"Long-awaited" is the phrase most associated with this Bill, and I certainly welcome it. Farmers in Mayo desperately need this legislation but we need it to mean something. A number of things need to be done on Committee Stage in order to get this right. I ask the Minister to work with us, including my colleague, Deputy Carthy, to make sure we get it right because it is a one-off opportunity. The reason this legislation is before us is the reporting of the cartel-like behaviour that farmers have experienced until n…

I thank my colleagues for allowing me time to speak and the Regional Group for bringing forward the motion. I am supposed to be in Mayo at the moment but I stayed on because this issue is such a problem in the county. No dentists are taking on new clients. This is not just coming to the fore now; it has been going on for months and it must be addressed. I wish to follow on from the point made by Deputy Cullinane that it takes direct intervention with the dentists to get this sorted. I am aware of teenagers who are …

It was said the Minister is working hard, and we are not disputing that, because I do not really know. What I do know is that it is absolutely not working for the people in Mayo. The Government says it is doing its best. The Government designed the system that is not working, in the form of the housing assistance payment, HAP, the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and everything else, and by privatising the very thing people need, which is their shelter and the roof over their heads. This area was privatised under …

I support this Bill but want to make a couple of points about it, especially regarding the lack of investment, including in Mayo and the rest of the west. The failure to include the western rail corridor in the trans-European transport network, TEN-T, funding scheme is a missed opportunity. EU funding of up to 20% of the overall project value could be provided to successful applicants. We keep missing the target in addressing regional imbalance. This is an opportunity to hit it. The Minister of State needs to start…

We must ask ourselves how we got to a point where we have the highest level of 25- to 29-year-olds being forced to live with their parents. Some 60.9% of that age cohort do not have a place to live independently. That is almost double what it was previously. That is shameful. Over 5,000 leaving certificate students put nursing or midwifery as their first preference on their CAO application. It is not that young people do not want to become nurses and midwives; it is that the State is failing to provide training. We…

I am aware of cases in which the patient is in hospital and has been deemed eligible for a home care package but has not been able to get it, and then the hospital charges the patient for the extended stay. The hospital charges the patient because the other end of the HSE service cannot provide the home care that is necessary. Will the Minister of State make it clear today that hospitals should not charge for extended stays where, through absolutely no fault of their own, patients cannot go home for health and safe…

I will do so. I thank the Minister of State.

I appreciate the fact that the Minister has met with the clinicians. He will know that the clinicians have done a huge amount of work on this. They are really busy people, but they have an expertise and they really care about what is happening in the region. The truth is, as the clinicians have pointed out, if you live in that region and you are accessing the cancer services there, it is not the same as accessing them in another part of the country. We need to bring equity and fairness to the situation there. That …

This is the third time in two days that I have raised the issue of Western Care and what has come across my desk. I have deep, grave concerns about what has been reported on protected disclosures. The Minister knows what I am talking about. I want an independent investigation into these serious concerns. This is a matter relating to the most vulnerable people in our community. The information that has been put to us has to be investigated independently. I will make two comments to the Minister. First, there is no p…

Is the Taoiseach aware that a number of protected disclosures have been submitted to the Western Care Association and the HSE in County Mayo? Will the Taoiseach ask his Ministers to conduct an immediate independent investigation into these serious issues related to the care of the most vulnerable people in our county? I wish to ask the Taoiseach why there are 42 unregulated individualised services operating in the county. Will the Taoiseach give his assurances that no employee, former employee, service user or fami…

I will bring-----

I was glad to hear Sinn Féin party leader, Deputy McDonald, say this morning that she would work with the Minister in every way to get this Bill right. We have an opportunity and a grave responsibility to get it right. As everyone has said, there is no issue with the Bill itself and I welcome the amendments that have been tabled. Everyone across this House is attempting to do the right thing. We cannot leave this Bill without doing the right thing. The question which seems to be glaring is: why is the system fighti…

I acknowledge the Minister has moved on some of this and his tone in this regard is the proper way to deal with this. I also acknowledge the co-operation from across the House. Everyone who speaks on this subject is very genuine in wanting to get this right. On the issue of anonymisation, I am a woman and I would want to be informed. I absolutely do not want to be a dot on a scatter plot nor a confidence interval. I do not want to be a statistic. I would want to know. Other women may not. It is very important this …

Over the last few days, we have been warned about the severe weather conditions in the days ahead. Temperatures as low as -7°C have been mentioned. We are told not to be afraid to turn on the heating, that the Government will help. Now imagine living in a home affected by pyrite or mica in County Mayo or County Donegal with gaping gaps in the walls. There is wind and frost coming through where the window frames have detached from the blocks, and they have been looking at this for the last ten winters. Across the St…

Will the Minister provide an update on the specific amount of capital funding allocated to the higher education institutions, HEIs, to deliver the student accommodation, as was agreed by the Cabinet this week? I understand the Minister is unlocking 667 of the over 3,000 units that are shelved. Will he confirm the money made available is €32 million and that it will provide a grant of €48,000 per unit? Will he guarantee all those units will be affordable for ordinary working families?

I welcome this approach because we have wanted to have it for so long, in the sense of there being an investment and recognising student accommodation is integral to access to third level. This is especially so for students from rural areas who cannot go to college without having accommodation. However, a decade of underinvestment in higher education has left us with this chronic lack of student accommodation. The plan to part-fund only 667 student beds does not go far enough because of the extent of the problem, p…

I agree on the policy approach. It should have been done many years ago. However, I want to ensure all those units are affordable. I do not want X number of units to be delivered, only for many of them to be beyond the reach of students. We will be in a worse situation if we end up like that. The devil will be in the detail of the contracts and agreements signed between the HEIs and the Government. It is about meeting the needs of students and families, who are really suffering with the cost-of-living and housing c…

Why is so little progress being made in clearing the backlog of apprentices waiting to access off-the-job training in further education colleges and technological universities, given that 4,937 apprentices have been waiting over six months to be given a date to begin their off-the-job training? Can the Minister let us know the steps he has taken to facilitate apprentices accessing training close to home? Over the last two and a half years, the apprenticeship system has been chronic and chaotic, with one in four app…

What I want to know is when the backlog will be dealt with because I get a different answer every time I ask this question. It is difficult to compare figures. Last year we were working on a waiting list of more than 8,000 people. This year we get the number of people that are waiting just under six months. The figures are difficult to decipher. In the meantime, we have a situation where many apprentices are waiting and I know they are contacting the Minister as well because they are contacting me. I am really conc…

I thank the Minister. Going into a new apprenticeship needs to be attractive to young people and indeed to people throughout their life cycle. They get paid very little for the very hard work they do and the Government and SOLAS needs to get this right. We know that years of under-investment have left a shortage of capacity in the system but the fact is that only 1,798 apprentices became fully qualified tradespeople in 2021 and that is close to 600 fewer than in 2020 and represents the lowest number of newly qualif…