I take issue with the Deputy. The Government has not rejected any advice, and he is wrong to assert that in respect of NPHET. We engaged with NPHET, and obviously I had discussions with the Chief Medical Officer. We took a more conservative stance on the restriction of visitors to households. NPHET would have-----

We have not opened the pubs. That is the point.

I am sorry but Deputy Murphy is not even in the Chamber. What is going on is outrageous. I am not answering Deputy Murphy; I am answering Deputy Boyd Barrett. There should not be people in corridors heckling during Leader's Questions. That is not acceptable behaviour. I want to make the point that we did not open wet pubs because of a range of advice from EY and others, tracking what happened in August and September and taking decisions based on that evidence base. In respect of the point I was about to make, we to…

I do not think that we can make up the rules as we go along. We have a Dáil reform committee. It has met on quite a number of occasions. It has laid out the Standing Orders of the House. It is a long standing precedent that the Ceann Comhairle, following advice and so forth, adjudicates on issues. Sometimes that adjudication does not find favour with some in the House, but that does not mean that those some can then dictate debates and dictate the agenda because it does not suit. It is not fair to say that the moti…

I must respectfully say that Deputy McDonald is wrong. The legislation has been published. The pension age will remain at 66. I find her comments extraordinary when to a person, her members of the Northern Ireland Assembly all voted to raise the pension age there to 66. This is an area where the Assembly has devolved authority. Under the changes we are making, no one will have to queue for the dole at 65. We are changing the rules around applications for jobseeker's allowance. The pensions commission has been estab…

There is no doubt that a catch-up programme is required in light of what transpired during the first Covid-19 lockdown, when services were essentially mothballed and many people did not turn up for appointments. There has been a significant ramping up of efforts there. Screening programmes have been re-established and non-Covid-19 health services are being protected. There is capacity in our hospital system to deal with cases now. Obviously the required protections against Covid-19, such as social distancing, are h…

Very significant resources are being put into emergency services for homeless people. That will continue. Local authorities are working with NGOs, which are experienced and have been working with the homeless for a long time, to get the best accommodation for people as they require it. The figure of a third of rough sleepers, which the Deputy cites as the number refused emergency accommodation, is a little high. I would like to interrogate it a little bit more. Perhaps the Deputy could engage with the Minister for …

A mediation process was put in place. We worked on that and we thank Mr. Kevin Foley for taking responsibility. I said in the Dáil last week that space should be given by all parties, including KPMG, to facilitate the conduct of those mediation talks.

Legislation on the holding of AGMs was completed yesterday in the Seanad and will come before this House, I think, in the next two weeks. I will consult the Attorney General and the Minister for Finance, who can in turn consult the Central Bank to see if this issue can be resolved. The whole idea of the legislation was to facilitate virtual dealing or the holding of AGMs and so on because of Covid-19 and the restrictions it has imposed. I thank the Deputies for raising this.

I have met virtually with the organisation concerned regarding Bessborough. The organisation is very focused and very pragmatic. I am not sure that the land in question is right for development, to be frank, but that is another story. On the matter Deputy Connolly raised, that legislation was not ostensibly about delaying the publication of the-----

No, it was not the excuse, actually.

I take exception to that. The rationale put forward by the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, was very clear and was to preserve and protect the records in order that people could avail of them. It was not ostensibly about anything or about delaying; it was about preserving the record. That truth will emerge. The bottom line is this: the Minister is in consultation with all the groups and a memorandum is being prepared for the Government. It is quite a comprehensive memorandum, dealing with all aspects of the report and, m…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 3, inclusive, together. The Government co-ordination committee was established by the Government to review the activity of Cabinet committees, review the agenda for that week's Government meeting, discuss political priorities and review implementation of a specified element of the programme for Government. The committee meets in advance of Government meetings. I am a member of the committee, which I chair, along with the Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, and the leader of the Green Pa…

Regarding Deputy Kelly's question, I said to him earlier that I appreciate the constructive way in which the question was put. I established a task force and asked my Department to co-ordinate its work in order to give a sense of the national priority that attaches to what will be a very significant logistical undertaking in regard to the procurement, storage and distribution of the vaccine, and IT infrastructure to back that up, and proper protocols around the administering of the vaccine, including deciding, in t…

In September 2018, the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland published its report outlining a clear vision and roadmap for strengthening An Garda Síochána and the broader national framework for policing, security and community safety.  In December 2018, the Government approved A Policing Service for the Future as the plan to implement the commission's report.  The plan was developed in co-operation with stakeholders from across the public service, including, in particular, the then Department of Justice a…

On Deputy Kelly's question, that issue is being examined in the context of the implementation of the commission's reports in terms of the governance-----

The Deputy should look at the programme for Government, for example, on the precise nature of this in terms of balancing governance with accountability. I am not so sure that the Policing Authority worked, to be honest. I do not mean that in any way to apportion blame, but there were some issues regarding role definition-----

-----in terms of whether it was about governance or accountability and who was ultimately responsible for the governance of An Garda Síochána. We need to reflect on that continually. I take the Deputy's point that one does not want an in-house culture that promotes certain people in certain areas. One wants an arm's-length, independent, objective approach to recruitment-----

-----and especially with senior appointments. That is accepted. That has been in place in recent times. We agree on the principles in this, but we must get a model and ensure it works. The Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland put a great deal of work into it. I and all Deputies engaged with it, irrespective of whether we were in or out of Government.

The esprit de corps of the commission was a positive one. It was designed to transform. I believe the most important areas are recruitment and education. That is in the next phase and needs a radical change, in my view. We must broaden the experiences of people who apply to An Garda Síochána. On the other questions, the recruitment is ongoing. A report from the future of policing implementation group was put before the Cabinet today. For example, there will be a greater emphasis on diversity in recruitment and recr…