I propose to take Questions Nos. 10 to 14, inclusive, together. Matters relating to arts, culture and equality are dealt with by the Cabinet committee on social affairs and equality. This Cabinet committee last met on 30 November and will meet again shortly. I have regular engagement with Ministers, at Cabinet and individually, to discuss priority issues relating to their Departments. In addition, a number of meetings have been held between my officials and officials from relevant Departments since the establishmen…

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan made the first point regarding the No End in Site report. First, the report is a shocking indictment of all concerned in terms of the failure to develop plans for both the halting site itself and the housing that will be needed to deal with all of the residents. The site is far too overcrowded and there have been many issues with it for a long time. In my view, the council needs to take actions and decisions and implement them. Not everybody will be satisfied and happy with those decisions. …

-----from sound technicians to those who are acting, dancing and performing. That should apply. I will ask the various authorities and the Minister to investigate that, assess it and make their own analysis of what has happened here. On the matter raised by Deputy Bríd Smith, I am not familiar with the specific service and the HSE decision to withdraw funding. Again, I am unsure if there are particular local or specific issues for why the HSE is withdrawing funding. We have provided additional funding to the HSE th…

I will. I will ask my officials to contact the HSE immediately about it and I will talk to the Minister about it.

Deputy Barry also raised the 66 children living in appalling conditions at a halting site. That must come to an end. All parties to this must agree to the decisions the council takes on this. All parties to this must agree to the various proposals that have been put forward in the past and we now need cohesion and unity of approach to get this issue properly resolved, from a human rights perspective but also just for the basic well-being of the children and families concerned. The initiatives in response to this mu…

I think the Deputy's response is now the typical Sinn Féin response - oppose everything, prevaricate, delay and endeavour to exploit the housing crisis for its own political ends and electoral gain as opposed to coming up with real solutions that matter out there. Our fundamental concern is with young purchasers and other people to enable them to be in a position to buy houses at affordable rates. Last night's measures will be effective in that regard. The stamp duty going to 10% is much broader and more effective …

We need a rental market. Does the Deputy not get that? In addition to other markets, we need a rental market. We need more supply. We need affordable houses and more social houses. Last night is just one measure in regard to one area. The Government is coming up with a range of initiatives in housing, the most important being substantial allocation of funding for the largest ever social housing programme over the next five years. We want to provide 50,000 social houses. The Government has provided €690 million in t…

There is a range of initiatives the Government has brought forward and the Deputy has opposed every single one of them.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue and I acknowledge his consistency on it. I will say what I have said consistently since this attack. It is a despicable thing to do to attack a health service and to engage in theft of people's personal medical records. This is a criminal enterprise and this is what criminals do in situations like this. We have to be very clear on two things. First, people should contact the Garda if situations such as those the Deputy has outlined arise. The Garda National Cyber Crime Bure…

It is an important aspect of the issue. I do not think the Deputy expects me to comment on the plan because those who are endeavouring to hold the State to ransom would be very interested-----

-----in finding out about the Government's response and the security advice we are receiving as to how to respond to this. The Deputy will accept that. There are, therefore, limitations to the degree of public comment I will make on the State's response to this beyond what I have said on the restoration of services. We are very conscious of our duty of care. It is appalling that people would steal-----

-----people's medical records and seek to exploit them for commercial gain.

Again, every effort is being made. The HSE is communicating internally with staff about this on an ongoing basis. It is very difficult for the HSE at all levels and for all workers on the front line. The frustrations are enormous. This is a very serious attack on our health service, and the overriding priority is to get the systems back up and running as quickly and as safely as we can in line with the advice we are getting. The Deputy has worked in IT. My understanding is that the restoration is slow and has to be…

We will do this as fast as we possibly can.

The public should in the first instance, if they are contacted in the manner in which the Deputy's constituent was contacted, do exactly as his constituent did in contacting both their GP-----

-----and in particular the police.

We will work to provide-----

The Deputy is wrong in his assessment of last night's measures because they will have an impact, both on the planning side and in respect of stamp duty. The stamp duty will have an impact, much broader than just the funds. The stamp duty disincentivises multiple buying of houses or duplexes and gives the advantage back to first-time buyers and owner-occupiers. It is a much broader measure than the Deputy, Sinn Féin or anyone else on the far left anticipated. The Deputy's response is the expected one. As I have said…

The Government has now been in office for ten or 11 months. Over that time, we have made it very clear that we would have a broad suite of initiatives for housing, the key part being social housing and the building of 50,000 houses over the next five years. The Deputy keeps ignoring that. That is part of the €3.3 billion. The €3.3 billion has nothing to do with ISIF. HAP has been there since 2012 or 2013 to facilitate people on the social housing list to get housing. I would prefer, and we are moving towards, direc…

I thank the Deputy for raising what is a very important issue. Without question, the expansion of data centres in Ireland has led, and will continue to lead, to a large increase in electricity demand, concentrated in the Dublin area, which raises challenges for the energy system. One needs to consider data centres more broadly, in terms of both the FDI situation and the digital economy and the digital transformation that we are undertaking along with other member states across the European Union. The European Union…