I welcome the opportunity to contribute. I have spoken many times in this House on mental health and in particular, the mental health of our younger generation. The younger generation of today faces many challenges and mental health is one of the main ones. I welcome this Bill and hope that by transferring certain functions to the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, it will improve the provision of mental health services to our younger generation. Unfortunately, statistics do not lie…

What are the Minister's plans to improve the pay, benefits and conditions for professional workers in the childcare sector, given that many of these employees are earning below the minimum wage?

I thank the Minister for his response. He will be aware that more than 30,000 people are employed in the childcare sector, most of whom are female. The minimum qualification they hold at the moment is FETAC level 5. Ireland has some of the most highly-rated qualified professionals who are paid some of the lowest wages in any sector, some below the living wage. The types of people who go into childcare are fantastic, with graduates moving into the sector at the moment. While the Minister might say that his Departmen…

My biggest concern is that there is no job security. There is no professional progression. The workers are being paid the minimum wage and many of them are being paid below the living wage. As I said, most of these families entrust their children to the childcare workers. The childcare sector has been underfunded for many years and as a result, Ireland is ranked as the lowest country in the EU for investment in this vital area. The Government needs to invest in the area. We need to get the right people looking afte…

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak today. The Covid pandemic has been a life-changing experience for us all. Who would have thought a couple of years ago of the impact Covid has had on each and every one of us? Thankfully, it seems we are now over the worst of this pandemic and society is starting to get back to normal, although we need to remain cautious. We need to look after our front-line staff. There is a lot of work being done at the moment. I think of the medical staff who fought this disease with gr…

It is almost 41 years since the terrible Stardust nightclub fire in Artane in Dublin, in which 48 young people died and 214 were injured. The Stardust fire is embedded in the memories not only of the people of Dublin, but the collective memory of the nation. There was no one untouched by the fire, from Cork to Donegal, from Sligo to Louth. Everyone knew someone who was at the Stardust nightclub on that terrible Valentine’s night in 1981. It is incredible that 41 years on from the disaster, the survivors and familie…

We are all here today in a political arena. It is true to say that our politics stem from humanity. Before we are politicians we are human beings. We feel love and pain, and we feel the love and pain felt by others. Today I ask the Tánaiste, as a caring man, to take a personal lead in bringing about an immediate and unhindered commencement of the inquest into the Stardust nightclub fire. Antoinette Keegan has asked me to say that her mother, on her deathbed, pleaded with her children never to give up until a proper…

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate today. First, I would like to convey my deepest condolences to the family of Ashling Murphy, her boyfriend, her school community and the wider community in which she played such an active and important role. Her needless death has touched everybody in many ways. It has raised many questions that need to be addressed: about our justice system; about gender-based violence; about women's safety; and about men and their attitudes towards women. Over the cou…

The Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal has handed its resignation into the Minister for Finance. This board plays a key role in the scheme to provide relief for vehicle registration tax, VRT, and VAT on vehicles for people with disabilities. The issue revolves around the disabled drivers and passengers’ scheme which provides tax relief on the purchase of specially constructed or adapted vehicles for someone with a disability. To qualify, applicants have to obtain a primary medical certificate and the criteria…

I very much welcome the opportunity to contribute. As we all know, we had our first official case of Covid-19 in Ireland in February 2020, almost 22 months ago. It is fair to say that, since that date, we in this country and everyone throughout the world have endured a very difficult period. So many people have suffered and continue to suffer. The many thousands of people who have contracted Covid-19 and are still feeling the effects of long Covid continue to struggle with their day-to-day lives. In the past, I hav…

I support the foetal pain relief Bill, which I was happy to co-sponsor when it was introduced in May. I continue to support its humanitarian measures completely and I encourage my colleagues to allow this Bill to progress to Committee Stage. The Bill will place an obligation to give pain relief to unborn babies before late-term abortions. Scientific evidence now suggests unborn babies can feel pain before 20 weeks' gestation. This was pointed to in a recent article published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical …

I welcome the opportunity to speak to the motion. Along with colleagues in the Regional Group I bring this motion before the House today and hope that all sides of the House will support us. Ireland has one of the largest maritime areas in the EU and it is over seven times larger than our land mass. Our maritime area covers almost 500,000 sq. km, which represents a 220 million acre marine resource. With these resources we have the potential to develop over 70,000 MW of offshore renewable energy. What this means in …

I welcome the opportunity to speak. In Ireland our health insurance is supposed to be community rated. The Health Insurance Acts prohibit risk rating, the reason being to ensure people will, in theory, pay the same price regardless of their age or health status. The health insurance market in Ireland is worth over €2.5 billion and 2.31 million people are covered, which represents 46% of the population. Section 8 of the Bill provides for a reduction in the stamp duty levies on policies from 1 April 2022. The current…

I draw the Taoiseach's attention to a serious issue faced by many new parents since the cyberattack on the HSE in May and in the context of the ongoing challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. Since May, parents of newborn babies have been having extreme difficulties in registering their births. In many circumstances, they have been unable to register a birth at all, and that means those parents are being denied the opportunity even to apply for such services as GP-visit cards, passports, baptism certificates and child…

I asked the Taoiseach for a definite timeline. To be honest, most of the people who come into my office are women with children. They are looking for help. I became a grandfather recently again and it is a fantastic and joyous time. However, these people coming to me are struggling and want help. They need medical attention, a GP-visit card and the children's allowance. These people are looking for help, but they can get nothing done until they get registered. Then, when they have that done, they must look for a PP…

For the third time.

Page 28 of the programme for Government states that the Government will continue to prioritise reform of the insurance sector with particular emphasis on motor, public liability and employer's liability. I spoke to the Department of the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, a few weeks ago and mentioned a trampoline park in Dundalk. In fairness the Minister of State has given us a bit of help for outdoor activities and leisure but for some unknown reason we just cannot seem to do the same for indoor activities. The tr…

The technological university, TU, project has transformed higher education across the State. With the recent announcements of the Technological University of the Shannon, the Technological University of the South East, and now the Atlantic Technological University, the national jigsaw, as the Minister has described it, is almost complete. However, the glaringly absent piece of this jigsaw is the north east, and its sole higher education provider Dundalk Institute of Technology, DkIT. Four years ago, DkIT was a lead…

I wish to raise the issue of Dundalk Institute of Technology's ambition to become a technological university. There is no doubt that the technological university project is transforming higher education across the State. With the recent announcements of the Technological University of the Shannon, the technological university for the south east and the Atlantic technological university, the national jigsaw the Minister has described is almost complete. I will mention again that the missing piece of the jigsaw is th…

As I have told the Minister, Dundalk Institute of Technology is an integral part of the north east. It was established in 1971 and has 6,000 students and 500 staff, as I mentioned. The institute now needs to be part of the TU project. The Minister said there was a problem. If there is a problem, I would appreciate it if he and the Department would sort it out because, at the end of the day, the people who are losing out are the students, their parents and the prospective students. I really urge the Minister to get …