pandemic because their mortality rates, sadly, are among the highest in the European Union. Deputy Shanahan is spot on in relation to e-health. A lack of an individual health identifier is a real deficiency in our health service. We have a really good PPS sys…