The Minister is adamant that no one should be turned away. He is of the view that there is capacity and that no one should be turned away just because they are from one district and have moved to another district, particularly during the Christmas period. There is no confusion on the Minister's part. He is very well up to speed on the homelessness issue and is in constant contact with all of the non-governmental organisations involved in the area of homelessness. He is very determined that no door should be closed …

The Minister either has written or is writing to every local authority-----

-----to ensure that local connection criteria are not a barrier to people accessing services. The Minister has said that nobody who needs shelter this winter should be left without it because of bureaucratic hurdles.

The key point, where families are in these situations, is that we provide services so they do not have to go to moneylenders, and provide alternative mechanisms such as MABS, utilising credit unions and our social protection services to eliminate the necessity at all to be going to moneylenders. We do this also through some of the initiatives that were brought in in the recent budget, through social protection in respect of school meals, for example, enhancing supports for lone parents, particularly in support of t…

It will have to be under the aegis of the State and the authority of the State because, first, the allocation to various vulnerable groupings is key, and that would be jeopardised if people were going off, doing their own thing. As to the national procurement of the vaccine, the State is procuring the vaccine, in the first instance, as part of the European procurement initiative and, therefore, we want to make sure we have data records of its administration so we can monitor its uptake and its effectiveness, and ev…

I know the Minister, Deputy Roderic O'Gorman, has met with the survivors in this case. I met with the survivors as well and the campaign group around Bessborough prior to this planning application going in, and my office has been in contact with them subsequent to the planning application going in. Obviously, it is a matter for An Bord Pleanála to decide on the application. However, it seems to me that the application is close to, if not on, the burial site itself, which is unacceptable. One cannot be building on a…

I cannot intervene with a planning authority. I have made my views known but I am not An Bord Pleanála. An Bord Pleanála will exercise its functions in regard to the planning Act.

I will pursue that issue to see if what the Deputy is saying stands up. I will check that out. The cost should not be prohibitive to the participants who are anxious to get work and the wherewithal to enable them to work on sites and so on. That sounds prohibitive.

Let us get the context clear here. The first point is that we are dealing with a virus that has killed people all over the world, and it continues to kill people. Approximately 1.5 million people have died globally as a result of Covid-19. Governments themselves do not produce vaccines or medicines. There are no state pharmaceutical factories anywhere that I am aware of. Some states may have them but there may be dubious issues around that too. In this case, there has been a strong collaboration between Governments…

I apologise. I will come back to the Deputy quickly with an updated position on it. I accept the seriousness of the matter.

I will talk to the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan. I do not know if the Deputy raised the issue with him or not. They share many similar views.

I know the Deputy and the Minister share similar views on many issues.

The allocation strategy was announced by the Government today. It is clear that residents of nursing homes will be first to be vaccinated, along with the healthcare workers. That is the sequence which we propose to follow. As I said earlier in the House, there will be many different proposals from different Deputies as to who should be accommodated before somebody else. We need to go with the public health advice on this and with those who have been involved in previous immunisation campaigns to get this right for …

As I said earlier, the allowances review will be completed by the end of December. The intention then is to act very quickly on that. The pandemic unemployment payment decision was made between the Minister for Health and the Minister for Social Protection and will be available to student nurses who cannot partake in normal part-time work because of Covid-19. That is where it things are at the moment but we are committed to protect the degree programme itself.

As I said, we are looking-----

I certainly will pursue that issue with the Minister for Health, who is concerned about waiting lists for children in general, and in particular, for the types of specialised services that the Deputy has referred to.

There we go. One restriction lifted leads to another and then to another and it goes on and on. In the first instance, the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media is not discriminatory in respect of anybody. I speak as someone who did not achieve much in sport but enjoyed it immensely. I have an under-15 cup medal with Togher AFC, which I cherish very much. No less a great hurler than Ger Cunningham was in goal on the same day. From that perspective-----

Yes, Deputy Kelly, I understand. There will be a return volley at some stage. We will examine that issue and the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media has raised these anomalies, which occur from time to time. The essential point, however, between here and Christmas is that we want to minimise the level of activities generally because we want to keep the virus down in order that people can have a safe and meaningful Christmas. We asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sp…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 3, inclusive, together. The Cabinet committee on Europe oversees implementation of programme for Government commitments on the EU and related issues. It last met on 8 October 2020 in advance of the meetings of the European Council on 15 October and 16 October, when it discussed the agenda for that meeting, including climate action and the EU's relationship with Africa. I also used the meeting to brief colleagues on the visit to Dublin earlier that day of President of the Europe…

I omitted a section of my initial reply. There will be a meeting of the Euro Summit which is expected to take stock of recent developments at Eurogroup on banking union and capital markets. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, will attend the Euro Summit in his capacity as president of the Eurogroup and a report on last week's agreement on finalising reform of the European Stability Mechanism is an important step in strengthening the resilience and crisis resolution capabilities of the euro area. The Cabinet c…