In this Chamber, we tend to speak almost exclusively about the right of disabled people to access services, yet many other rights make for a full life, not least the right to employment. Ireland continues to have one of the lowest disability employment rates in Europe. The wage subsidy scheme is designed to close the gap, yet what we have heard from Rehab Group, the largest employer of disabled people in the State, is deeply concerning. It has warned the real value of the subsidy has eroded because it has not kept …

I begin by commending Deputy Rice on bringing forward this motion and basing it on in-depth engagement with people affected by the crisis in GP care as well as with policy that can address it. The Government is blue in the face accusing the Social Democrats of having no solutions to the problems we highlight, which are problems it has created through a failure to plan, a failure to invest and a myopic ideological default to privatisation. The Government can rest easy today because this motion contains clear and pra…

I pay tribute to all industrial and reformatory school survivors and to those who have not lived to hear today's State apology. It is one apology in a series to those who suffered terribly in State institutions. It will ring hollow if it is not followed quickly by the enactment of commitments the Taoiseach made to the hunger strikers last November. I connected with Mary Dunlevy Greene, Mary Donovan, Miriam Moriarty Owens and Maurice Patton O'Connell during their 51-day protest outside Leinster House, in particular …

I want to bring the Taoiseach back once again to that cohort of workers who kept the health service going at our moment of deepest crisis in recent years. I refer to housekeeping staff, porters, nurses, healthcare assistants and other clinicians, some of whom contracted Covid at the height of the pandemic and went on to develop a debilitating condition known as long Covid. A small group of those workers was in receipt of special Covid leave with pay until 31 December. They were receiving that payment on the basis t…

I commend Sinn Féin on its motion. What we have witnessed in recent weeks on the issue of special needs assistants has been nothing short of a fiasco, one that has caused deep and unnecessary anxiety for families, teachers, principals and SNAs across the country. At its core this episode reveals a Government that still does not understand the daily reality of inclusion in our schools. Instead of planning properly for rising need, the Department of education attempted a crude "robbing Peter to pay Paul" exercise, sh…

I have not got to amendment No. 2 yet, Deputy.

I call Deputy Tóibín.

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. There is growing alarm and confusion among parents, teachers and special needs assistants across the country after it was revealed that at least 194 schools had been told they would lose SNA posts from September, with further reviews ongoing. In the past hour, we have heard of a backtrack from Government as it came under ferocious public pressure. It appears that the Department was reverting to a crude and narrow interpretation of care needs, restricting SNA access largely to phys…

How long will that take?

How long will the review take?

The urbanisation of our flood plains and the mass removal of native trees and hedgerows in recent decades have drastically reduced our land's ability to hold excess water. Alongside conventional engineering schemes, we need to maximise our potential for nature-based approaches to flood management. There is a clear opportunity here for farmers to be paid a premium for taking measures such as the construction of leaky dams and ponds and the planting of native trees on their land. Cork County Council commissioned a su…

A serious structural barrier has emerged in the transition to electric vehicles, EVs, that Government policy is yet to confront. Large numbers of people, particularly those in apartments, terraced houses and rented accommodation, have no driveway and, under current circumstances, they are precluded from installing a home charger. On-street charging schemes remain extremely limited and subject to inconsistent rules across local authorities. In many parts of the country, residents are simply told that no programme ex…

It is increasingly baffling how utterly in limbo many east Cork residents are left over two years on from Storm Babet. I want to acknowledge the recent planning approval for a scheme that will protect Tir Cluain estate and some nearby properties in Midleton. I am conscious that the Midleton flood relief scheme is large-scale and very complex and is slowed down by the degree of engagement with landowners that it requires. As much as it should have been completed many years ago, we cannot turn the clock back on that …

I want to ask the Minister of State why we are not maximising the potential for nature-based solutions along with engineering methods.

The International Protection Bill in its current form represents a profound shift in how the State treats people seeking refuge and asylum in this country. It does so in a way that weakens safeguards, compresses procedures and expands coercive powers without building the healthcare and protection capacity that even the existing system lacks. Human rights' organisations have warned that the Bill risks prioritising speed over fairness, deterrents over protection and administrative convenience over medical and psychol…

I met today with a group of healthcare workers who have been living with long Covid since the early stages of the pandemic. They are utterly distraught with how they have been treated by the Government after having their special Covid leave with pay cut on New Year's Eve. The Department of Social Protection will not recognise long Covid as an occupational injury for these workers because it says that it is not possible to establish with confidence that the disease has been contracted through a person's occupation a…

That was already decided.

It had.

Their condition is-----

We are all conscious that parts of the country have been gripped with anxiety this week and last week in relation to heavy rainfall and risk of flooding. So far, east Cork has been spared this time around but what we are left with is an eerie calm because we know we may not be so fortunate next week, next month or next year. There is a commitment in the programme for Government to streamlining and delivering flood relief schemes. The large-scale project for Midleton is extremely overdue at this point but it is at l…