I have not seen the recent letter. I will follow up on that to see where it is in the system and activate that process. Deputies McAuliffe and Lahart and Senator Fitzpatrick were instrumental in organising that meeting. I will engage with them and Deputy Boyd Barrett to follow through on those issues. The Government has decided to extend the pandemic unemployment payment from the previous midsummer date to September and beyond, into February of next year, albeit at reduced rates from September. The comments on stud…

On Deputy Barry's question, I have not heard Ms Lynne Embleton's committee presentation. I am wary of taking on board fully what the Deputy said she said, because people often paraphrase what somebody said and it does not turn out to be exactly what the person said. However, the fact there is no uncertainty as to the continuance of the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, to the end of the year should facilitate the continuity in employment of the workers in the Cork location and in Shannon.

We cannot keep making up the rules as we go along.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 9 to 12, inclusive, together. The National Security Committee is chaired by the Secretary General to the Government and it comprises representatives at the highest level from the Departments of Justice, Defence, Foreign Affairs, the Environment, Climate and Communications and from An Garda Síochána and the Defence Forces. The secretariat to the committee is provided by the National Security Analysis Centre in my Department. The committee is concerned with ensuring that the Governmen…

The national cybersecurity strategy sets out the strategic approach to protecting the State in the cybersecurity realm over the next five years, which I think Deputy McDonald raised. It sets out to develop our capacity and protect the State. In the last budget, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, tripled the budget for the National Cyber Security Centre, which is part of the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications. It manages the State's incident response process to…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 13 to 16, inclusive, together. The purpose of the national risk assessment, NRA, is to identify major strategic risks to Ireland's well-being in consultation with stakeholders. Since it was first published in 2014, the national risk assessment has provided an overview of strategic risks and has drawn attention, at an early stage, to the importance of phenomena such as Brexit, housing shortages and pandemics. The process of preparing the assessment has been designed to ensure wide co…

In response to Deputy Kelly's question, the Government decided today to procure additional Moderna and Janssen vaccines for 2022. I can get the specific volumes for the Deputy. That is in addition to what we have already agreed in respect of Pfizer. This is all part of the European Union pre-purchase agreement framework for 2022 and 2023. The Health Emergency and Preparedness Response Authority, HERA, was established by Europe some time ago and has been preparing for the speedier manufacture and production of vacci…

I will attend a meeting of the European Council later this week on 24 and 25 June in Brussels. At this week’s meeting, we will, as has become usual, discuss Covid-19. This week, our focus will be on vaccination rates across the EU, including in the context of new variants, and on progress on the EU digital Covid certificate, as well as an initial exchange on lessons learnt from the pandemic. We will also discuss the EU’s economic recovery post-pandemic. We will discuss migration, in particular its external aspects,…

I do not accept the arguments or assertions put forward by the Deputy. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is working proactively to protect renters and the legislation he introduced did just that. The 475 people who applied did so because they were vulnerable as a result of Covid-19 and they then received the protections that were provided under the Planning and Development, and Residential Tenancies Act 2020. Those protections are available up until 12 July. I anticipate that the Minister will extend those prot…

The Deputy has no substance to her policies and she has no solutions to the housing problem. Sinn Féin wants a blanket ban on evictions and a rent freeze for another six months only with no focus at all on what that will do in growing the number of houses that are available to rent. I told the Deputy earlier that 3,857 fewer houses are available for rent in 2020. That is a significant contraction in the market. The Deputy seems to want to push it down even more and make fewer houses available. Sinn Féin does not re…

When the Land Development Agency legislation is passed we will have capacity to increase dramatically the supply of cost rental accommodation, along with more affordable housing and serviced sites.

I am more into solutions to the housing problem. I am not trying to make it worse, which Sinn Féin is in the proposals it is advocating.

There is no doubt but that the impact of Covid-19 has been severe on children. It is a once in a century pandemic, which has turned everybody's world upside down, but that is particularly true for children. It has led to isolation at a family level. Children born in the past year, for example, have not been able to see their wider families which is important, at a basic level, for socialisation and its importance in the early development of a child. Schools were closed for different periods during the first lockdow…

The Government and I are very clear in prioritising the needs of children. The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, will be to the fore in advancing the issues that fall within his remit. The same applies to the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley. We will be working together. We work collaboratively through the sub-committees on social affairs and education, as we must.

I take responsibility as Taoiseach, as I do all the time in respect of advancing policies that are beneficial to children-----

-----and that is what we intend to do. There is no question but that Covid-19 had an unprecedented impact on children and we accept that. It was a damaging impact.

We need action across the board and I am keen on that. We are doing that. We have already published the economic recovery plan, which focuses strongly on children and young people in terms of the allocation of resources to support them in the time ahead.

I thank the Deputy for raising an issue that is very close to my heart, to be honest, in terms of what I see as an historic gap in the allocation of funding to community facilities. Whereas we have historically and traditionally allocated grants and lottery funding for sports facilities, there has never really been a dedicated capital fund nationally for community centres. It is my view that there should be such a fund. Indeed, a commitment in this regard is included in the programme for Government. I would, howeve…

I commend the Deputy on an audacious move to secure a pilot project for Newcastle. I will talk to the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Humphreys, and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, again to see what we can do in conjunction with the local authority and to discover whether we can provide some supports for what has clearly been a project developed, from the ground up, by the community in Newcastle. The community activists and leaders there really h…

First, I want to say to the Deputy that the health service has performed heroically during Covid-19 in dealing with the impact of the disease. The front-line workers right through to the administrators and senior management have worked very hard, night and day, to protect the people of this country. No services were restricted or closed down without the most serious consideration being given to the well-being of patients. Cancer services were not closed down in their entirety. Even during the first phase, they were…