Tá tábhacht bhreise ag baint le Lá na hEorpa i mbliana do mhuintir na hÉireann. Táimid ag comóradh 50 bliain mar bhall den Aontas Eorpach. Bhí ról tábhachtach ag ár mballraíocht i bhforbairt na tíre seo ó 1973 i leith. This year's Europe Day has additional significance for the Irish people. We are marking 50 years as a member of the European Union. Our membership has played an important part in our country's development since 1973. The story of a modern, prosperous, and progressive 21st century Ireland is interwove…

I thank the Deputy for raising the important issue of the various challenges that affect our health service. As somebody who has worked in the public health service for seven years and has served as Minister for Health and as Taoiseach, I am not in any denial about the challenges faced by patients or staff in our health service. There are certainly too many patients waiting too long to see a specialist or get the procedure that they need. We have a chronic problem of emergency department overcrowding. However, we s…

I have only seen the media reports of the survey the Deputy mentioned. I have not had a chance to read it yet. My understanding from what I was briefed on earlier is that it relates to three out of four staff having considered at some point leaving their work area, not necessarily their profession, which is obviously a different thing. However, I acknowledge that we need to continue to improve terms, conditions and pay for our healthcare staff, including our doctors and nurses. We have a pay deal which was ratified…

It is important that the Deputy hears it.

It is important that Deputy McDonald hears it because north of the Border her party has been in and out of government for nearly 20 years, and has held the office of finance minister, health minister and joint Head of Government on regular occasions. I would take the patient outcomes and the performance of our health service down here anytime over those in Northern Ireland-----

-----where patient outcomes are worse, waiting lists are higher and staff get paid much less.

I thank the Deputy. As I have often said before in this House, homelessness is a stain on our society. As a Government, we are honour-bound and duty-bound to do everything we can to reduce the number of people who are required to stay in State-provided emergency accommodation over the next months and years. We had a period when we were able to bring it down by 30% to 40%, but it has gone back up again. We are going to take the action that is necessary - it has to be action that is effective - to bring those numbers…

The Deputy mentioned the fact that we have a budget surplus, and we do. We also have the biggest budget for housing in the history of the State. If it were a matter of money and budgets, this problem would have been solved a long time ago. There are many other constraints and she rightly pointed out that one of the constraints is the availability of labour and construction staff to do all the work and building we need to do, not just houses, but schools, metros, wind energy and so on. The Bill the Labour Party has …

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. I was aware of the protests when I visited Cork last week. This is a live issue and, because it is an industrial relations matter, I am limited in what I can say in the House. I understand Cork City Council has invited SIPTU to talks with a view to finding a solution to the dispute and remains available to meet staff representatives. The city council is also engaging with the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, which is the Government office often used to facili…

We published the retained fire service review. It went to Cabinet only a few weeks ago. Approximately 1,000 submissions were made, including many from the retained service. As a point of context, it is worth pointing out once again that we are very close to full employment in this country with 2.6 million people at work. This is more than ever before. We have more public servants than we ever had in the past. Recruitment and retention challenges exist across our economy, in the public sector and the private sector …

It is absolutely the job of every Deputy to fight their corner for their county and for their region, and I do not have any difficulty with the Deputy doing so, but it is worth putting on the record of the House the considerable investment that has happened in the south east under this and the previous Governments, and investment that is ongoing and to come, for example, the long-awaited North Quays development now under way. More than €200 million worth of taxpayers’ money is being invested in that project, buildi…

I share the Deputy's frustration about the fact that so many infrastructure and capital projects take time to come to fruition and I can guarantee that it is not unique to the south east. I will not embarrass myself by listing them, but all of us from Cork and Dublin can tell the Deputy about capital projects in both counties that we would have liked to have started a long time ago but which, for reasons beyond our control, were delayed. That is just one of the realities that we face, although the new planning and …

On the cost of living and the high grocery prices that people are facing, we are seeing evidence now that inflation is slowing down. It peaked at around 10% and is now around 6% and we expect it to fall to 5% by the end of the year. While inflation slowing down is not the same as prices coming down, there is some evidence that some prices are coming down. Certainly the price of petrol and diesel peaked quite some time ago. We are now seeing the price of milk and butter coming down, given the announcement today by o…

Sorry, yes. In regard to the issue on wood chips, I do not have any information on that but I will come back to the Deputy on it, if he lets me check it out.

In regard to the issue raised by Deputy Paul Murphy, again I want to be clear about what I meant last week. It is the job of Dáil Éireann to hold Ministers to account. Of course Ministers should come in here and make statements and answer questions in regard to their ministerial responsibilities. However, this matter does not relate to the Minister of State, Deputy Collins's, ministerial responsibilities. It relates to events of the Bruff area committee, 16 years ago. That is a different matter, in my view.

If Deputies are going to come in here-----

-----and account for their actions that are not related to their ministerial functions, why is it that the Deputy did not come in here? He detained two women against their will in Jobstown several years ago.

It found him not guilty of a particular offence-----

The Deputy was found not guilty of a particular offence-----

-----but given that case was even more recent than the Bruff local area division meeting, why is it not appropriate for Deputy Murphy to come in here?