I thank Minister, Deputy Calleary, for taking this Topical Issue debate today. As he knows, my party leader and I have written to him a number of times over recent months. I have received his correspondence and responses, which I know have been drafted by officials in his Department who have been responding to this issue for some time. The issue here is that many former Waterford Crystal workers who paid into their pension schemes and were left down initially by the company, but also by the State, have received com…

It is not a case of whether the workers were the victims of an injustice; in my view, they were. As I said earlier, at the time those workers should have been given three options: the preserved benefits option, a transfer value or a refund. They were only given one option, which was the refund. The quarrel seems to relate to the fact that the Minister and the Department are of the view that this was a matter for the company and the trustees of the pension fund as opposed to the State and, therefore, the State does …

My first question is on the Rotunda Hospital. Since the question was tabled, however, a memo was brought to Cabinet and the Minister has decided to abandon the plans to colocate the Rotunda Hospital with Connolly. If I am right that this is her position, she might outline that. Now the key thing has to be what happens with the critical care unit. I welcome that, as part of an enhanced planning application and the critical care unit, the sexual assault unit will also be enhanced. The Minister might take the opportun…

The colocation plan unfortunately was an anchor around the hospital for far too long so I welcome the fact that anchor has now been removed. It is policy since 2015 but very little money has been spent on it and there was no real timeframe. An Coimisiún Pleanála's decision did mention colocation not as the main reason but certainly as one of the factors it took into account, so removing that obviously helps. It is possible and necessary that we protect the built environment that is Parnell Street. Nobody, including…

The decision for the Rotunda in relation to colocation has raised issues around other colocation proposals as well. The Minister mentioned Holles Street, which is moving to Elm Park and which is much more advanced. There is a plan for Limerick and for the Coombe. Now questions are being asked about where they stand, particularly the Coombe, which is to move to the site adjacent to the new children's hospital, which is yet to open. Are there timeframes for that? What is the policy of the Government? Is there any fre…

It would be a good issue for the Oireachtas health committee to examine in the next number of months, namely the whole colocation strategy.

The Dental Council of Ireland does not have sufficient powers to protect the public from unregistered dentists. It has been unable to act in 80% of cases of credible concern of unregistered dentists in the past three years. I have met council representatives on a number of occasions. I assume the Minister has as well. It has been raising this matter for some considerable time. I also know compulsory continuing professional development, CPD, is important and the Minister is working on it and has supported it. Regula…

I welcome the wider work but the Dentists Act, an issue I have been over several times, does not provide the Dental Council of Ireland with sufficient powers to deal with unregistered dentists. In fact, it has been saying recently that it has not been able to take action against a total of 37 unregistered dentists over the past eight years, including one who was practising unregistered with a sexual assault conviction. I met a locum dentists recently who spoke to me about some horror stories of him being placed in …

I welcome that as well. It will add real value. The Minister spoke about oral health generally. The are issues with screening in schools. Enough simply is not being done. There is a need for more publicly hired dentists. I have made the same argument in relation to GPs. I would like to see a public GP contract but for dentists we need to look at that space. Dentists are not engaging with the dental treatment services scheme. There are rights and wrongs on both sides. I have said to dentists and the representative b…

This question is on cancer services and the national cancer strategy. We have had two strategies, the one coming to an end and the previous one, and they have added real value and are among the best success stories in the Irish health service. I am blown away by the work people do in this area, with research, development, new technology, new drugs and new treatments. It is mind blowing and it is of benefit to patients. There has been slippage in some of the key performance indicators, KPIs, and some of the access t…

We would all accept that early intervention in healthcare is very important, especially for cancer patients, from the first GP referral to a consultant, diagnostics, treatment and surgery. I acknowledge that in some of the areas we are still doing very well but there are areas where there is slippage. Data from 2025 shows that 15% of chemotherapy patients and 21% of radiotherapy patients did not start their treatment on time. It also shows major delays in surgical care, which is concerning A total of 61% of prostat…

One of the benefits of having health regions is that we can have this type of focus, we can drill into the data and we can have real accountability. There are regional imbalances, county imbalances and very localised imbalances. The cancer strategy is a national strategy. We have specialist centres. I want this to be maintained, of course. It is really important. Where the areas of chemotherapy and radiotherapy are a problem, and where we are slipping, we have to fix the problem. From what I can see, part of this i…

Across the State, households are watching the price of fuel surge in real time. In the days since the US-Israel strikes on Iran, the cost of home heating oil has skyrocketed. We are hearing from people across the country and, in most cases, the price of a delivery has effectively doubled. The average price for 500 litres is now just under €800. Since my colleagues and I have raised this issue publicly over the past number of days, I have been inundated with emails from people describing what is happening. One house…

I am not knee-jerk because I understand what families are going through

They are faced with rent hikes and grocery price increases.

They are faced with insurance cost increases, and now energy price increases, which have skyrocketed over the past few days. Not a single word of what the Tánaiste said will bring any comfort to families who are under fierce pressure. I do not believe that the supports he said are in place are in fact in place. One of the measures the Government brought in was to increase the carbon tax, which has increased the cost of fuel on families, not made it any cheaper. The Tánaiste's approach is that his head and those of …

“Under review” does not mean anything.

Out of touch.

We are years into this Government.

What they have heard is that they are on their own. That is what they have heard.