I thank the Minister and I appreciate all of the work that has been done. When I ask where it came from, there is the monitoring of the wind but we are in the winter and the weather is very cold. The likelihood of it coming from midges blown across the Irish Sea is probably minimal, I expect. How much investigation of this has been done? A lot of straw is being imported. Could the disease come with midges in the straw? These are the kinds of questions farmers ask me. People are perplexed that it is here at this tim…

I thank the Minister. I want to follow up a little on this. Obviously, these are animals that probably got infected last summer. This will concern many in the agricultural community. Does this mean there are animals on a lot of farms around the country that contracted it last summer but it was not identified, they presented no symptoms and it will only be when they go to the factory and a test is done that it will be found? This is a big concern I have learned about this morning from the Minister. I was not aware o…

I think we will have to have a special debate on St. Brigid on a later occasion.

Deputy O'Rourke is the longest waiting, although we have two more Deputies coming in. Will we go to Deputy O'Rourke and then revert to the list?

And the financial malaise being experienced by our farmers.

The IFA is not at one on Brazilian beef.

This particular pact has put forward a set of recommendations, some of which are positive but many of which are not in line with what we need to be doing in this country. That is widely recognised. We have a situation where the committee has looked at this and it has recognised that there are many aspects of it that do not recognise the unique situation we have where we have a border with a non-EU state which is an open border, as it absolutely needs to be. Yet, this pact does not give any recognition to that or pa…

I move: That notwithstanding the Order of the Dáil of 1st May, 2025, Deputy Martin Kenny be designated the member in charge of the Commission on the Future of the Family Farm Bill 2024.

We clearly have a crisis when we are talking about children who are in real danger, particularly regarding Tusla. While legislation is clearly needed and there is work to be done on that, a big issue which does not ever seem to be addressed is in regard to resourcing. We speak to people in Tusla and the workload and number of files involved are practically impossible to properly deal with. That is one of the reasons so many situations have come to light where vulnerable children have been left in dangerous places a…

Hundreds of people around the country have good outcomes when they access mental health services but there are also hundreds who have very bad outcomes. Many with bad outcomes end up self-harming or worse. For many, the tragedy is that suicide is the outcome, but for some, what happens is that person goes on to kill someone else. I want to call the Minister of State's attention to people in my constituency. First, this letter is from Jodie McGuinness, whose sister lost her life in 2015. The loss of my sister Natali…

We blocked it.

We blocked it, which the Government failed to do.

We blocked it, which the Government failed to do.

We blocked it.

I raise the issue of the Mercosur trade agreement, which has certainly not gone away. We are in a position over the weekend where we see that Larry Murrin, the chair of Bord Bia, is also the CEO of a company that was providing Brazilian beef. It is simply incompatible with his role in the promotion of Irish food products to remain in that position. That is the first point. We also had good news from the European Parliament this morning because the Mercosur trade agreement has been referred to the European courts be…

Which it failed to do.

It failed.

It failed totally.

One of the big issues we have as parliamentarians is when we write to the Minister, he writes back to us and says he cannot talk to us and to talk to Irish Water. That is one of the big problems that an awful lot of Members of this Dáil have. Continuously, I have written to various Ministers, the Minister and the Ministers of State about issues about water. The can is always kicked to Irish Water. All we get from Irish Water is a very curt reply if we get any at all. That is a problem. Irish Water is not a private …

It is a public company and, therefore, it has a public responsibility to answer public representatives and it does not do that. The Minister cannot also abdicate his responsibilities around that. That is the first point I want to make, and I hope the Minister hears that point very clearly. We will no longer accept this notion that the Minister - water and local government are covered in his brief - is not going answer questions around Uisce Éireann. Please, make sure that that practice ends in his Department and Mi…