Perhaps raising it here matters.

I am glad to see the Minister here this evening because the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, who is leaving the Chamber, the Minister and I have discussed this on a number of occasions. I very much hope that tonight we can finally get confirmation of the promise the Minister made when he visited Drumkeeran last November. He met farmers, stakeholders, landowners and local politicians etc. The promise was that the Minister would deliver some type of compensation package. I hope that tonight, we will be told that com…

I will be honest with the Minister. Perhaps it is my naivety but I really thought when I came in here this evening he would be able to say there was a package in place and that it was agreed. I cannot remember exactly the wording the Minister used the last time I raised this issue on the floor of the House but I think the phrase "in due course" was used before. That could have been six or nine months ago, because the last time I brought it up, the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, took the question. I explained ho…

I want to ask about the assistance that is available to communities that run festivals, fairs, shows and so on to help with their running costs. In particular, I want to focus on insurance costs and the fact that many local communities right now, in the Minister of State's constituency the same as in mine, and across the country, are facing the awful fact that they cannot even get insurance, they cannot even get a quote, to run events that they have successfully run for many years.

I take the Minister of State’s point that the Government supports many local festivals, fairs and so on. However, the issue for many of them is that they cannot get an insurance quote. Some of the money the Department is making available will never get to local communities. The Mohill horse fair in County Leitrim has run for hundreds of years and was reinvigorated 25 or 30 years ago. It has been a huge success and is the town's biggest day. It essentially keeps local businesses going until Christmas and creates a g…

I know about the work that is under way on insurance reform. It will be useful, but what will happen before those recommendations are made and put in place? The Minister of State spoke about the funding that the Government had given local authorities. In the interim, could work be done to ensure that at least some of that funding is made available to local communities so that they might get some level of insurance? It could be an umbrella scheme or whatever. Many groups that are sitting down to plan for the end of …

For the seventh time in the past year and a half, I am raising the issue of the serious, chronic and worsening situation at Sligo University Hospital, SUH, regarding the numbers on trolleys and waiting for beds. There is no shortage of statistics thanks to Trolley Watch. While numbers fluctuate day on day, if we look at the trends, we will see what is happening. If we look at this year, from January to August, we see that compared with all other hospitals, SUH started off in January as the fifth worst. As the year …

I thank the Tánaiste. On 28 September, the INMO branded Sligo University Hospital a safety hazard. That is not politics and it is not me saying it. The INMO does not do this lightly. That is where we are at the moment. The INMO has called for an urgent inspection by HIQA because of the increased overcrowding and safety issues for patients and staff. I hear what the Tánaiste says about diagnostics. That will work in two or three years; it will feed into the system. I also hear what the Tánaiste says about the 51 eme…

In regard to the electricity credit scheme which will be a big help to many families, we have a situation in Sligo and I expect elsewhere in that a significant number of Traveller families will not receive the full amount payable of €200 per household, if they happen to share their MPRN connection with other families, as many of them do. If they share with three other families each household only gets €50. Sligo County Council responded to say it is not providing funding for families living in halting sites where t…

Yesterday, I raised the issue of the chronic and worsening imbalance between the northern and western region and the rest of the country. I have been banging on about this for a long time. The statistics and figures show it. Europe has downgraded the region vis-à-vis other European regions for the second time in three years. It has now gone from a region in transition to a lagging region. The statistics are there. I will not bore the Minister of State by quoting them to him. I have done that many times. I had hoped…

The litmus test of any budget is that nobody is left behind, that all citizens feel they have a stake in what is happening and that the budget has something for them, their families and their communities. In the current cost-of-living crisis, this budget has to provide a safety net for those most at risk of poverty or the growing cohort of people who are actually experiencing poverty. The increase in the core social welfare rate of €12 per week is simply not enough. I know it is part of a package and that there are…

At a recent meeting of Leitrim County Council, a number of councillors proposed and passed a motion that the HSE immediately reopen day care centres for older people which were closed due to Covid-19. I fully agree with Councillor Enda Stenson's statement that it is time to put Covid-19 to bed and reopen day care centres for the elderly throughout County Leitrim. I am not going to name the closed centres but many day care centres for older people throughout the country as well as in my constituency have not reopene…

I thank the Minister.

For the sixth time since last October, I am raising the issue of the number of people waiting at Sligo University Hospital. There are 56 today. Sligo University Hospital is always in the top four or five hospitals in terms of the number of patients waiting. It has a capacity of 359 beds. Compare that with Limerick hospital, which is always the worst in class. The number of patients waiting on beds as a percentage of bed capacity in Limerick is 13%. In Sligo, it is 16%. This is consistently the case. While some prog…

The motion condemns the dithering by the Government, despite the urgency of the cost-of-living crisis. This statement is true because compared with our EU counterparts the Government has not responded in a proportionate way up to now. The Financial Times analysis, which covered September 2021 to August 2022, examined the funding allocated to households and businesses to shield them from the cost-of-living crisis as a percentage of GDP. Greece was top of the list at approximately 4.6%; Italy was at 3%; France at 1.8…

We are all aware that the wholesale price of gas has rocketed. It was 4.5% this week. With the fear that Russia will not reopen the Nord Stream pipeline, we know that the price is only going to go one way. Given that approximately 50% of our electricity is generated from gas-fired power stations, that means that for everybody the price of electricity is escalating. The issue of the impact on householders has already been raised here this morning. I fully support that. I want to raise with the Tánaiste this the impa…

I did refer to the acknowledgement of the support of the Government during Covid; that was made very clear to me. The Tánaiste stated that most businesses are doing well. I am not so sure that is the case. I think a lot of businesses are on the brink. They are running out of working capital and contingency. While that may not be apparent in the figures that we have currently, it is actually happening on the ground. The Tánaiste spoke about the fact that most businesses spend 5% to 10% of their outgoing on energy co…

Just over two years ago there was a serious mudslide at Shass Mountain, Drumkeeran, County Leitrim when approximately 55 ha of agricultural land was completely destroyed. It is unusable. Approximately 15 farmers were affected. The Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Noonan, set up an effective working group, for which I thank him. It was very important. Leitrim County Council did sterling work on the Dawn of Hope bridge and the roads. The Minister for Agriculture, F…

I suppose there was a time when many Irish people would consider a European Council meeting as being largely irrelevant to their lives but in the past five years, with Brexit and now the war in Ukraine, people recognise that decisions taken at a European Council impact significantly on their lives. Up until then, most Irish people were benignly supportive of the EU and thinking in terms of CAP, European funds etc. In the past five years, there is greater recognition of the role of the EU in global affairs, whether …

Deputy Howlin has stolen my question on food security. My other question relates to Irish food production in that specific context. Does the Minister of State see any actions the Government can take on Irish food production to contribute to alleviating food insecurity? It is a bit of a roundabout question but, nonetheless, if I were to engage with farmers at a meeting tonight, one of the questions I would be asked is why we cannot produce more food to help to alleviate food insecurity.