I thank the Deputy. I will have to ask the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to contact him directly on this issue. The Deputy will be as familiar as I am with the refurbishment of big housing schemes in Dublin city. The issues are not always just about money, particularly if the schemes are to be retained rather than being demolished or rebuilt. If they are listed or partially listed, the work can take years but I appreciate the Deputy's point.

I would love to give people certainty, but the only certainty we can give people is that this virus makes a mockery of our plans all the time. Nobody wants a third period of restrictions in January or February but the projections of the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, present that possibility. As we ease restrictions in the coming weeks, cases will rise and that may require us to reimpose restrictions in January and February. That is simply the truth. It is not scaremongering. I am being honest with p…

We appreciate that there is a lot of work to do in the next few years to improve our water quality. It has improved a lot in recent years, but big investment by Irish Water is required to make it better. The budget for 2021 includes increased capital spending and a bigger capital budget for Irish Water, which will allow the company to make some real improvements throughout the country.

If the Deputy can provide me with the details, I will check out the legality of that example. It may already be against the law. We are now under level 5 restrictions. We hope to move to level 3 next week. At level 3, inter-county travel is allowed for work, education and essential purposes such as medical appointments or caring for elderly relatives or children who cannot be cared for by somebody else. Unfortunately, that does not cover visiting friends and relatives, shopping or weekends away. Level 3 will not pe…

I thank the Deputy for raising this really important issue. The report issued by the EPA in recent days highlights how much work we all need to do to improve air quality. As he rightly pointed out, air quality has a direct impact on health, particularly for those with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD. It is linked to higher mortality. This is a life-and-death health issue. A lot of progress is being made on the new clean air strategy. It will involve increased investment in air monitoring stati…

No.

It has been some time since I have given my views on Covid and I welcome the opportunity to share some of my thinking with the House today. As we all know, the Government faces a difficult decision in the week ahead. As we approach the end of six weeks of level 5 restrictions, we sail between Scylla and Charybdis in trying to set the right course. In doing so, we know for certain that increased human interaction will result in more people getting infected, thus increasing the chances of a third wave. The year 2020 …

I believe the appointment of Mr. Justice Séamus Woulfe to the Supreme Court was a suitable appointment. He is now a serving member of the Supreme Court and I hope that nobody is questioning his suitability to be a Supreme Court Justice, recognising the separation of powers and the need to uphold the Judiciary. He had years of experience as a barrister and a senior counsel. He was an excellent Attorney General. He was competent, efficient and approachable, notwithstanding his recent issues. He is certainly not the f…

In almost ten years serving in the Cabinet, as others will be able to attest to, I have never seen a shortlist of names brought to the Cabinet for discussion about a judicial appointment or even the appointment of a chair of a State board. That is not the practice. One name is brought to the Cabinet, and that is the case for good reasons. I think this specific vacancy arose in the Supreme Court in February. It arose in the spring. At the time, I was the Taoiseach of what people described as a caretaker Government. …

We could have filled the vacancy but chose not to. I am pretty sure it was the week before the new Government was formed that the party leaders discussed whether Séamas Woulfe would be reappointed as Attorney General or whether there would be a new Attorney General. We decided collectively that there would be a new Attorney General and that Séamus Woulfe would not be reappointed as Attorney General and at that point, for transparency and information, I informed the other leaders that there was a vacancy, that Séamu…

I will be happy to answer that question. As a person who was Taoiseach for three years and has been in government for a considerable length of time, like everyone in government or anyone who has ever been a justice spokesperson, I know the process. There is the list from the JAAB. There is a list of people who have expressed an interest in being promoted, and there is a third list of people who are eligible for promotion. I knew those lists existed. I did not know how many people were on them or the individual name…

I thank the Deputy. The Minister for Justice has acted correctly and appropriately and has upheld the Constitution in fulfilling her duties on this matter and every other matter. If this is genuinely about the process and not about the suitability of individual candidates, here is exactly what happened. When making judicial appointments the Minister for Justice considered recommendations from the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board and expressions of interest from serving members of the Judiciary and also a list o…

There is a Cabinet memo prior to the appointment being made. This is, of course, a confidential-----

-----Cabinet document. The Minister for Justice has answered questions on this. She answered them in committee yesterday-----

-----and I will read into the record of the Dáil exactly what she said because it is exactly correct: The Chief Justice earlier this year identified that there was a vacancy within the Supreme Court. He asked the then Minister for Justice, Deputy Charlie Flanagan, to fill that vacancy. The process then ensued. The JAAB, which is an independent body chaired by the Chief Justice and on which the Presidents of the courts sit on it along with others, made a recommendation. Given that there was a new Government, that th…

I thank the Deputy. Some of the questions she is asking me are questions of the Chief Justice and the former Attorney General. I cannot answer questions on behalf of other people. I certainly cannot answer questions on behalf of the Chief Justice, and I am not going to do so, but I will do my best to answer the questions the Deputy has asked of me. I should point out once again that the Social Democrats, the Deputy's party, has Private Members' time next week. It has chosen to use it to discuss greyhounds. That is …

I thank the Deputy. Quite frankly, it would be a bad idea for us in this Chamber to have a debate in which we discuss the merits and demerits of individual candidates.

That is inevitably where it would go. We heard what Deputy McDonald said yesterday, very much going into that space. Deputy Catherine Murphy touched on it herself in that she asked what the criteria were, whether there was a scoring system and other such questions. Inevitably, the discussion would get into the merits-----

-----and demerits of individual candidates. That is where it will go. There is a reason only one name comes to the Cabinet, that is, because it is not appropriate for 20 people, let alone 160, to be poring over a shortlist of three, four or five names. Inevitably, that would cause embarrassment for those who did not get the job or who got passed over. Inevitably, it would discourage people from putting themselves forward for good jobs. That is why only one name comes to the Cabinet and why we do not have a debate i…

Denmark is a fabulous and well-run country and has great public services. However, it does have a significantly higher incidence of the virus than Ireland does now. We need to bear that in mind. Notwithstanding the numbers in recent days plateauing rather than continuing to fall, we are the third lowest now in Europe. Only Iceland and Finland have a lower incidence of the virus than we do. That is testimony to the work that Irish people and society have done in reducing the transmission of the virus. I believe teac…