My constituent, David Duignan, is sitting in his home in Moate today when he should be under the specialist care of the Medical University of Vienna hospital. Mr. Duignan suffered horrific injuries following a road crash three years ago and he urgently needs muscle transfer surgery. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, his treatment abroad scheme application has been rejected. Last week, he received a letter stating that the appeals officer is not in a position to provide a decision on when Mr. Duignan's appeal will …

-----yet Mr. Duignan is sitting at home in Moate.

Something has gone wrong-----

Yes.

As this is the last opportunity we have before the recess, can the Minister provide a comprehensive update on the engagement and progress to date regarding the investigation associated with the Women of Honour in the Defence Forces?

Since the Sinn Féin motion calling for a statutory inquiry into what we can all agree were truly horrendous experiences, not only for the Women of Honour group but for others, the decision was made to push ahead with this judge-led process. Perhaps it is a question of wording but the Minister and I might have a different understanding of “comprehensive update”. I read “well under way”, “fruitful meeting”, “coming weeks”, “interim report” and “monthly reports”. Can the Minister give us specifics now, five months aft…

It is important to say again that the Irish military is not the only military that has had this experience, and Christine Whitecross, who led the Canadian investigation, spoke recently at an event in Dublin on the duration of the investigation and the challenges she experienced. The concern I have is how effective this review has been in light of the other actions that have taken place without some form of real and meaningful co-ordination. The immediate action group was convened by the Chief of Staff and nobody is…

I ask the Minister to provide details of specific recruitment drives that have taken place in respect of school leavers and third level graduates. Are there targeted campaigns in respect of areas of known understaffing in the Defence Forces, with specific reference to engine room artificers?

How many of those events, engagements and media partnership relationships have resulted in people signing up as members of the Defence Forces, particularly the navy? I give credit to Niall O'Connor on his article published on thejournal.ie this evening. On a specific question relating to that article, was the Minister informed at his recent trip to Cork that there was an impending need to tie up another navy ship due to staffing shortfalls? Earlier this year, the Minister, along with the Minister for Further and Hi…

There is a very unusual situation in the navy. There can be several people on the same boat doing the same job but getting three different levels of pay. That is simply unacceptable. What is clear, even in terms of the seagoing service commitment but specifically in respect of the tax credit, is that one cannot penalise Naval Service personnel for not reaching 80 days at sea if the ship on which they are meant to be serving does not have the correct staff complement to be able to leave the dock. I return to the iss…

In terms of operational capacity and human resources specifically for the navy, I highlight this as a real concern.

I commend my colleague, Deputy Johnny Guirke, on bringing this motion forward. It is not an exaggeration to say that I have literally lost count of the number of constituents who come into my offices telling me the health and hospital services are stumbling from crisis to catastrophe. As the two-tier system has become very much entrenched in healthcare, we now have that very clear delineation between private and public. Coupled with this, we have the undervaluing of hospitals' accident and emergency departments, su…

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the statements. I was reading down through the statement released last Friday and it is welcome to see the value of biodiversity given a somewhat more substantial standing, particularly when it referred to sustainable development to underpin our economy, given a loss of biodiversity that we have not seen since previous mass extinctions. The conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity needs to be escalated as well as the restoration of natural systems for constituencie…

Tomorrow, the wider Defence Forces community, including veterans, spouses, families and friends, will again campaign on behalf of serving members for the implementation of the working time directive. For well over a decade now, successive Governments have known they were in breach of employment rights legislation. There have been years of talking about implementing this directive and repeated commitments to doing so but very little in the way of action to actually do so. This denial of basic employment rights canno…

For almost a year and a half now, Charles Murray in Athlone has been living in a nursing home following a stroke because his private rented accommodation is no longer suitable. Despite representations and interventions by occupational therapists, physiotherapists and a medical social worker, the response from the local authority to date has been that there are no properties available but that the family qualifies for homeless housing assistance payment, HAP. This family is not homeless. Tragic events have resulted …

It has been well observed that truth is the first casualty of war. It has been equally well observed that the only antidote to propaganda purported in a time of conflict is the truth. In areas of conflict journalism has a vital role. When covering war or conflict professional journalists do not just circulate facts and information. They also frame and promote deliberation and debate. By supplying credible information the media also has a vital role to play in promoting democratic principles. As we have seen the glo…

There is something fundamentally wrong with a housing system that sees families not in homes but in hotels, and tourists not in hotels but in homes. I refer to the survey published by The Times Ireland edition last week, which showed that Airbnb rentals now outstrip long-term rental homes in every county. The Minister of State and I share a constituency. A quick look at Airbnb shows that there are currently 94 properties available for short-term let, while Daft is advertising 12 for long-term let across both counti…

The just transition concept was conceived to assist counties and communities most affected by the move from fossil fuels to transition in a just manner to other forms of energy generation and other means of employment where generational employment had ended. Last year Sinn Féin sought to define a just transition and just transition principles and to ensure that Government adhered to them when preparing climate action plans and carbon budgets. The Minister rejected our amendments and the amendments of others to the …

After decades of women campaigning, fighting and, in some instances, begging for healthcare, we are standing here today with a Government that has signed off on a deal that fails to deliver a public hospital on public land. Instead, it has signed us up to a convoluted lease that will run for 300 years. It is obvious to the most uneducated person in economics out there that the investment of €1 billion would have been much better protected by ensuring that we owned the land that we were spending that money on. Howev…

I welcome the time to contribute to this important debate. As recognised in the report, the Constitution provides a number of rights that offer protection against defamation but also against a complaint having been made of defamation, including the right to freedom of expression, the right to protection of a good name and reputation and the right of access to the courts. I was disappointed to read in the report that some stakeholders considered the law affords too much weight to the protection of reputation at the …