I do not accept that. Why are we sending somebody on a trip of 100 miles or 150 miles to an acute hospital before sending that person back? Covid-19 was in Mayo University Hospital as well. Yesterday we had the example of a 95-year-old man who could have been catheterised by a GP and admitted to Belmullet hospital in his local area but instead he was forced to go to Mayo University Hospital, where he took up an acute bed. It was completely unnecessary. In the hospital itself the X-ray, chiropody and physiotherapy s…

I thank the Minister of State but I still do not believe this is not being used as an excuse. We have excellent staff in Belmullet hospital and it has the required facilities. We needed some minor works done and it has taken over a year to recruit staff for that. There is a line of matters that are unacceptable. Why is the eye clinic finished at Belmullet and what excuse is there for it? There is always one excuse after another given for services not being provided in the area. This runs completely against the conc…

Most of my contribution is confined to transport. Coming from a rural area, the Minister of State will really understand the situation with transport. I refer to the issue of multiple schools using the same transport. Parents are asking me why there are different rules for other people who are being transported than for really vulnerable children. I am really in fear of one of those children catching Covid-19 and it having a detrimental impact on those children. This needs to be sorted out as a matter of urgency. I…

The question is on college fees. The Minister will know that there was a problem here already in that our fees are the highest in Europe. Many countries, including Austria, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Greece, have no fees at all. My question is on high fees generally but also the fees being charged this year. Many students feel that it is grossly unfair to charge the same fees while they are not availing of the same campus facilities and so on. Can we have a reduction in fees?

I welcome that the Minister has acknowledged that fees are too high and I agree that they are too high across the island and need to be reduced. There is no comparison between the two jurisdictions given we do not, as yet, have control of exchequer finances in the North. In a recent survey of students carried out by Sinn Féin, 70% said that they have lost employment opportunities. This has compounded everything this year because they do not have the jobs now that they previously had. One of my questions regarding C…

I thank the Minister for his reply. On the student assistance fund, I ask that this be made very accessible, particularly for people who on the face of it may appear to have a gross income that should sustain their needs, but it will not. I refer particularly to cases where there are two front-line workers in one family, yet they cannot afford to send their children to college. The only way to do this is to look at the fees and have them reduced rather than having the different packages available. Sometimes it can …

I thank the Minister for his indulgence in taking Question No. 51 as well. He knows it is important that we create a level playing field for leaving certificate students and ensure they are not put at a disadvantage with the predicted grades scheme. I know the Minister has said there are extra places, which I very much welcome. He mentioned the creation of 5,000 places but going on the Department's predictions of what would be needed even before Covid-19, according to the 2018 report, an additional number in excess…

Yes, the extra 800 places are indeed welcome and I hope this will go some way towards alleviating the anxiety people among the prior leaving certificate students are feeling today. It is a pity we have left it to such a late stage because these students have had months of anxiety. I was first contacted in June about this, and we must never let this happen again. I acknowledge what the third level institutions are doing to try to facilitate what needs to be done here. Should we be in a situation on Friday or Monday …

Like the Minister, I encourage people to look at all the pathways that are available. I am concerned about the students who are contacting me who went through all the options last year. One student, for example, got 517 points. He had to have his grades re-examined and by the time he did so he was too late for a college place this year. It is those students who worked the hardest and gave the highest level of commitment but who were disappointed last year who felt sure they would be getting those places this year. …

I thank the Minister for appearing at the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response yesterday. At the outset I want to acknowledge all of the hard work that has been done by principals, teachers, caretakers, secretaries and boards of management in all the schools. I thank them all and wish them well for the future. I must return to the issue of school transport because I am not sure that the Minister realises the extent of the problem. There are many children who will not have school transport tomorrow morning or on M…

I will share time with Deputy Ó Laoghaire. I am encouraged by what the Minister and Minister of State have said today, on which I have some questions. Will they make a clear commitment to implement option 1 of the Cassells report which requires substantial increases in the level of State funding? Pushing the ever-increasing fees and escalating costs on to students and their families must stop, as the Minister and Minister of State recognise. Sinn Féin recently carried out a survey entitled Telling the Real Story. W…

I am very concerned about the knock-on effect of the delays to the leaving certificate results, particularly with regard to mental health, student accommodation and the appeals process. Will the Minister address these issues? What specific and pragmatic supports and resources has the Minister put in place to address those concerns?

I wish to refer specifically to mental health and mental health supports. I am very conscious of the six weeks prior to the results. The anxiety levels will increase as we go through this process. How can someone access the money or assistance the Minister has mentioned? Moreover, will the Minister discuss the timeline for appeals? I also wish to discuss those who completed their leaving certificate in 2019. How can they be assured of a college place? There is a lot of anxiety among those students, who do not know …

The Government is going in the wrong direction in the delivery of Sláintecare and of healthcare based on need, rather than ability to pay. There are over 12,000 people on the waiting list for Mayo University Hospital today. Some 9,484 of those are outpatients, 1,171 have been waiting for more than three years, and 2,654 are waiting for inpatient procedures. The Tánaiste said last week that this was not about beds, but I beg to differ. The queues for the pain management clinics are getting longer. Those clinics are …

We welcome many of the initiatives and many of the things that have been done in the Bill. However, the Minister has not explained why the voucher scheme we proposed was not accepted. It would have been a much better way. I hope the Minister would be mature enough not to dismiss it out of hand just because it was a Sinn Féin proposal. I think it was the best proposal because it gave an immediate boost to people and businesses. The failure to adopt this proposal suggests that the Minister misses the gravity of the f…

No, I will take the full ten minutes.

I could do with longer. I and Sinn Féin welcome the establishment of the new Department. It certainly has a big job of work to do, both in breadth and in depth. I am pleased to be the Sinn Féin spokesperson on these matters. I look forward to working with the Minister and his team in a collaborative and constructive way. We have a significant job of work to do. As I discovered in recent weeks, there have been many reports and a significant amount of analysis on the vital reform and investment needed for third level…

I am disgusted at what is going on here today. I am newly elected to this House. Bringing forward this measure on Wednesday at 11 p.m. and pushing it through is the most devious thing I have witnessed to date. This Government talks about 22 million trees per year to tackle climate change. I am not quite sure how it proposes to do that but what I know for certain is that the money tree has landed firmly in the circle of greed between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party. It is appalling, as others have said. T…

The programme for Government promised to increase the capacity within our hospitals, which means additional beds. This week, at a meeting of the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response, the Irish Hospital Consultants Association, IHCA, stated we need to fast-track 7,100 acute community and rehabilitation beds, as well as doubling the capacity in ICU. A total of 25% of acute hospitals' inpatient beds could be lost as a result of physical distancing measures. Given what the IHCA stated and what is promised in the prog…

The Central Bank issued a report on the SME sector yesterday and it made for very stark reading indeed. It tells a story of less money coming in. Some 39% of firms report that invoices have gone unpaid. Small businesses are struggling to get banks to lend to them. Unpaid invoices have a knock-on effect on the whole of the supply chain and we need to be conscious of that. Whether we are talking about a small food supplier, a self-employed person or whatever else it may be, the negative multiplier effect, in that sen…