I thank Deputy Crowe for his very constructive suggestion. Tomorrow, we will have a meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council, which will be an opportunity for colleagues across the island of Ireland to get together. I will raise the issue of DMD on the meeting's margins. If it is possible for professionals throughout the island to work together in the interests of patients with a rare disease, I am sure that is something everyone would like to see happen. We need to do more regarding rare diseases and quick a…

I agree with a lot of what the Deputy said. The idea that any parent has to watch his or her young child in such a fragile state when the parent knows there is medication available that could significantly improve the child's quality of life and health is not right. The HSE is engaging on this matter. In light of it being raised in the House today by a number of Deputies, I will seek an urgent update as well. On the issue of staffing, the Deputy is right. We have had to increase the number of staff allocated to the…

I thank Deputy Whitmore. As she can imagine, I have been looking into this situation as well. Like her, I want to see it progress. I have corresponded directly with the Minister for housing on the matter. We are going to have a review of the national development plan. If the issue is one of funding constraints - it should not be - I am eager that we rectify it in that plan. The review will happen next month. I will revert to the Deputy with a further update.

I thank Deputy Callaghan for raising this issue. It is one that is raised with me often. The Deputy is correct, in that these people are not against renewable energy. Far from it, but they want to have a rational understanding of how we best use the land in our communities with all of the various competing interests. As the Deputy said, our programme for Government commits to completing the second phase of the land use review, which aims to balance environmental, social and economic consideration. The second phase …

I thank Deputy Moynihan so much for raising this and for his advocacy on behalf of Conor and Dean and so many children and patients more widely across our country who want us to get this right in terms of access to medication. I could point out that we have made good progress. From 2021 to 2024, we allocated an additional €128 million for new medicines. That facilitated the introduction of 194 new medicines in Ireland and I am pleased to say, in particular, 49 of these are for rare diseases. However, I do take the …

I thank the Deputy for raising that issue. I absolutely will follow it up directly with the Minister for Health. As the Deputy said, we want all of our public servants, including our front-line emergency staff, to work in fit-for-purpose but most importantly safe environments. That sounds like a very serious situation. I will directly speak with the Minister for Health and ask that we make contact with the National Ambulance Service as well.

I thank Deputy McGrath very much for raising this important matter. I will speak with both the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan, with regard to that and see if we can find a resolution that works for everybody and most particularly works for the children. As the Deputy said, their excitement was palpable with regard to this. Let me talk to the two Ministers and ask them to come back to the Deputy directly to see if progress can be made.

Absolutely. I thank Deputy Lawless for raising this issue on behalf of Michelle and Katie. I hope the outcome of that very significant surgery has gone well. I appreciate the Deputy highlighting this issue. I am going from memory and past experiences but, generally, the scheme would try to be compassionate and engaging with regard to supports for family members who may need to travel and so forth. If the Deputy can send me the details again, I will speak directly to the Minister for Health and see if anything can b…

I thank Deputy Ó Laoghaire for raising this important matter. It provides me with an opportunity to set out the position and the immediate steps that I and the Government have taken to ensure that air traffic control services operating at Baldonnel are restored to full service. Initial indications from the military authorities were received by my Department in May on the likelihood of challenges in regard to service provision. Since then, significant engagement has taken place and a number of immediate actions have…

The service commitment scheme has been referenced for a number of years, from my recollection, and it is no more than my recollection. I believe it might have surfaced around 2021 in a list of recommendations but I am open to correction on that year. Generally, the way of progressing these issues is through local bargaining. In fairness, the Deputy will recognise that normally the Department of public expenditure and reform would say to go through the local bargaining, there is a pot of funding there and the issues…

On the latter point, I do not. I have been assured that contingency arrangements are in place. The Deputy is right about how we need to look more at the pinch points in our Defence Forces in general, and I will come back to this in a moment. I expect significant restoration of services at Baldonnel to happen very rapidly. I expect that to be the case because in my conversations with military leadership and the new Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces, I was made aware that a number of air traffic controllers may le…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 2 and 4 together. I thank Deputy Gibney for the question. As she is aware and has alluded to, I brought forward the general scheme of the defence (amendment) Bill 2025, which amends the legislation underpinning overseas deployments of the Defence Forces. This was agreed by Cabinet on 4 March. The Bill will, among other things, provide for the modification of the existing requirement regarding the dispatch of the Defence Forces for service outside the State as part of an internationa…

Inconsistency

I thank the Deputies for their concerted engagement. I definitely did not use the word "hypocrisy". I know the depth of feeling that people have in relation to Gaza. I am just making the point that there is an inconsistency - I think that is the word I used - in relation to it. I do not want to use a loaded phrase because I have huge respect for people who are quite rightly highlighting the situation in Gaza. I am just making the point that we are living in a world that is so turbulent we can no longer rely on inte…

The courts.

The courts arbitrate on our law, Irish courts. They are the arbitrator of any law passed here and ensure that the Government of the day, any Government of any hue - the Deputy might be in government one day - keeps within the laws of the land as passed by the Oireachtas. The law is arbitrated on by the Irish courts, not any Government. There is an arbitrator and it is our courts system. The Deputy is right that the test today on whether we can deploy peacekeepers is the UN Security Council. My contention is that it…

In fairness to the Deputy, he put me on notice that he is going to raise this issue on each and every occasion, quite rightly and understandably considering the seriousness of it. As I set out previously, and as I am obliged to set out every time this question is posed to me, and despite the constructive way in which the question has been put forward, any discussions we might seek to have or any comments I make are necessarily limited in light of the ongoing litigation in respect of this matter currently being befo…

I will very much take away the point made by the Deputy there in respect of a lack of engagement because my note tells me there is an ongoing process of engagement. Clearly, both cannot be factually true. I will, therefore, personally undertake to clarify this point with the State Claims Agency and I am happy to revert to the Deputy. As I said, my officials have begun an exploratory process to consider what options may be available to me from a policy perspective to consider this issue further. Without straying too…

When the time is right and the advice to me is that it is appropriate for me to have meetings, I will be very happy to engage. I obviously have the Deputy in a separate and distinct category as the spokesperson on defence for the largest Opposition party. I am happy to engage with him to see if we can constructively make progress. I will ask, and I have already asked, that we look at the examples in the other jurisdictions referred to by the Deputy. I do not have an exact timeline in relation to this matter. I am i…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. He is right that there have been real challenges in terms of pinch points regarding specific positions our Air Corps is fundamentally reliant on and the air traffic controllers is the most obvious and current example. In fairness to my predecessors in this role, I point out that the context has changed significantly even since that 2021 report. We have seen an increase in commercial activity in terms of there being other opportunities for air traffic controllers in Ireland…