The survey by the Alliance for Insurance Reform was published this morning. I understand it shows that the average business insurance renewal price was over 15% despite the new personal injury guidelines. The work of the PIAB demonstrates that the cost of the awards has decreased significantly as a result of the guidelines introduced. The Government continues to have good engagements with the Alliance for Insurance Reform. The Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, has been especially proactive on this front and is bri…

We accept that some businesses' premiums are going up. They should be going down in light of the PIAB report.

I am sure that the Deputy will agree that the administration of vaccines has to be a clinical issue. We are not experts in this House. I know what we would like. I have concerns about the healthcare workers. I would like them to get boosters but I have to defer to the expert advice of NIAC. We have done this throughout various vaccination programmes before the pandemic. If you stand back from it all, it gives us confidence in vaccine programmes. The fact that we achieved a 93% vaccination uptake rate in itself illu…

I accept the basic premise that we do not want children waiting for operations, surgery and assessments unduly. We want surgery to happen in a timely matter, particularly for scoliosis and other conditions. There has been an increase in capacity, an extra surgeon in Temple Street and so forth, but we need to do more. Children's Health Ireland is in discussions with the HSE and the Minister on adding further capacity to make sure children can get procedures and surgery in a timely manner and we get the best outcome …

The Government decision was to implement the decisions with immediate effect on budget night. The two key decisions were the amount of €5, which was to be implemented immediately, and the increase in the threshold. I will review that and talk to the Minister. It could be an administrative issue. I will pursue it.

The whole aviation package is about the country. It not about individual airports but about facilitating travel and getting our capacity back up. The number of people travelling into Ireland is a fraction of what it was before the pandemic. The airports and airlines have sought a meaningful aviation package and Deputies from all sides of the House have asked us to do more for aviation. We have been criticised for not doing enough. This package was announced in the budget to support restoring capacity to airports an…

The Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, responded by providing the scheme following Brexit as, unfortunately, the decision on Brexit invalidated the cross-border directive. That was outside of our control. We are very anxious to ensure that the €350 million available under the waiting list initiative is being spent and every effort will be made to procure treatments for people in various locations. We will review the situation at the end of December, and I will come back to the Deputy in respect of it.

I will raise the concerns of the Deputy with the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine and will revert back to her with respect to the Department's assessment of the situation.

The Minister for Education is dealing with this issue in terms of recruitment, retention and substitution. We do not want to disadvantage children with special needs either in terms of losing their provision to substitute teachers and the banking of hours. This is something that must be worked out and worked through. There is a reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio due to the increase of close to 1,000 SET teachers again this year. There will be a significant recruitment of primary school teachers into the system in…

I support the Deputy's motivation on the protection of citizens' rights and the proper application of GDPR. The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner has emerged as a strong enough institution. The additional resources will help to resource the office. It does need to be consistently resourced over time and to build up its capacity to enable it to deal with the wide range of issues that come our way in terms of European citizens. We will keep the recommendations of the Oireachtas committee under review.

The decisions today facilitate a change in direction. The Minister for Education will want to consult with the education partners on the operationalisation of that, and what is in the best interests of the young people involved. Given the high vaccination rates for the over-12s, the Minister will take all of that into consideration and she will inform the education partners shortly in that regard.

Additional funding of €10 million has been provided in the budget on top of the existing level of service provision of €56 million. The additional allocation should enable progress to be made in addressing issues concerning service provision for medical card patients in 2022. The national oral health policy, Smile agus Sláinte, was published in 2019. The future approach to oral health service provision has been aligned with the goals and objectives of this policy and is in line with WHO resolutions and models of ca…

I do not have time to go into further detail.

Is that the Bill dealing with the hedges and ditches?

I just want clarity so I can give an answer.

I just want to give an informed response to the Deputy. I will pursue that and get the up-to-date position for him in regard to publication and whether it has fallen foul of the syndrome he has identified, very helpfully, today in the House.

I met with Roscommon Fianna Fáil councillors yesterday and they were making that very point to me, including Councillor John Keogh and others. I have sympathy with the issue. I think the review should be brought to completion and the thresholds should be increased somewhat.

I do not have information in regard to the specific issue with me and I am not in a position, obviously, as the Deputy said, to dictate the timelines of the court. Certainly, I will inquire as to where this is at the moment and I will see if I can get further information.

I understand there is legislation in train in respect of the mandatory reporting issue under the patient safety Bill. I will come back to the Deputy in terms of the timelines around that. It is beyond comprehension what has occurred here, from what I have read. My understanding is the Garda is still pursuing the matter, and that takes precedence over decisions that Ministers or the Government may take. There is an urgent need also to facilitate access for the families to the essentials contained in the report as th…

It is very difficult to answer both in 30 seconds. It is a fairly complex lacuna that Deputy Kenny was outlining. I will certainly pursue the issue between the two Departments and talk to both Ministers in respect of the legislative requirement. There is an issue that needs to be developed and explored to see if we can do this in a proper, regulated way. With regard to Deputy Farrell’s point, this is a key issue for the Government and for the Ministers involved, in particular the Minister for Justice, in respect no…