-----and thank them for their efforts in teaching our people down the years.

I want to highlight to the Taoiseach the absolute failure of this country to look after the health needs of children. I will do this by giving an example of a case that proves the dysfunction in our system. Michael O'Sullivan of Dromroughty, Kenmare, County Kerry is a ten-year-old boy who is profoundly autistic and has a working diagnosis of alpha thalassemia X-linked intellectual disability, ATR-X, syndrome, which is rare. He has two loving parents in Jean and Teddy who care for him and go above and beyond the cal…

I thank the Taoiseach. I acknowledge the presence of the Minister for Health and I ask him, the Taoiseach and the Government please to take this young boy on board. I ask them to take him into their heads but, most importantly, before Christmas, I ask them to take him into their hearts. We have gastro teams for adults but, as the Minister knows, we only have one gastro team dedicated to children. It is disappointing and heartbreaking for Jean, Teddy and young Michael to have an appointment and to get ready for the …

We are in this situation thanks to the clash with Russia over the Ukraine, which means Europe has lost roughly one third of its regular gas supply. Much of Europe, particularly countries in the former Soviet Bloc, relied on Russian gas for the generation of electricity, home heating, cooking and industrial purposes. Germany and Italy, the largest and third largest economies, respectively, in the eurozone, were also heavily dependent on Russian gas. Ireland is almost exclusively reliant on the generosity of stranger…

Kerry County Council is committed to ensuring that any property in its ownership that becomes vacant is re-tenanted as soon as possible, but this requires finance. Currently, the council has 74 houses that are not in the programme for repair because they require an estimated €2.7 million to do the repairs and to bring them back into use. It was reported in November that the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has an underspend of €500 million. I am respectfully asking that this money be supplied fr…

I have just one point of order.

We do not call an empty house a "void"; we call them "empty houses".

I start by remembering the words of Michael O'Connor from Muckross in Killarney, a late friend of mine who only died in recent times in the year of his 108th birthday. I would meet him very regularly. He was driving his car until he was 104, living on his own and taking care of himself. He was a great man. His philosophy in life was that everything is fine in moderation, whether it is alcohol or any of the other things a person wants to do in life. Everything is fine in moderation. Let it be quite clear there is no…

At the beginning, I would like to thank sincerely Deputy Ó Broin and the Sinn Féin Party for tabling another excellent motion before Dáil Éireann, because it is only right to acknowledge the seriousness of the crisis that people are facing. The first time this issue came to the fore in a big, public way was through the mica scandal, which started out in Donegal. I was so impressed with the nice people who came down to the Convention Centre Dublin, where we were then, and where they had been protesting during the Co…

I thank the Independent Group for bringing forward this motion. When it comes to transport and roads, despite what other Deputies have said in the county I am from, we need more roads, accessibility and bypasses. I want to wish the politicians from Galway well in what they are trying to do. In County Kerry, we need a bypass for the bypass in Killarney, to link to Farranfore and Tralee. We need a link road from Lissyviggeen to the Muckross Road. The Kenmare bypass needs to be completed. We need a relief road and sec…

I support this amendment very much. A carbon tax increases the price of goods and services. By design, a carbon tax causes goods and services that involve higher levels of emissions to become relatively more expensive such that consumers will tend to buy less of them or substitute others that involve less carbon-intensive production. Hence, a carbon tax makes coal, oil, natural gas and the electricity they are used to generate more expensive. It also makes goods and services that are delivered by means of their use…

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for her indulgence. In the name of God and holy sense, will the Taoiseach look at what the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, is proposing to do in January? He says that he will not sign the derogation with regard to farmyard burning and that farmers will not be able to burn gorse and wood material, clippings and material like that, which they have to burn-----

-----on a yearly basis. This has been the case for many years. It is going to detrimentally affect family farms. The Minister's answer is that the farmers should mulch it. A mulcher needs diesel or petrol. I ask the Taoiseach to please look at this. How Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael backbenchers could support this is beyond me.

It is scrub and brush that needs to be burned.

There was a derogation-----

Do not be trying to make fun of me.

This is a derogation. The Taoiseach should know that there is a derogation signed every January.

It is scrub. If you use a machine to clean out scrub there will be a heap of briars, bushes and branches that need to be burned.

That is how you have to dispose of it - by burning it.

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine is well aware of it. Maybe the Taoiseach is not; I am sorry if that is the case.