Imagine a new mother in acute psychological distress being told that to get the inpatient care she needs she must be separated from her baby. This is still the reality in Ireland because, nine years after it was recommended, we still do not have a specialist mother and baby unit. This is highlighted today on thejournal.ie . The Irish Association for Infant Mental Health, I-AIMH, is clear that women and babies should be supported together. We know this in our bones. A mother and her baby should not be separated. Tha…

The central problem with this legislation is that it changes the assessment of need process without addressing the issue at play here, namely, the chronic under-resourcing of our services, compounded by the recruitment embargo in 2023, followed by the pay and numbers strategy, which was another form of recruitment restriction. We can change the eligibility for an assessment of need and we can change procedures or produce new guidelines, but if a child who does not proceed through the full statutory assessment of ne…

Overcrowding on the Midleton-Cork rail line is reaching farcical levels. For a prolonged period, peak-time services have been left operating with just two carriages. This morning, a constituent told me the train was again dangerously overcrowded, with the driver on one journey having to get out to stop commuters boarding at Glounthaune and Little Island. My colleague, Councillor Eamonn Horgan, has been raising this issue over the past year. Irish Rail accepts that peak-time services are overcrowded but says there a…

The campaign group Before We Die has been seeking access to a report undertaken by Grant Thornton and commissioned by the HSE, under the title of the national disability services needs analysis. This appears to be a major examination of need across disability services intended to inform future planning, funding and investment. Yet, the HSE has told Before We Die that the report will not be published while at the same time saying the report is not being withheld. Why is a report of this importance being kept out of …

The separation of the Minister of State's decision-making around the publication of the Grant Thornton report from the HSE's decision-making is perplexing because this report seems to span across disability services. As we all know, there are children waiting years for therapies, families unable to get adequate respite or home support, young people falling into gaps as they reach adulthood, adults living with ageing parents who have no idea what will happen when they can no longer care for them, older adults with n…

I thank the Minister of State. I find this rationale extraordinary. For years, disabled people and their families have told us that services have developed reactively, after people reach crisis points, if they are developed at all. The HSE has now commissioned what sounds like a substantial analysis drawing together population data, waiting lists, workforce information and the experiences of families, providers and disabled people. Before We Die participated in that research and is now being denied access to it. Th…

I ask about CAMHS-ID services, which are specialist teams for children and adolescents with a moderate to profound intellectual disability and coexisting mental health difficulties. According to the HSE, and by its own admission, no CAMHS-ID team nationally is staffed to the level recommended in its own model of care. Will the Minister of State set out the current number of approved CAMHS-ID posts, broken down by discipline and team, the number of new posts approved in 2026, the shortfall against the model of care,…

I already established, earlier this year, that the staffing levels of CAMHS-ID teams across the country are abysmal. These are children and teenagers with very complex needs. They experience major challenges across all aspects of their daily lives, including with communication and learning. Some have physical and sensory needs, as well as significant mental health difficulties. Yet, the specialist service meant to support them has been funded at less than half of what the HSE says is required. We need to be clear t…

The Department is not funding the teams. That is the main issue. There is a stark double standard here. In mainstream CAMHS, multidisciplinary staffing is treated as basic good practice. In CAMHS, there is meant to be consultant psychiatry, psychology, social work, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy, but we know the CAMHS-ID services are patchy and understaffed. In some areas, they are non-existent. Some services are operating with little more than a psychiatrist, with limited or no access to occu…

It is less than half of what it is meant to be.

I move: That Dáil Éireann: agrees that: — every adult with an intellectual disability has the right to live as independently as possible in their own community, with the supports they need to live with dignity, autonomy and security; — Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) recognises the equal right of disabled people to live in the community, with choices equal to others; — each adult with an intellectual disability is a unique individual, with their own pr…

I came here today in a genuine spirit of constructive engagement with Government. I have no interest in reducing this crisis to party politics, but I have to say the response of the Minister, Deputy Foley, and that of the Minister of State, to this motion has left me utterly deflated. I have no doubt that sentiment will be shared by many people who have tuned in today who are counting on Government to take comprehensive and decisive action on this crisis. Out of a ten-minute statement, the Minister, Deputy Foley, s…

The Taoiseach originally told us the occupied territories Bill could not be enacted because of legal constraints. More recently, he admitted that the real obstacle, in his eyes, is the fear that American companies might abandon Ireland. This is despite the fact that his own party not only voted for this Bill in 2019 but actually introduced it to the Dáil on behalf of Senator Frances Black. He promised voters during the general election campaign of 2024 that he would enact it. Is there any level of mass murder, Stat…

How about enacting a Bill that you voted for?

What about enacting a Bill that you voted for?

The Taoiseach voted for the Bill and then gutted it.

More than 500 Ukrainian residents in Trabolgan, east Cork, are facing eviction from the holiday village. They include 167 children and 74 pensioners. Many of those children are settled in local schools. These are people who fled war and have over time become part of the community in east Cork. Local teachers, SNAs, volunteers and community groups have worked in partnership with them to help the children settle, build trust and give the families a sense of stability after trauma. I appreciate that a temporary accomm…

First, I commend my colleague, Deputy Gibney, on today’s Private Members’ motion and for her strength of advocacy on Palestine. The Israel-Ireland match should not go ahead. This is not a normal sporting fixture. It is a fixture involving a state that is carrying out genocide in Gaza, maintaining an ethno-supremist system of apartheid and accelerating ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and now southern Lebanon. The Government wants credit for recognising the State of Palestine. I welcomed that recogn…

The recent RTÉ "Prime Time" programme on dereliction should shame the Government into action on this issue. It showed that driving the blight of dereliction is an abject failure of enforcement as well as a failure to even record the number of properties that are being left to rot in our towns, villages and cities. The problem is painfully visible in east Cork. Castlemartyr is a beautiful, historic village with enormous potential but large parts of its main street have been scarred by long-standing, egregious dereli…

I raise the case of Paudie Cody from north Cork. As the Taoiseach knows, the Cody family has already suffered the devastating loss of Paudie's younger brother, Rory, to Friedreich's ataxia. Paudie, who is 16, is living with the same cruel condition and his health is deteriorating. I welcome the compassion the Taoiseach showed in meeting Paudie's father, Craig, in recent days and his commitment to do everything he can to help secure access to Skyclarys for Paudie and other patients who may benefit from it. I also ac…