People need a chance to read the speech to prepare their questions. I ask that we delay for a minute until we can all get copies of the Minister's speech.

We want a statement.

No, he did not.

The Deputy is a Government supporter, for God's sake.

The Opposition has made a collective stand on this matter in recent days. Yesterday, all of the Opposition Whips, on behalf of our parties and political groups, made a stand and said that the Minister for Justice must come before the democratically elected Dáil to take questions and answers. We have said this repeatedly. We told the Government that this issue would not go away and that respect must be given to the House. Whenever there is a matter of serious public concern, we expect the Minister of the day to come…

The Minister of State is fooling nobody with his bad grace. The public knows that the Government was forced to do the right thing. I am proud of the collective Opposition. I wish to be clear on this point and I urge the Government to take the warning. We will stand up for democracy and we will demand accountability. It is clear to us that Fine Gael has a huge problem with accountability. It had better get used to it because this is what the Opposition will look like from now on.

I support that proposal that we go back to the Dáil Chamber. For example, the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will recall we had the issue around the confidence vote in the Tánaiste and we were able to bilocate when it was the Government that was requesting it. It is a reasonable request and I support it.

The Taoiseach is around a long time.

It is not agreed. The Taoiseach spoke of the separation of powers being precious in our democracy. I want him to reflect on the fact that we are talking about the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, the court whose judges interpret the people's Constitution and protect the people by assessing legislation and dealing with cases. It does not get more important than that. Therefore, the process of appointment to that court could not be any more important to our democracy. We know that at least three judges, …

I want the Taoiseach to reflect very deeply on this because he is somebody who repeatedly professes a passion for our democracy and the separation of powers. We are talking about the process of appointment to the Supreme Court.

It could not be more serious. The Taoiseach needs to bring the Minister to the House in order that she can be accountable to the elected representatives of the people and take their questions and statements in line with the tradition of the House.

We would-----

We learned last night that as of last Friday 133 staff at Letterkenny University Hospital were off work. We understand the number could now be above 150. All non-essential services have been suspended. The hospital faces an unprecedented crisis. We are talking about a hospital that was run at full capacity over recent years, so that is saying something. I appeal to the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health to ensure that every possible additional resource is deployed to the hospital. As public representatives we ar…

Covid-19 has affected every single walk of life since last March. When society practically shut down eight months ago, we entered the land of the unknown. Natural human interaction that we took for granted was no longer possible. We needed to try to find a new way of interacting. It was no longer possible to attend workplaces or school settings. At some stages, we could no longer fly, drive or even walk to meet our families. The possibility of attending sporting or music events was removed. This was all due to the …

That is not the issue.

The Taoiseach should show some respect.

What does that have to do with this issue?

It is not agreed.

The issue of late sittings is one we are working to resolve. I hope that soon we will not be sitting later than 10 p.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. That is a shared concern across the Houses. Sinn Féin Private Members' time tonight is Opposition speaking time of two hours' duration during which the Government would normally have 20 minutes' speaking time. I have received official notification from the Oireachtas authorities that this cannot now go ahead. Intentionally, the Government's confidence motion is aimed at…

We understand the public health concerns of the CSO's director general and agree that it makes sense to postpone the census. However, under the EU framework regulation, Ireland is required to submit census data to EUROSTAT with a reference date next year. What accommodation has been made with EUROSTAT to allow Ireland to push the taking of the census into 2022? On a related matter, there is a shortfall in the HSE's contact-tracing capacity. A census is a huge undertaking requiring a large number of people to be dep…