I am happy to engage with the school in regard to the processing of this. I am well aware of the situation. We want to do this as quickly as we possibly can.

I will pursue those two issues. I do not see why there cannot be flexibility in terms of school transport. Any child that is displaced and needs access to school should be provided for. In terms of the broad range of education and well-being supports, substantial resources have been made available in the past year to education to provide well-being supports and it should be within the capacity of ETBs to facilitate children in that situation.

We do not abandon anybody.

We have no interest in that and I think it is wrong to make that sort of personal comment about Government.

I have spoken to HSE again recently. There is a significant crisis across the health service because of the impact of this variant. It is creating huge pressures on hospitals because they have to isolate more and more patients, 50% of whom do not come in because of Covid but transpire to have Covid when they are in hospital. That necessitates isolation and other procedures which makes it doubly difficult on the hospitals and emergency services. Then there is the problem of people leaving hospital having been offici…

I thank the Deputy. It is an important issue and I will raise with the DAA the assertions the Deputy has made about having to be available 40 hours to do 20 hours. There clearly should be a more worker-friendly approach than that. I will follow up.

Le fada an lá, agus i rith na mblianta, táimid tar éis an-chuid tacaíochta a thabhairt d’Inis Mór agus do na hoileáin ar fud na tíre. Bheinn sásta déileáil le muintir an oileáin arís ó thaobh seirbhísí agus an méid atá ag teastáil. Beidh an Rialtas ag déanamh teagmhála leo.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach Gníomhach. Is cúis bhróin agus díomá é go bhfuilimid anseo inniu chun cogadh tubaisteach san Eoraip a phlé. Táimid go léir ag breathnú le huafás gach lá ar ghníomhartha foréigneacha na Rúise san Úcráin. Seasann an Rialtas agus, tá mé cinnte, na Teachtaí Dála go léir go láidir leis an Úcráin agus le muintir na hÚcráine, agus táimid réidh lenár dtacaíocht a thabhairt dóibh. Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine is illegal, barbaric and immoral. Russia must halt its military action an…

I thank the Deputy, all Members of the House and many well-wishers for their kind remarks in the aftermath of my brush with Covid. Thankfully, it was a light brush and probably points to the value of vaccination. I urge anybody who is not vaccinated to get the booster. There is no doubt that there has been a severe increase in the cost of living in recent months. As we emerged from Covid we had an initial inflationary cycle which was described by the Central Bank as a pandemic cycle of inflation because of the imba…

In essence, Deputy McDonald is saying we should reduce the carbon tax. Let us call a spade a spade. There is VAT and carbon tax on home heating oil.

Is the Deputy referring to the carbon tax?

The Deputy needs to be honest about saying that.

It is-----

Well, the Deputy needs to be transparent.

The Deputy knows that is what I sought. I said that to her already. We have sought a derogation in respect of the application of the rules around the VAT directive and the energy tax directive, which covers excise. Basically, we have sought that if we reduce our VAT rate, because we have an historical derogation already in this regard and already have one of the lower VAT rates on energy now, of 13.5%-----

If we bring that down-----

No, I do not think we should go to zero. If we did bring the rate down, we would go back up to 23% under the existing rules.

I have been saying this to Deputy McDonald for two or three months and so has the Minister for Finance.

The Deputy is well aware of it, but she should know that. Therefore, we have been seeking from the European Commission-----

-----a change in the application of those rules and a temporary derogation from those rules so we could give ourselves and other states flexibility in respect of the application of VAT, or, indeed, excise duties. Turning to home heating oil, carbon tax is there now, with VAT. Those are the two options. The Deputy is technically using different terms, deliberately to-----