I really do appreciate that. I will give the Minister the postcodes and all of the other necessary information to be able to look at the issue.

How many nursing and medicine places for Irish and EU students are currently in the system? To broaden that out, I ask the Minister a simple question - does he agree with the statement, "We do not train half enough health and social care professionals"?

The Minister provided figures but does he agree with the statement, "We do not train half enough health and social care professionals"? That is what the Minister for Health has been saying for the past couple of years. He lays the blame squarely at the feet of Fine Gael for not providing him with the workforce he needs. That is the issue - things are bounced between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and between the Minister for Health and the Minister for further and higher education. The Minister for Health says he is not…

I am not disappointed.

The Minister spoke about people not leaving the country. I will give him an example from the small, remote, rural area of Belmullet in which I live and from the Mullet Peninsula in County Mayo. More than 50 young people have left to go to Australia alone. Those are the facts, and he can check them out with his local people. Many of them are nurses, doctors and other clinicians we badly need here. It certainly gives me no joy whatsoever that this is the situation we are in. I obviously welcome an all-island approach…

I am not.

This legislation seeks to make amendments to the Electricity Regulation Act 1999 to give the Commission for Regulation of Utilities increased powers and to monitor and regulate the electricity market. This is important legislation that will stand up for people and better protect them against higher prices. As my colleague, Sinn Féin's spokesperson on climate and energy, Deputy O'Rourke, stated, this Bill will increase oversight of hedging practices, which is hugely important, expand powers to monitor anti-competiti…

I thank the Social Democrats for bringing forward this very important motion. As was said, and the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach knows this, for the past number of years we have been highlighting and giving examples of the collapse of the dental care system for medical card holders in Mayo. I am currently dealing with an 80-year-old woman. Two years ago her dentist told her they were no longer taking medical card patients. She had to go somewhere else. For two years she has been trying to find a dentist to take her. The …

Social Justice Ireland today published a damning analysis on the permanent effects of the last couple of budgets on inequality. It reinforces what Sinn Féin has been saying for months now, if not years. The longer this Government is in power, the worse things get. We have the evidence that things are getting worse for those who are crippled by the cost-of-living crisis. The gap between the high earners and middle- and low-income earners just gets bigger under the policies of this Government. An analysis from Social…

I commend all the communities across Ireland that are seeking to make their towns autism friendly. In particular, Ballina is getting together next Thursday to do that. I ask the Taoiseach for his commitment around resourcing the actions that they agree within these towns because it is an important development. It has also happened in Castlebar and many other towns.

As we go around to canvass in Mayo, transport and public transport are among the biggest issues that come up. In addition to the lack of bus shelters and basic transport infrastructure, what comes up is the lack of interconnectedness between private and public operators and between city buses run by the likes of Bus Éireann, Citylink and GoBus and Iarnród Éireann services. For example, in Ballina, the GoBus service is not allowed to stop at the train station or the main bus station. It has to carry people another h…

What the Housing Commission report states is that we do not need more of the same. While the Minister and the Government continue with the back-slapping, I want to explain why their housing plan is not working in Mayo. Last year, less than half of the target for newly built social and affordable housing in Mayo was delivered. That has devastating consequences for the county. A woman with spina bifida and other health issues is living in her mother's house in Ballinrobe. She is forced, along with her partner and the…

If one lives in Mayo or many parts of the west, the struggle to access neurology services is monumental. The regional inequality and inequity are stark. This is the account from just one young woman who is trying to ease her suffering. She is a 40-year-old mother of three young children living in rural Mayo and suffering with debilitating nerve pain in her face, a condition called trigeminal neuralgia. She cannot access the care she needs. She has been in and out of Sligo hospital where she was left on a corridor i…

Absolutely. Mayo for Sam. As the Minister of State knows, I have repeatedly called on the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, to ensure there is accountability and proper oversight in respect of all care centres that HIQA deems likely to be designated care centres. For-profit organisations that care for vulnerable people in our society have been able to avoid accountability and proper oversight and governance for years. I welcome the progress that has been made …

On the way up from Mayo this morning I listened to the sister of Anne Marren from Sligo talk about the horror of 17 May 1974 when her family waited for her at the train station in Sligo, as many do when people are returning from Dublin to rural Ireland. She described what the other families had gone through as well. I welcome the families here to be with us this evening, and also the relatives, and Justice for the Forgotten. I commend the Relatives for Justice and the Pat Finucane Centre. As I stand here, I wonder …

When the Taoiseach took office a month ago, a mother wrote to him asking for help with her six-year-old son. He has severe autism. The family has been refused a domiciliary care allowance. Payment is not supposed to be based on the type of disability but on the level of physical or mental impairment if the child's needs are substantially more than those of other children but this is not what is happening on the ground. Instead families in real need are being denied support. In this case, the mother applied, appeale…

I was really glad to hear one of the Government TDs at the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach earlier say a number of times that we should declare a housing emergency. Even the Government's own TDs are saying it. Its councillors and candidates on the ground recognise it and they are saying the same thing. The Minister needs to listen to them, but they also need to take ownership of it because they are part of a party that designed and constructed where we are today, whether tha…

Go raibh maith agat. This question was previously raised by Deputy Shortall. The Minister's Department completed a review of the ethics legislation and a report on this was submitted to the Government by his predecessor in the Department, the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, in December 2022. The Government approved the publication of the review report and agreed to the preparation of a general scheme for legislative reform. This was informed by the review's outcome. When will the general scheme of this proposed l…

As the Minister stated, the review makes some very important recommendations. There seemed to be an eagerness on the part of the Government to progress the proposed legislation at the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, even when there were a number of scandals and resignations and these were reported in the media. Since then, though, it seems it has been quietly shelved. It should be an offence for Oireachtas Members to fail to disclose their required interests. Currently, Members are merely required to correct…

I hope this will allow SIPO to be more proactive in certain instances and enable it to act where it feels suspected breaches of the ethics framework have taken place. For instance, if it were felt that something had not been declared, then the agency would be able to investigate and sanction members if necessary. My colleague, Deputy Mairéad Farrell, brought forward legislation to achieve this aim and the Government should act, as it has indicated it would, to implement the legislation before the next election.