The first thing to say is that I welcome the agreement at COP28. I recognise, because I am not sure it has got enough recognition, the role played by the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, in getting a final agreement from the EU side. He was central to EU negotiations, particularly in the context of climate finance. To the Deputy's question, we are always looking for new ways in which we can encourage and support the retrofitting of homes and making that affordable for people. We must decarbonise not only our economy bu…

Right across the health sector, as we have heard already this morning, the inability to attract and recruit the skills and staff necessary is impacting services. In most cases it is not a financial issue but a lack of capacity to get the skills we need from home and abroad and I suspect that it is the same in Deputy Higgins's constituency. I will ask the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, to come back with a specific answer in relation to nursing in the Deputy's area.

I agree it is not acceptable that elderly people would be sitting in ambulances waiting to get into hospital. Effectively the ambulance becomes a remote bed which, for all sorts of reasons, is not the way the system should work. I am glad to hear that the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, was in Donegal speaking to practitioners and I expect he will come back to Deputy Mac Lochlainn with an answer in relation to those discussions but I will certainly remind him of that.

There are two different issues here. One is the short-term response to what we learned from what happened recently in Midleton and east Cork in terms of flooding. Cork County Council is doing a pretty detailed piece of work on what it can do in the short term to reduce the risk of flooding in east Cork in the future including clearing rivers, making sure that appropriate dredging is taking place and so on, so that water flows into the harbour more efficiently. The second is the more fundamental look at our waterway…

I know St. Teresa's Gardens quite well from my time as Minister for housing. From what I can remember, there was a plan at that time for a playing pitch to be developed in partnership with a series of community groups and sports clubs. I do not have a briefing on it but I will try to get one for the Deputy. It is appropriate and absolutely necessary that in urban areas like Dublin 8 young people can avail of sports facilities and pitches. I will get a response from the Minister for the Deputy.

First, the Deputy needs to check those figures because my understanding is that in Cork county alone, hundreds have applied-----

There is a difference between money being paid out and approvals for the scheme.

The Government has made the scheme clear and viable. People who are refurbishing a home that is vacant will get €50,000 in grant aid support and if it is a derelict property, they will get €70,000 from the State. I know, because I am familiar with the Cork cases, that there are hundreds of applications for those schemes-----

-----in Cork county. Deputy Tóibín should check his figures.

No, approvals.

I know there are serious pressures in UHL and that is why the Government is committed to providing significantly more beds there and to increasing resources and staff. Again, I will ask the Minister for Health to contact the Deputy directly on this matter but I am aware of the pressure that the hospital has been under in terms of patient care.

The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, was involved in extensive consultation before increasing the supports for both parents and childcare providers in the most recent budgetary decisions. He has delivered significant reductions in the cost of childcare for parents. He has also significantly increased core funding for childcare providers, having listened to the sector, and will continue to do so. I will ask him to come back on the specific question the Deputy asked, but there has been no shortage of consultation here.

It is a very welcome initiative that my Department and the Department of Justice are working closely on this issue. We will continue to work with business organisations until we see shoplifting figures reduce significantly. We need to protect retail staff and their businesses. Much of this is organised crime that needs a comprehensive policing response. We will support businesses to deliver that. I will get the Minister to come back to Deputy Murnane O'Connor with a date for the mother and baby homes redress scheme…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I am very pleased to bring this Bill before the House today with my colleague the Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Calleary. The purpose of the Bill is to fully implement in Ireland Regulation 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council on a Single Market for Digital Services, commonly referred to as the EU Digital Services Act. The EU regulation has direct legal effect in all member states and, consequentl…

It should not be. They are vulnerable children.

Following the riots and the scenes we saw the week before last in Dublin, my Department met representatives of Dublin City Council and a number of business representative groups. We have agreed to provide funding to the council to immediately invest, which has already started, in the public realm in the inner city. Dublin City Council is leading on this, but it has multiple partners working with it to try to turn around some of the negative publicity and negative momentum that came from those scenes and to build up…

That is not what I said.

They can.

You should.

You have not.