I thank the Minister for her response. If I interpret her correctly, I can understand her retaining the status quo because the nature of the illness benefit is clearly defined in terms of what a person must do to meet the criteria. However, what is happening now in this country, and there is robust clinical evidence for this, is that hospitals such as Cork University Hospital, CUH, in the South/South West Hospital Group have set up or are in the process of establishing long Covid clinics. That will be replicated th…

-----because there will have to be a recognition of long Covid as a qualifying condition.

The answer to my question is "No"; that is the short answer the Minister is giving. I acknowledge that but I will continue to bang the drum on this. I am worried that there is a statistically significant cohort of persons who ordinarily will go from the enhanced payment to illness benefit, the clock will tick down the two years and then they potentially will fall off the cliff if they are not eligible to move onto an invalidity or long-term payment, as devised by the Department. The worry I have for those people is…

It is the medical certification. If the medical certification says long Covid, then that should suffice.

I thank the Minister.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to raise this issue. The people of Youghal are very exercised about the decision of the Courts Service to close a service that is vital to people and to the administration of justice in Youghal, particularly as it relates to the victims of domestic violence. As my colleague, Deputy Stanton, said, this is about ensuring that we do not force women who are subject to domestic violence and who are seeking protection orders to go from Youghal to Cork. This decision takes a service …

I respect the Minister of State and the fact she does not have policy responsibility for this area. The response by the Government is not adequate for the purposes of ensuring the administration of justice, as articulated by the concerns outlined by the law officers in Youghal, by the users of the service and by the citizens. We are in a situation where a service is being taken away, even though more than €1 million has been invested. To throw the health and safety argument back at women who have suffered the indig…

We have to protect those women and those services.

In the short time that I have, there are many points that I wish to cover. I want to start with the BRIDE Project, which will be familiar to many people who are concerned with biodiversity and partnership with the agriculture and farming sector. This is a project situated in north County Cork. I had the good fortune to visit the project on Monday last with the Labour Party leader, Deputy Ivana Bacik. I want to express my gratitude to Donal Sheehan, Sinéad Hickey and all of the team there for facilitating us in what…

I welcome the publication of this Bill in the name of Deputy Bacik. I congratulate my colleagues for bringing forward this Bill and those who worked on it within our team on the Labour benches. It is worth reiterating what the Bill sets out to do. I welcome the fact that the Minister of State said the Government is not opposing it on Second Stage. In Ireland, approximately 380,000 workers earn less than the officially accepted threshold of low pay, which is two thirds of median income. This is one of the highest pr…

I welcome this legislation. It is no easy task to transpose EU directives. I applaud the efforts of the Minister of State and his officials in this regard and in presenting this Bill. Starting with the issue of domain names, specifically .ie domain names, there are 309,953 such .ie domains. Only 278,042 of those are based in the Republic of Ireland, while 4,532 are based in Northern Ireland. The kernel of my point is that this leaves 31,911 of those .ie websites operating from outside the island of Ireland. Where d…

I welcome the debate. We will support the motion. We have proposed an amendment to the motion. Am I in order to move the amendment?

Thank you very much, a Cheann Comhairle. We welcome the motion. To be fair, I do not doubt that the Minister is doing his best. It would be good if we could take some of the heat out of this debate because it has become quite personalised of late. I know we all have to robustly defend our positions in this House. That is right and proper. However, the personalised nature of the debate does not give comfort to the people who are on the housing list in my constituency. If I was to characterise their experience at pre…

I thank the Minister. I want to put it on the record that I asked him about this scheme on 5 April and I received a reply from him today. I asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he will report on a new Croí Cónaithe fund under Housing for All to increase owner-occupier apartment developments in city centres. I know it is a city-focused scheme. In his reply, the Minister stated his Department is currently working with the Housing Agency on finalising the operational basis for the new fund …

Does the Minister for Finance intend to introduce a windfall tax on the extraordinary profits of energy companies to fund measures to combat the rising cost of energy for households and enterprises? Earlier this month the Minister indicated that he was finally, as it was put, evaluating the potential of slapping energy suppliers with windfall tax bills. I want to know if that will come to fruition.

I welcome the fact the Government has finally come around at least to evaluating, to use the Minister's word, a windfall tax on extraordinary profits. This is a proposal the Government voted against in January when the Labour Party included it as part of our cost-of-living motion. We know energy companies like the ESB, which are not immediately tied into rising prices, made €679 million in profits last year, as thousands of homeowners struggled to pay soaring energy bills. Next week, ESB's Electric Ireland will go …

That will not cut the mustard with the businesses and households I deal with in my constituency. The Spanish Government was able to do this. It introduced a windfall tax on energy companies last September. Therefore, there is a precedent set in the European Union on this. I want to give some solace to the small businesses and householders in my constituency. The Spanish case is a clear example of how funds generated through the windfall tax are paying for the country's VAT energy tax cut introduced in the same mont…

The Taoiseach is in classical Bertie Ahern territory.

Will he protect customers? This is a deflection.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae is meant to be sharing time with Deputy Michael Healy-Rae.