I accept what the Minister is saying and will withdraw my amendment.

The passage of this Bill through the Dáil today is a really important landmark. It is undoubtedly very warmly welcomed by many of the campaigners seeking recognition of their parent-child relationships. Huge credit goes to those campaigners for their tireless and compelling work making the case so strongly to legislators that this issue should not slide down or off the political agenda. It is also important to acknowledge the work done by the Minister and his officials, particularly between Second and Committee Sta…

I said the Minister is commentating. He is in government.

I wish to raise the issue of the long-awaited new national children's hospital, which cannot open soon enough. The understanding all along has been that there will be 380 beds in the facility. This week, Children's Health Ireland, CHI, released an update video about the hospital in which reference was made to 300 beds. Can the Minister clarify if that was an error on the part of CHI? If so, it would obviously need to be corrected. Are there any circumstances in which the number of beds could have been reduced from …

I thank the Minister.

I move: That Dáil Éireann: acknowledges that access to dental care is in crisis and that urgent action is required by Government to address the many aspects of this crisis; notes that: — there are an estimated 104,000 children on a waiting list for the school screening dental service, out of an eligible 208,000 children; — in the past five years there has been a 31 per cent reduction in children seen by Health Service Executive (HSE) dentists; — the number of HSE dentists declined by 23 per cent between 2006 and 20…

I thank everybody who contributed to the debate. I had hoped that the Minister would come in today and outline a clear plan to reform public dentistry. However, all we got was talk. The scripts that were read out by the two Ministers of State were an absolute disgrace. The Ministers of State are either delusional or blatantly disingenuous. They displayed a complete disconnect from reality. They ignored the hundreds of thousands of people who have been failed by this Government because of its corresponding failure t…

I will ask the Taoiseach about the provision of autism spectrum disorder, ASD, classrooms. Two years ago, the NCSE recommended two new ASD classrooms for a school in Glasnevin in my constituency. However, the planning and building unit is not responding to any of its calls and has not responded for more than a year now. Is there an unwritten policy that only reconfigured classrooms, where there is already some existing space in a school, are getting the go-ahead and not those that require new modular builds? That s…

It is not.

Thank you.

I welcome this opportunity for statements on Sláintecare. I do not know why it was not entitled Sláintecare and I do not know why the Sinn Féin health spokesperson is trying to rebrand Sláintecare. Its strength is that it is an all-party policy. That is what gives it real effect. I think we should stick with that and be at one with regard to what we are trying to achieve in this country. I also welcome the progress that has been made in implementing Sláintecare. We have not progressed to the extent we should have. …

The previous Chair told us that because we were running behind schedule, there would be a little flexibility with the time.

There is a dire shortage of dentists and we were told the Minister's response was to put work out to the private sector. That is okay for a short-term stopgap measure. It does not work in the longer term. Will the Minister please try to concentrate on public employees in the public health service? In budget 2022, 21 neurological nursing posts were approved and 13 of those still have not been filled. The reason is that the approval for the additional nurses only came out of the HSE HR department late last year and t…

I have a response to a parliamentary question that tells me the recruitment embargo is preventing them being filled. I got it last week.

Okay, I will give the reply to the Minister. This is a no-brainer. There are 860,000 people with neurological conditions.

They need adequate community services. They deserve them, but it is also having a huge impact on the health service, with beds being taken up over a long period and people not being able to rehabilitate, get back to work and so on. These are the priority areas. I hope the Minister will give them attention.

Does value for money not count?

At a cost of 3.2 billion.

I welcome this long-awaited Bill to progress recommendations 14.4 and 14.6 of the Covid-19 nursing homes expert panel, which the Social Democrats will support. However, it is deeply regrettable that it has taken this long for the Minister to produce the necessary Bill. While these reforms are welcome, the Bill will not deliver fully on the regulatory reform recommendations from the expert panel published almost four years ago. I appreciate that a consultation process was necessary, but that was completed in 2021. W…

I am glad to hear that because we have been waiting for a very long time. While home care hours and funding have been increased since 2020, waiting lists remain stubbornly high. In February, there were over 5,500 people approved for a home care package but no carer was available. These staffing challenges have only been made worse by the regressive HSE recruitment freeze. That freeze is holding up so much delivery in terms of major healthcare. February's progress report on the implementation of the report of the st…