It may all be under the umbrella of Covid-19 matters, by a stretch. On the first matter, I will of course speak to the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Foley, regarding the inclusion of representative voices for SNAs. I think we have more than 70,000 SNAs in our system now. Those posts sprung from an initiative I took back in 1998, when I served as Minister for Education and Science, with regard to special needs education. The objective of the Government and of the Minister is to get as full an opening and…

I assure the Deputy that the hospital board is keeping a vigilant eye on costs and is very much on the case in protecting the taxpayer's interests. I have to put that on the record. The board has kept the Minister informed in respect of the efforts it has been making in that regard. There will be significant domestic tourism activity this year. That is important to weigh up. Our travel advisory is consistent. We are advising people not to travel abroad except for essential reasons. As a result there has been a sign…

I thank the Deputy for that enlightening presentation. I have no issue with sitting down with the Minister and discussing the issues he raised. He might forward to me some further details on the company and its work. That said, the allocation of spectrum is a matter for proper procurement processes and so on. It is not a process with which we can readily interfere. If it is the Deputy's contention that the mechanism unduly disadvantages smaller operators, that is something that can be considered. The national devel…

Many of these issues were looked at well in advance of the NBP. The Department is pretty clear in terms of the primacy of the national broadband plan as the route to creating proper broadband connectivity across the entirety of Ireland, particularly those areas that are not commercially viable. I have no doubt the new Minister is open to any innovative suggestions or proposals that would accelerate provision and enable particularly remote locations to have access to high connectivity. This would facilitate remote w…

First of all, as the Deputy will be aware, the national planning framework targets there being additional population of 160,000 to 180,000 in the north west which would give a population of approximately 1 million people by 2040. In the here and now, Sligo is the engine room in many respects for the north west. In my view, the entire higher education edifice in the region - the institutes of technology, along with St. Angela's College - is the key to economic regeneration there. Obviously, the move towards a techno…

The Government and I want to proceed with the technological university programme as quickly as possible. Quite a few of the delays to date have not originated at central government level but rather, as the Deputy will appreciate, while getting local entities and the various stakeholders, including the institutions, ready or persuaded to do it. The south east is one such area. This is why there are repeated references to it. It has been on the agenda for quite some time. There is a commitment to progress this projec…

I had not.

The Minister has indicated that he wishes to proceed with the two inquiries or investigations by the Data Protection Commission and GSOC. He is of the view that those inquiries should be completed before he would publicly engage with the Dáil.

It is the Business Committee that orders the business of the House, trying to balance the need for Government and Private Members' time. There have been two attempts to change the business. I appreciate that Members are entitled to do that. By the way, the €13 billion would not be available even if there were a decision to uphold the Commission's position. The Government's position is not to support anybody or any company other than to say this was not state aid and that the independence and credibility of our Reve…

I think next week is more sensible because one will be able to examine the judgment. That is my only point. In the immediacy of tomorrow and Thursday, people might not get the full-----

Yes.

I believe the Government's decision is a substantive and significant one in advancing the extension of parents' leave and benefits to five weeks for all parents of children born after 1 November 2019. That is to give parents who gave birth during the Covid period an opportunity to avail of the scheme. The pre-existing scheme was somewhat limited and could have excluded them. The proposal Deputy McDonald put forward in terms of paternity benefit would have required further social welfare and justice legislation and …

The Minister and I met the HSE on Friday. He certainly was not missing. He was in front of an entire press briefing.

He was there and the purpose of the visit was a winter initiative in the context of Covid and also a resumption of services for non-Covid treatments and the non-Covid strand of health services and medicine. It is going to be challenging in terms of capacity constraints in our acute hospitals.

It will also be challenging in terms of face masks. I have made it my business in the last week to knock heads together and get the regulations signed on Friday so masks would be compulsory on public transport. One can spend forever working out who will do that but the Irish people obey the law and they are compliant in relation to public health matters. There was a good degree of compliance by the public yesterday on buses and trains. That type of leadership did work.

Which one-----

It has been effective and the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government has spent a lot of time in the last while meeting NGOs in relation to homelessness. It was brought in in the context of the emergency regulations and legislation relating to the pandemic. It is under active consideration by the Government. A decision has to be made by 20 July.

It is in the programme for Government. I am aware, as is the Deputy, of the finer details of this but there has been a lot of frustration in terms of the difficulties in rolling out the compassionate access programme. The Minister is aware of it, as well. I will come back to the Deputy with, hopefully, some timelines in relation to it.

The first point I would make is that we do not control the private hospitals in terms of their fee structures. However, I reiterate what I said last week, namely, that there should be no profiteering out of the Covid situation in respect of any patients, be they private or public. Private hospitals should not be levying charges that are disproportionate to the costs of providing those services and which are basically unfair to patients. The Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, is communicating that view to the privat…

To be fair, I recall the pub owners themselves, in tandem with the previous Government, saying that they needed to close at the time they did close. In terms of the reopening under phase 4 of the roadmap, there will be a Government meeting tomorrow to discuss it. NPHET is meeting today and will give us its up-to-date advice. I am taken by some of the points made by Deputies McNamara, Cahill, Michael Collins and Mattie McGrath in terms of a rules-based approach sometimes being far more effective. I said earlier that…