I thank Deputy Naughten for raising the important issue of the establishment of an early intervention ASD class in St. Teresa's special school, Ballinasloe. The Deputy has a long-standing interest in disability and looks out for the special educational needs of children in his constituency and beyond. The former Senator, Maura Hopkins, has spoken to me about this issue as well. The Government is deeply conscious of the worry facing some families in finding suitable accommodation and school places for their children…

There has been a phenomenal investment in special education in recent years. The budget is now almost €2 billion. One in every five euro we spend on education is for special education, roughly the same as we spend on higher education. In the last ten years the number of special classes has trebled. There will be an extra 1,000 special needs assistants for schools this year and an additional 120 special education teacher posts, as well as 31 speech and language therapists. A huge amount of investment has gone into s…

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue of job losses and employment in Kerry. As a result of what has happened to the economy due to this pandemic, we have all seen a major increase in unemployment in recent months. Thankfully, it is falling, and people have seen that the number of people on the pandemic unemployment payment, which peaked at more than 600,000, is now below 300,000 and is still falling at a rate of approximately 20,000 to 30,000 per week, which is encouraging. In addition, more than 400,000 people…

The Deputy can be assured that the Government will do the best we can and work might and main to find an alternative employer or investor for the facility. It would be a shame to see it go unused. The company says it will work with us on this, but it would be a new company coming in and probably producing something different. I was talking to the Minister, Deputy Foley, and Deputy Griffin about this the other day. We are very keen to put Government resources behind Kerry and to make sure it gets its fair share of i…

Farmers and the farming community have been among the unsung heroes of the pandemic. One of the real worries we had at the start of the pandemic was distribution, supply and getting food into shops, onto tables and into and out of the island. Between the farming sector, our hauliers and our logistics industry, we made sure this was never a problem. We appreciate their role in that, not only in making sure we had solid food supply in Ireland but making sure other parts of the world and Europe were also well fed. The…

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Calleary, will make an announcement on GLAS when he is ready to do so. He will want to make that announcement as soon as he can. I do not know the details but the Minister may need Commission approval or other things to continue the scheme but I am sure he will be keen to make that announcement as soon as he can and as soon as it is confirmed. I will have to pull out the programme for Government but, to the best of my knowledge, the commitment the Deputy ref…

The Cabinet will meet on Tuesday next week to make a decision on whether we can move to phase 4 or something like it. We do not have the formal advice from NPHET on that yet. That depends on two things, first, the numbers of new cases of the virus over the last couple of days and the next couple of days and, second, any particular bespoke arrangements or guidelines that might be put in place to allow particular sectors to open. We would all like to see the pubs opened with social distancing and to see people able t…

There is no mystery and no conspiracy here and the Deputy can exaggerate it and all the rest. I am happy to be very clear about this. There are particular security protocols when it comes to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade travelling to Northern Ireland. When that Minister, whoever he or she may be, travels to Northern Ireland, that person has to have a Garda car and Garda protection, that is, an armed driver. They are met at the Border by the PSNI which escorts them throughout Northern Ireland. That has…

I am not au fait with the details of this matter but the Deputy Chief Whip, Deputy Griffin, tells me that what has been said is not accurate, and Deputies will have 20 minutes of speaking time. What we are endeavouring to have in this Dáil, which is entirely appropriate, is that speaking time should be proportionate. Every Deputy elected to the Dáil has a mandate, and every mandate is equal. We had a situation in the previous Dáil where Government backbenchers could not get speaking time. Independent Deputies and p…

Everybody elected to this House is equal and their mandate is equal.

Deputies opposite can try to shout us down as much as they like but we are going to re-establish democracy in this House. This means that every Deputy is equal, every Deputy should have an equal right to speaking time and there should be no preferential arrangements for Independent Deputies or micro parties.

I understand officials from the Department were in Cahersiveen yesterday trying to resolve this issue. We do, of course, want it resolved but before somebody can be moved to alternative appropriate accommodation, we have to find that accommodation. There is a difficulty in this regard and I think everyone appreciates that. The Deputy named somebody who is not a Member of the House and made an allegation against that person. I do not know the person and I do not know whether the allegation is true, but I am pretty s…

I thank the Deputies for raising this important issue. I share their sentiments. I too would like to see pubs and bars open on 10 August if it is possible for them to do so within the public health guidelines. I hope we will be able to make that decision in the affirmative next Tuesday but I cannot guarantee it at this stage. I totally agree that pubs offer significant employment throughout the country and are also really important to our social fabric, not just in rural areas but in urban areas too. A package will…

We are very keen to see disability services reopening as soon as possible. We want it to be done in a way that is safe for the staff and the service users. Many families are now at their wits' end. This has gone on for so long, since the pandemic started in March. In some cases, service users are regressing and going backwards, which is a matter of worry and concern for all of us. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, has informed me that adult day services will gradually resume throughout August and service prov…

Unfortunately, this problem has been going on for a long time and we have struggled to deal with it. In some cases, there might be 16 and 17 year olds in an adult unit, while in other cases a decision is made in consultation with the family to put a child in an adult unit nearer to home rather than a children's unit far away. Still, it is not a satisfactory practice. As long ago as when I was Minister for Health and Kathleen Lynch was Minister of State with responsibility for this area, we worked very hard on this …

I do not know the details of the individual case raised by Deputies Ó Murchú and Fitzpatrick or the particular service that was mentioned but I am sorry to hear that story and my heart goes out to that man and his family. I wish to pass on my condolences to them at this time. I will not comment on the individual case or the service as I do not know anything about them but I will let the Minister know this was raised in the Chamber today. We have made a huge progress on mental health and suicide prevention in recent…

I did not say it was not about beds. I said it was not just about beds. There is more to healthcare in Ireland than hospital beds. Many services can and should be provided through general practice and in community settings. The Deputy can feel free to misrepresent me for the next five years. It is in the nature of her party to do so-----

-----and I am sure that modus operandi will continue from that particular party.

We had been making significant progress on waiting lists prior to the pandemic. For many months, if not for more than a year, we were seeing reductions in the number of people waiting for an operation or a procedure and reductions in the number of people waiting to attend an outpatient clinic. It was still a bad situation but we had been going in the right direction and then came Covid-19, which changed everything. It meant that much normal healthcare had be suspended to prioritise Covid-19 care or because it was n…

I do not think we have got started on that aspect yet, but it is in the programme for Government. It is something that the Government and all three parties in government are committing to doing, because we need an accurate way to measure well-being in our society that is about more than GDP and about more than trolley numbers. We need something more sophisticated than any of those metrics. Regarding looking to other countries, New Zealand has done some good work in this area and our new Governor of the Central Bank…