I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. I thank all the family and young carers who carry out their tasks on a daily basis and save the State an absolute fortune. I thank the Oireachtas Library and Research Service, the Parliamentary Budget Office and my predecessors in the regional group, particularly Denis Naughten, who did substantial work on this issue and contributed to the position we are in today. To restore a little balance, and it is vindicated to some extent by Family Carers Ireland in its budg…

Education is a freedom and enabling children and teenagers to participate and achieve their own personal goals is of paramount importance. School transport is a significant part of that enablement. The Government has made great strides in the area of special education and the improvements include working with the NCSE to bring forward timelines, so I am wondering why in this area we still have the annual anxiety, chaos and disappointment for children and parents. Apply in April, pay in June and maybe have a ticket …

This is probably the most divisive issue in politics. It definitely deserves more frequent discussion. I have been requesting this discussion for the past six months, so I am grateful for my two minutes now. What will be Ireland's migration management plan for the positive net migration of 79,000 people to our country? How is Ireland's ability to cope in the following areas being measured and planned for: education, healthcare, housing, transport, policing and community safety? Forward planning and robust policies …

I welcome the publication of the strategy and, most important, the commitments within it because that, in effect, is the roadmap. It will, most definitely, underpin the work of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Disability Matters and it will be our reference point. Indeed, we are already taking elements of it and incorporating them into the work plan of the current term. Is the plan of action like to be published in December? The timeline was approximately three months. Key to this will be accountability and then t…

I will be very careful if I go to west Cork on my holidays. I thank the Deputy for the heads-up.

On a more serious note, I thank the Minister, his team and I presume the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers for the sterling work on what I consider to be a future-proofing and highly considered safeguarding of the next generations of the country. I also express my gratitude to our juvenile liaison officers. I will name two of them from County Meath, garda Barbara Kelly and garda Aisling Connor and the entire community team there, the support workers of the youth diversion projects, the community and voluntary …

I am going to share with the Minister a Meath East constituent's lived experience of domestic violence. I have her permission and I have anonymised everything. She is a 42-year-old and has been 19 years in an engaged relationship with three children. She was mortgage-approved and she had a wedding booked. During that time, she achieved two third level degrees. Her final assault was in 2020, when she was slammed through a shower door and she fled with her children to a refuge. She had been recorded and controlled fo…

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit and I thank Deputy Smith as well for affording us the opportunity to discuss this issue. I acknowledge and put on record the willingness of the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, to meet resident groups and the North Runway Technical Group as recently as 18 June this year. Those meetings - any that I have been able to sit in at - have taken the thrust of always being solution-focused. I will try not to duplicate what colleagues have said already and I will edit my comments. Regarding the …

I thank the Social Democrats for bringing forward this important subject for discussion. At the risk of being pedantic, I have said it before but I will say it again and continue to say it: there is a very important saying, let food be your medicine. It is the foundation of health. The health basis and the knock-on health effects of this issue are yet to play out. I totally understand the role of the competition authority and the need for the role of the Agri-Food Regulator to be strengthened. That is an area where…

I thank the Minister for the briefing and for the time he has put into committee meetings, which were very informative. I welcome elements of this amendment Bill, in particular with regard to judicial reviews and what I would call the disassociated objectors from one end of the country to the other. With the developer-led model, we cannot lose sight of serving the common good in tandem with the delivery of infrastructure, particularly social infrastructure. I want to flag that. With regard to the area of viability …

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as a bheith anseo inniu. I take on board the opening remarks of the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, and his comprehensive explanation of the procedures involved in these three out of the four motions we were expecting today. I understand the need for a common approach to procedures for international protection within the European Union. I will keep my remarks quite simple and, I hope, honest. I believe it is fair to say that everyone wants a fair, efficient and humane asylum policy…

Twenty-one years passed between the Act being passed and the report being published. We need timelines and they need to be speeded up. We need the use of data for proper forward planning and multi-annual funding to ensure services reach the children who need them most. I welcome the publication of the report. I suggest a review period of two or three years in future to keep on top of the complexities and the urgency. Student support plans are very welcome. Full inclusion and the change in language will bring out th…

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas Cheann-Comhairle, an Aire agus an Teachtá Ó Snodaigh as ucht an díospóireacht seo anocht. I have read through the report of the interdepartmental group on Dublin city and the task force recommendation. Pardon me if I am beginning to wonder if I am getting mixed up here. I see a reference to OPW management and a transfer. I do not see a mention of privatisation so if there is another document, can somebody please send it to me? I see a reference to Government offices and public services…

Everybody here is ageing. We are here to represent older people and it is incumbent on us to act with a focus on solutions and a sense of urgency. Most people will, hopefully, age well at home with the necessary community and healthcare supports initiated by older person's councils through the Age Friendly Ireland initiatives. I think of Ita Healy and Barbara McCool in Meath, who are tireless champions for older people. Some people, for a multitude of reasons, will require nursing home support. There are many excel…

Gabhaim buíochás leis an gCeann Comhairle, an Aire Stáit agus an Teachta Uí Ruairc. I thank Deputy O'Rourke for raising this most important issue. I thank the Minister of State for providing the Minister for Health's quite comprehensive briefing notes. I have only skimmed through them, but I will refer to them. I have to state the obvious. We have an ageing and increasing population, with a rise in chronic diseases, new diseases and increasing reliance on health services, drug interventions and surgeries. All of th…

In this instance, I am not going to duplicate all of the statistics and summaries of the review to date that Members have discussed. I will approach this from the point of view of what may happen next and the human impact. There must be a compassionate approach to supporting the children and families through the review process without sterile communications and an impersonal review process. Having worked in healthcare, the burning question I have is what happened to "first, do no harm", the very foundation of the H…

I wish to ask both the Minister and the Minister of State the timeline for the single-phase delivery of the new campus for Dunboyne College of Further Education and Training, Dunboyne, County Meath, to be funded from as many relevant streams as possible, including but not limited to SOLAS, sports capital funding, national training funding and national development plan funding. This college began with 50 students and two courses and it currently has 1,300 students, 70 courses and 45 apprenticeships.

I thank the Minister of State for the updated information. I reiterate that this college is delivering. At various times in this Chamber, we have discussed the need for occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and the development of apprenticeship programmes, as well as construction studies. LMETB colleges can deliver that. This process began in 2015, when Dunboyne was added to the building list of the then Department of Education and Skills. Currently, the rent roll is just short of €100 million a y…

We are absolutely united in the spirit of getting this project progressed. Again, I would push the case in this instance based on the financial implications and the history of the project. There is no doubt of the intention in the programme for Government, where the intention is to communicate, collaborate and encourage more interdepartmental and intradepartmental collaboration. That is why I make the suggestion for alternative funding streams so it is not just limited to the FET fund. On 24 February 2022, the Mini…

Go raibh maith agat. The Irish people have endured an incredible amount in the past five years. Every virtue has been tested in some extremely positive ways and, sadly, some negative ways. Lives have been changed irrevocably. To advance, we must reflect, review and learn. We must rethink our duty to future generations. First, we had two intense years of SARS-CoV-2, Covid-19. It is worrying that the Covid evaluation committee has not yet met to carry out a most important and urgent review of practices to inform all …