This is an important amendment. It acknowledges the value of all disciplines in mental health for their capacity to lead mental health services. Leadership roles should be competency based and discipline non-specific, focusing on relevant clinical and organisational expertise, rather than privileging a single profession. It is custom and practice, based on a medical model of mental health service provision we need to be moving away from, that psychiatrists have automatically been clinical directors, but it is not i…

Amendment No. 251 passed me by without a chance to comment on it, so I wonder if I could comment briefly now.

Okay, fair enough.

A total of 159 healthcare workers with long Covid have been in receipt of payments over the past four to five years. Those payments are in recognition of the fact that they contracted the virus in high-risk settings such as hospital wards at the peak of the pandemic. They were often without adequate PPE. They have paid an enormous price in the form of symptoms such as debilitating post-exertional malaise. This can mean that a person might struggle to lift a cup of tea after what most of us would consider mild exert…

Last week's "RTÉ Investigates" again highlighted the failure of successive Governments to enact safeguarding legislation for vulnerable adults. We were promised this 20 years ago after the Leas Cross scandal, in 2014 after Áras Attracta and more recently after the Grace report, the Brandon report and the Emily report. We urgently need to implement the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission report into safeguarding. The safeguarding Bill on the current legislative programme is too narrow in scope.

Homelessness is well recognised as both a cause and a consequence of mental health difficulties. For the many thousands of children in this country who are caught up in the various forms of homelessness, whether that be conditions of extreme overcrowding, couch surfing, time spent in domestic violence shelters or emergency accommodation, mental health and developmental outcomes are likely to be very serious and far reaching. In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the need for safe and stable accommodation is fundamental t…

In certain parts of County Cork, and nationally, we are dealing with a set of challenges to do with flood risks that are enormous in their scale and complexity. These challenges will test us more as time goes on and as the climate crisis deepens. Prior to our day of devastation in east Cork on 18 October 2023, and since then, the response by the State to the flood risk has been detached, disjointed and inadequate. Settlements throughout east Cork that were struck on that day remain as exposed as ever to severe floo…

I commend Sinn Féin on its motion this evening. I fully support it. I will take the opportunity to say a few words about the occupied territories Bill and the remarkable journey this legislation has been on since 2018. It simply will not go away and this is in large part due to the incredible determination and forbearance of Senator Frances Black and her colleague Conor O'Neill. Whether the occupied territories Bill remains obstructed by Government under the guise of legal complexities and constraints or whether th…

In villages and towns throughout Ireland, there are vacant or derelict properties that represent a blight on their locality. They are like husks of wasted potential, preventing residents from having local community centres or some form of social or commercial hub. Bringing these vacant and derelict properties back into use would support the revitalisation of rural Ireland. Will the Minister outline the supports available from his Department to assist local communities in acquiring such buildings for community purpo…

I thank the Minister for his response. I want to raise the particular example of Ballynoe in my constituency of Cork East, where a former HSE dispensary building, a property owned by the State, has sat empty for several decades at least. Local residents believe it was last in use in the late 1970s or early 1980s but it has remained empty. It now sits boarded up with the gates locked and no access to the site. It is an eyesore for anyone passing it. Over the years the village of Ballynoe has seen its shops close. It…

I thank the Minister for his encouraging response. I hope the Department will help the local community when it makes the application. On behalf of the community council in Ballynoe I have already been in touch with the HSE, which has indicated to me that it is its intention to sell the building. In line with the HSE property protocol and Department of public expenditure rules, it will be offered to a State stakeholder before being placed on the open market. The Ballynoe residents are asking for the opportunity to l…

I commend the Independent Technical Group on its motion. I welcome the discussion of issues that are of such fundamental importance in the pursuit of a fair and inclusive society, and in how we value or fail to value the lives of our disabled citizens and our elders and, essentially, who we are as a society and as a republic. In this context, the means test for the carer's allowance, which is an essential support for those providing care to relatives, usually with chronic illness or disabilities, is unjust and shou…

In his magisterial meditation on the Holocaust, The Drowned and the Saved , Italian survivor Primo Levi detailed in a chapter “Useless Violence” some of the cruelties and deprivations to which the Nazis subjected the Jewish community of Europe prior to their murder in concentration camps. The term “useless violence” reflected the lack of any rationale, even in the twisted logic of war, for this treatment. The point was to inflict suffering for its own sake. Levi gave the example of there being no facility for toile…

Ministerial appointments by this Government have not generally filled me with joy but I was glad to hear the Minister of State would be taking up this role. It is clear he has a genuine love of nature and a wealth of knowledge to back it up that would put most of us to shame, so I welcome his appointment. Unfortunately, our trees and hedgerows have never been more in danger. The legal protections in place for habitats are wide open to abuse, due mainly to exemptions in the Wildlife Act, the cultural failure to take…

I thank the Minister for her statement. Cara Darmody, a remarkable 14-year-old disability activist from Ardfinnan in County Tipperary, today began a 50-hour sleep-out on Kildare Street in front of Leinster House. Cara is taking this action to highlight the more than 15,000 young people in this country who are overdue an assessment of need. We hear from the HSE that this figure could reach 25,000 by the end of the year. Despite all the talk about prioritising disability in the lead-up to the general election it is a…

I pay tribute to Cara Darmody and her dad, Mark. I acknowledge the leadership Cara has shown in bringing us all here this evening with this collective motion. Clinical services and educational supports for children with additional needs and disabilities are in a dire state, directly resulting from years of poor planning and under-resourcing. All of this did not come about by chance. These are the results of poor political decision-making over many years. They can be resolved by more progressive political decision-m…

I thank the Minister of State for his statement. The crisis in driver test waiting times is disproportionately affecting rural constituents and people in towns such as Youghal, where public transport links are extremely poor. The rural bus link improvements that, in fairness, we saw in some parts of the country during the previous term of Government unfortunately did not reach villages such as Whitegate, Ballycotton, Cloyne, Clonnagh and Mogeely. The housing crisis has meant that many young people are unable to aff…

I thank the Minister for his statement on the power of higher education, research and skills as economic enablers. This is a noble and important subject for us to consider. I will briefly recall an era when higher education was much better set up to develop the whole person who was passing through this important, exciting and memorable stage of his or her life. I first went to college in 1997. Third level fees had recently been abolished, opening up university and college life to many more young people than was pre…

I welcome and fully support Sinn Féin's motion. The need for urgent action on critical infrastructure is no more keenly felt than by residents of Ballyhooly in north Cork. There are chronic water pressure issues in Ballyhooly that are having a significant impact on the quality of life of those residents. This has been happening for many years. The water pressure there is never reliable for a sustained period and is frequently non-existent. Recently, the village was without water for three days. When this happens, p…

Every family in Ireland has the right to have their children educated in a school where they feel included regardless of their family's culture, background or beliefs. We have a situation whereby many families have no choice but to send their child to a school which does not align with their beliefs. Through the leadership of my colleague, Deputy Cummins, the Social Democrats are bringing forward proposals that would uphold the right to an inclusive education for all children in this country that is consistent with…