I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. It is a very difficult and challenging issue, primarily for those who got long Covid, and they did incredible work in the healthcare service during Covid-19. I met them last June and that resulted in the extension to last December. As the Deputy knows, there was then the Labour Court recommendation. It recommended a final extension and that got expanded. They are now in the public service sick leave scheme and the Deputy has indicated that the full payment will come to an …

Deputy Stanley spoke about waiting for a decade and a half. I have waited about three and a half decades for a Member from the Opposition to compliment the Government on its investment in Mallow hospital, so I will take it.

It is a very significant moment. People have used that for their campaigns for about 50 years. To get praise for the investment in the hospital is a major watershed moment politically. I jest, but Deputy Kenny makes a very serious point. Mallow General Hospital, Bantry General Hospital, Cork University Hospital, Mercy University Hospital and South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital all have to be used now as part of integrated care model. Cork University Hospital covers the entire region. If there are huge pres…

I will come back to the Deputy with a date.

I thank the Deputy for his constructive, low-hanging fruit-type ideas. I will talk to the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, in respect of those issues and how we can incentivise or trigger a greater uptake and utilisation of them. On the EV question, something has to be done there.

Ní aontaím leis an Teachta. Is éard atá faoi chaibidil ag an Rialtas ná cabhair agus tacaíocht a thabhairt do dhaoine ar ioncam íseal agus do na daoine is boichte sa tír. Sin é an fáth go bhfuil, ó thaobh cúrsaí leasa shóisialaigh de, cabhair agus tacaíocht á dtabhairt againn. Tá níos mó cabhrach agus tacaíochta á dtabhairt don tionscal haulage chomh maith mar tá sé riachtanach ó thaobh cúrsaí geilleagar na tíre. This is a moment of great instability and uncertainty in the world, and the war in the Middle East has …

With the greatest respect, the only party of late that has been courting bankers and developers and every sort of corporate financial operation is Sinn Féin, particularly in the United States, where the party has raised a hell of a lot of money from developers and builders. Spare lecturing everybody else about fundraising from developers and bankers and everybody because Sinn Féin has been doing it on a serial basis for many years in the United States, Northern Ireland, the UK and elsewhere.

Deputy McDonald speaks out of both sides of her mouth when it comes to all of that playbook that she just regurgitates every time there is an event or a crisis in the world. We do not take Sinn Féin's approach. Exactly what we are doing here is targeting our measures on the fuel allowance, which would help poorer families and low-income working families withstand the impact of the increases in home heating oil and other energy products. That has been our focus and, indeed, in the budget it was our focus. The ESRI b…

You are not leader yet, Deputy. I keep on saying you are not leader of the party; do not be interrupting. The bottom line is that the evidence is there that we looked after the lowest income groups and through the household benefit scheme as well, which was successfully improved as a result of the budget.

I acknowledge that people are under a lot of pressure in terms of the impact of this crisis and the cost of energy as a result of this war. There is no question about that. The Government is limited in how comprehensively it can respond. Governments cannot compensate every single person in society. I am sure the Deputy would acknowledge that. We need a realistic assessment of this and a realistic discussion about it. However, we can try to protect those on the lowest incomes and to protect people in general by prov…

There is a lot of flexible remote working in our economy already and-----

-----particularly in the public service, the degree of remote working is quite significant and prevalent now. The Deputy again attacked the reduction of VAT for hospitality. That supports a lot of minimum wage workers in our economy, people the Labour Party should be supporting and defending.

Not everybody in the hospitality sector is on the minimum wage but, nonetheless, it was about protecting jobs in an important sector of our economy. With changing job profiles with AI and everything else, it is particularly important that tourism and hospitality are protected and looked after, and that is what we did in the budget. In terms of LNG, Deputy Bacik referred to energy security, the LNG facility is required from an energy security perspective.

It is not nonsense. It is rubbish to suggest that we should not put in an LNG facility in this country. It is absolute nonsense in terms of-----

I am sorry; if anything happened the gas connectors linking this country to the United Kingdom, this economy would not survive beyond ten days. That is the reality. That is the advice we received from an energy security perspective. The Opposition has to twist it - not the Deputy personally - but it gets twisted, it gets spun as an anti-climate measure. It is anything but that. It is an energy security and economic security matter.

I appreciate the Deputy raising these issues in a constructive light. It is not just the Deputy that has made the comment that the Government has waited for weeks and weeks. We are in a war for three weeks. We need some perspective here. The Government does not have billions and billions to allocate on a monthly basis, which is the implication one could draw from all of the protestations from the Opposition today. We need a bit of reality and flexibility in terms of the fiscal situation and in terms of thinking out…

What we did for child support payments was the most significant - record increases of €8 per week for children under 12, and €16 per week for children over 12. As part of the child poverty unit in my own Department, with the Minister, Deputy Calleary, we have focused on that child poverty package, which is permanent. Today, DEIS plus was approved by Cabinet. We have taken a series of measures that have worked on the child poverty issue and that will bear dividend in the coming years. Of that I have no doubt, becaus…

The working family payment was generally designed with low-income workers in mind. They are now included in the fuel allowance, which I think is a significant targeted measure by the Government, and the correct one. It is a framework that exists already. This package is about €250 million. I am not sure what the Deputy is saying he would take out. I am not clear on his costings, and I would need to get it costed properly by the Department of Social Protection and others in respect of that but we have an alternative…

We do have an energy plan. At the European Council meeting last week, there was a very interesting presentation by President von der Leyen, which went back from the late 1970s through every decade to the present day. The one constant was that every energy crisis was a fossil fuel crisis generated through war and conflict with the most recent being the Russian invasion of Ukraine before this war. The Deputy attacked the wind and solar energy agenda and so on. He is actually creating a scenario where there would be m…

On the offshore wind, we held the onshore RESS 5 and the offshore Tonn Nua auctions, which have delivered wind energy projects at competitive prices for consumers. The Department expects the five projects that bid into the offshore one auction to be in construction by 2030, marking a new phase in electricity generation in Ireland. The second offshore auction was the first to be held under the new spatial plan for offshore renewable energy development in the south coast designated maritime area plan and so forth. We…