Sometimes ICU beds go to emergencies rather than people who are on waiting lists. We are expanding ICU and HDU bed capacity. I do not have the exact figures in front of me, but I understand there has been an increase of 25% in the past three years alone under this Government. I will check the figures and come back to the Deputy with the detail in writing.

I thank the Deputy. The future of energy in Ireland is renewable. That is the safest, most secure and cheapest way to provide for our energy needs in the long term. We need renewable energy, backed by interconnection to Britain and Europe, and mass battery storage in Ireland. That transition is very much under way. It is happening all around us, all over the country, such as the wind farms, battery storage in the midlands and the interconnector between Ireland and France. Work is very much under way and that is ver…

I thank the Deputy. It is interesting, bordering on comical, that the Deputy who opposed the carbon tax is now calling on us to use the carbon tax-----

-----which he opposed to pay for gas storage. It is so absurd I do not think I will go down that road at all. Storage has to be paid for. Nobody is going to store for free a huge amount of gas for us which has to be burned off or brought into the system every couple of months. The proposal is that the user of gas will pay for the storage. That makes sense to me. The Deputy is proposing that it be paid for by a tax he is against. That makes no sense.

The starting salary for a teacher in Ireland is now over €41,000 and is significantly higher than the equivalent figure in Northern Ireland or Britain, for example. An extra 3,700 newly qualified teachers have registered with the Teaching Council this year and there are now more than 120,000 teachers registered to work in Ireland. Budget 2024 contains a range of targeted teacher supply measures. These include a professional master of education incentive scheme, which will be introduced for teachers graduating in 20…

First of all, I want to acknowledge the really excellent work that Threshold does. It receives significant Government funding and, as a consequence of that, is able to do a lot of its work. As it often points out, very many notices to quit, far from being eviction notices as the Deputy claims, are invalid. It is really important that people seek advice from bodies like Threshold if they receive a notice to quit and do not have anywhere else to go. We have passed lots of legislation in this House in the past ten yea…

I have read about this issue in the past few weeks, but I am not fully up to date on it and I do not want to give the Deputy a misleading reply, so I will ask the line Minister to revert to her during the day or tomorrow.

That is probably a matter for Cork City Council rather than central government, but I will let the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, and the Minister of State, Deputy O’Donnell, know it was raised and ask them to revert to Deputy Barry with a further reply.

I appreciate that this is a very important issue. I will ask the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, to revert to the Deputy on it directly.

I thank the Deputy very much for his question. I have the Housing for All action plan update to hand. The graph on page 3 tells a great story. We went from building fewer than 7,000 new homes in 2011 to building just under 30,000 last year. We will build well over 30,000 next year, meaning more than a quadrupling of the number of new homes built in the past ten years. We need to do even more than that over the next couple of years to reduce the housing deficit. Of course, the LDA is part of that. On the Deputy's su…

I commend the Deputy on his ongoing and consistent interest in rare diseases and orphan drugs. He always makes sure these matters do not slip off the agenda. He asked some very specific questions to which I do not have answers but I will make sure he gets the information he needs in the coming days.

I thank Deputy Stanley for raising this important issue. Many members of the LGBT community living in rural areas or outside the big cities can often feel very isolated and therefore need support from the Government. The Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Fleming, who is sitting beside me, has advised me he is on the case, as is Deputy Stanley. The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, is examining the matter. I hope we will get some good ne…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. It is important that we as a Government encourage young farmers, so I am not sure why the restrictions are in place. I will make inquiries today with the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue, and revert to Deputy Dillon with a more detailed reply.

I thank Deputy Cathal Crowe for raising this important issue. I have a note from the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, advising me that in light of the circumstances of Ennistymon Community School, she has asked her officials, on an exceptional basis, to continue funding the school meals programme for all students until the end of the current academic year, which will run until next summer. This will allow time for her to engage with the principal and board of management at Ennistymon Community Scho…

I do not have a date for the Deputy. I will make inquiries of the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, as to when that is being done. I am familiar with the legislation; I remember us working together on it. I am not as up to date on it as I would have been then. I will certainly make inquiries with the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, and ask him to come back to the Deputy directly.

I will need to double-check on the high-tech drugs. My understanding is that anybody who is receiving them will continue to do so. I will double-check on that. We have a serious issue with medicine shortages across the world at the moment; production just has not kept up with demand. It is not unique to Ireland; it is very much a European and international problem. It has always been a bit of a problem but I have never seen it this bad. The industry needs to ramp up production. In almost all cases, it can be resolv…

I very much agree with the Deputy. The recent flooding events in Midleton in Cork and around the country reminded us, if we needed to be, that we need to accelerate climate action but also that we particularly need to accelerate adaptation. Climate change is a global problem that we can only make a very small contribution to changing, unfortunately. However, adaptation is entirely within our hands now. We need to increase our focus on adaptation over the coming years and we will. It is about much more than flood re…

I understand the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is working with officials on this at the moment. The last time I checked with him, he anticipated he would be able to make an announcement before the end of the year. We would very much like to see a second round happening during the term of this Government but, of course, that will depend on how long the term of the Government lasts.

The Deputy has asked a very valid question. I join her in expressing my deep concern about what is happening around Al-Shifa Hospital at the moment. I was encouraged to hear President Biden in particular speaking on this issue. We maintain diplomatic contacts with Israel for a number of reasons. Diplomatic relations do not, of course, mean that we are necessarily friends or allies. However, it does mean that we talk and can at least deal with each other. Emily Hand, an Irish citizen, is being held hostage by Hamas …

There are many aspects to road safety. The condition of our roads is one of them, but much more important are driver behaviour, enforcement, safety of vehicles and so on. We need to attack the issue of road safety from all different angles. I will be chairing a ministerial meeting on road safety tomorrow. I think it is the first time any Taoiseach has chaired a meeting of Ministers on road safety in a very long time - perhaps more than ten or 12 years. I am really bothered about the increase in road deaths this yea…