I welcome the Tánaiste's comments on trees but this needs to put into a regulation and funded. No more of this talk can go on. We can never endure again what we are after enduring. Will the Minister for trade and enterprise look at small businesses that have been closed over the past week? Some of them are going into two weeks now. A lot of places do not have power yet. Will the Minister for rural affairs to look at community hubs and a generator that a doctor can set up? We need to look at that. We need to learn. …

-----the NBI broadband is running out.

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. I want to wish you the best. I also wish the Minister of State the best. On Thursday night and Friday morning of the week before last, devastation came upon a lot of families around the country, especially in the west, the north west and the midlands. While it was warned, some people were surprised by the devastation that happened. First, I compliment not the Government response but the community response from contractors and farmers who went out with their tractors and load…

Who is he talking about?

Does the Deputy not know there was a contract between the ESB and farmers?

A distance of 20 m was fixed in the document.

Obviously, he does not know.

That is the truth.

Is the Deputy saying there is no contract between the ESB and the farmers?

Where? In the west of Ireland-----

You are not writing much.

I addressed it. It is not about that.

You denied the letter. That is the problem.

I wish the Taoiseach the best of luck. I say to the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs that I listened to Mr. John Deasy the other day, and, my God, we have some work to do in America to build relations. I heard that our diplomats shunned the Americans on the side that is in now. We have some work to do. I wish the Tánaiste the best in that regard. On housing, it was sickening to see the report two weeks ago that 60,000 houses have been started. A child would know that was because there was a rebate. Today, …

I support the Bill. It is very important that we have proper facilities and that family court proceedings, which are often difficult, can be carried out with dignity and respect for those involved. I support the Bill.

Five weeks ago tomorrow, I brought up a particularly tough case during Leaders' Questions that has been going on for the past two to three years concerning young Seán. He is eating the couch at the moment, as well as opening the fridge, breaking all the delf, and going out and breaking the windows of cars. Young Seán has still been left the same way. In fairness to the Taoiseach's office, and I will not name people, the person there has rung me several times. There is a reality here, however. It is a sad reality we…

All we have got at the end of it is a father who is desperate, and siblings who have been assaulted, and the same situation. If we go to the other side of it, a neighbour of mine, a lady in her late 70s, was to get a bed in Beaumont Hospital. Her family took a week off on five occasions, took an apartment in Dublin at a cost to themselves, and took time off work to be with their mother. Every time, her bed has been cancelled. It is more waffle, waffle, waffle. It is a sad situation when the money has been given by …

I have acknowledged the person in the Taoiseach's office who has been in constant contact. I am not having a go at anybody here. I am having a go at the fact it has been meeting after meeting since then. There will be another meeting next Thursday. There has been plenty of talk, but there is only one thing the HSE has said, which is that it has no resolution. Imagine that. Those are the facts. The HSE has said it has no resolution. We are going to go into a meeting again on Thursday. We will be sitting around a tab…

The Taoiseach might read the Oxford report.

A few comments have been made already by people in here who do not know a lot about farming and the record needs to be corrected. The University of Oxford has done a study. It is printed in the Irish Farmers' Journal , for anyone who wants to read it. The article, entitled, "Sewage worse for rivers than farming", refers to treated or untreated sewage. The Deputies should get the Irish Farmers' Journal and have a read of that article. They might learn something about agriculture. To get back to my question on policy…