Of course, the budget in the North is a subvented budget - the Taoiseach is quite correct - unlike the budgetary parameters that we have here. I am glad to hear the Taoiseach confirm that the payments will be extended beyond June. Will he indicate for how long these payments will be extended? Will he indicate that the level of payment at €350 will remain the same? Will he indicate also if he could be more ambitious in terms of the supports for small and medium-sized enterprises and micro businesses? What he left ou…

The Taoiseach needs to make sure that the €350 is paid.

The Covid-19 emergency has presented the people of Europe with an unprecedented crisis and challenge. The virus has attacked our societies, ravaged our economies and tested our communities in previously unimaginable ways. Despite the painful and cruel nature of this pandemic the people of Europe have rallied and demonstrated, as the Taoiseach put it, Europe at its best. There is solidarity, compassion and social justice. We have endured and we will endure, not because of the worst of Europe, which is corporate gree…

Ba mhaith liom cheist a chur. I would like to ask a question and I also ask that the Taoiseach does not talk down the clock as I would like to speak again. I hope we will have an exchange.

No. I will say a few words, ask the Taoiseach to respond and then I will say another few words – kind of like a tennis match.

I want to add my voice of sympathy and to extend my condolences to everybody who has buried a loved one in these most heartbreaking of circumstances. It is important to acknowledge that from the start the right model and approach was adopted in response to the public health emergency and credit is due to everybody for that. The approach being test, isolate and trace and to do that in a comprehensive manner. The same is true of the advice given by way of public health notice to the general public on hand hygiene and…

I thank the Taoiseach. This is a problem now. The announcement was made of 100,000 tests per week and the presumption is that to do that one must have the necessary capacity. I believe the correct approach is for these 100,000 tests to be real tests, not some notion where we say theoretically we have the capacity to do this. The Taoiseach will know as well as I that from the beginning of this pandemic, the best international scientific and medical advice was test, test, test, then isolate, then trace, trace, trace.…

Go raibh míle maith agat. I thank everyone who sent me kind wishes. Thank you all very much. It was very thoughtful of you. Having been sick and having experienced the virus at first hand, it sharpens one's understanding of everything surrounding this public health emergency, most particularly the big gap there has been between, on the one hand, the very ambitious announcements that have been made and in many cases re-announced, and on the other hand, what was happening on the ground. I waited 16 days for a test re…

I will share time with Deputy Louise O'Reilly. Across this island there are citizens, families and communities bracing themselves for what will be a very tough few months. The crisis presents us with the challenge of our lifetime to protect health, defend livelihoods and save lives. Nobody here has all the answers to all the challenges we face but we have been elected and we have a job to do. We must listen to and be guided by sound advice, take decisions and lead. It is what we must do. Social distancing and keepi…

We need to be careful in the mechanism we choose for the purposes the Deputies have set out. I share the view of the Business Committee that all the time, attention and resources of those at the front line of this emergency need to be spent on keeping the public safe. That said, we have a caretaker Government. It is absolutely essential that those of us on the other benches not be left as an afterthought when policy decisions are being made. For our part, we want absolute assurance that everything that needs to be …

We have not had the opportunity to discuss issues relating to the EU since the UK formally left the EU on 31 January. I begin my remarks, therefore, by paying tribute to the former Sinn Féin MEP for the North of Ireland, Martina Anderson. I commend her on her tireless work and effort as a Member of the European Parliament for the past eight years. Go raibh míle maith agat, Martina, agus maith thú. I also wish the new Sinn Féin MEP for the Midlands-North West, Chris MacManus, the very best of luck in his new role as…

The duty for all of us living on this island is to be sensible, thoughtful, not to panic and to do everything we can to stop the spread of coronavirus. People are naturally concerned. The WHO has said we are in "uncharted territory". However, we are not in a war. On this island, we now have nine confirmed cases, eight of which are linked to travel to Italy and one case of community transmission in the North. As developments today have shown, the challenges we face are evolving. It is clear that the fight against th…

I thank the Deputy.

Déanaim comhghairdeas leis an gCeann Comhairle ar a cheapachán mar chathaoirleach ar an Tríú Dáil is Tríocha. Is onóir mhór duit agus do theaghlach é. Táim cinnte go ndéanfaidh tú do dhícheall do chuid gnó iomlán a dhéanamh go cruinn. Ar mo shon féin agus ar son Shinn Féin déanaim comhghairdeas leat. Many congratulations to the Ceann Comhairle and, of course, commiserations to Deputy Naughten. We all know that the job of Ceann Comhairle is not an easy one. We all at times have given and no doubt will again give cau…

I too commend every Teachta Dála elected here, particularly the new Deputies and their families. I thank Deputies Doherty and Kerrane for proposing and seconding me for the position of Taoiseach. In line with the theme of change it is only appropriate to note that today for the first time a nominee from a party other than Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael has managed to garner the greatest number of votes.

Perhaps that makes us winners again. I see that we still live rent free in Deputy Micheál Martin's very narrow and bitter mind. I see that he proposes to continue the diatribe and vitriol that sustained him and served him very badly in the course of the election campaign.

We are all agreed that the motif and theme emerging from this election is change, but I hear a note from some Members who might seek to suggest that this is some kind of capricious nonsense on the part of the electorate, that perhaps people were not really sure what they meant by change, that it was some kind of fuzzy ill-defined feeling. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was delighted to go the length and breadth of this State and to talk to hundreds, maybe thousands, of people and they told me what chang…

Everybody who has been elected here is a winner, but the fact is, to do the maths, the winners were Sinn Féin, our colleagues in the Green Party, the Social Democrats and every party who said to the people there is a different and a better way to do government. I know in voting for us people said we want to give you the chance, we have seen the shambles, the same old same old same, the same problems persisting generation to generation on the watch of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and they said, "Sinn Féin, show us what…