I participated in a videoconference meeting of the members of the European Council last Thursday, 25 March. Provision had been made for this meeting to continue on the morning of 26 March. This did not prove necessary, however, as we concluded our discussions on the evening of 25 March. Our meeting began at noon with the customary exchange of views with the President of the European Parliament, Mr. David Sassoli. Following our exchange with the president, we worked through each of our agenda items, namely, Covid-19…

I can organise one for the Deputy. I was told Covid was the reason for not distributing speeches.

The situation in relation to the virus is very fragile. I recall when I came in here early this year we had 42,000 cases in one week and we had 2,000 people in hospital. I made it clear on that occasion that I wanted to see a consistent suppression of the virus. In the past seven days we had 3,800 cases and 325 or 329 in hospital. The point is that the sacrifices people have made have had an impact in getting case numbers dramatically down from the January figure and getting hospitalisations dramatically down, as w…

The legislation obliges the Government to consult with the public health experts. It is based on the variant and its very high incidence rates.

Recommendations will come from the Chief Medical Officer about adding other countries. We are the first in Europe to introduce this and that should also be acknowledged.

I think the Deputy needs to define what she means by "non-essential travel". At Christmas time, she said that people who were coming home to meet their parents was essential travel. She needs to come clean with the people in terms of what she is actually saying about this. We are bringing in mandatory hotel quarantine. Countries will be added to the list by Government, as recommended by public health, in addition to the 33 countries that are on the schedule 2 list. That is in addition to a range of other measures w…

There will be a significant number of vaccines administered in addition to what we have done, which has been very effective in bringing down the levels of disease.

The broad thrust of Government policy on social housing is to build social housing. We have taken a suite of initiatives. The bulk of construction next year in terms of the provision of social housing will be through approved housing bodies, AHBs, which have consistently been building social housing on behalf of the State, but also the councils. Direct builds will comprise the large bulk of social housing output, where councils, along with AHBs, commission, provide and allocate housing. The majority of 9,500 units …

Approximately €3.3 billion has been provided for housing, a 24% increase on budget 2020. Clearly, in the first three months of the year Covid has restricted output. That is obvious, because of the level 5 lockdown and our decision to reduce mobility. That has had an impact on the first three months of the year. The €3.3 billion available is the highest investment in housing by any Government in a single year. Some €500 million in additional capital has been provided for the delivery of 12,750 new social homes for p…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. Covid has caused unprecedented interruption to normal healthcare activity, with both community and acute settings affected. It also created extra pressures on the provision of cancer services, not only in Ireland but globally, because of the additional demands that treating patients with Covid has imposed on the health services and also the wider impact of Covid. The Government has asked the HSE to implement new pathways of care where services can be delivered in…

I will pursue the Galway situation with the HSE. While we are waiting for permanent capacity to come in place, it is important that other interim capacity measures are taken to deal with that backlog, particularly in orthopaedics as well as other areas. That is why the more sustained contract with private hospitals gives the HSE options to deal on an ongoing basis with a range of services where there are backlogs and where works are on the way to give more permanent capacity in the public system. Significant capita…

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. In his overall presentation, he was essentially dealing with the negative impact that Covid-19 has had on all our lives, including in such areas as attending mass or other religious services, in construction and in other areas of life. The virus has upended our lives. It has not been the Government, the Dáil or the Oireachtas, but the virus. The problem now is that we have a virulent form of that virus in the B.1.1.7 variant, which is the dominant variant in the country. We…

There was one week in January when we had 42,000 cases, in one seven-day period, and 2,000 people in hospital. In the last seven days we have had approximately 3,800 cases and today we have about 329 people in hospital. I ask the Deputy please to stop saying that the figures are not coming down. That is killing people saying that. It is telling people that their efforts are not working. The efforts and sacrifices that people have made have worked against a very virulent, dangerous and transmissible virus. We have g…

The Government has given a very strong recognition to family carers and will continue to improve the supports that are available more generally and particularly in terms of providing services across the board for those who need care or help and assistance. It has been clear that the Government vaccination programme, as advised by the national immunisation advisory committee, NIAC, was to vaccinate in the first instance those who are most vulnerable to the disease, namely, senior citizens over the age of 70, particu…

We want to vaccinate the entire adult population and we will take advice from NIAC. We are very conscious of carers and of others who have made representations in respect of the necessity for vaccination.

The President of the Commission spoke to me the night before last and told me about those 29 million doses. From my understanding, they emanated from the Halix plant in the Netherlands and some of them had the potential to be used for COVAX, while some of them could have been heading for the UK or Europe. There are two issues here. The first is the failure of AstraZeneca to fulfil its contracts with the European Union. I fully support all measures designed to ensure that AstraZeneca fulfils its contracts with the E…

Briefly, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has 280 component parts, with 86 suppliers from 19 countries. If any aspect of that is impeded, it will potentially undermine our capacity to get vaccines.

The Deputy is absolutely correct on the necessity to vaccinate the entire world. Otherwise, we will all become imprisoned in our own republics, so to speak, because of the potentiality of new variants over time. COVAX is one vehicle to enable us to do that. The European Union is, I think, the largest contributor to COVAX, and we have contributed pro rata to it and will continue to do so. The United States is increasing its contribution to COVAX as well. We need to be realistic and to work with the models we have to…

The Government's position on that has been very clear. It does not favour its continuation or any State support for its continuation. The Government yesterday published the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill, which is probably one of the most far-reaching in Europe in terms of legislating for climate change and dealing with the challenge. On the LNG issue, since the mid-2000s various applications have been made in respect of that proposal, none of which has come to fruition to date. I am not…

In the context of Covid-19, I pay tribute to the National Ambulance Service which has been extremely effective and has worked very hard in testing, in innovating and now in administering vaccines. As a national service, it has really stood up to the test of Covid-19. I thank everyone who works for the service for what they have done for the nation. In the context of those aged over 85, despite all of the noise, criticisms and so on, 99% of those older than 85 were vaccinated within the three-week target period. Tha…