Last week I asked the Minister about various aspects of the costs we are paying to lease the private hospitals. I asked whether we are paying the directors' pay, the CEO pay, rent or interest for the private hospitals. The Minister said I would get a response in writing from the HSE or the Department within days but I have not received one yet. Fundamentally, I am trying to get to the bottom of why the HSE is being charged €44,000 per bed when the NHS is paying about €10,000 per bed. I will pose those questions aga…

I am simply asking whether we are paying-----

We have the right to know about this money in the context of a company that paid almost no tax on €170 million.

I hope to get another question in but first I will see if we get an answer.

Following up on Deputy Bríd Smith's question about workplaces, the Minister has obviously seen the clusters. We have been contacted by many workers in many different workplaces who have had difficulty getting anyone to inspect their workplaces. This is now becoming a very central issue in the context of a phased ending of the lockdown, a return to work and so on. Does the Minister agree that workplaces cannot open up until a risk assessment has taken place involving safety representatives from among the workers, wi…

I want to raise an important issue with the Minister, which is the decision of the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, to continue processing adjudications on evictions and other cases without holding hearings. I have a letter from the RTB that says due to the coronavirus all cases will be handled as paper-based adjudication and there will be no physical hearing. There is no proposal for a virtual Zoom or Skype hearing or anything else. The RTB says very clearly that it will be a paper-based hearing, which will be th…

The Minister did not really answer the question. Adjudications are still happening, even if they may be happening at a lesser volume than before. It is significant that the RTB is saying, and I have a letter from the RTB to someone involved in the case, that it will not be holding hearings. It will not hold physical hearings, but what is contained in that is that it will not hold hearings at all and will instead do paper-based adjudication. These adjudications will have the same weight as a proper hearing that woul…

People are not getting hearings.

Maybe we could do question and answer, if we get to it. I will pick up where the Minister left off. I agree that we should have free provision of childcare as a public service. We need to develop a national childcare service in this country, and it can be done. The question is, is now not the time to do it? Our so-called normal model of childcare was a failure. It was a failure for families who were spending, on average, one fifth of their income on childcare, which was one of the highest in Europe. It was definite…

I have another more specific question relating to huge numbers of workers who have been forced to stay at home to mind children in the course of this crisis. It seems that for many workers this will continue to be the case for months to come. Does the Minister agree that parents must not suffer as a result of this, that those who need to stay at home to mind their children, and for whom that is the reason for staying at home, should be given leave on full pay with no detriment to them when they return to work, and …

Annual leave.

It referred to people who have taken annual leave at all-----

Including healthcare workers.

We are now beginning to see the long-term economic impact of this emergency. The question of who will pay is going to loom extremely large. Will we bail out workers or will we, once again, bail out big businesses? Unfortunately, the indication from the Government so far in terms of its attitude to the airline industry is that the same mistakes of the past will be repeated and CEOs and big businesses will be bailed out. Millions of flights have been cancelled and tens of thousands of people are due and entitled to f…

The Taoiseach is correct when he says that is the law, but his Government and 11 others have written to the European Commission calling for the law to be changed. I find it hard to believe that the Taoiseach is not aware that is the position of his Government. The second more general question concerns the future of airlines because they are, in a sense, the banks of this crisis. IAG is cutting one-third of its jobs in British Airways. It is, unfortunately, likely to move to do the same in Aer Lingus. Is it not time…

Some 6,000 staff-----

I will ask a question, get a response and then ask another question, if that is okay. The buck must stop with the Minister and the Government is scandalously disregarding the health and safety of workers. It is an utter disgrace that there is nowhere for workers to go to seek an on-site inspection.

The Minister says the HSE. I have an email from the HSE.

A minute ago the Minister said the HSE. On 23 April the HSE responded to an email from me about Keelings which stated, "Further to your email of the 20/4/20 below, please be advised that the HSE environmental health service has no statutory role in the inspection of employee living accommodation or workplace health and safety." Two weeks ago the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and the Minister for Finance told me in the Dáil and in a written answer to a parliamentary question to contact the HSE. The HSE has now clearly…

How many on-site inspections have taken place?