There is a commitment to doing it.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 21 to 28, inclusive, together. The Cabinet committee on health oversees implementation of programme for Government commitments in regard to health, receives detailed reports on identified policy areas, and considers the implementation of health reforms, including Sláintecare. The committee last met on Monday, 14 December and is expected to meet again shortly. Since then, there have been 13 meetings of the Cabinet committee on Covid-19. In addition to the meetings of the full Cabinet…

On the final point, I do not know what the circumstances are that necessitate the travel from Limerick. It must be regulatory or relate to a particular aspect of the education programme. We are open to any submissions from the University of Limerick in respect of having that completed here or a liaison with the technological university. That is something we are open to having pursued. Deputy Paul Murphy raised the issue of health needs and Sláintecare. I will simply say that a lot of progress has been made. Deputy …

My view is that if there is no alternative and the 72-year-old is hale and hearty, then common sense should prevail and provision should be made for it. In terms of a citizens' assembly on drugs, I will come back to the Deputy on that, because now that we are coming out of Covid, we might be in a position to accelerate that. We said we would identify three areas for citizens' assemblies. One was the mayoral situation in Dublin and another was drugs. I take the Deputy's point about the decriminalisation of drug user…

I will come back to the Deputy on the timelines around that. On Deputy McDonald's point about the progressing disability services programme, I will talk to the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, about what is essentially a real difficulty in the context of the programme. Resources are being taken out of existing special schools and then they are told that they should access those resources through a central provision. That is causing undue stresses and strains. It is not something I agree with.

I have made that clear to the HSE.

First of all, I welcome the fact we are back in the Chamber to conduct our business as a Parliament and as Dáil Éireann, and I look forward to working with all parties in pursuance of the issues that challenge this country. I agree with the Deputy that accountability and transparency is of great importance to the House and on issues of substance. The Minister for Foreign Affairs has provided a very full explanation to the Oireachtas committee and has gone before that committee twice in respect of this issue, which …

I have not conceded anything about anybody breaking the law, and the Deputy should not try to put words into my mouth.

The Deputy has made an assertion in terms of breaching the law that I have no evidence of. She should play this one straight and fair in her assertions. She is not the person to conduct an investigation into the Minister in respect of the law or the breach of the law, but I have made it very clear-----

No I should not, actually, but I have made it very clear that the deletion of Government records in any shape or form, or in any format, should not happen. I refer to anything that relates to the conduct of Government business. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform is bringing forward to the Government a memorandum in respect of a review of the Freedom of Information Act and indicated that during the summer. That will come before the Government very shortly, perhaps next week, in respect of the broader ope…

First, I agree with the Deputy and take the question in the very good faith in which it was articulated. The world has changed. It has changed most fundamentally and the long-term impact of Covid, in terms of how we live, work, recreate and experience and organise life, will be profound. That relates to all those areas. In respect of the lessons we have learned from Covid, the whole-of-government approach to dealing with Covid, with all hands on deck, is a lesson we need to apply to other key crises in our society.…

That was on the record of the Oireachtas committee at the time. There are other areas that have not yet been developed, and the regional structure is one, but there is a reason for that. We have come through a pandemic, a once-in-a-century event. I take the Deputy's overall point. The pandemic changes the way we do things.

First, quite frankly, I hate short termism. Throughout my political life I have always thought to do that which benefits the medium and longer term. That is why I initiated the first ever major public investment in research back in 1999, when I was Minister for Education and Science, with the programme for research in third level institutions, which in itself was transformative for the research environment. That is why I insisted that in the programme for Government we would establish a new Government Department: t…

The Deputy raised the homelessness issue in the first part of his question. The Government's Housing for All strategy has fundamentally changed the State's approach to housing. Some €4 billion per annum will now be allocated to increasing housing supply - social housing, affordable housing, cost rental and private sector housing. We need housing supply to increase under all headings. A wide range of measures will be introduced. The legislative underpinning for those measures has been already passed through the Oire…

I do not accept the juxtaposition of the tourism industry expanding and developing accommodation, and students. The tourism industry will grow and develop. We want that to happen to create employment and so on.

We do not want students renting hotel rooms. We want proper, purpose-built, affordable accommodation for students. That is what Housing for All aims to do and that is the agenda. The most effective way of dealing with all manifestations of the housing crisis, be it student accommodation, homelessness or the lack of affordability is to build far more houses and apartments than we are currently building. That is the key aim. There is a comprehensive range of measures to do that in Housing for All. The issues will be …

Those are the challenges and why we have set up a delivery model to make sure that all aspects of delivering Housing for All are attended to and dealt with.

I thank the Deputy for the question. I accept that work is always the best option and there is an onus to facilitate and incentivise opportunities for work in the economy. The successful reopening of the economy and sectors of society over the past six months is having a significant impact on the numbers of people at work. For example, the number of people in receipt of the pandemic unemployment payment is down to 114,000 this week. That is down from a peak of 602,000 last year, which is very good progress. Employm…

I do not disagree with the Deputy. The pathways to work strategy we launched in July is very heavily weighted towards, and focused on, skills and upskilling. The key to work is more on the skills side than on the cliff edges and anomalies side. We have to do everything we possibly can to provide people with the wherewithal on skills education to enable them to access a wide range of employment opportunities. The apprenticeship programmes, including, for example, the national action plan on apprenticeships, is yield…

May I raise a point of order?