The rosters are too much. We need equality of care for the hospitals in Kerry.

We support the Bill and some of the amendments, which are worthwhile. I want to take this opportunity to raise a number of issues. No dentist in County Kerry will take on medical card patients at the moment. There was one in Killorglin but the staff were so overwhelmed with requests from across the county that they had to stop taking new patients. I was particularly struck by the case of a man who came to me. He had been working abroad for approximately 30 years. He came home needing to have a crown fixed and he ex…

This motion aims to assist people with their household bills. We need to reduce the costs and put money back in people's pockets. The last straw was the latest round of announcements on electricity prices going up from 27% to 34%. For many, that was the straw that broke the camel's back, in addition to mortgages and back-to-school costs. I spoke last week with a large employer of 130 employees in County Kerry. He showed me his electricity bills. The difference between January 2019 and January 2020 was a 35% increas…

I will raise the issue of public dental treatment in Kerry. The main dental treatment service provider is flooded with patients and is not taking any new patients until at least September or October. With regard to orthodontics, there are 3,033 patients in Cork and Kerry waiting to be assessed. Some 2,355 are waiting for treatment, 1,800 of whom have now been waiting for longer than two years, while 177 have been waiting longer than four years. I recently came across the case of a constituent, a teenager, who conti…

The invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 has led to a mass influx of displaced persons to several EU member states. This has placed renewed pressure on the financial resources of the member states to deal with migration and border management needs. The increased pressure is already being felt across member states that share a land border with Ukraine and the needs have been spreading further afield. The overall objective of this proposal, as the Minister said, is to support member states to address the consequen…

If ever there was a case which showed that the two-tier system of providing healthcare in Ireland, as well as the lack of Government dealing with an issue, it is the case of Alexis O’Mahony, who is a six-year-old girl living in Killarney. She has a pyruvate dehydrogenase, PDH, deficiency. She has a brain injury. She has cerebral palsy quadriplegia. She has visual impairment, the subluxation of her hip and a high risk of aspiration. Her family applied for a grant from the local authority. They were told that because…

I am conscious of the time that is left. I concur with what has been said in support of these amendments, given what the Department and advisers said in our meetings, the rushed nature of the Bill and the facts that many years passed during which it was known that something would have to be done in relation to the case before the European courts and that no real legislation has been prepared. The various stakeholders I have spoken to have all agreed that there is a lack of proportionality in this. The Department’s …

I take issue with one phrase used by the Minister when she replied to the amendment. It was that this is a pared-back piece of legislation. I do not agree with her that it is pared back. I mentioned proportionality earlier on. Under the 2011 Act, a request could be made in the case of a serious offence. This has not been pared back. Rather it has been expanded to "an offence". I am worried whether under the requirement in this legislation where a superintendent believes that data related to a person whom the member…

I ask for the Minister's views on the planned reforms to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, GSOC. She will have seen the 2021 report it released, which mentions the sustained increase in caseload and its preparations for the expanded mandate. Does she envisage any increase in funding for any new body to replace GSOC? Will she make a statement on the matter?

I thank the Minister for her response. The reforms to GSOC contained in the policing, security and community safety Bill were dealt with extensively during pre-legislative scrutiny. The proposed reforms were criticised by many stakeholders in the committee. Some criticised the reforms for giving GSOC too many powers, and others criticised them for not giving it enough powers. I ask the Minister for her initial thoughts on the proposed reforms. The sustained increase in the caseload has also been highlighted as an i…

We can see the importance of dealing with workforce planning in other Departments, such as the Department of Health. The Minister has hit the nail on the head in the question of where GSOC is going to find all the investigators it needs. Are plans in place to source them from other Commonwealth countries around the world that have similar investigative procedures? We do not want to go back to the stage where there are units within An Garda Síochána doing investigations. We do not want to go back to the practices of…

Will the Minister provide me with a date on which members of An Garda Síochána will no longer be investigating other members of the organisation?

Will the Minister detail the supports her Department gives to Free Legal Advice Centres? Will she confirm if her Department has received the 2021 annual report, and will she make a statement on the matter?

I am sure the Minister is aware that an awful lot of the FLAC centres around the country have more or less exclusively been dealing with family law cases. I note the figure of 13,000 calls that the Minister mentioned, which is a small but significant increase. I do not know whether the Minister noticed the following matter but I certainly did and I am sure the Acting Chairman did. There has been a massive increase in the number of people seeking advice since the ban on evictions ended. There have been many notices …

On the point of expanding the services, does the Minister have a specified plan for separate family law courtrooms and courts around the country in the larger towns? If so, which towns is she talking about? I know that FLAC and the other organisations wrote to the Minister in July of last year about its demand for its services and the massive legal demand that is out there. The fact that the review is taking place is welcome and I commend the Minister on doing that but when will the report be completed? Does the Mi…

Will additional courtrooms be built around the country?

I want to ask the Minister which projects will benefit from the funding allotted under the public private partnership, PPP, line item in the Department's planned capital expenditure for 2022.

It is interesting that the Minister mentioned the Criminal Courts of Justice because the repayments on that have probably been going on for 15 years and it will cost the State a sum of over €600 million for a piece of ground it already owned. There was only one real winner in that, namely the original funder, Babcock & Brown, which has received huge amounts of money from it. It is interesting that the largest capital commitments are towards PPPs and that is a pity given the lessons that are not being learned from t…

Has there been engagement with the Department of heritage in relation to these new projects? As the Minister is probably aware, officials from that Department spoke to the justice committee some time ago in relation to courthouses. The strong recommendation of one of the architects was that a grade 2 or 3 architectural review should take place before services are withdrawn from any court building. That should be done, in our view, in relation to Tralee courthouse. This might be a time, given what is or is not being…

Will the Minister ask that the heritage report be given before that meeting takes place so it can be properly considered?