There are a lot of dancers.

Gymnastics.

What about levels 3 and 4?

When Shane Ross was gone.

I too want to raise this issue. It is a runaway train and I am delighted that Deputy Whitmore brought this up. We in the Rural Independents brought a motion in 2016 and another in 2019, when it was not too late. The Tánaiste chose the site for this, against Connolly for Kids, against the sick children and their parents, against the Jack & Jill Children's Foundation and against everybody. Now it has become a cancer in the body of the health situation. It is a deep black hole and nothing is coming up only murkiness. …

I am delighted to speak in this debate. It is timely that we are discussing this today on International Men's Day. All men should have a sense of shame and abhorrence to see what has happened in recent days with the images that were shared on the Internet on different sites. People can call it coercive control or revenge porn but there are no adjectives to describe it. It is disgusting and abhorrent. It is concerning to any of us who are parents or grandparents to know that these things can happen and that men can …

I, too, am delighted for the Minister of State. I wish him well in his portfolio. I, too, am astounded that the Minister, Deputy Harris, could not have waited until the end of the debate. Has he gone out to look into the black hole that is the children's hospital site? Some legacy he has in that regard. His absence is totally insulting to Deputies, smaller parties and groups who have waited in the queue. He does not even believe we were worth listening to. That has been his raison d'être . I want to talk about thre…

I am glad to have an opportunity to contribute to this discussion. I begin by thanking Deputy McNamara for doing, from what I saw of the proceedings, an excellent job as Chairman of the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response. I thank Deputies Michael Collins and O'Donoghue from our group for their diligent attendance at, and contribution to, the committee's work. The Minister for Health said in his contribution at the start of this debate: "Our numbers have increased in the past week ... but right now we still have…

I also support the Bill. It is fine and dandy, and admirable. However, like previous speakers have said, we cannot do it because we do not have the facilities. ComReg should be stood down because it is useless, toothless and fruitless. I met one of them recently. I was aghast. I pulled in on the way home to get some diesel. I saw this massive jeep with a 202 registration with fancy decals probably worth €50,000. That is not what we want. The people want service. They need to be out there to insist that Eir is not d…

We have more fresh air than we have Eir.

Someone has to say it and we are all saying it. My secretary often spends 50 minutes, an hour or more contacting Eir on behalf of unfortunate elderly people whose landlines are out for three or four months and they have no pendant alarm. It is a disgrace. That is the problem. I heard my secretary screaming down the phone, "Please do not switch me on to someone further." People are going around in a circle and it is all falsehoods and a waste of time. People out in the country now at this time of year when it is dar…

I better sit down.

The reason we have the problem is that no one will deal with it.

I do not mean rape in the sense-----

I am talking about funding. I cannot use the word "pilfer" either, can I? I will sit down, so, and shut up. We have no service and it is a disgrace that people cannot get a basic service to work from home. They cannot even work in the towns where they cannot get broadband, never mind working from home. It is all nice and dandy to talk about it, and the people will go back to the country and live in the hovels where they were. This is supposed to be a modern country. Once a year I go to Medjugorje in a Third World c…

The whole population is under severe pressure dealing with this Covid situation. Importantly, for the farming community, it is a lonely place and farmers find it hard to get labour if they get sick or whatever. Officials from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, however, are insisting on doing sheep welfare inspections. This is ridiculous. They should be supporting these farmers because it might take days to round up all the sheep on hill and mountain farms. One needs good weather but with fog, rain …

These sheep inspections can be done by drones. Support the farmers; do not terrorise them.

I did not say that.

It is a serious issue. Why is the Taoiseach making light of it?

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae was unable to make it so we have four speakers. I am delighted to be able to speak on this issue tonight. I welcome the Minister of State and wish him well. We need to go back to the communities and get boots on the ground. The dismantling of the LEADER programme was an abject failure and a deliberate attack by the Fine Gael Government of that time. The former Minister of State, Tom Hayes, and the former Minister, Phil Hogan, once told me that communities were getting too big for their boot…