I said last Thursday at the European Council meeting that I believe the European perspective is the most strategic available option for the EU in terms of the neighbourhood. I support Ukraine's application for EU membership. It is a process but we should be clear in our support for Ukraine's application for candidate status. I support it. As I said last week, we should also support the applications of North Macedonia, Albania and other western Balkan countries.

I do not know. Someone who was eligible before the pandemic on income grounds should be eligible after the pandemic.

The Deputy can send the details to the Minister for Health.

I am agreeable to the line the Deputy is taking. We should not complicate these issues. God knows that to get a health facility built takes an ordinate length of time, as we know from the various hospitals under construction, at planning or where there is a row before they even get off the ground. My view on elective hospitals is that where we have State land, we should get on with it.

First, in terms of the planning for the ceremony, the families of the bereaved, regardless of setting and whether from Covid-19 or not, will be represented at the ceremony, along with front-line workers from all sectors. It is difficult to specify a particular sector but all those who were bereaved will be represented in a proportional way at the ceremony. In terms of the wider issue, a comprehensive evaluation process will be put in place in respect of Covid overall.

I am taking a broader look at the situation in terms of communities more generally because different communities are coming forward now with real issues around drug abuse, infiltration by drug gangs in certain areas and the undermining of social infrastructure and the quality of life of many families. We cannot just go on taking one community after another. There has to be a more broad-based national policy in respect of communities under threat.

There is a broader issue in respect of the ongoing negotiations between the Department of Health and the Irish Dental Association regarding the provision of dentists. A total of €10 million has been made available through the Estimates for allocation to dental services. Obviously, that would include, in particular, the provision of dental services for people with autism, which requires a specific response. There have been difficulties in terms of the discussion so far. The HSE and the Department are anxious to prov…

There are processes for applications to the European Union, which have been going on for quite a long time. In my view, there has been a lot of meddling and manipulation going on in the geopolitical world. We saw that, for instance, with vaccines. It is interesting that Russia was offering Sputnik to various countries in the western Balkans, notwithstanding that it had not vaccinated its own population to any significant degree. It was doing so for geopolitical reasons, namely, to court favour with certain countrie…

Likewise, given what is now happening in Ukraine, we need to accelerate its prospect as an EU candidate country.

I do not have time to answer.

I will talk to the Minister about that and revert to the Deputy.

There is a very comprehensive provision through the ETBs for in-prison education. I am a very strong supporter of the work of our education services in prisons across the length and breadth of the country, which does a lot to facilitate rehabilitation as well as career pathways for people once they leave prison. It is extremely important that we do that and we will do it in whatever way we can. In-person learning is still important, as is the proper use of technology in terms of additional outcomes.

The role of my Department is to support me as Taoiseach, and the Government, to ensure a sustainable economy and a successful society, pursue Ireland's interests abroad, implement the Government's programme and build a better future for Ireland and all of her citizens. In order to ensure my Department remains agile in responding to emerging priorities, its staffing resources are kept under ongoing review. At present, there are 223.8 whole-time equivalent staff employed across the Department. The majority are assign…

On the points Deputy Tóibín raised, I will make the general point that Ireland has the most progressive taxation system in Europe and the world. The point of that is that those on high wages pay the highest amount of tax in this country-----

-----which is how it should be. It is objectively regarded as a progressive taxation system. The Deputy referred to performance and productivity and I am a strong admirer of the Irish public service and have been for a long time. That is notwithstanding weaknesses, flaws and uneven performance at times but if one looks at the evolution of the Irish State over the last 50 or 60 years or even from its foundation, one has to objectively say that the country has made a lot of progress. Some 100 years on from 1922 survi…

-----so there has been a lot of systemic good work done in recent decades by the Irish public service. In more recent times, that has been manifested in our performance during Covid again notwithstanding flaws and mistakes that could have been made. Overall, however, Irish public servants put all hands on deck in responding to a one-in-100-year event.

On mortality, in our hospital system and more critically, in terms of our broader societal response, the Irish public service stands up alongside its peers across Europe and globally. While there is no doubt but that lessons can be learned from that, if one looks at the vaccination programme alone, it was one of the best vaccination programmes administered in the world, which dramatically protected Irish people from losing their lives, becoming severely ill or being hospitalised. That was not achieved on fresh air …

I am not generalising. These are not-----

I am just making the point. The Deputy specifically spoke about performance and productivity-----

-----and he specifically spoke about the Irish public service and the issues he had with it. I wanted to give the Deputy the other side of that story. The vast majority of salaries and so forth are centrally negotiated with trade unions-----