The Minister for disability and equality brought forward proposals yesterday to transpose the EU directive on access, which is an important directive in respect of the access people with disabilities have to public transport in particular. That is something we are going to progress very quickly. There have been improvements. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has been working with Iarnród Éireann and Bus Éireann in respect of access to public transport and he has reached agreement with them. This is something th…

I will speak to the relevant Minister and Minister of State about engaging with the local community. It is appalling that a thousand acres would be destroyed. I am not sure what the cause was, but destruction like this affects a variety of activities, including wildlife and biodiversity. I am aware there were also certain types of farming activity on that land. It shows the absolute necessity for safety and preventing such devastating fires from happening across the countryside. We have had one too many in the coun…

I will ask the Minister. I have been a supporter of the move of youth back into the Department of education and was involved in that in the programme for Government talks. When I was Minister for Education and Science, youth affairs was part of the Department. The VECs, in particular, did very good work with various youth organisations. I would like to see the ETBs continue that sort of work. There is a continuum between education and youth and an area between the two. Youthreach programmes have been developed. We …

I appreciate the Deputy's persistent focus on this issue and his advocacy for emergency care in the mid-west. I do not have the details yet in terms of the timeline of the HIQA report, but I will talk to the Minister and alert her to the fact that the Deputy has raised this issue. I will say in passing that it is extremely important that we continue to develop the first-responder capacity all over the country, particularly in the rural areas the Deputy identified, because it is the first responder who has the criti…

Is é an príomhrud, agus an rud is tábhachtaí, ná na leanaí a fuair na hobráidí seo, agus na tuismitheoirí go háirithe. Is é príomhaidhm an Rialtais ná tacaíocht agus cabhair a thabhairt do na teaghlaigh éagsúla. Tá mé an-bhuartha ar fad faoin méid atá á shoiléiriú ag an tuarascáil seo a foilsíodh an Aoine seo chaite. Our overriding consideration will be the children upon whom these operations were carried out and their families. That is the number one priority of the Government and, indeed, of the Minister for Heal…

The immediate priority is the clinical follow-up and care of patients who have undergone this surgery. This represents a very fundamental and serious breach of trust. As I have said, there will have to be further investigations as to why this occurred and how it was allowed to occur. I have said the retrospective look back will have to be externally done, involving multidisciplinary teams to make sure that independence and that confidence is in the process from day one. I make the point, of course, that 98% of the …

First of all, there has to be accountability. I would agree with the Deputy in that respect. Also, one would have thought that the era of an individual consultant being an independent republic was long gone. That is clearly not the case in the context of these reports and the one from which the Deputy has been quoting, which is the subject matter of The Sunday Times articles, if I am correct. The imperative of multidisciplinary teams being in place across the entire system cannot be overstated. That report the Depu…

I agree, although I note that, maybe not Deputy Bacik, but others last week were looking for the resignation of the board or something tantamount to that. That was put to us. A drip-feed of resignations is not the answer, obviously. The Minister has been clear on the number and series of steps. The immediate one is clinical follow-up that will be external, independent and give the necessary reassurance to parents, what could be young teenagers now and children in respect of the surgery they went through. They could…

I am sorry. It will involve the HSE. We have to do things in a way that does not disrupt urgent procedures that children require today and next week.

Again, I reiterate that this is a shocking report into hip operations. For example, there is the variation between Crumlin at 98% that were clinically indicated - that has to be stressed - to only 60% in Temple Street and 21% in Cappagh. This variation alone, from an external independent author, sends all sorts of alarm bell ringing. We have to find out how that happened and why it happened. Why were children operated on who did not require any operation? It is incomprehensible and unethical. It is just unacceptabl…

As I said, to be fair, the audit was external, which means, anything we do will have that reassurance for families in terms of the independence of any external review. There will be a retrospective review of every case. The Minister has acted and the Government fully supports her in this series of actions. The first priority is clinical follow-up for all those who had surgery and supporting their families in the process of the retrospective external review of their cases. In addition, the Minister is taking immedia…

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. He made a number of fair points. When a widow loses her husband or a husband loses his wife, the cost of running a household does not go down. The costs are similar, if not additional in some respects depending on age and so on, with having to look after children if the parents return to work. It creates enormous challenges. It is also a very lonely journey for quite a period. I will ask the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Calleary, particularly in the context of the…

There is a complexity to the social protection system and if you move in one area, it can affect others. We are all familiar with meeting pensioners when knocking on the doors, who will say they lost their wife last year and found it very difficult because they still have the same heating bills, running expenses, rent or mortgage.

Their expenditure had not gone down at all but their income had been halved in many instances. I will ask the Minister to look at this and we will revert to the Deputy on that.

The Government and I have made it clear that, as far as we are concerned, Israel is committing a war crime in terms of the weaponisation of humanitarian aid going into Gaza, the blockade and the prevention of the basic necessities of life going into Gaza. We have been proactive from the very beginning. We were the first country in the EU to call for a ceasefire, the release of all hostages and a surge in humanitarian aid into Gaza. We were instrumental in persuading the European Union not to take aid away from UNRW…

-----the Deputy knows as well it is simply unworkable.

We will not be opposing Labour's motion tomorrow-----

-----in respect of actions at the United Nations because we are fundamentally multilateralist. We have worked on the Gaza issue with many like-minded states within the United Nations. Many of the votes on the Middle East reflect that approach by Ireland. We have worked with Arab partner states on a peace process in the Middle East. We supported them and helped in respect of formulating a peace plan in the early part of this war. It is unfortunate that it did not get more widespread support from the international co…

The occupied territories Bill will come before the Dáil. That in itself will not change Israel. We need to be realistic.

We need a collective approach. I am cautious about saying it but the EU-Israel association agreement is now under review by the European External Action Service.