I responded yesterday to the issue raised by Deputy Farrell. We are confident of fulfilling the Government commitment to this, especially by providing more refuges, accommodation, supports and capacity. In respect of Deputy Ó Muineacháin's point, I understand a number of retained firefighters in Ballincollig have been successful in securing whole-time positions with Cork city fire service. That has resulted in vacancies in the retained fire service in Ballincollig. Cork City Council has moved a crew of whole-time f…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 4, inclusive, together. I participated in the world leaders' summit at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, COP26, in Glasgow on 1 and 2 November. At the action and solidarity round-table discussion for leaders on 1 November, I expressed Ireland's strong commitment to global action to deliver on the goals of the Paris Agreement and keep the global temperature rise to 1.5°C. On 2 November, I delivered Ireland's national statement to the plenary session and took …

Deputy Bacik raised the issue of the publication of the more detailed action plans. In the course of her questions, she said she had been engaging with the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications last evening. The Government has committed to publishing that detailed annex of actions, because it is important. I do not have a precise date here and now, but the Minister and his Department are finalising that. By any objective standards, this Government moved especially speedily to introduce the new Cl…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 5 to 11, inclusive, together. The Cabinet committee on health oversees implementation of programme for Government commitments on health, receives detailed reports on identified policy areas and considers the implementation of health reforms, including Sláintecare. The Cabinet committee last met on Monday, 8 November. It is intended that it will meet again shortly. In addition to the meetings of the full Cabinet and of Cabinet committees, I meet with Ministers on an individual basis …

I thank all of the Deputies for the issues raised under this heading. Deputies Bacik and Boyd Barrett raised the issue of private healthcare. In an emergency and in a pandemic, it makes sense to use all capacity that is available within the country. In regard to the first deal, I was not in government then but, to be fair to everybody, it was entered into in the uncertainty of the first wave of a pandemic and it was not, perhaps, utilised optimally. It was a huge cost. In terms of what has happened since, the HSE h…

I did. The Department is working up proposals. I do not have a specific date. Deputy Boyd Barrett raised the issue of the private hospitals, which I have dealt with. Deputy Aindrias Moynihan asked about the well-being framework. The Department of the Taoiseach is overseeing the development of a well-being framework. It is along the lines of the late Bobby Kennedy's approach that we cannot measure everything in life by GDP and that we have to look at well-being metrics that dictate how well a country is doing and ho…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 12 to 14, inclusive, together. Since 27 June 2020, ten new Cabinet committees have been established with specific responsibility for a range of issues to advance the Government's programme. Through the work of the committees, supported by my Department, a range of policy work has been advanced since June 2020, including management of the whole-of-government response to Covid-19. This includes the national vaccination programme roll-out; the economic recovery plan, which was publishe…

First, I will revert to my officials on the issues raised by Deputy McDonald in respect of a specific school and the point she made that services have not returned. My overall commentary is that the progressing disability services policy or programme was developed nearly a decade ago. I was not in government at the time and I remember having concerns from the Opposition benches and speaking about it to principals of schools. What is happening, in essence, is that the objective from the HSE's perspective has been to…

I just think work came back. We know from the returns in revenue that the economy has picked up very significantly throughout the summer. Thousands of people got back to work, which is a good thing. It is where people want to be. The changes we have made in the past week, in essence, bring the hours back to midnight. It is not ending any particular sector. Prior to this, intervention economically was when we moved from level 3 to level 5 or where, in effect, a sector was closed down or rendered completely inoperabl…

Caithfidh mé a rá go bhfuil méadú tar éis teacht ar an méid leapacha atá againn agus go háirithe na leapacha ICU. Tá i bhfad níos mó díobh againn anois ná mar a bhí againn i dtosach na bliana seo caite agus níos mó leapacha i gcoitinne sna hospidéil chomh maith. Ta níos mó tástálacha ar siúl, ní hamháin antigen ach na cinn PCR freisin, suas 200%. There are four broad areas where we have to deal with this fourth wave. Overall, Ireland's performance so far in terms of the pandemic, on the key metric of mortality and …

As I said earlier, the intention now is to go, at a minimum, to 340 by the end of 2022. We are at close to 300 or 301 at the end of this year and we need to expand it even further. Recruitment and training of staff will be the key ingredient there; it will not be an absence of resources. Currently, we have 130 people in ICU, as of today, and 638 in hospital. These are large numbers which, in themselves and in addition to non-Covid illnesses, are creating a lot of pressure on intensive care staff and hospital staff …

It is not the case that the booster vaccination infrastructure is just focused on the primary doses, which are doses one and two. It is important that we continue to do the vaccinations. Some 1,900 people came forward over the weekend for their first dose. That is good news. Those were people who may not have been easily accessed by the system, but they came forward to vaccination centres. We have to help people consistently to access our system. We have had a voluntary system so far. It has been spectacularly succ…

We have planned and we are planning accordingly. The number of ICU beds at the end of this year will be 301, give or take. Resources were provided for 321 beds. There have been challenges as regards recruitment but about 11,000 people have been recruited in two years and the aim is to get to 340 beds, minimum, by the end of 2022. I would like to go further if we could and progress it and increase it even further after that. This Government has taken major decisions around ICUs. We have gone from 255 beds to 300 in …

The Deputy used the phrase, "the Government takes". Who is the Government?

This is a very simplistic kind of presentation, which goes on all the time. It is the social contract, to varying degrees. We might disagree as to where the balance of the social contract is but the social contract is society raising revenue through the elected government of the day and rebalancing that revenue out in education services, childcare services, health services, mental health services and infrastructure. These are the very issues that Deputies will consistently come into the House and raise with Ministe…

First, in terms of rural Ireland, a major and unprecedented initiative was taken to increase the allocation of resources for a rural transport scheme. The only city that has Luas and DART services is Dublin. The other cities do not have those services although we are trying to develop a more expanded bus network. That is acknowledged. We are one of only a few EU countries that by way of a special derogation from the general EU rules already apply a reduced rate of VAT of 13.5% to energy prices. Under EU rules, this…

I agree with Deputy Harkin that given the once-in-a-century nature of the global pandemic we need to take measures now in respect of teacher substitution which we would not take in ordinary "peace" time. I will put it that way to the Deputy. That does mean that all stakeholders, be they regulatory or unions, must show some degree of flexibility as well. Today's meeting with the higher education institutions is not the first engagement between the Minister and the institutions. There have been challenges in terms of…

First, in wrapping up, I want to send our best wishes to the Ceann Comhairle and to wish him the very best in his recovery from Covid-19. I believe in flexibility at moments like this. This is not related but I will make the point. I remember many years ago, when I was the Minister for Education, the idea of introducing a qualified Montessori teacher to primary schools was something that was anathema to all and sundry who are in primary education. There can sometimes be too rigid and bureaucratic an approach to wha…

I understand that Deputies may have criticisms and so on but some of the language being used is out of order. I respectfully suggest that there needs to be a greater sense of giving a positive message to the public about what is being achieved as well. It is all very well to talk about putting the tin hat on it and attempting to ridicule what is going on. It is not right of Deputy McDonald to do that. I do not know who the 207,000 people who got tested in the last seven days were.

The impression from the contributions of the Opposition is that nobody is getting tested and no one can get tested. We already had a good discussion on testing during Leaders' Questions. I gave information on testing and I said that the HSE is doing everything it possibly can to expand PCR testing. I remember Deputy McDonald saying well over a year ago that 100,000 tests per week was the holy grail but we are well beyond that now, with 207,000 tests per week. To respond to Deputy Michael Collins, a debate on sea fi…