I am sharing time with Deputy Mattie McGrath. Ireland's involvement in European Defence Agency projects is underpinned by the Defence (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009. It is important to note that the legislation states that any participation in such projects can be only for the purposes of enhancing capabilities for UN missions. In addition, our participation is contingent on those UN missions having the stated aim of peacekeeping, crisis management and conflict prevention. The Government has consistently advan…

The Common Agricultural Policy was introduced to provide economic security for the farming population. To be honest, it looked after the huge farmers and made them bigger but failed miserably to help farmers on low incomes. Year in, year out, different CAPs came and went. Farmers who had substantial ground, much of it rough hill and heather, were left on small payments while the large farmers continued to receive huge amounts in CAP payments to add to what they had already. To add insult to injury, the Department o…

I will talk about the changes to Questions on Promised Legislation. I wrote to the Ceann Comhairle and I appreciated his reply explaining the changes are part of a pilot scheme that will go on until the end of the year when it will be discussed again. Our representatives on the Dáil reform committee and the Business Committee have opposed the changes from the beginning. It is an unfair system. We had dealt with the queuing and there was no issue. We had used a card system, which we thought was fair. The system rewa…

I need to raise the issue of the rural regeneration fund today because there are no funds coming to west Cork again.

The Taoiseach is going to get away-----

I know that.

I am opposing the changes here today. I would appreciate it if other Deputies would do the same.

It will wipe them out. The Green Party is backed by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Social Democrats.

This is more of it. It is a cover up again so that we cannot hear the truth.

Why is he being allowed to continue?

It is unfair.

We were respectful enough to be here to listen to the speech. The least we should get is the speech before us. It should stop until the speech is handed to us.

What is the cover up? What are you ashamed of?

It is not for me to sort out; it is for the Minister.

The Minister should be honourable enough to make sure that he would not continue until we have a copy of his speech before us.

We are asking the question and the Acting Chairman is not able to give us an answer.

I am sharing time with Deputy Danny Healy-Rae. I have raised numerous concerns in respect of health and Covid-19 and my questions over recent months, week in, week out, are never answered. To co-operate, I email the questions to the Department straight after raising them in the House in the expectation of an answer but, as of yet, I have never had an answer from the Minister. He might think it is fine to ignore the concerns of the people of west Cork but his party's candidates will suffer at the doorstep in the nex…

I welcome the national remote work strategy announced this week. I certainly welcome anything that will help boost the number of people coming back into rural Ireland. There is a planning issue in this regard that needs to be addressed. People come to, work in and build homes in rural communities. When they apply for planning permission, it is refused. Grounds are being dezoned in Clonakilty, which will be a disaster for the town and the rural area surrounding it. There is also the issue of broadband. Is the Tánais…

The "RTÉ Investigates" programme claimed the Department of Health has been secretly using information from private doctor consultations to create dossiers on children with autism who are involved in legal actions against the State and without the knowledge of their parents. As the programme outlined, the information accumulated over time from the private clinical consultations of families who were preparing legal action against the State in respect of the insufficient educational support provided for their children…

I was one of those who voted against the 2040 plan because I could see the devastation it would cause to rural communities, the stronger focus it would put on the capital and that it would forget about rural regions. Of course, it was railroaded through as a fabulous plan and dream. Another plan for remote working was announced this week. A lot of things are lovely and seem beautiful when read off a paper, but the fact and brutal truth is that there is an issue. There are a number of issues in my constituency, as i…