I acknowledge and am very enthusiastic about the enormous investment that we have made in sport, but this is really about measures to increase strength, resistance training and flexibility. We know that about 250,000 people have osteoporosis in Ireland - approximately 20% of women and 6.2% of men aged over 50. Annually, we see in the order of 32,000 fragility fractures, basically because of lack of strength. The estimated cost of that to our health service is €464 million annually, not to mention the pain to the in…

I thank the Tánaiste and I look forward to engaging further on it. I know he is serious about this. However, I always wonder when "dead weight" is mentioned by the dead hand of the Department of Finance.

If I have a fragility fracture, I can get a tax relief on my healthcare expenses, I can get tax relief on my nursing home expenses, and I can get tax relief if I go to a physiotherapist, an osteopath or a chiropractor, but if I decide to join to join the gym in order to be able to build my resistance, I will not get tax relief. There is a long-term financial saving on the health side. I have made this case often before. We need to think about the Department of Health not as a Department of sickness and illness. We …

The Minister of State is entirely correct in that the best insurance is where we have the necessary flood protection and indeed coastal protection schemes. In some of the communities near where I live, such as Arklow, Aughrim and Enniscorthy, recently we have witnessed the dramatic impacts of floods. I wish to focus on Bunclody where they had floods for the first time in 60 years where people did have insurance, particularly along Ryland Road, on some of the properties. Now those businesses and homes do not expect …

I am sure the Taoiseach will join me in thanking and praising the work of the local authorities and many voluntary groups in the response to Storm Chandra last week. When he came to Aughrim on bank holiday Monday he met with Aughrim Tidy Towns, which has done incredible work in the community providing support to the victims of the floods. The big issue we are now dealing with, which is a particular problem for north Wexford and south Wicklow, apart from the impact on homes and businesses, is the state of the roads.…

It is more than just Aughrim.

Critical to the delivery of housing, the Government's top priority, is the need to unlock infrastructure that will allow that housing to be provided. I would be grateful for an update on the housing activation fund. In particular, the provision of the northern inner relief road for Gorey will unlock 73 acres of land in St. Waleran's for housing development. Now that the wastewater treatment plant in Arklow has been opened by the Taoiseach, there is provision for the town to grow, but a second bridge over the river …

Today I raise the question of the sustainability of section 39 organisations. The Tánaiste will be aware that these organisations in all of our communities, and there are hundreds of them around the country, are vital for health and social care services particularly in the area of disability, hospice care, and care for our elderly. They engage in service level agreements with HSE. They are very heavily reliant on volunteers. All of those volunteers are a wonderful part of all of our communities. I have to acknowled…

I thank the Tánaiste for his answer. The WRC decision and the commitment that section 39 workers will be part of future public sector pay discussions are critical. There is a challenge for a lot of the section 39 organisations in meeting standards. I will give the example of cyber resilience. We know the impact of the cyber-attack on the HSE, and the hundreds of millions it is costing to ensure the HSE is cyber resilient. However, we expect the same level of cyber resilience of section 39 organisations, which carry…

The Taoiseach will be aware of the impact of Storm Chandra, particularly on the Wicklow-Wexford constituency. I pay tribute to the county councils, emergency crews and volunteers. In villages right across the constituency, in Woodenbridge, Laragh, Aughrim, Wicklow town, Castletown, Clohamon and Bunclody, we have seen rivers and streams burst their banks. I welcome the Government's opening of the humanitarian assistance scheme and that every support will be made available to those villages and communities. However, …

This issue is critical, particularly in the context of our need to deliver housing across the State. If we are to deliver homes, we must ensure that we have in place critical energy infrastructure and water and wastewater infrastructure. The first question the person in charge of every State agency should be asking every morning is what is he or she doing to help to address the housing crisis. If those people are not asking that question, their vision is clearly wrong and perhaps they are in the wrong job. I can ci…

I ask the Minister for Health for an update on the long-promised, long-awaited and long-overdue primary care centre at Gorey, County Wexford.

The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, will recall that in my time in the Seanad, I raised this issue four times as a Commencement matter. I raised it as a Topical Issue in this House on 13 February last year, which was also answered by the Minister of State. She concluded her response on that occasion by saying: "I have no doubt I will be back in here again to answer about the Gorey primary care centre." The commitment from the HSE at that time, which she said was certain, was that the advertising on the eTenders p…

I recognise the Minister's commitment in this area. It is critical that we have a primary care centre that will include the local CDNT, have adequate facilities and include the planned additional CAMHS unit. My issue has been that when the project was conceived in 2010, everyone locally said the site identified by the HSE would not work. Finally, the HSE accepted that. When we had a meeting with the then Minister, Stephen Donnelly, his remark about the project was that even with all the time delays concerning the n…

With regard to affordable housing, while there is a need for more to be done, I welcome the fact that the Minister was in Gorey last Friday where a very successful affordable housing scheme of 20 homes was launched. The families were very satisfied. I was delighted that the Sinn Féin Deputy was present. Even though he opposed many of the Government's measures in this regard, he had no problem hopping into all the photographs with the Minister and I on Friday.

The challenge in this regard is to get far more of these affordable homes schemes going. I urge him to expedite the schemes that are coming into him from Wicklow and Wexford County Councils because we need them as quickly as possible.

What measures are in place for local authorities to address coastal erosion?

The Minister is very aware of the challenges of coastal erosion. I am fortunate to represent a constituency that has some of the finest beaches in the country, stretching from Brittas Bay in Wicklow down to Morriscastle in Wexford. The Minister knows the challenges many of those communities have faced. Our problem is that we have so many strategies being developed but all the time the coast is starting to disappear. For instance, €26 million has been spent by Irish Rail on protecting the Rosslare rail line in the l…

I thank the Deputy. Wicklow and Wexford county councils are taking this issue seriously. I love the beaches around my area but a lot of them are starting to disappear. It is not just a problem in counties Wicklow and Wexford. The Minister will be very familiar with the challenges around Courtown and the area to the north of that. Courtown is a legendary destination for many people but the beach has not really been there for many years. It is an issue regularly raised by Courtown community council and by the busines…

I thank the Minister of State for being here for this very important debate. As others have said, we could touch on any number of topics from Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing horrors we are seeing in the Middle East to what has been happening in Sudan. I think what is important in this House is that Ireland reasserts our values, the things that have always been important to us when it comes to dealing with conflict and with international relations. That is a commitment to multilateralism, to the…