I acknowledge the O'Farrell family, who are in our Distinguished Visitors Gallery. I acknowledge Lucia and Jim, Shane's parents, and Gemma, Pia, Aimee and Hannah, his beloved sisters. I first met Lucia and Jim many years ago here in Leinster House. I was serving as the Sinn Féin justice spokesperson at the time. I will never forget that meeting. Lucia had a framed picture of Shane. She took me through what had happened. At that point, it had happened in recent times. There was the grief of this family, who are a ro…

We have a model of assistance for older people in their homes in Donegal that we are very proud of. It is a publicly delivered system in the main and we have not delegated it out to the private sector. Some tremendous people are working in those services in Donegal but they are being held back by the Government. Its pay and number strategy is basically a recruitment freeze. The Government and HSE senior management are preventing the recruitment of home care assistance in Donegal and waiting lists are growing. These…

You are breaking your own law.

When the Dunnes Stores workers made their stand in the 1980s in Ireland, the Government eventually followed suit. It led the way in confronting the South African apartheid regime internationally with sanctions and eventually that regime and apartheid in South Africa came to an end. The Palestinian people recently commemorated the Nakba , the catastrophe, the ethnic cleansing of them from their lands. They have endured oppression, tyranny, genocide and now the mass starvation of their people and the world stands by,…

Not agreed.

We read with interest the comments of the Taoiseach's Government's kingmaker, Michael Lowry, in The Sunday Times , where he boasted about the rota of Ministers who come before his group. He chairs those meetings. Is it not about time the Government published the deal it did with Michael Lowry's group for the programme for Government and took statements and questions and full accountability about the deal it did with Michael Lowry?

I asked a legitimate question about the Order of Business-----

-----as did the Members who raised Standing Order 35(3). They are totally within their rights to do that. Those questions have not been answered. Four different questions were not answered.

This question asks the views of the Minister of State, Deputy Timmy Dooley, on the Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006. The Minister of State will know already from his brief the serious concerns of people in the fishing and seafood industry about the approach of the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority, SFPA, in comparison to other regulators across Europe. I want to have an exchange with the Minister of State at this early stage in his new role. Our committee will do likewise in the next month or so.

I shared with the Minister of State my direct eyewitness account of the incredible level of oversight that the SFPA has of the industry. I witnessed in a fish factory in Killybegs CCTV cameras and access to the building at any time. Even that was not enough. I do not know of any industry where there would be cameras literally in the workplace every day, with images going directly from the factory floor to the regulator, and yet that is not enough. We have got to the point where it is out of control. I am reliably i…

The committee met earlier today. We looked at our work plan. We will be bringing in the fishing representative organisations, the Irish Fishing and Seafood Alliance, the National Inshore Fishermen's Organisation, and the Irish Islands Marine Resource Organisation, which represents the inshore and islands, in order that they can have their say in how this is being implemented. We will look at how it compares to other European states. We need to make sure that we harmonise regulation across Europe and that there is a…

Scoil Mhuire Milford, County Donegal, is a school that was built in the 1950s. It sits right on the corner of a very busy road junction but the facilities are completely inappropriate. You would have to see it to believe how bad it is. Somehow, the school delivers an incredible education to its children. It has secured a new site at no cost to the State. It is within the control points of the town, Donegal County Council is happy with it and it is across from Loreto Secondary School. Everything is there, which is a…

Last year, the then Government finally announced an increase in the cap. This was in line with the recommendations of the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland, which examined the real costings on the ground. The reality is that the Government did not apply that to people who are going through the scheme already; it was only for new entrants. That was cruel. The Government made it clear that it was going to amend the legislation to sort this out. I appealed to the Government to do that before the election. I stood…

He is absent.

I am really concerned about this response written by the Department officials. The people who wrote this were present in Donegal in recent days. They know the urgency of this. Now they are talking about adding other issues to the amendments. This could go on forever. This is straightforward. It is a simple amendment to the legislation to make sure that the increase in the cap is available to everybody currently participating in the scheme, not just the new entrants. It is a really straightforward matter. It should …

It was in the spring one too.

It is not just about them. It is about working families. The Taoiseach is an intelligent man.

Like me, the Minister of State represents a rural constituency. As a result, he understands what a massive problem it is if a person is obliged to wait seven months - that is the current waiting time in County Donegal - for his or her driving test. In my home area of Buncrana on the Inishowen Peninsula, the waiting time has doubled in a year. We are getting representations from young people who are desperate and their parents about the jobs or opportunities they will not be able to take up. This has a major impact …

Not agreed.

Next Tuesday morning, 14-year-old Cara Darmody, the disability rights campaigner, will commence a 50-hour protest outside Leinster House. It is about the failure of the Government to deliver assessments of need to children within the legal six-month period. There are 15,000 children affected. Will the Minister work with the Opposition to draft a motion to go before the Dáil next week to deal with this issue once and for all?