I welcome the opportunity to speak in unison with the rest of the House in condemnation of what is happening in Ukraine. I do not think there can be any room for being neutral in a linguistic sense on an issue like this. What is happening in Ukraine is an appalling human rights catastrophe and a criminal act by a desperate Putin regime. The murder and mayhem inflicted on Ukraine, the levelling of homes and cities and the fact that 50% of the children of Ukraine are now homeless or are refugees on the move as a resu…

I thank the Ceann Comhairle's office for selecting this matter. I appreciate the Minister of State being here to respond to the debate. For the record, I submitted the matter for the attention of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. I appreciate that the Government appears to operate on a silo basis. As a result of the problems that that gives rise to, we have a situation where after a very protracted and sometimes acrimonious issue with community employment, CE, supervisors who resorted to the intervent…

The Department of Social Protection did not distinguish itself in helping with this issue between 2008 and the recent resolution of the problem for community employment supervisors. Of course, the deal was confined to those in the room, which included the Department of Social Protection, the community employment supervisors and their representatives. We are talking about the people who were locked out of the room, including the Tús supervisors and the rural social scheme supervisors. I am sure the Minister of State…

Not the work they do.

Not for the supervisor.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCeann Comhairle as an seans cúpla focal a rá faoi Sheachtain na Gaeilge. Táimid ag ceiliúradh Sheachtain na Gaeilge anseo tráthnóna. Tá ceist dheacair ann. Tá a lán daoine tar éis a bheith ag obair go dian ar chúrsaí ár dteanga, amhail an tAire, an tAire Stáit, an Roinn, an Rialtas, Údarás na Gaeltachta agus Conradh na Gaeilge. An bhfuil dul chun cinn déanta ar ár dteanga tar éis 100 bliain? I mo thuairim, níl mórán dul chun cinn déanta mar bhí níos mó daoine ag caint Gaeilge nuair a rugad…

My son who is in primary school asked me at the weekend whether we are facing a world war. When I realised that I could not give a monosyllabic answer to a very straightforward question, it encapsulated the magnitude of the event we are discussing today. I rise in support of the Government motion in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and in condemnation of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. It is a breach of international law. It is a monumental failure of politics, which is the stock-in-trade of what we do. We h…

The most important resource available to An Garda Síochána is the human resource, the men and women who are gardaí and the civilian staff employed by An Garda Síochána. We can have many conversations about squad cars and IT systems, which are important, but without the human resource, the security that citizens feel in the communities that are adequately policed will be lost. Will the Minister give an update on the progress, under the programme for Government commitments, to bring gardaí numbers to 15,000, with the…

That is quite reassuring. Members of the House are anxious that the areas we represent will receive their proportionate share of any new recruits in order to improve the visibility of gardaí on the ground. I wish to trespass into the area of Garda management, because I know the Minister regularly engages with the Garda Commissioner and senior management. One of the issues about which most of us as public representatives receive representation from individual gardaí is transfers. There are gardaí from west Cork or w…

Like others, I will say something that cannot be said often enough, that is, I acknowledge the efforts made by everybody in the healthcare sector. It was not just the healthcare workers. It was a general, national endeavour that got us through the pandemic. Front-line healthcare workers and staff working in local supermarkets, meat plants and dairy farms made a collective endeavour that got us through the pandemic. I acknowledge all of those people. I confess I was, and remain, one of the sceptics with regard to th…

I welcome the opportunity to contribute briefly on this legislation. I am starting from the position that I believe that everyone in the House, including the members of the Government, all of the outside bodies, such as NPHET and the National Immunisation Advisory Committee, NIAC, and departmental officials are endeavouring to do their best, but that does not mean that we are infallible. Despite our best efforts, this virus has been challenging, not just for us, but globally, and the responses we have had to take a…

I will conclude on this point. Would the Minister consider waiving HIQA standards? We have done so on previous occasions. Macroom district hospital is being rebuilt to new standards at the moment, but we did get a dispensation.

I am not talking about a diminution of standards but a temporary waiving of standards, by agreement with all stakeholders, so that some services could be restored, which is better than no service at all.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle's office for selecting this topic and the Minister for being present for this debate. Ballincollig is the largest town in my constituency and in County Cork. It has a rapidly growing schoolgoing population. A sign of that is that in recent times approval was given for a new primary school, Gaelscoil an Chaisleáin. The issue of a permanent site for that school is still to be resolved. Last September, the latest addition to the educational network in Ballincollig opened with Le Chéile Seco…

I thank the Minister for her response. I will ask her to do one further thing. When she returns to the Department after the debate, will she specifically ask her private secretary to give her an updated progress report on this matter in two weeks' time? Time is of the essence. We have ten months before enrolment commences next September. That is worrying for the vast cohort of students, but it is particularly worrying for those students in ASD units who have no other place to go in Ballincollig. They have been educ…

It brings into question the level of pre-planning engagement, given the comprehensive rejection.

I am delighted to have stepped into the breach as an emergency service for Deputy Michael Healy-Rae. I appreciate the legislation is about expediting arrangements to build large-scale developments, but there are related matters the Minister might want to address. First, touching on points made by Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, when are we going to address the issue of vexatious appeals? They are costing us housing and other investments in the country. It is beyond time for that issue to be addressed. In terms of impedim…

I will take up the point Deputy Barry concluded with about social solidarity and us being in this together, which has been the hallmark of the national endeavour to date. We are skating on thin ice with regard to our capacity to maintain that social cohesion in the context of this legislation, about which I and a number of colleagues are particularly uncomfortable. I take some solace in the fact that the legislation is timelined. I echo the comments of previous speakers and ask the Minister to bring forward the dat…

I am sure that the Minister will agree that the Paris accord of December 2015, when 196 countries came together to acknowledge the gravity of the global climate change challenge, was a seminal moment. The gravity of the situation was acknowledged in the context of safeguarding food security and ending global hunger. Those 196 signatories committed to "Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that …

Does the Minister acknowledge the imperative of consultation and, in so far as possible, consensus regarding targets for the agricultural sector-----