I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

Page 114 of the programme for Government refers to the support of our Defence Forces and, in particular, singles out those who have served with pride and distinction overseas. One such corporal, who served in Eritrea, Liberia, Kosovo, Lebanon and other places, and whose father gave his life in Lebanon in 1987, was subject to a death threat from a superior in 2017 that was not adequately investigated. The corporal in question was facilitated to work at a different location from his alleged threatener, but that situa…

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, and thank him for taking the time to be with us. I appreciate that his colleague, Deputy Eamon Ryan, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, is abroad at COP26 but I wanted to take the opportunity to raise this matter. My colleagues, Deputy Harkin, Deputy Kenny, and the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, and I all agree that the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, seems to be on the verge of granting prospecting licences for gold-mining in north C…

I thank the Minister of State for that reply. I appreciate that the decision has not yet been made. That is why we are here. The people of north Leitrim are not in any way stupid and they fully understand the difference between prospecting and mining. However, we are getting in early this time. We want to ensure that this process does not proceed and that companies will not be misled into feeling they will be able to undertake mining in the area. Gold has nothing to do with the just transition. There is no shortage…

Taoiseach - my apologies - that was a Freudian slip. The question was for the Taoiseach and the Minister looks comfortable in the role. To follow on from previous Members, page 85 of the programme for Government refers to the reform of the judicial process and courts, while page 120 refers to transparency and enhancing democracy. I ask the Minister to raise a matter with the Taoiseach for report to the House. Given the role of the Attorney General in the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, in the appointment of j…

Will the Minister get the answer to the question? It is very specific.

Will the House be informed of the response?

I thank the Minister and I am glad to have a few brief moments to make a few points. I welcome the Bill to give an additional two years, but I believe it should have been three years. Deputy Calleary made good points on this subject earlier and I support them. I also support the year for the development plans. I have grave concerns, however, about us meeting our housing targets and I have bigger concerns regarding the misalignment of policy across all Departments. It does not facilitate us in meeting the challenges…

I welcome the announcement of the €4 billion that will be spent in the time ahead and the fact we will not have a cliff edge in terms of the various supports. I would like to have seen Europe divvying up more than the €900 million. That is required and we will have to display a level of agility as we move forward in terms of additional issues that will have to be addressed to assist our economy and society in its recovery. Second and most important is the issue of alignment of policy. It is one thing to say housing…

We need alignment. There is no evidence to suggest that congregation in recent weeks, not just last weekend, has led to a spike in numbers. Let us give people the summer they deserve and then we might have the beginning of a recovery.

The private sector is the engine of growth in this country. As a small, open economy we depend on aviation for that. With the billions upon billions of euro we have been forced to borrow to ensure people had enough to eat, live and pay bills over the course of the past year, we need aviation open as quickly as possible. This must happen first of all to support corporate Ireland and second, to support tourism, which in turn feeds into our hospitality sector, which we have beaten to death via our total aversion to ri…

With no disrespect to the Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, I regret that the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, is not here this evening to take this debate. He is very much aware of the difficulty facing our seafood producers and processors at this time. The programme for Government, on page 69, refers to "a greater focus on... stakeholder engagement... centrally co-ordinated by the Department of the Taoiseach". On page 70, there is an undertaking to implement the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority, SFPA, capability r…

There has been not one report on this area, not two, but three. They were respectively the Wolfe report, the Moran report, and the third was by the great company that is next door to us, namely, PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC. I am sure it was at great expense. There were 46 recommendations. It said the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority was not fit for purpose. Our programme for Government commits to changing and reforming it. The SFPA has unilaterally stuffed the whole industry in the hedge and 16,000 jobs are at ri…

I am glad to have a couple of minutes to make a few points about the Ballymurphy massacre. It strikes me today - and I do not doubt the sincerity of anybody who has spoken, from the Taoiseach right through to the most recent speaker - that our collective ambivalence as an Oireachtas throughout many tragedies in the North of Ireland, elsewhere, is worth noting. What are we really doing about the various atrocities, from Ballymurphy through to Bloody Sunday, the Dublin-Monaghan bombings, Guildford, Birmingham and so …

I thank the Ministers of State, Deputies Butler and Feighan, for all of their efforts in respect of mental health. I do not in any way doubt their commitment but, as with all of their predecessors, they are starved of the adequate resources and structures to do what I know they need to do and could achieve in the battle against our nation's silent crisis. In the coming weeks, I will publish the results of research I undertook with my team. We surveyed various healthcare professionals, including general practitioner…

I want to make a few points. I thank the Minister. The plan announced the other evening is not ambitious and lacks strategy. It is a case of live horse and get grass, things will be better and in about two years' time, we can all look forward to eating al fresco with two people per acre while it is raining. On the vaccination side, there is still nobody in charge. Once there is plausible deniability, everybody gets blamed - NPHET, NIAC, the HSE and everybody else. There is not an ounce of common sense when one cons…

I was not, actually. Clearly, they do not speak common sense in Harvard, MIT-----

Read the emails-----

Why not bring in NPHET-----

This question is for the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming. Will he outline the measures that can be taken in order that insurance companies provide rebates and premium reductions to customers in the case of a decline of claims costs related to the Covid pandemic?