The Taoiseach hit the nail on the head when he said he has visited some of these places. Lots of visits have taken place. I even remember President Michael D. Higgins came to visit Gort in 2019 and 2020. That is all fine but everybody goes away and people are left with the flooding. As the Taoiseach said, the design team was appointed in 2017 for the south Galway Gort lowlands flood relief scheme. We are coming into 2024 and we are looking at whether it will be a viable scheme. There is an issue around Transport In…

The Deputies can have a go-----

The Deputy has one minute.

Does Deputy Murphy want to contribute?

Does the Taoiseach want to respond?

That concludes that business.

Has the Deputy anything to say?

I support the fact that a Bill has been introduced again this year so that we can end up creating a situation where people who are older or sick are protected through the equalisation of premiums. That is important. I want to speak to the matter at hand, namely why we have to have private health insurance in this country. Some people want to have private health insurance but if we had a universal health service, we would not need it. We are a fair shot away from that yet. If we are to strive to get to universal hea…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. I too have serious reservations about the idea of bringing in legislation to more or less curtail people from expressing a view that they may have. It is important that we set ourselves back from this and look at what the Garda Commissioner has said. He said he has the legislation to protect people. Why are we bringing in more legislation for a specific purpose? What is that doing? What message is that sending to people who want to express an opinion? The Bill is bei…

I thank the Deputy.

Deputies, please.

Deputies-----

Excuse me, everybody gets their chance to speak-----

Deputy, have some respect for the Chair.

Before I call on the Independent Group, I ask Deputies, please, to allow everybody to have their say, with no more interjections. This is a very serious matter and everybody has to show respect for one another. Thank you.

In accordance with Standing Order 80(2), the division is postponed until the weekly division time tomorrow evening.

Last night in the agriculture committee, we had representation in from the Shannon Callows. We had Michael Smith, Liam Broderick and Pat Ryan and, basically, they set out for us what they are going through annually along the Shannon Callows with the flooding. I welcome the fact that the Minister has brought in a fodder scheme but they want to see the detail of that and they want to know if the Government can increase the number of hectares to 25 ha and allow for grazing that was lost as part of that compensation. F…

I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward the motion. It is important that we look at this in the context of what is happening on the ground. People are being assessed for 14 hours of home care help but are getting five hours. An 85-year-old man rang me last Friday evening to say his home care worker was not available last weekend and there was no replacement. He was left on his own. He needs somebody there to feed him medicine a certain number of times per day but that is being left in God's hands at weekends.…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this very important matter. I was at a presentation by the CIF on housing the other night about the future forecast for the industry for Galway and the region. It is interesting that some of the things that came out of that are very similar to what we are speaking about here regarding, number one, planning, the planning process, and how long it takes. The second very important issue is that resources going into local authorities need to be beefed up to deal with the now more co…

I also welcome the opportunity to speak on this issue. People's minds have focused on this subject in recent weeks. When we talk about Irish neutrality, this is something that is part of our Constitution. As a State, we are a neutral country. In recent decades, major advances have been made in digitalisation and technology, etc., and it is important we re-examine where we are at in terms of our neutrality. We have issues with cybersecurity, the protection of our seas and areas like this. This means we must collabor…