I welcome the opportunity to raise this issue which has been felt in households right across Roscommon-Galway and, indeed, across the country. People are very clear about what they are experiencing. The cost of the weekly shop has risen significantly and it continues to rise. For many households, particularly those on low and middle incomes, this is not an abstract issue; it is a real and immediate pressure. Families are noticing it week to week. They are adjusting what they buy, where they shop and how much they c…

I appreciate the response but the concern remains around how this is being experienced by people on the ground. People are telling us that the value of a euro in the shopping trolley has fundamentally changed. There was a time when people could shop around. They might do a core shop in one retailer and then top up in other retailers for choice. However, we are increasingly hearing those price differences have narrowed significantly, suggesting a lack of competition in the retail sector. The sense of being able to s…

Will the Minister of State reflect on the election of Péter Magyar as Prime Minister of Hungary, his winning the election and the end of the Orbán regime? Hungary stood out as a sore thumb. I have been trying to understand, for the life of me, why the European Union did not take further sanctions against Hungary, although I know moneys were withheld. The lesson for other jurisdictions - if we followed the policies that were pursued by Orbán, as some of our colleagues on the Opposition benches would do - is that Hun…

As both a doctor and TD, I wish to be very clear about what we are dealing with here. This is not a minor trend. This is the early stage of a new addiction epidemic. In Ireland today, one in three students has tried vaping and one in six is a current user. Among the under-25s, 11% are regularly e-cigarettes users, which is the highest of any age group. Most worrying of all, the majority of young people who vape have never smoked previously. The idea that vaping is simply helping people quit smoking does not hold up…

This fits in with the rest of the debate going on here. It is to ask the Minister about the targets for the inpatient waiting times. I acknowledge her focus on productivity and reform within the health service. Deputy Neville has pointed out that with all these things it is an ecosystem and they are interconnected. If you cannot have an efficient admission and discharge policy for both elective and acute, you will end up with long waiting lists.

There are brilliant people working in the public health service who do their work very well but we can acknowledge, and I think the Minister acknowledges, that there are some hospitals in areas of the country where that productivity is not apparent. I will speak about the HSE West and North West region. In the past, at the health committee, the Minister acknowledged there are issues around discharge and management of patient flows. The west and north west is the poorest region of the country, with the highest propo…

I have a case involving a patient who has critical ischemia of her leg. She is a hard-working woman in her 60s. Twice she has had to be admitted to hospital and twice she has been sent out. She needs a procedure done. She has now been sitting for two weeks in a bed in UHG because they cannot get theatre time to do the procedure she requires. That is simply not a productive system. We have people who have given up on certain specialties, such as dermatology, rheumatology and others, in the west because they cannot g…

I would like the Minister to reflect on the support for the Planet Youth model, which covers about five different regions in the country and dwells on youth mental health, well-being and the maintenance of that well-being, including through repeated surveys of youth to find out what makes them tick.

I am glad that the Minister of State recognises the value of the Planet Youth project, which is based on the Icelandic model of intervening early to try to identify the reasons young people may fall into lifestyles that will be deleterious to their health. One of the Planet Youth reports, which came out from Galway, Roscommon and Mayo in 2024, identified the fact that things such as unsupervised time for young people on the street gave them nine times more risk of smoking cannabis. Being unsupervised in a friend's …

The value of having repeated data collection means you get an evolving picture of how things are on the ground. In the Ballinasloe area, for example, if your parent had an alcohol problem, you are something like five times more likely to have taken alcohol by the age of 14. If your parents were permissive around the use of alcohol, the risk of having a problem with drink in later life is three times higher. These are important parameters that allow us to plan health services based around health and well-being and w…

I welcome-----

Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle. He is a good man. I welcome the Taoiseach's visit to China. It is an extremely important visit strategically and economically for Ireland in an increasingly uncertain international climate. It is absolutely clear that there are, as has been pointed out, two superpowers in this world at the moment but that the European Union and other like-minded trading nations need to keep their options open and develop new trade and new ties based on international rules of trade and politics. It is …

The number of linear accelerators in use in radiotherapy in the State is 22. Following the discussion we have just had about the cancer strategy, will the Minister make a statement on the procurement and replacement programme by the HSE for new linear accelerators? A number of the accelerators are reaching the age of 18 and the recommended international replacement time is eight to ten years. It costs a lot of money to maintain them.

I am asking this question out of concern rather than as a challenge. We heard a presentation from the Irish Cancer Society and Professor Gerry Hanna last week. From the information the Minister is getting from the HSE and from what we are being told, the international standard is to replace a linear accelerator that is being fully used after eight to ten years. The Minister has raised issues around productivity and management of this infrastructure. It appears the procurement process has been held up for the replac…

In talking about management and productivity, the Minister will find an ally in me. She has pointed this out very clearly since she began her tenure as Minister for Health. I agree with her 100%. I acknowledge the investment by the Department and the HSE in the linear accelerators in Galway. That is a hugely welcome development but, as the Minister has quite rightly pointed out, the figures for the time between point of diagnosis and getting to chemotherapy are not meeting the targets in the west of Ireland. We sho…

What are the Minister's plans for a new GP contract and what is the progress on the strategic review of general practice? I ask this in the context of our growing population, the increasing expectations and demands on our health service, the increasing expense of secondary and tertiary care, and the long-term need to treat patients with less complex problems in the most appropriate setting - namely, a primary care setting - by GPs and supported by full primary care teams.

I thank the Minister for her answer. First, they are private practices but the State has chosen to operate a contract of service-----

-----and that has suited the State well in recent years. The Minister is right that if a GP has a GMS contract, he or she is obliged to be available and provide an out-of-hours service. Many younger GPs are choosing not to sign GMS contracts with the State because of that obligation. I agree 100% with the Minister that we really need to rethink the out-of-hours framework. It may well need to be separate from the GP contract because an increasingly older population of GPs are carrying that out-of-hours burden. We ne…

I acknowledge the investment of the State in general practitioner services over the past number of years. I think the Minister would recognise that with our growing population - 90,000 a year - the increased expectation and sophistication in what they want from a functioning health service has increased. We are not accelerating the capacity at the rate we are going to have to. We are talking about having 6,000 GPs in 15 years' time in order to meet that demand. We have 4,200 GPs who are registered as GPs but they a…

I am taking this on behalf of Deputy Byrne but it is something close to my own heart as well. It is to ask the Minister about the Government's strategy to raise awareness of haemochromatosis. Haemochromatosis is a disease that causes iron overload in the body. It is a genetically inherited disease. It is the most prevalent genetic disease in Ireland. One in 20 people will carry part of the gene and one fifth of those will develop full-blown iron overload.