I am getting an echo back.

There is so much muttering going on it is hard to speak. We have to get this legislation correct and I think the appropriate way to proceed is for the foreign affairs committee, where the Bill will be at, to consider this issue this evening, to be briefed by the line Minister and the sponsor of the Bill, to receive presentations from both, and then for that committee to advise us on how to proceed. In relation to Deputy Naughten, I can certainly-----

I can only account to this House what I have been informed. I have been informed what I have relayed to this House by the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs. That is my information. That is all I can relay to this House. In relation to Deputy Naughten, I can discuss that with the Minister but we are not proposing to make time available, to tell the truth, because we have a lot of legislation that we want to get through in the remaining days of this Dáil. I will ask that the Minister engages with the Deputy o…

The Government will continue its work in that area.

I thank Deputy Kerrane for raising this important issue and for the constructive way in which she has done that. I know of the strength of feeling in the community of Ballaghaderreen which she is bringing to the floor of the Dáil here. I want to assure the Deputy that we take the safety of people living and working in rural Ireland very seriously. Preventing crime does not just mean putting gardaí on the beat although that is important. It also means supporting the work of the National Rural Safety Forum. A lot has…

I thank Deputy Bacik for raising this important and sensitive issue. I can only imagine the pain that the Plunkett family must feel as they still look for answers and information all these years on. I take seriously the point she makes about that anomaly and the importance of the rights of victims' families and I will raise that directly with the Minister for Justice. I want to be careful about committing on the floor of the Dáil to things I am not certain are directly within my control but I will raise directly wi…

I thank Deputy Cairns very much for raising the question. The Government set the parameters for the housing targets for the next number of years out to 2030 today. That was a sensible thing to do because it does anchor the debate and discussion we will no doubt have in this country in the coming weeks. We also did that alongside the national planning framework because without a draft national planning framework, it is simply not possible to be able to deliver the increased scale of homes required in terms of zoned …

I absolutely would. I join with the Deputy in offering my sincere condolences to the family of baby Mihai on their tragic loss. Children's Health Ireland, CHI, has advised the Department that a review has been commissioned in relation to Mihai's care, which is a normal process under the HSE's incident management framework. It also says that it will engage with the family on the terms of reference and to discuss the level of involvement that the family wishes to have in the review. It will also engage with the famil…

I thank Deputy Canney for raising this matter. We had an update from the Minister, Deputy Burke, at the Cabinet today. I do not have the figures in front of me but from looking through the table, local authority by local authority, it looks to me that around 60% of those eligible so far have applied for the grant. We will certainly keep under review the deadline for that grant. I think it is some 60%-odd of people who are eligible. The first point the Deputy is making is the bigger point that there are some busines…

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue and wish Dr. Hillery all the best with her retirement. I take the point he made about the gap in service provision and the anxiety that is causing for people who need ophthalmology services. I will raise it directly with the Minister and the chief executive of the HSE and ask them to come back to the Deputy urgently.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue, which I acknowledge she has raised on a number of occasions. I can only tell her what my understanding is. My understanding is this was not a funding issue and that there was a challenge in identifying people, but I take the point that the Deputy has a piece of paper from the HSE that does not fully align with that. I personally undertake to raise the matter with the chief executive of the HSE and the Minister for Health. I am aware of the importance of public health nurse…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. His idea is a sensible one. I will certainly ask the Minister for sport and suggest she and the Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, ask Swim Ireland to assist with that. I know from my constituency that can be helpful in mapping this out. We have seen an improvement in the availability of swimming pools and public pools. We need to see more and a town like Bandon has a compelling case.

I thank the Deputy for raising the anomalies or the need to maybe tweak the power up grant and grants and funding around solar panels. This is something I will speak directly to the Minister about, but he is aware of it. In years gone by, we allocated a lot of funding to support small businesses. Sometimes it has even been hard to get all that funding drawn down because of the rigidity of schemes. We do not want that to happen with this so I will certainly ask the Minister to take a look at both the points the Depu…

I thank the Deputy very much for raising the issue and I accept the sincerity with which he does so. We have obviously seen a number of very considerable enhancements for eligible homeowners, including 100% grants subject to that overall maximum grant of €462,000 per dwelling, which we increased only last month from the original figure of €420,000 and also keeping the grant rates in line with the advice from the SCSI. I am quite sure this is an issue as we run into a general election, as the Deputy rightly said, th…

I will ask the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, to take the two questions on transport if that is okay. I will respond very briefly on the other matters. I thank Deputy Griffin very much for raising the issue of the posthumous pardon for Sylvester Poff and James Barrett and for his role in that campaign. His suggestion as regards Ballymullen Barracks is appropriate and I will certainly follow it up. I will liaise with him directly on that but it is a sensible and important thing the State could do to acknowledge this i…

I thank Deputy McDonald for raising important issues in our health service and recruitment into our health service. Of course, the reason we talk about numbers of people working in our health service is because we all want to see improved patient outcomes and improved patient wait times. I will dwell on that in a moment. A bit of context that is important when we are discussing health services is health recruitment and the health budget. The Government recently announced €25.8 billion of a budget for the delivery o…

She does not need any help. Deputy McDonald is right that there is an importance to the whole issue of safe staffing and the safe staffing framework. Indeed, I would have worked on this when I was in the Department of Health. The Minister, Deputy Donnelly, has done huge work on this. I am pleased to tell the House and, more importantly, people watching at home that the safe nursing staffing framework has now been fully funded. That involves approximately 2,000 posts. My understanding is approximately 1,500 of those…

I will get you a figure for Kerry but that has gone up, too, Deputy.

Let me tell the Deputy this, because it is too important to shout and interrupt here. In terms of waiting times, it means that we are seeing waiting times fall. They are not falling in the North, they are not falling in the UK, they are not falling in most of Europe but they are falling here in Ireland. Wait times for outpatient services have reduced from 13.2 months in July 2021 to seven months today. We have seen huge progress in our Sláintecare targets, including 17% fewer patients waiting more than 12 months. T…

Says you.