That is priority legislation so we expect it to be in the House shortly.

The Plan for Living with Covid-19 sets out the metrics we use to determine whether we can ease restrictions and go down a level or increase restrictions and go up a level. It includes deaths and five-day and seven-day average cases, the number of ICU beds available, hospitalisations and, of course, crucially, the trajectory. Is it getting better or worse, and if so, how fast? We have generally avoided specific or exact numbers because it confines decision-making. As the Deputy will appreciate, the number of cases d…

I know this is an issue of real concern to the Deputy. It has been raised with me by others as well. I do not know if there are any plans at present for financial packages for the industry. I will ask the Minister to personally come back to the Deputy in detail, however.

I am not familiar with the particular service the Deputy mentioned but I am familiar with the real problem of problem gambling, which is probably getting worse during this pandemic because people are so restricted. If the Deputy wants to pass the details on to me or to my office, I will see what we can do. It would probably be a matter for the Minister for Health or the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Feighan. If the Deputy passes the details on to me I will make inquiries.

If the Deputy wants to pass on the details of that family to me, I will look into it and see if we can do something for them in terms of a transport grant or making some arrangement so they can get to their service. Our main focus is trying to get primary schools back open for children with special and additional needs. I am glad that engagement has resumed between the Department of Education and trade unions on that. It is hoped that can be done soon because those kids and parents need the special schools open.

That will be led by the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys. I am not sure when she will start the review. I suspect it will be this year and I will find out for sure and let the Deputy's office know.

This kind of falls between my Department and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. On my side, we are reviewing our schemes with a view to consolidating them. We have some very good schemes such as the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, which helps with payroll, the Covid restrictions support scheme, CRSS, which helps with the fixed costs of running a premises if it has been closed, low cost loans, reduced VAT rates, and so on. In my Department, we are looking in particular at whe…

I thank the Deputy for raising the important issue of eating disorders, which is much more common than people think and which probably does not get discussed enough in this House. I will have to get a report on the plan to meet that commitment for the Deputy from the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, but it is a commitment we are determined to meet.

It is important to say that this will be the salary for the next Secretary General of the Department of Health. The incumbent does not receive it. That job will be open to competition and people will be able to compete for it and for that new salary. As is the case with any salary of this nature, the decision on it is made by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, but he made that decision with the full knowledge and agreement of the three party leaders in government.

This was raised in the Dáil last week and I undertook to look into it. I have a report from the Department of Justice which I will send on to the Deputy. It is being worked on and the delays might not be as severe as people may think.

I thank the Deputies for raising this important issue. I will seek a reply from the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine for them. If they have evidence of meat factories behaving as cartels, which, of course, is against the law, I would encourage them to contact the consumer and competition authority about that with the information they have.

No.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate and to recommend the EU-UK Trade and Co-operation Agreement to the House. Brexit is not good for Ireland, Britain or Europe, and Brexit was not our decision. It was a decision of the British people, one we regret but one we respect. From day one, our policy was to protect Ireland, the Good Friday Agreement, citizens' rights both North and South, jobs and businesses, to avoid a hard border and to ensure that Ireland's position in the European Union and its Singl…

I thank the Deputy. First, the situation in our hospitals remains very precarious and, unfortunately, it is continuing to deteriorate. The very best way we can support the staff working in our acute hospitals is to continue to abide by the restrictions, to social distance and to do all the things that are being asked of us. That is what we need to do to decrease the number of people getting Covid and going into hospital. That is the best way that we can turn the corner on the current situation. As the Deputy will k…

The Deputy asked about Be On Call for Ireland. As I mentioned earlier, that was something we launched last March. I launched it as Taoiseach with the Minister for Health at the time, Deputy Harris. We had a significant level of interest in it but it did not turn out to be what we thought it would be because we found that a significant number of people were not available. Some were not resident in the State. Some were already working within the health service and we did not want to redeploy them from areas where the…

I thank Deputy Berry - Dr. Berry - for his contribution and for the work I know he has been doing on the front line in respect of the vaccination programme. The programme is well under way. We are doing better than people think. There are approximately 200 countries in the world but only 40 have started a vaccination programme and we are among those. We are now in the top ten or 12 in terms of vaccines given per day and we are above the EU average. Of course, we aspire to climb in the rankings and to be in the top …

I am really glad the Deputy brought this up because it has been on my mind as well. I am conscious that a large number of volunteers are helping out in the testing centres and swabbing centres. Not only are these people giving up their time, they are also willing to put themselves at a certain degree of risk of contracting the virus. That needs to be recognised properly, so we are giving consideration to recognising their contribution in some way, perhaps through some form of honorarium. I have not worked that out …

To answer the Deputy's question, it is okay to ask questions and, yes, it is okay to have doubts and to seek reassurance and information. That is entirely reasonable. During my time practising as a doctor - as a GP - I worked in vaccine clinics. People had questions and concerns and it was my job to answer their questions, give them accurate information and assuage their concerns. The Deputy and I are both on the same page in that regard. We have a very good record in Ireland when it comes to take-up of vaccines. W…

It is always okay to ask questions, particularly if the purpose of asking the question is to seek information. It is different when people ask questions for rhetorical reasons, namely, when they are trying to make a point rather than seeking information. We all recognise that. As to what is happening in terms of our hospitals, there have been issues from time to time in individual hospitals and on individual days of vaccines running out and so on. By and large, however, the people who are providing our vaccines in …

Under the new rules, any person entering the State through our ports or airports will have to have had a PCR test with a negative result within 72 hours of their arrival. The only exception that is being made is for people who are transport workers in that supply chain, such as hauliers, cabin crew and pilots, for obvious reasons. Some exceptions are made on compassionate grounds where someone needs to get back to the country very quickly because they may have a dying parent or child or something on those lines. Th…