When are you going to do that?

I register my disappointment and annoyance that the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, has fled the Chamber again. As the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will know from being a Member of a smaller group speaking at the end, it is very annoying for the Minister always to run away. This is a serious issue throughout the country. I mean no disrespect to the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, but the Minister just disappeared. He has a habit of doing that. This is a very frustrating situation and above all our people need hope. …

Self-harm and mental health figures. As I understand it, collation of them was stopped in April. I want the Minister of State to refute that and give me the figures.

The impact has been enormous. Mention was made by other Deputies about people waiting for cancer smears, bowel screening and prostate cancer. It is all stacking up and people are dying. The figures were given of people dying from all the other ailments. It is one every hour for cancer and 27 a day from stroke and heart disease. There is no talk about it, and some of these are being put down as Covid deaths. I have one last question for the Minister of State. One day the figures were corrected downward by 500 from a…

I am very disappointed the Minister for Health is not here. This is the second time today that he has abandoned the Chamber for the later speaking slots. It is no disrespect to the Minister of State and I thank her for coming to Clonmel to see the mental health issues there. The youth mental health charity, Jigsaw, saw an increase of 50% in demand for its service in August compared to last year. There has been a more than 400% increase in traffic to its online mental health platform over the past six months. Inclus…

On a point of clarification, I waited for this Bill this evening. People said they welcomed opposing views. We are getting no right here. When did it happen that Members can come in before the time of the commencement of the debate on the Bill and hand in their names? I was here for all the previous debate and could have given in my name. My understanding is that I had to wait until the Chair introduced the debate before putting down my name. That is my clear understanding. I will raise this at the Business Committ…

Except for the Order of Business.

It is done on the Order of Business.

Members cannot give their names until the Order of Business commences.

And-----

Serious questions remain and need answers. I thank the Minister for attending tonight to try to answer them. When did Polymetrika find out about this error? How did it find out about it? What safeguards had it in place to ensure its system was watertight? Why did the safeguards not kick in? How much was the company paid for the development of this system? In what way is it accountable as a result of its system not being watertight?

It was about the development of the system. Had the company checked it out? How was it accountable?

What checks did the Department carry out prior to issuing the leaving certificate results to ensure they were watertight?

Yesterday I received a very detailed response to a parliamentary question on how the junior certificate results were taken into account in the standardisation process. The Minister and Department, despite being aware of the error, failed to mention it in the answer, despite its being directly related to my question. Can we not trust the responses from the Department? Why was this not mentioned?

I accept that.

I have concerns about parliamentary question replies in general. Are they accurate and as accountable as they are meant to be? Yesterday, a text message was sent to students informing them that they had been affected, my own daughter included. Shockingly, the Department got that messaging wrong in that it sent an incorrect link to the students and they then had to be sent a second message. Why could the Department not get this right? We are dealing with the lives of young students. There has been one blunder after …

Will the students affected receive their rightful course choice and be able to take up their place this year? If not, those students are disadvantaged? If students must move to another city to take up a place in an alternative university, who will compensate them for the accommodation for which they have already paid? Everyone had to pay for their accommodation last Friday only to be told on Friday evening that they would be taking their courses online. I ask the Minister to clarify that?

I too wish to compliment the Social Democrats on tabling the motion. As the Minister stated, we all know how important children are and how vital it is that they are protected. Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí. As the adage goes, praise the young and they will come on in leaps and bounds. Surveys carried out by Family Carers Ireland indicate that many children are family carers. This issue involves significant amounts of money. Imagine teenagers or younger children caring for sick people because the Government will no…

I got a call this morning from a businessperson in Tipperary. This person runs a good premises and works hard. There was a customer on the premises last week who this week phoned to say that he had tested positive. The owners of the business are diligent people and went into self-isolation and closed down the business. They have contacted the HSE and have also gone to their GP, who could not get a test for them. They were told to wait for contact from the HSE. They contacted the HSE only to be told that they would …

It is.