I too want to raise the patient safety Bill. We have waited over six months for Government amendments. They were circulated and we received them on Friday morning. There are 42 pages of amendments from the Minister. There has been no briefing and no pre-legislative scrutiny, and the deadline was on Monday morning for amendments to those amendments. That is an entirely unreasonable way of dealing with very important business. The Minister and the Government need to rethink this. It is not possible to deal with that …

I warmly welcome President von der Leyen to this joint sitting of the Houses of the Oireachtas. On behalf of the Social Democrats, I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on what is an historic occasion. In exactly one month, we will mark the 50th anniversary of Ireland joining what was then the European Economic Community. We do so as the region faces one of its greatest perils, namely, the barbaric invasion of Ukraine. We in Ireland stand firmly with other EU member states with Ukraine and against Putin's…

It was the Minister who decided the time is right to remove the €500,000 cap on bankers' pay and restore their bumper bonuses. We are told he needs to do this so we can attract good people and the top talent to run our banks. It seems no self-respecting high-flying banker would want to work for a less than €500,000, as if they could not survive on a salary that is more than double that of the Taoiseach. People are feeling a sense of déjà vu . We have all been here before. We were told just before the financial cras…

The question is, who in the Minister's ear in terms of advising him on what is an appropriate salary for senior bank officials to be earning? Is he not getting all his advice from insiders and people who have skin in the game? On what basis did he come to the conclusion that paying somebody more than €500,000 a year will achieve a better customer service in our retail banks? On what basis did he come to the conclusion that by paying somebody this grotesque level of income, we would somehow have a more ethical banki…

Not everybody is motivated by money.

I warmly welcome President von der Leyen to this joint sitting of the Houses of the Oireachtas. On behalf of the Social Democrats, I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on what is an historic occasion. In exactly one month, we will mark the 50th anniversary of Ireland joining what was then the European Economic Community. We do so as the region faces one of its greatest perils, namely, the barbaric invasion of Ukraine. We in Ireland stand firmly with other EU member states with Ukraine and against Putin's…

I was waiting for a Minister from the Department of Health to come in.

Is anybody from the Department of Health available today?

There is a senior Minister and three Ministers of State, and not one of them is available.

That is really not acceptable. What we are doing has to be done every year. It has been on the schedule since last week. It is not on that no one from the Department of Health is here today.

Is there a point in going ahead with this?

I am not sure there is. I cannot understand what the point would be if there is nobody from the Department of Health present.

Everybody is busy, but this is health legislation and somebody from the Department of Health should be here to take it. I will cut my comments short because this seems to be a bit of a waste of time. I spoke yesterday evening about what is happening with the health area and the fact there is a symbiotic relationship between the public and private services of the health area. The public service is being run down. The more the public service is run down, the more potential there is for profiteering and making money g…

This is the latest in the series of annual Bills required to adjust the levels of risk equalisation credits and stamp duties that underpin the risk equalisation scheme and the private health insurance market. The Bill also prolongs the scheme until 2027, following the European Commission's approval under state aid rules, and provides for changes to the appointments criteria and powers of authorised officers in the Health Insurance Authority. As a starting point it is interesting to look at some of the statistics th…

It is higher rents but lower standards.

I wish to speak to amendment No. 70, which is about income tax. Looking at the impact of the permanent changes in the budget, the reality is there are big issues in relation to the distributional effects of what is being done in tax, which will result in those changes being very regressive. In the last decade or so, successive Ministers have prided themselves on the fact that we have a genuinely progressive income tax system but the tax changes that were introduced in this budget would reverse that - they will make…

The main question I asked the Minister was a political one: what was the rationale for giving a tax break of €830 a year to people earning more than €100,000? Let us personalise that. I think it is important to do that. Everybody in this House is going to get a gift of €830 from the State due to the Minister's decision. As I have said, there are great numbers of people with incomes hugely in excess of what anybody in this House earns, including the Taoiseach. The Minister has told me that the figure is 132,000. Wha…

The entire nation is united in mourning at the very sad passing of Vicky Phelan. The women of Ireland in particular are grieving her death because she was their champion. She was central to uncovering the CervicalCheck failures. Without her courageous decision to go public about what had happened to her, at great personal cost, the likelihood is that none of us would have discovered the serious issues with the screening programme that were subsequently uncovered. Vicky was a tireless advocate, not just for herself …

Everyone in this House owes a debt of gratitude to Vicky Phelan. While battling terminal cancer, Vicky took a case to the High Court. She won her case and was offered a settlement if it remained confidential, as we know. It would have been easier for her had she acquiesced, but she refused to accept the culture of secrecy that too often accompanies scandals in Irish public life. This was not in her interests but was in the public interest. Vicky was concerned that if she stayed silent, nothing would change and othe…

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