We have the long-standing Sound and Vision scheme, which is funded through television licence receipts.

New schemes are coming on board to support local democracy by way of court reporting, for example, as recommended by the Future of Media Commission. There is potential to do the right thing and to sustain employment and a decent quality of life for people.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. Chronic pain is a devastating condition because it is a long-term one. Thankfully, there has been significant development in provision over the past decade or so but it took a long time to get a proper base within our heath service more generally. The reason for the temporary closure of the chronic pain service in Sligo University Hospital is, as the Deputy said, that the two consultant doctors providing the service are moving to new roles. The HSE advises that recruitment…

As I said earlier, the locum will be appointed in July. Alternative arrangements include appointments being offered in Kingsbridge. The NTPF also has a number of schemes for the Saolta group that should also help in providing treatment to people. I do not disagree with Deputy Harkin's fundamental point about the importance of pain management. It has significant implications for patients and those in persistent pain or chronic pain. Over the last decade or so, it has moved on from when it was as an embryonic service…

I would support anything we can do to support Irish music festivals and to try to create opportunities for Irish musicians and acts. I will speak to the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, about convening such a working roundtable. To be fair to the Minister, she has taken a range of initiatives to support native artists more generally, particularly with the basic income scheme she introduced. More broadly, in order to understand the issues that have given rise to the cancellation of festivals, the Government has no…

In April, I said that Fianna Fáil was committed to bringing it forward in terms of policy blueprints for the future. I believe in a transport police. The Garda Commissioner has a different view. In my view, the level of abuse and attacks on public sector transport workers is unacceptable. SIPTU and the National Bus and Rail Union have been very strong advocates for a transport police to protect workers and passengers. Some passengers were assaulted recently on public transport. It is a very serious issue because pa…

I am very familiar, as are Deputies across the House, with this case. Again our sympathies go to the O'Farrell family. It was a young life. Shane's life was cruelly cut down. The scoping inquiry that was established took a lengthy period of time to come to conclusions. I believe the inquiry was comprehensive. It came to a number of conclusions in respect of what happened. The family were not in agreement with those conclusions and aspects of that report. We must weigh up what would be the focus of the public inquir…

I have only recently-----

I know but it took three years to-----

I would say to Deputies that we can talk this through collectively. It is very easy to say "Let us have a public inquiry" and so on, but it has huge implications for everybody and may not get us to where we want to get to.

I have fundamental concerns with the utilisation of counselling notes in cases of rape or where trauma has been visited to an extraordinary degree on a person. The O'Malley report was a significant watershed in endeavouring to improve the journey of a person through our criminal justice system and our legal system, particularly a person who is the victim of rape or assault. That certainly needs to be examined. I do not have all the answers here this morning but there is something very fundamental about accessing so…

I thank Deputy Fitzpatrick for raising this issue, which is a serious one. I have always believed in the efficacy of the housing adaptation grant. It has been very effective historically in enabling people to get vital adaptations to their homes, especially as they become more frail in their more senior years, and also in respect of people with disabilities. The grant threshold is under review. I will talk to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage with a view to getting the threshold increased.

I believe very strongly in the first responder model. The professionalisation of that service has been one of the great changes in healthcare in the past two decades. There has been debate in the House as to what is the best model for the organisation of our ambulance and first responder services. There have been difficulties with recruitment generally across the economy because we are in full employment. That is creating challenges right across all public services and in the private sector as well. I know from the…

Beidh mé sásta teagmháil a dhéanamh leis an Aire Sláinte chun an cheist seo a réiteach. Is oth liom a rá go dtógann sé an-chuid ama ar fad - an iomarca ama, uaireanta - chun cuid de na seirbhísí seo a chur i bhfeidhm ach táim sásta caint leis an Aire. Le cúnamh Dé, beimid in ann dul chun cinn a fheiscint.

I thank Deputy Harkin for raising this issue. She will be aware that we have established a new agency, Cuan, which will work with all stakeholders to put the structures and supports in place to accelerate the delivery of additional refuge accommodation year on year. She will also be aware that active planning and engagement is under way for the delivery of 150 additional family refuge units. We will deliver eight new family refuge units, 25 additional family refuge units are under construction, and we will increase…

The RSA currently has sanction to employ up to 205 driver testers, which is more than double the 100 sanctioned posts in June 2022. To further assist in reducing waiting times, in October last year a change was made to the booking system to allow any unused test slots to be made available for candidates to take up at short notice. If a driving test is cancelled at short notice, the RSA makes the appointment available to the general public on the MyRoadSafety portal. Following this change, test slot utilisation rate…

I certainly will raise that with the Ministers concerned. Prior to any provision, work has to be done, various surveys have to be carried out and so forth. I imagine that is happening right now. I will talk to the Ministers about consultations and dialogue.

I agree with the Deputy. It is concerning. I have my own views on BusConnects. There seems to be a tendency that initial proposals are ones that will never be accepted by anybody; then they get diluted when the consultations start. It seems to me if we cut to the chase in the beginning and had more reasonable proposals at the outset, we might have truncated many delays related to BusConnects. There is a significant issue with EVs. Government needs to review the supports in place for EVs. There are different views e…

I will certainly talk to the Minister for Health. I picked up on one or two cases like that during the local elections recently when I was knocking on doors. That should not be happening. People with long-term disabilities or special needs, where it is clear there will not be any significant improvement in circumstances, should have long-term cards. It could save an awful lot of cost in administration not to pursue cases where the result will be the card needs to be retained and the person needs the card. I will fo…

It is a huge scheme and the allocation committed to it by Government is enormous. That is a fact. I am not giving impressions that the scale of this is such. I understand fully the plight of many householders, quite a number of whose houses are uninhabitable, and the distress and anxiety caused by mica. There have been a number of refinements to the scheme. It replaced a scheme the Deputy supported. This scheme is significantly better than that first scheme. I understand many people are applying for and participati…