Recruitment agencies. I simply did not get an answer. I got other answers but not the answer about how much it cost. What I was told, which is fairly extraordinary, is that of the 70,000 people who applied for the Be On Call for Ireland programme, 111 have been recruited. That is pitiful. It is against a background of a dire need for increased staffing for Covid and non-Covid care, where we were already in a chronic situation in terms of capacity with poor levels of staffing before Covid, and we have additional nee…

The agencies' pitiful failure, and leaving not recruited hundreds who are qualified, is inexplicable, as is the Department not outlining the cost. I have a question about St. Mary's Centre on Merrion Road, run by the Sisters of Charity, who say the centre will have to close because it is unable to meet the HIQA requirements. This is a centre for the vulnerable and elderly where there were no Covid cases, which suggests it is not a bad place, yet the charity is saying the centre has to close because it cannot afford…

While this is primarily about the climate transition we need to make, given that the Minister of State is here, I want to raise one urgent issue. It would be good to get his response to it. Threshold is the latest group today to appeal to the Government to extend the eviction ban for a number of months. I argue it should be extended for the foreseeable future. Some of us have been saying the eviction ban should remain in place until we address the housing emergency. Will the Minister of State say anything about not…

It is. If we had a State company giving guaranteed, quality employment, recruiting apprentices and so on, we could do the scale of retrofit programme that we need to do. The other point is the pay-as-you-save scheme. As the Government has been talking about it for years, why the hell do we not have it? I simply do not understand. We should give people €30,000 or €40,000 in grants, interest free, at no cost in terms of extra payments. We should just make them repay it through the savings they get when their house is…

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry. Black lives matter. Racism is not so much a virus as a poison deliberately administered. George Floyd was a victim of murderous, brutal and systemic racism that was deliberately stoked, encouraged and escalated by the billionaire Donald Trump, who uses racism deliberately, as even General James "Mad Dog" Mattis has admitted, to divide and rule, to deflect away from economic and social injustice and to set people against one another. Will the Taoiseach condemn Donald Trump for hi…

Perhaps a more accurate description of divide and rule tactics is the false claim the Taoiseach tried to make in order to boost his political ambitions by decrying the welfare cheats who cheat us all, rather than the bankers and property speculators who truly did cheat us all. Maybe the Taoiseach will address another group who are about to face an injustice at his hands and, indeed, have faced police harassment in recent days. I refer to the Debenhams workers who are currently standing outside Leinster House and ha…

The Minister of State and others have rightly praised the role of our Defence Forces in the public health effort. They have done fantastic work in areas like testing and tracing. Obviously, there is the bravery of forces on missions in Lebanon, Congo and elsewhere. Does that praise not ring a bit hollow when we consider the failure to really support our military personnel with decent pay and conditions? The figures are damning, because of the poor levels of pay, the cuts in allowances and the failure to restore pay…

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry. The Minister has sought to assure people that there is no plan to cut the pandemic unemployment payment, and we heard similar assurances from the Taoiseach yesterday. I will outline why people have reason to be distrustful of those assurances. First, it is worth remembering that the original proposal from the Government for support for people who lost their jobs and income was for €203. It was only because of an outcry about how unacceptable that was that the Government was forc…

I concur with that point, but I want to raise another issue. The sessions we are having this week, and indeed every week, were established on the basis that we could ask questions of Ministers and get accountability during the Covid-19 pandemic. Last week in the Dáil, I was given a commitment by the CMO that they would publish the minutes of the expert advisory group to NPHET.

No, hold on, a Cheann Comhairle. I am pointing out that the procedures and the mechanisms for accountability set up by the Business Committee, where I first sought the publication of the minutes of the expert advisory group on 16 March-----

On 16 March-----

There were multiple commitments. Are commitments made-----

No, I am asking whether commitments made in this House and to the Business Committee are respected or are they just meaningless.

I got answers, I have got commitments and promises and they have come to nothing.

At this point the Dáil and the Business Committee are being treated with contempt by the refusal to publish the minutes of the expert advisory group; the people who are supposed to be advising NPHET on the public health response.

It is not just the sub-committee; it is this House and the Business Committee.

I would appreciate it if the Taoiseach would respond to my inquiry as well.

He has not done so far. My point concerns the procedures and the schedule for this week. This schedule is a sham. Commitments to transparency relating to issues such as the expert advisory group to NPHET are made in the House and then they are just ignored.

The point of this place is basic transparency and accountability. If I ask for the minutes of the expert advisory group for two months, am promised them time and time again and never get them, something is wrong. I want the Taoiseach to tell the Minister for Health to publish the minutes of the expert advisory group. We need to know what the experts told NPHET.

The Taoiseach did hear it-----