I have a brief supplementary to support Deputy Harkin on that. I also come from County Leitrim and boxty is something we grew up with from when we were children coming home from school. There was boxty dumpling, boxty loaf and pan boxty. In many parts of country they have not even heard of it but it is a staple diet for many people in that part of the world. It is a tremendous and a really healthy product. Finding this PGI status for it and pushing it forward is something that should certainly be done with haste. I…

How long does that take?

A year? Five years?

Deputy Doherty is not here just yet.

We will share the time as we go along. I appreciate that. I thank the Minister for his opening statement. Access to cash and the right of people to use cash is vital. That is the nub of this. People have a right to use cash as well as to access it. Since Covid and even before that, people have spoken of restrictions on the use of cash. People used cards more and more during that time for obvious reasons. There was a story going around that the Government and the authorities were trying to move people away from usin…

I commend the Regional Group on giving us the opportunity to discuss this. The issue of carer's allowance is something on which every TD and Member of Parliament has been inundated, probably for years now, by families with people with disabilities, or those with a relative who has an operation, comes home from hospital and needs constant care. As was said, most of the people doing the care are female and are caring for the people they love. They are caring for a sibling, or an elderly parent or child. In many of th…

If the Minister was listening to "Morning Ireland" this morning, he will have heard a constituent of mine, Jennifer, speak about what her ten-year-old child, Maggie, is going through. Maggie suffered from cancer as an infant and recovered from it. She suffers from an intellectual disability. She had been using CAMHS and was finding it difficult and hard to manage. Over a year ago, or almost 18 months ago now, CAMHS stated she needed to be under a mental health intellectual disability team. However, there is no ment…

This legislation is obviously a welcome advance. Farming has become a part-time occupation for many. Farmers need to have a job along with it in order to have an income. Central to that is the architecture we have around payments, assistance and having schemes in place to assist farmers. Very often, because of weather and the nature and topography of the land that people are trying to farm, issues will arise. Sometimes farmers fall foul of rules they never intended to fall foul of and find themselves in situations …

I raise with the Taoiseach the issue of Ballyshannon Community Hospital. After a long refurbishment project and the construction of a large extension, the hospital has reopened on the site of the old Sheil hospital in Ballyshannon. I attended the reopening with the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, and many other dignitaries. Everyone was there and everyone was delighted to see this new facility being put in place. It is an 80-bed facility but fewer than 30 of those beds are occupied due to staff shortages. That wa…

It is a brand-new facility.

It is welcome in recent days that the election in Britain has brought a new Prime Minister. Hopefully we will see better relations between the European Union and Britain in the post-Brexit era. Brexit has had such an impact on this island, particularly the North. I represent a Border constituency, and we see the full impact Brexit and the divisive Tory Government have had. We look forward to that changing. The noise around a new relationship is welcome. I hope Ireland can play a part in brokering a new deal between…

I welcome Lucia and the O'Farrell family. This is not the first time they have been here. They have been here on many, many occasions. While I was a spokesperson on justice, I dealt with them on many occasions. I did so as well with other families and other situations that have a similar thread running through them. This thread is that in this State when something inappropriate happens, there is a cover-up and a rush to that cover-up. When there is then an opportunity to try to deal with that cover-up, the cover-up…

I wish to ask for an update on the Department's budget for road safety, in particular road maintenance, to deal with the issue of fatalities and people getting hurt on our roads in accidents over the past while. There has been a lull in the numbers in recent weeks, in that we thankfully have not had as many fatalities, but a large number of people have just lost their lives on our roads over the past 36 hours. For me and the many road safety campaigners, this brings into sharp focus the Government's failure to put …

I welcome the Minister of State to his new role and look forward to working with him. He and I get on well on a personal level, but where this matter is concerned, there are issues with policy and the fact that, in my view and that of many others, the Government’s commitment to provide the safety measures we need on our roads has not been followed through on adequately. The Minister of State is correct to point out that speeding, intoxication and drivers getting distracted by, for example, using mobile phones are i…

Roads policing of 30 minutes is a red herring. I have spoken to many gardaí and they do that anyway. It is not something they needed to be instructed to do and it does not achieve anything additional. It is simply about the Commissioner and Department being able to tick a box. When I looked at the 2024 budget when it was announced last year, I saw a cut of €150 million from the road safety and maintenance fund. That is still in effect. I received a letter a couple of weeks ago from the organisation that provides as…

All the money is being spent on scoping exercises.

Will the Minister provide an update on the measures he is taking to ensure passengers are kept safe on board our public transport infrastructure throughout the country? As he will be aware, we have had several incidents over the years whereby workers on public transport have been attacked and verbally abused. People do not want to work driving buses, trains or trams any more because of these issues. We also have big issues with passengers feeling endangered. There is open drug dealing and people using threatening a…

There has long been a campaign by the National Bus and Rail Workers Union, SIPTU and others involved in the transport system to ensure we try to develop a national transport policing service, as there is another countries throughout the world. When we travel, we see there is a section of the police that deals with transport issues. We see examples of problems arising here all the time because of the absence of this. Yesterday I listened to a piece on the radio about an incident in County Cork whereby a young woman …

With respect, we are not suggesting a separate force. What we are suggesting is a division of An Garda Síochána that would be dedicated to public transport policing. This is what we are suggesting and it is has also been suggested by the trade unions involved. The Minister said it would not make any difference. The reality is that on the Luas, DART and other systems there are private security people but they do not have the powers to arrest or detain people. They do not have the powers to act in the way members of …

Clearly not.