In view of the legislation that is due to come before the House with regard to remote working and given the changes that have been seen over the past two years, many communities are developing their own digital hubs and small community hubs. Will the Tánaiste indicate the Government's plans for the State to take a number of desks in those digital hubs? It would make it more viable for the communities to have digital hubs and would also give people who are working for the public sector an opportunity to work in thei…

I welcome the opportunity to welcome and speak on the Bill that is before the House. Nothing has been more transformative in Irish life since the foundation of the State than the education system. We can be very proud of how the education system has developed over the years and the huge amount of effort that has been put in by many Governments and Ministers to advance education. To take up Deputy Phelan's point, we are put here to make the lives better of those that we serve and that must be our guiding light at al…

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on broadband. The issue is that broadband is the great enabler for rural Ireland. In many of the debates we had a number of years ago, we looked at broadband to try to have connectivity within rural Ireland. In the intervening two years, Covid-19 has shown us what rural Ireland can do. Despite the protests of the policymakers that we should all be living centrally in smaller units, Covid-19 has shown us the benefits of our rural communities. We should take that …

I thank the Acting Chairman and the Office of the Ceann Comhairle for giving me the opportunity to raise this issue. In the past year or so in particular, many of my constituents who have a medical card have contacted me regarding their inability to access dental care. It seems that dentists have moved away from medical card patients. Obviously, dentists are overwhelmed by the volume of work they are doing and all dental practices, which do great work, are overloaded with case work. However, an issue has arisen, wh…

The issue here is that dentists have withdrawn from the scheme. I gather from the Minister of State's reply, for which I thank her, that an engagement was held in June. That is almost six months ago. This is a crisis. What has happened during those six months? Extra funding has been made available in the budget. What is the commitment? I fear the words "early in the new year". There are a number of weeks left in 2021. The urgency of this matter does not merit waiting until the new year or four, five or six weeks fo…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill and I also welcome the Bill. The bureaucratic system surrounding planning is fundamental in blocking or stopping development. That bureaucratic system has been allowed to develop because local authorities, An Bord Pleanála or others are unwilling to take decisions. We need to strip it back if we are serious about proper planning. We have seen the effects of negative planning but we have also seen how objections and delays have impeded welcome development in communities…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the budget. I want first to compliment the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, on her extraordinary work over the past 12 to 15 months in regard to the disability sector. It is fantastic to have a Minister of State with an in-depth knowledge of the sector apply her considerable strengths in that regard to address the challenges within the sector. The budget provides for approximately €135 million in funding for the disability sector. That is desperately needed funding. It comes…

I thank the Ceann Comhairle. I welcome the opportunity to speak on this matter. The issues here have manifested themselves over the past number of months, in particular, in respect of the waiting times for ambulances. In the area I come from in Duhallow, ambulances come from either Tralee or Cork, but they also might come from Limerick. In one instance, an ambulance came from Clare. A number of incidents have been brought to my attention where there was a two and a half hour wait from the time that the GP called fo…

Over the last decade, the ambulance service was removed and after much lobbying and negotiations, we got the ambulance back. I am talking about the time that a general practitioner, GP, arrives at a patient's door, assesses the patient and says that an ambulance is needed to get the patient to hospital immediately. It takes 2.5 hours from that call until the ambulance gets to the door. Let us be clear about what I am challenging. It is not about when the call is logged. It is from the time when the GP makes a medic…

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I am a suckler and beef farmer. We are at a crucial moment in agriculture. We have to use the Common Agricultural Policy to pay money to farmers to make sure there is food on the table, as was the case with the CAP many years ago. We must also pay tribute to the many farmers the length and breadth of the country who produce a world-class product that we are able to sell into any market in the world. We can stand over our products. This did not come easily. It c…

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for the opportunity to discuss this important issue, which I have been raising at various forums in recent years, namely, the disproportionately small amount of funding that is being allocated to Cork County Council for the county under various headings. Cork County Council commissioned a report by Maynooth University to examine its funding streams, including the roads budget, the town and village renewal scheme, the rural regeneration fund and LEADER. It is not getting a proportio…

I might take the minute left over from the Minister of State's response, if that is allowed.

The local property tax, LPT, is a separate argument. The issue here is the findings of the report we are talking about. The report stated that we are not getting our fair share of funding under various schemes. The report has been independently verified. The research was commissioned by the county council. The residual and persistent shortfall in financial allocations to Cork county is evident across several Departments and public bodies and these are associated with a failure to allocate it on the basis of three e…

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the discussion. The Minister outlined the position in respect of regional and balanced development. With all that the country and its citizens have suffered in the past 15 months, it is time to take meaningful stock of what has happened in society. It is vital that we look at regional and balanced development. Many people have looked at the rat race that they were in. They have looked at rebalancing their lives and moving to rural Ireland to live and set up families and ho…

I want to ask the Minister what measures are in place and, more importantly, what is planned to improve the access of people with learning disabilities to higher education. It is very fundamental. It is important that there are planned improvements in the Department to improve accessibility to higher education for people with disabilities.

It is most important that there is development and a pathway for people throughout the regions. I understand and have studied the Trinity programme, which is centralised in a major urban centre. For people with disabilities, either learning or physical, the difficulty is travelling. What needs to be done in the programme over the next couple of months is to assess the need within communities and how many people are falling between the cracks. I have many experiences of people who go through second level education a…

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this much promised debate. I congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, on steering this through the Department and the Government. I know the tenacious way she applied herself to the job, to ensure the Bill was brought to the Dáil and, hopefully, through the Seanad and onto the Statute Book as soon as possible. I wish to ensure that it be done as soon as possible. It is a very important legislative measure. No constituency office, rural or urban, is unaffected by …

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this timely debate on autism. It is refreshing that the Minister of State has agreed to accept tonight's motion, accepting that we are in a very difficult position from the get-go. The mooted withdrawal of the speech and language and occupational therapy from special schools has been paused. I welcome that initiative by the Minister of State and the HSE. While it is now being paused, what is happening next? Will the services of the occupational therapists and the speech and lan…

To speak on this Bill today, we must be honest with ourselves as to where we are and what needs to change but we also need to be honest with ourselves in terms of what needs to be protected and what the benefits are that need to be protected rather than talked down. If we look at agriculture and the fears in the agriculture community about any climate change or challenges in climate change, we must first acknowledge that those in the farming community have been the custodians of our countryside for many a long deca…

The outdoor dining enhancement scheme provides funding for improvements to outdoor dining facilities for gastro pubs or pubs providing food. Will the Tánaiste consider extending this scheme to wet pubs as well? I refer to pubs exclusively selling just drink to ensure they can open and have outside facilities. Many owners of such facilities have been in contact with me seeking to have this grant available to them so they could provide facilities outdoors during the summer months. Hopefully, if things open up and if …