I want to draw the Taoiseach's attention to the statement by Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, on humanitarian pauses in Gaza. There is a particular line which reads: "The EU condemns the use of hospitals and civilians as human shields by Hamas." I want to know what involvement or engagement there was on this statement with the Irish Government because the difficulty with this is that it provides cover to the Israeli regime. That is why we have what is…

Before I deal with this question, I accept and welcome the fact we had no part to play in this particular statement but I think there should be some element of a complaint about the language used regarding human shields. I have a real problem that that provides cover to this Israeli regime and the actions it is carrying out, particularly in attacking hospitals. When we talk about Germany and its particular-----

-----guilt, I do not think it is okay for the Palestinian people to pay for the crimes that were carried out everywhere from Babi Yar to Sobibor, Dachau, Treblinka and Auschwitz. I do not think that is okay. Beyond that, the Germans did not exactly rush-----

-----after Yom Kippur to help the Israelis or when NASA was engaging rocket scientists. In fairness to Deputy Haughey, he spoke about the Taoiseach's visit to the demilitarised zone. We have had a complete realignment of politics. We have seen what has happened across the world. We have to take into account the heightened relationship between Russia and North Korea and how this will continue. All these conflict plays can impact on a wider scale. We are not entirely sure. Has the Taoiseach garnered any learnings whe…

Unfortunately we have had continued drift. We do not have the DUP making the determination to join the rest of us to form an Executive. What engagement has the Taoiseach had and where does he see it at this time? Obviously he is dealing with a British Government that has had plenty of change in the past while. I add my voice to those of everyone else with regard to the legacy Bill. The Taoiseach has the advice from the Attorney General. We are looking for a timeline and to know whether the State is willing to take …

We welcome this necessary legislation. There will be a need to strengthen some of the weaknesses on Committee Stage, and I hope there will be some element of cross-party co-operation in that regard. In fairness to him, Deputy Ó Cathasaigh spoke about changing workforces and the changing nature of how things are. There is an awful lot of hope in this but we also have a large number of concerns about what will happen from the point of view of AI. We also have particular issues regarding to zero-hour contracts. We con…

I thank the Electoral Commission for the large body of work it needed to do. We support this legislation and the enactment of the constituency review report. Boundary reviews are looked at by politicians with particular interest. Moving from 160 Deputies to 174 would be a difficult sell to the public and would never sit too well on Twitter, but we have to work within the constitutional constraints. I welcome a considerable amount of the work that has been done and that attempts have been made almost to rectify, as …

I understand that. It is just that it is a particular issue that I need an answer for. That is me done on that. In long term we have a monitoring issue. The people in the likes of Sheelagh, who are at the end of the line, are out of water at this point in time. We support the Bill. A greater piece of work needs to be done to ensure proportional representation. I think I have spoken for long enough and I may have gone off topic slightly.

A week ago, António Guterres stated: Gaza is ... a graveyard for children. The nightmare in Gaza is more than a humanitarian crisis. It is a crisis of humanity. I think it is fair to say that the situation has drastically disimproved. I assume there is agreement across Government parties with the ministerial statement from earlier today that the Israeli onslaught on Gaza was a war on children, you could not build peace on the mass graves of children and Israel had become blinded by rage. Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallalati, …

The Minister was in the Cooley Peninsula and Carlingford recently. She saw some of the devastation there. We welcome the supports in the form of the humanitarian assistance fund and the emergency business flooding relief scheme. I hope there will be plenty of flexibility because sometimes we have more questions with every person we see. Antóin Watters and I were at a meeting yesterday with some of the Minister's party colleagues and a great many farmers. There is a need for something specific for farmers. If we are…

I am delighted to hear it.

No. 14 is about the RCSI Hospitals Group.

I ask the Minister to outline the level of additional core expenditure for new developments, excluding funding for carryover and otherwise maintaining existing levels of service, which has been allocated to the RCSI Hospital Group for 2024.

On the national service plan, I will break this down to two particular questions. One of them will relate to one of the issues the Minister dealt with on the radio earlier. I am talking about people, particularly families, who are under severe pressure. If Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital wants to discharge somebody, sometimes the staff are put under severe pressure to discharge into a nursing home. Because of the size of area covered by CHO8, a family from the Cooley Peninsula or Omeath could be under pressure to have…

I welcome that. We need to make sure that people in distress are relieved and that a system that works is created. However, we will have to address the underlying issue, particularly in north County Louth, that there just are not enough people working as home carers at the minute and people cannot get the hours they need to keep their loved ones in home settings. This would provide some level of reprieve, however. I brought up another issue. We all welcome the likes of Louth County Hospital. There will be a lot les…

I have spoken to the Minister a number of times this week about the devastation there has been in north County Louth with floods. Dundalk had a fair amount of flooding that could have been a lot more major. I would say to the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, that I will be having a conversation on the need for a drainage area plan that has been promised by Irish Water, and that needs to happen. The likes of Bay Estate, Cluain Enda, Avondale and areas in my part of Dundalk would be under severe pressure. I would…

This seems to be one of those circumstances where there is general agreement throughout the House. The Minister, towards the end of his contribution, spoke about how this ECT is not fit for purpose and indicated we need to leave it. Deputy Whitmore went through the ins and outs of it being fine that we try to do our best to do it in a collective way with some of our European partners, but it looks as though many of our European partners have decided this is a bad deal. There is no point getting stuck in ISDSs with …

The fact is that we had absolutely devastating rains in north County Louth and Dundalk. As bad as they were, they could have been worse, which was the fear of everybody. When I submitted this issue for debate, I was not sure what Ministry to include because I have questions for the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform on the OPW and flood defences and questions for the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage on local government and its operations, and also on …

I raised this issue with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage rather than the Office of Public Works because I get that this is not the last time I will do so. What the Minister of State has told me is brilliant but we need a timeline for the drainage area plan. To speak specifically about Dundalk, at this point we cannot get rid of storm waters following regular heavy rainfall. That tells me we have not made an allowance for new estates and we want to see even more estates built. We have also n…

We will do that. We need an assessment alongside the catchment flood risk assessment and management, CFRAM, and everything else.