I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Collins, for coming in this evening. I raise the matter of the reconfiguration of the North East Doctor on Call, NEDOC, service that we received correspondence about in June. This is worrying for my constituents as a reconfiguration is due to come into effect from 4 August. In other words, a change to the service will come into effect within a matter of weeks. This essentially means there is going to be a reduction in the service where out-of-hours care on a face-to-face basis …

I thank the Minister of State. This issue is so critical that GPs in the Carrickmacross area got together and penned their own letter of concern to suggest the town needs more GPs to provide the service that is needed due to the increasing age demographic and the cultural diversity of the population. When GPs are coming together and putting pen to paper like that, it backs up what NEDOC is saying because one cannot survive without the other. Will the Minister of State ask the Minister to ensure the HSE fully engage…

I raise this issue on behalf of thousands of workers in the education sector, particularly personal assistants who work in further education and bus drivers, who have had to sign on for social welfare over the summer months. One query I have had, for example, concerns a lady who signed on on 20 May. To this day, she has not received one penny. That is unsustainable, considering everything happening in the world today, particularly with the cost of living through the roof. The response I got from the Department is t…

I wish to raise the issue of public transport for the Cavan-Monaghan area and specifically the Bus Éireann Expressway route No. 30 that takes people from Donegal, through Cavan and on to Dublin. Over the past weeks it has been aired very robustly on the Northern Sound airwaves how people are being let down entirely by this service. One can imagine that in a constituency like mine we very much depend on this critical part our public transport. We depend on it for the airport and we depend on it for hospital appointm…

I begin by congratulating Derry on its terrific win in the Ulster GAA final at the weekend and extend my commiserations to Donegal. It was a terrific game of football. With the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers, in the Chamber, I want to refer to the wonderful and buzzing weekend in Clones with the excitement of the Ulster final. There were almost 30,000 fans in St. Tiernach’s Park and that makes a huge difference to the local economy in a town such as Clones in a Border county such as Monaghan, w…

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for her latitude. I want to talk to the Minister of State about the hydrotherapy pool in Enable Ireland in Cavan, which I was very privileged to bring her to see. I want to thank her publicly for the time she spent in Cavan-Monaghan visiting many of our disability services. I am sure she was as shocked as I was to see a wonderful facility lying closed when so many children and adults in our disability services could desperately do with such a facility in order to improve their care…

I thank the Minister of State for her positive response. There are questions to be answered as to why a pool has lain idle for the past four years. I know there is no point in going back and we need to be positive and look forward, but it is not good enough to say that Covid is the reason a hydrotherapy pool has lain idle for the past four years. Covid has been going on for two years, but the Minister of State and I know that disability services have been up and running as much as possible, even through Covid. I do…

I raise the matter of the death of Shane O'Farrell in a hit-and-run accident which stole a beautiful 23-year-old son from Lucia and Jim and took a deeply loved brother from his sisters in 2011. The Taoiseach has met the O'Farrell family on a number of occasions and is acutely aware of how the criminal justice system failed Shane and continues to fail his grieving family. The man who perpetrated this awful crime was in breach of a bail bond for various courts. He had received a custodial sentence for four heroin off…

I want to raise the impending wipe out of the pig industry in the very near future if we do not act quickly to plug the hole in the colossal losses engulfing family pig farms around the country. Teagasc has estimated that pig farmers are losing an average of €56,000 per month, and rising. The war in Ukraine has had an impact on feed prices and Teagasc is also taking into account what is happening with energy costs. I thank the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue, for his interventions,…

I wish to discuss the Future of Media Commission and the publication of its report. As the Tánaiste knows, the report was completed approximately six months ago. Speaking as Chair of the Oireachtas committee with responsibility for this area, our committee is hamstrung without the report's publication. Tomorrow, we will welcome the chair designate of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, Ms Mary Curtis, to our committee. That authority is going to be subsumed into the new commission. I have two questions. The elep…

My question relates to the marking scheme set out by the State Examinations Commission, SEC, specifically the allocation of marks for geography and history, in order that teachers can advise their students. I would welcome if the Minister could make a statement on the matter.

I wholeheartedly congratulate the Minister on the terrific announcement yesterday that 310 schools have been brought under the delivering equality of opportunity in schools, DEIS, programme. That €32 million investment will make a major difference to many thousands of students throughout the country. As somebody who not only taught history of art but corrected it for the SEC, I am acutely aware that the marking scheme is very important for teachers in giving accurate advice to students on time spent on questions. I…

The expectation was raised in 2021 and 2020 when the NCCA issued a number of junior certificate sample questions online. These clearly stated that each question is not weighted the same in the marking scheme. That raised the expectation and the hope that clarity could be given around that to give teachers an ample opportunity to give guidance to their students. It is a difficult time for teachers and students and, as the Minister said, we have come through a difficult time in education because of the pandemic. With…

I want to raise the matter of the N2 Clontibret to the Border road project and the concerns of Monaghan County Council around it. It has now become clear that the level of funding available within the first half of the national development plan is not sufficient to progress this important infrastructural project through planning and design. As the Minister is aware, it is part of the same project, which is the Ardee to Castleblayney road scheme. It does not make any sense that the two are divided up and that they h…

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. Can the Minister make a statement please on the reopening of the Kingscourt rail line?

Unfortunately, probably, for the Minister.

I thank the Minister very much. I was always very struck by the Minister when in opposition, and when I was also an opposition Member, because he always admired the ambition that I had for that rail line coming to a county along the Border in Cavan. If one looks at the map of Ireland to see where the main arteries and infrastructure are, one can draw a line from Dublin to Galway. North of that we have, as a State, neglected that part of this island. I am very hopeful for this project with this Minister in post. I a…

I take this opportunity to invite the Minister to walk the stretch of rail line with me from Navan to Kingscourt, although perhaps not in its entirety. As I said, there is incredible work being done in developing it as a greenway, but I believe we must be ambitious. We must have a vision of reopening that as a rail line to Kingscourt because the potential it has to open the Border region is huge. A large proportion of the population in Cavan and Monaghan commutes to Dublin. If we are serious about getting traffic o…

No.

We have two colleagues able and capable of doing that. It has been interesting to hear the discussion on the various issues raised this evening. I want to talk about the situation of Fidelle, a woman from my own little town of Bailieborough, who has many challenges in life and was recently diagnosed with a strangulated hernia. She was scheduled for an operation in Beaumont Hospital. Over the past two years, Covid testing has become a natural part of hospital life and preparation for operations and so on, which we a…