The situation is fraught all round. We all have to work firmly with the right principles in accordance with international law to try and deal with this.

On what?

The Deputy has an awful set on Cork. It is extraordinary.

For three years, the Deputy has. The Deputy should know because there is a medical school already there. CUH is a university hospital. By the way, universities are approximately 50% funded by the State.

I am saying to the Deputy they have other mechanisms by which they get money - finance, borrow, etc. - to update existing facilities. I am glad the Deputy mentioned it, by the way, because Deputy Doherty said there was nothing happening in health. Deputy Shanahan is now criticising the fact that there is a major €18 million project going ahead.

The Deputy will be aware that we need more doctors, nursing staff, dentists, etc. I have no problem with expanding clinical and medical schools across the entire country to get the requisite numbers that we need for future population growth. The population is growing already.

I cannot win today.

First, on the Deputy’s earlier comments, we want a de-escalation of all violence in the Middle East. We do not accept or approve of any breaches of international law in terms of the bombing of innocent Gazans and the killing of children and women as a result of the indiscriminate bombing that is currently going on. In respect of the section 39 organisations, pay negotiations and discussions do not get mentioned in budget statements generally. There is a public service pay agreement due and that will have to be nego…

That will continue. We want to get it resolved.

I appreciate the Deputy raising the issue. We are a voice for peace. We will be a voice for peace. We have maintained contact with all of the states involved and all of the interlocutors involved in the Middle East process. I am only weeks out of the Middle East, having been there for three days. I did not anticipate the horrors of what was to follow although we were fairly depressed coming out in the absence of any political momentum and in what was clearly a deteriorating situation. In our view, there has to be a…

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. Coming from the Border area, the Deputy has been a particularly vociferous and articulate advocate on behalf of students who are in Northern Ireland and, indeed, as he said, elsewhere. I will talk to the relevant Ministers in respect of this to see what can be done.

I omitted to say earlier that during United Nations General Assembly week, the European Union took an initiative on the Middle East. Dr. Koopmans, its special envoy, with the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Mr. Josep Borrell, convened a meeting of EU member states and Arab member states to identify the benefits that might flow if a settlement was arrived at. This was the beginning of a new effort by the EU to try to deal with the intractability of the Middle East i…

That is very distressing for the young footballer and his family. I hope he is making a good recovery from his injuries. I am not aware of the background as to why the ambulance service took three hours to get to the particular location but there has been significant investment in the National Ambulance Service. There is no getting away from that, and it will continue. The most important aspect of that is the professionalisation of our whole paramedic area and the development of the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Coun…

I thank the Deputy. I concur with what he said about the Jewish population in our society. Our Constitution has always embraced our colleagues in the Jewish community. It is an important point that the Deputy made. I make the point that there is a variety of different strands of opinion within Israel, which we have seen recently in civil society there in the context of constitutional issues. That needs to be said. On spending and the fund, the idea is that we can plan in a way that there will be a sufficiency of ca…

We have made progress on that. Under the shared island initiative, this year we announced a massive investment in the Magee Campus of Ulster University for the construction of a new building. I think there is up to €40 million in that allocation. I will get a precise figure for the Deputy. In addition, in the shared island research projects involving collaboration between different universities on the island, the Magee Campus, and Ulster University more generally, would have won some projects. It is very interested…

I recently met with the Shannon Callows farmers group. The meeting was organised by Deputies Troy and Cowen, Senator Eugene Murphy and a number of others. They made a very harrowing presentation on the impact of flooding on their farms. I undertook to go to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, which I have, and I have spoken to him on this in the immediate sense of some supports, particularly fodder, to be provided to the farmers in view of the financial predicament in which they find themselves becau…

I do not know if they are having recruitment issues or whatever, I cannot get into the micro level of who is answering phone calls or not in a given situation. However, I will certainly speak to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage-----

There has never been more funding allocated than in recent years. We need some efficiencies-----

-----and better ways of working.

I will not allow the Deputy put words in my mouth. He knows that I have consistently called out indiscriminate bombing of conurbations, particularly in Gaza, as far back as 2009.