The Deputy should be ashamed for trying to correlate or link any of them in any way shape or form to me. Linking me to disgusting, vile, racist posts is quite a disgusting thing to do. I thought the Deputy was better than that, but maybe not. The reality of the situation is that my commitment to scoliosis treatment has seen more people get their surgeries carried out in this country. The Minister for Health's commitment has seen a clinical lead appointed. We all call out racism. We should be united on that and we s…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. As I said to Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, I take this issue very seriously. I thank the Deputy for his correspondence on Liam's situation. I can only imagine how distressing it is for Liam and his parents. I have been in contact with the Minister for Health on the issue and I have asked the Minister to reply directly to the Deputy on it.

A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, I join with you by welcoming to the House the Stardust families who are gathered here with us in the Chamber and in the Public Gallery. I know there have been many times when you thought this day would never come, over far too many years. I know that you were forced to endure a living nightmare which began when your loved ones were so cruelly snatched from you in a devastating fire. Their unfinished stories became your story - the defining story of your lives and the lives of your parents a…

I first want to welcome the students from the politics and sociology department of Atlantic Technological University Sligo to the Dáil today who are guests of Deputy Martin Kenny. They are very welcome to Leinster House. I thank Deputy McDonald for raising this important issue of wait times. It is a little disingenuous the way the figures have been presented this afternoon. These are not just my words. Regarding the press release the Deputy's party issued this morning suggesting a large increase in the number of ho…

The Deputy did.

It is not a record.

Leaders' Questions is not about the Deputy and it is not about me, and on that we can agree. I have nothing but respect for the Deputy, but that is not what this is about. When she decided this morning, in advance of coming in for Leaders' Questions, to issue a press release with statistics - she did. She can roll her eyes but she pushes it out and Sinn Féin Members will all retweet it.

No, it is not ludicrous. I am just asking that when the Deputy talks to the people at home, she gives them the facts. The HSE specifically asked Sinn Féin not to do what it did today in comparing the data. That is the first point. The second point is that wait times and cancellations and how long it takes to see a doctor are all interlinked. What I want people at home, most particularly parents of children with cancer, to know is that they live in a country where the number of people working to look after their chi…

-----is increasing.

These are important facts, and we cannot just seek to exploit every single challenge. More children are being treated and more money is going in. When you talk about a recruitment embargo, you have to point out that 2,200 more staff will be hired this year. The only thing that vanished-----

I would like to know why yesterday, after I raised the issue of Sinn Féin's alternative budget for health, it disappeared and vanished like Shergar from its website.

I have a copy of it here. This is Sinn Féin's commitment to the Irish people. Why did Sinn Féin take it down yesterday? Parents need to know-----

-----and have every right to know that the Deputy's party provided for less money-----

-----for their children's healthcare than our party did. Sinn Féin should put the plan back up on its website.

I thank Deputy Bacik for raising this important issue. I will absolutely meet again with Cara Darmody.

It was a pleasure to meet with her last June. She would blow you away when you meet her, as the Deputy knows. She had a number of items on which she wanted to make progress. She has got some of them over the line and I know she wants us to do a lot more. I am very happy to meet her and her father Mark and I will be in touch with them to arrange that. She has written to me very recently as well. I am very happy to accept Deputy Bacik's invitation today to meet with her, so I will arrange that. The Cabinet committee …

I look forward to meeting Cara and working with Deputies who are like-minded on this issue across this House. It is an area in which we can make progress together but one in which we really need to do that. I will check with the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, but my memory tells me the publication of that document is imminent. The strategy is much awaited and a lot of work has gone into it. I will confirm that in writing to the Deputy. I should also have said that in reconstituting this Government, I appointed…

I can shake my head if I wish to because for some of what I heard, it was quite a challenge to just keep my head movement to that. On this idea that we are ceding sovereignty and that people in Brussels are making decisions - does Deputy Tóibín not want to be a member of the European Parliament? Is he not running for election because he wants to be there making-----

Let us not go down the kind of Brexit Britain road here of Brussels bad, Ireland good. The reality is we are members of the European Union. After I finish taking questions, I will head to Brussels where I will participate in a decision-making process with other European Heads of Government. Members of the European Parliament, which the Deputy aspires to be, will vote democratically on behalf of the people of Europe. Ireland appoints a Commissioner to the European Commission. It is not about outsourcing. This countr…

I cannot hear the Deputy. When it comes to migration, it is fanciful in the extreme to think that this small little island with, thankfully, an open border - which we all worked very hard to protect during the Brexit process - could just go it alone regarding global and EU migration and that we would continue with the system in which we cannot effectively return anybody, in many ways, in terms of secondary movements and where, as the Deputy pointed out, the deportation system can be challenging at times. To sign up…