I am in favour of the Waterford Airport development. I know there is frustration in Waterford. I thank the Deputy for raising the issue regarding a decision. I will seek an update from the Minister for Transport. My understanding is that the business case is with him for consideration. In my view, there is a very compelling case in respect of Waterford Airport. That is a strongly held view across the political spectrum in Waterford. I will revert to the Deputy directly.

The Deputy will remember the issues in this regard over the summer months. The Government has decided to proceed with this tax because it is important, and the Deputy shares this view, that in a housing crisis there is not any land hoarding. To his point, it is also important that the tax needs to be implemented in a fair manner. There is a difference between land hoarding and people who are carrying out a variety of activities, including farming and agricultural work. This is something the Government will continue…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue following her meeting with the group at Emyvale. I know the importance of this. She is right to say that there is a lot of unmet need, when it comes to day and weekend respite for children. We are all working to come up with innovative solutions. The one the Deputy outlined sounds like a very innovative solution. I had the honour of opening one such service recently in another part of the country. To see the impact these interventions can make is very compelling. …

I sincerely acknowledge the Deputy's work and his strength of feeling on this. Even though we do not always agree on every element of it, I fully acknowledge he is motivated by a sense of wanting to save lives and help people. I thank him for the work he has done on that. The first thing I will do is read the report, which I have not done. All of us, during the general election, need to outline clearly what we intend to do in terms of next steps. The next Dáil should try to make real progress on this. The Deputy an…

I met the Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, in Poland on Thursday, 5 September following my visit to Kyiv in Ukraine. I took the opportunity to thank the President, as the former President of the European Council, for his enormous solidarity, personal commitment and support to Ireland during the process of Brexit. We discussed bilateral relations between Ireland and Poland as well as current EU and international issues. The relationship between Poland and Ireland has never been more positive, especially throug…

I met with the Prime Minister.

I will start with Deputy Boyd Barrett's questions as it is a very important issue. We decided at Government a couple of weeks ago that Ireland would opt in to this initiative to try to help get some of the very sickest children out of Gaza to receive life-altering, and often life-saving, medical procedures. I thank the Deputy for bringing the case of the paediatricians to my attention. I will certainly take some details from the Deputy and ask that there is a follow-up with them from the Government. I know it is ex…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 2 to 6, inclusive, together. The Cabinet committee on the environment and climate action oversees implementation of the ambitious programme for Government commitments in environment and climate change, including the implementation of the climate action plan. The committee has met on 22 occasions since July 2020, most recently on 10 June. The Department of the Taoiseach prepares progress reports on the delivery of measures committed to under the climate action plan. The latest progre…

I thank colleagues. To Deputy Ó Murchú, I will seek an update on our ongoing engagement on the case of Private Seán Rooney. It is a case we take an active interest in and on which we continue to keep in close contact with the UN and the Lebanese Government. I also take the Deputy's point, which he has made before in the House, on the need for support schemes for renewable heat to be more innovative or agile in terms of responding to issues for people. I will bring that to the attention of the Minister. Similarly, i…

I will answer that as well because the Deputy gave me a petition on it from many of our constituents, and it is an important issue. I acknowledge the Deputy's good work on it and the meeting we had with the Delgany community council. I will work with the Deputy and the National Parks and Wildlife Service to see if we can make progress on that issue. While it is a local Wicklow issue, it is also a climate issue and an important community amenity we would like to see utilised for that. Deputy Whitmore and other colle…

Our report card, was it?

I have outlined the progress we have made on climate change, accepting there is a lot more we need to do in the time ahead.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 7 to 13, inclusive, together. The Cabinet committee on children and education and disability oversees programme for Government commitments relating to children, education and disability and receives detailed reports on identified policy areas such as child poverty and well-being, education and the reform of disability services. Disability services are a key focus for the Government, and that is why I established this Cabinet committee. The membership of the Cabinet committee compris…

I will do my best. Starting with the question from Deputy Conway-Walsh, I thank her for raising this issue concerning the lack of autism places in County Mayo. The Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, meets weekly with the National Council for Special Education and I will ask her to raise at the next meeting the specific issue of the situation in County Mayo and revert to Deputy Conway-Walsh directly. Moving to Deputy Murphy and his query in relation to childcare places, I am sorry to hear about the situation with K…

I thank Deputy McDonald for raising this important issue. I join her in acknowledging what she rightly describes as the very important role student nurses play in our health system, in our hospitals and in our community during their training. She is quite right to make that point. Of course, in their fourth and final year, student nurses are paid, but the Deputy is talking specifically about their first to third years as well. My colleague, the Minister for Health, did have an expert review group that looked at tha…

So I hear.

I am glad the Deputy picked up my election hints anyway. I thought they were rather subtle.

There goes the surprise. It is a serious issue the Deputy is raising and I do appreciate that. We have significantly increased the level of supports to our student nurses. We did that, as she rightly said, arising from the debate around Covid and post Covid in respect of the very important role being played by student nurses. I do not have the specific figures in front of me but I think the level of support we are providing, through that subsistence, travel and other supports, has risen by several million over the …

I thank Deputy Cairns. I definitely agree with the Deputy on one point, which is that politics and the next election certainly cannot be about who comes up with the biggest figure in terms of the number of homes they are going to deliver because the public will rightly see through that. People will be much more interested in the how. That is absolutely right. Deputy Cairns said everybody knows we need 60,000 homes. That is kind of neither here nor there. What people need to know is how we are going to get there. Th…

There is no balance to the Deputy's argument; this is the point. I am able to stand here and talk to the electorate on their doorsteps and point to progress and also point to the more there is to do. The Deputy just wants to dismiss any of the progress, as though those extra 128,000 homes do not exist. I am interested in what she is saying now because she has set out her stall if she is to be in the next Government. If I am to be in the next Government, the help-to-buy scheme is absolutely staying. If the Deputy wa…