The PUP was a necessary blunt instrument at the beginning of this crisis. We hoped that a number of the problems with it would have been rectified but this has not happened. Some of my colleagues have spoken about the weaknesses in the payment such as those relating to those of pension age. There are difficulties now that the rate has been cut. There are problems for particular sole traders. Travel has been a farce, given that one cohort of people in receipt of the payment were being dealt with adversely in terms o…

I raise the issue of underfunding of Louth County Council, in particular. I note that the Minister of State, Deputy Burke, spoke about the local property tax, but at this point if we were to increase it by 10% to 15%, we would deal only with the cost of the land banks in County Louth that were bought under instruction from Government around 2006 and 2007 in many cases. We are talking around about 50 acres. Some of these land banks have been dealt with but a significant amount are left. Last year, Louth County Counc…

I would like to add my voice to what Deputy Cullinane has said regarding the lack of capacity in terms of GP services. While we welcome the changes that are being brought in regarding eligibility and extending the children's eligibility for medical cards, it is vital that we will be able to deliver upon that. We have a bad history in the context of offering primary care services. As a result of that, we have put added pressure on acute hospitals, which has been seen recently during the pandemic. Since 2008, a prima…

I wish to raise the HIQA report released yesterday about the overall situation in nursing homes during the Covid-19 outbreak. The report lays out in stark terms how nearly 60% of homes inspected following Covid-19 outbreaks were found to have insufficient infection prevention and control measures, which possibly led to greater tragedy. It speaks of deficiencies in governance and management. It also speaks of the unsuitability of some of the units during the pandemic and their need for upgrading. There were many hor…

-----and the radical reform that is clearly needed in the nursing home sector?

Covid-19 has demonstrated the weaknesses in how we look after the young and elderly and how we have not appreciated our caregivers. With our current system of childcare we have been failing parents, children and those working in the sector. Deputy Funchion, my Sinn Féin colleagues and others have made arguments and condemned the system we have while offering the economic and societal alternative of a working and sustainable childcare model. Deputy Funchion has offered a roadmap for the transition to such a public c…

My colleague, Deputy Ó Laoghaire, has laid out exactly what needs to be done to address the issues facing schools at this time. I commend parents on their efforts during the lockdown period. I also commend school staff, including teachers, principals, SNAs, caretakers and cleaners, all of whom put in all the work that was necessary to mitigate what was a really stressful and difficult time for children and parents. The main problem we have now, six weeks before schools reopen, is that people have suffered through a…

I welcome this motion in support of workers' rights. The Covid crisis has brought many employment rights issues to the fore. In May, 176 job losses were announced at National Pen's European headquarters in Dundalk. This was a huge blow to the workers and their families. Some of those workers came to me and told me of similar positions being advertised by National Pen in Tunisia two days before they were told about the lay-offs. I brought this issue to the company and the job advertisements were taken down from one …

I also wish the Minister of State, Deputy McConalogue, all the best. I had a sheet of notes relating to this matter and every time I wrote something down I changed it because the entire process and my involvement with this issue just make me angry. We have never reached a solution. The reason I decided to raise this now was a number of recent events. At 3.35 a.m. on Sunday, 5 July, a family in Dundalk were very lucky to get away with their lives in Clontygora Court following an arson attack. I have been at a number…

I appreciate the Minister of State's response and I accept there has been a lot of good work and extra resourcing of the Garda. However, gardaí say they do not have all the services they require. A car belonging to the drug squad in Dundalk was attacked at the Garda station. That is the level of brazenness of the criminal gangs. They have operated for too long and we need to deal with them. Gardaí say consistently that addiction services are insufficient. They lift people for sometimes minor and sometimes more seri…

My question relates to local government services and the maintenance of a fully functioning retained fire service. The case I want to talk about concerns a retained firefighter with 12 years' service, based in Dundalk, who has been working for the Revenue service. He has been told that from Monday, he can no longer engage in his life-saving work as a firefighter. Back in September 2017, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform facilitated a local arrangement that allowed firefighters to continue working for R…

An arrangement was in place to facilitate his firefighting role. A new solution is required.

This is a straightforward Bill. We are talking about cash flow and working capital for businesses. We all welcome this legislation and see its necessity. We all come from places that are absolutely reliant on SMEs and microenterprises. These are the people we know in the community who provide employment to other people in the community. I do not need to go into the domestic and global hit that businesses and we as a society have taken. We need to ensure we can come out of this, and the only way we can do so is by s…

I want to commend the Minister of State, Kevin Boxer Moran, on the work he has done with the OPW in dealing with local authorities. If possible, I ask the Minister to pass that on. As a Louth county councillor, I met the Minister of State a number of times. He has done some works and site visits. At Balmer's Bog, for example, the preliminary works are already about to start. We are dealing specifically with climate change. It is not that startling to state that we are looking at the possibility, or rather, beyond t…

Does the Minister want me to repeat them now?

They are Dundalk and Blackrock south, Carlingford-Greenore, Drogheda, Baltray and Ardee. Could we also have an update on Annagassan and Termonfeckin and the Meath-Mornington CFRAM operation? That would be brilliant. What are the guarantees in the context of ensuring that this all happens as we move from the current Government to the next?

I hope the Minister of State is correct that there will be no need to plan for Border installations. However, I come from north Louth where, with south Armagh, there is not a great level of, shall we say, respect for the British Government or trust in what it will do. That leads to certain difficulties. Everyone is very worried about the trade impacts if the Irish protocol does not come into operation and if we do not have mitigation. Hard border infrastructure is also a worry. In recent years, there has been activ…

I appreciate that. On the other matter I raised, can we get reassurance for my constituents, North and South, who have approached me?

Will I be able to make my contribution in two parts?

Conservation and biodiversity are rightly core tenets of any State response to the major challenge of climate change but what we are looking for is an overall Government plan on forestry that is multi-departmental to do all that is necessary, including planting trees on State land. That is an improved scheme, as has been mentioned, in respect of farmlands, which would take into account the time it would take to grow particular trees, and also the type of trees, while ensuring the growth of a steady supply of native…