Okay. We are hoping the unions will come back and there have been talks with ICTU on this. We understand where it is coming from in that regard. On public service reform and more particularly about the CE scheme supervisors Deputy McDonald mentioned, I will point out that Fianna Fáil has not been in government since 2011 and I certainly have not been in any executive position since then. I have always been a strong supporter of community employment generally and was when I was Minster for Enterprise, Trade and Empl…

The requirement for specialist policy input and advice is a matter for each individual Minister to consider having regard to the area of responsibility and the support in place in the relevant Departments. I have put in place a range of appropriate advisory supports to support me in my role as Taoiseach and Head of Government. At present there are six special advisers working in my private office. These staffing levels are in line with the instructions of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on ministeri…

To respond to Deputy Boyd Barrett, the Department of An Taoiseach is not a huge Department in terms of numbers given the range of co-ordinating work it does across so many other Departments. There is a bit of a myth about this. The Deputy made comments about this earlier. The public service works extremely well and has worked particularly well during Covid-19. Many senior civil servants across the board have worked night and day and at weekends to cope with what has been an unprecedented challenge in many Departmen…

I attended a special meeting of the European Council in Brussels on 1 and 2 October at which we discussed the health and economic impacts of Covid-19 and agreed the need to strengthen our co-ordination especially as regards the development and distribution of a vaccine at European Union level. The response to Covid-19 also formed part of our consideration of our agenda item on the Single Market, industrial and digital policy. The Single Market will be a strong driver of our economic recovery with the twin pillars o…

I thank the Deputies. They caught me by surprise there. I thought there might be more. Deputy Ó Ríordáin was first regarding the position on Brexit. It was a brief discussion. I met the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on the Thursday. It was a very good meeting. She reaffirmed EU support for Ireland on Brexit and emphasised the importance of getting an overall agreement. The following day, President von der Leyen spoke to the Council and summarised how she saw the state of play in negoti…

I will attend a meeting of the European Council next Thursday and Friday, 15 and 16 October. It is expected that the agenda, which has yet to be finalised, will include Brexit, Covid-19, climate change and EU-Africa relations. Depending on developments, further items may be added in due course. Before addressing the upcoming meeting, it might be helpful to the House for me to report briefly on the special meeting of the European Council that took place in Brussels last week on 1 and 2 October. As Deputies will be a…

Unity of purpose on all fronts is essential in dealing with a pandemic of this scale and severity, including within this House. The Deputy has consistently sought in recent times to undermine not just the efforts of the Government but those of the HSE in the context of acute hospital care, testing capacity and so forth. The Deputy has now misrepresented the telephone conversation she had with me yesterday when she said I could not give her assurances. That is not true and she has no right to misrepresent a phone ca…

First, Fianna Fáil was not in power for the last decade. The Deputy consistently says that even when we were at 20 seats. She equates 20 seats with being in power. That is just an aside. It is immaterial and irrelevant. She keeps on with the propaganda and, really, we do not need that now in the middle of a pandemic of this sort. On intensive care unit, ICU, beds, there has been a 25% increase since March. There were 225 ICU beds in March; we now have 282 fully staffed beds, which is an extra 57 with a further 17 i…

-----to deal with this. I do not know why the Deputy does not believe the leadership team in the HSE. She takes umbrage at other situations, but she seems to disagree consistently with the leadership team in the HSE, which consistently says to me, because I make it my business to check if they have capacity to deal with the current situation, "Yes." On testing, the supply at the moment is more than capable of meeting the demand. It is one of the few countries still in a position to meet demand and is exceeding dema…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue given the concerns locally. Protecting those living in direct provision accommodation centres from any Covid-19 outbreak has been an absolute priority of Government. A comprehensive programme of serial Covid-19 testing by the HSE has been completed across 66 accommodation centres. My understanding is about 3,300 tests have been undertaken in direct provision centres and about 18 positive tests have emerged from that testing programme. That is a positivity rate of …

How are they getting from Carnbeg Hotel?

I thank the Deputy for his very positive comments on the facilities in Ardee. Carroll Village is a block of apartment-style independent living units housing mostly family groups. There has been no large-scale transfer of residents either in or out of the centre in recent months and they are entitled to travel, like anybody else, in whatever format or mode they so desire. It is also very important to point out that in the national serial testing programme, we are looking at a 0.53% detection rate, which is quite low…

I thank the Deputy for his remarks. I also thank him for the seat on the bus for any constituent of mine. My emphasis, however, is to avoid people having to go on long journeys to get cataract operations. We should be increasing capacity locally. That is what I modestly announced last week. There was no fanfare. I simply said there would be a significant investment going into the South Infirmary-Victoria hospital, the largest centre in Munster for dealing with eye, ear and throat issues. In particular, it will deve…

Come on. The lads need to relax a bit.

I was reliably informed that Deputy Michael Healy-Rae approached people outside a mass saying he could get them on the bus if they wanted a cataract operation.

The woman concerned-----

Relax.

I am not telling you to sit down-----

That is the truth.

Calm down.