I thank the Deputy for raising the broader issue. The DAA is working extremely hard to try to deal with the delays in security checks at the airport. It recently recruited 100 new security staff and this should assist in alleviating the excessive queueing times in the coming period. The DAA works with social partners and through the various labour and employer-employee mechanisms with regard to work conditions and so on. I will certainly raise the issues the Deputy has raised with the DAA.

The Deputy has been consistently attacking the leaving cert system over the past number of months. As soon as one of the most radical reforms of the senior cycle programme is announced, he is back in with a different tack, attacking it. Which side is he on? The reforms announced by the Minister are student centred. They have followed the most comprehensive consultation on reform of the leaving certificate by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA, with all stakeholders. They will give greater brea…

I have no remit for them.

The Government has stepped in. There has been a 141% increase in investment in early learning and care services between 2015 and 2021. There has been a corresponding increase in places which grew nationally by 60%. Thousands of additional new places have been funded in recent years. Between May and August of this year, there will be an additional €78 million investment in the sector to deliver transitional funding. There will be a new core funding stream from September, enabling developments to the national childca…

Obviously, because there has been no amendment in the House. Yes.

I seem to recall that their Deputy and her group opposed the legislation.

I think the Deputy opposed the legislation on Covid measures that we had to take at the time when it was before the House.

This is not the most virulent variant; it is the most transmissible variant.

That it has less virulence than other variants means is causing less serious illness. That creates a new difficulty for us in that we cannot justify the economic restrictions we had for a virus that is not translating into very serious illness, mortality or admissions into hospitals and particularly intensive care units. I acknowledge it is causing considerable disruption across society, particularly in the healthcare environment because if someone arrives in hospital with a different ailment and it transpires they…

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. On all fronts how we are working in a co-ordinated way to provide services. Significant work has been done on the health side to provide a variety of services, PPS numbers, social protection and so on. We acknowledge that we need to provide access to schooling. In multiple ways we need to provide quality of life with good learning environments and above all access to healthcare. All the Deputy's suggestions will be considered and will feed into that process.

Yes, indeed. I know the Minister for Health is working with the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to see if we can produce additional places, as we did last year, particularly in the medical field. We need to create more opportunities for people to study medicine and we need to create more opportunities for graduates to become GPs. That is being worked on as we speak.

I will certainly speak to the Minister for Health. We have already spoken to the HSE about the situation in Letterkenny and will continue to do so. There is a problem at the moment in terms of what we discussed earlier with Deputy Joan Collins on the impact of the current wave of Covid on hospitals, particularly model two and model three hospitals, and so forth. First, we have the bed capacity issue in terms of isolation of patients who have Covid and then there is the egress because so many nursing homes and elder…

I have been talking to the Minister about this. I want to make it very clear to the Deputy that we fully appreciate the very significant difficulties the pig industry is facing right now. These are normally enterprises that are viable and productive, they have done well and they create about 8,000 jobs in the economy. We want to do everything we possibly can to be of assistance during what is now a perfect storm for the industry due to a number of market issues, such as African swine flu, plus the war and the infla…

I thank the Deputy for the specific nature of the question, which is on the button, as usual, in terms of the research the Deputy does on these issues. As he knows, due to the prevalence of the disease, the possibility of further variants emerging and an increase in the level of travel, the Government extended the scheme until 30 June. To date, a total of 484,941 people have received an enhanced illness benefit payment. There has been another increase in claims, particularly in the second half of March, with some 6…

You are fairly adept yourselves at tactical manoeuvres, but we will not comment on that. I answered the question earlier when Deputy Cullinane raised it.

It is the same question; it is the same issue. We have accepted the High Court decision. We brought in the Act, actually, and we are very committed to implementing it.

I would think the preferred solution is one that consists of building a dual carriageway or motorway along the existing N20. This is good news. We have an awful habit in this country of turning good news into bad news very fast, and into the next controversy. The routes have now been selected. I am open-----

I know, but we also want to get the balance right and the perspective right.

Yes, but the Deputy has already indicated to me the next row that is coming down.

If the Deputy wants my honest view, it is this: let us get on with it.