As I said earlier to Deputy Bacik, who raised this on Leaders' Questions - I have just responded to Deputy Nolan, who has also raised this issue - the Government's obligation is to vindicate the right of every child to education and to a school place. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, and the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan, are working flat out with the National Council for Special Education and the Department of Education to make sure there will be a sufficiency of places for the school year beginning next September and throughout. That means additional special schools. Three hundred and seventy-two extra classes have already been sanctioned and there is engagement now with other schools with a view to those schools taking on additional needs children and providing additional places.
Sentiment score: 0.39
I am not disagreeing with anything the Deputy is saying. The issue is solutions and we have got to work on it. My own view is that the progressing disability programme, which was developed back in about 2013, has not worked, or the particular models. I want to pay tribute to people working in CDNTs because they have had huge burdens and workloads but the problem is, prior to 2013, special schools had therapists. They were taken out of the special schools and spread more widely. In my view, those with severe and profound needs lost out. There is no easy solution to it but we need to provide a therapy service in education, and we need to do that in the first instance with special schools. This is something I have been focused on for quite a long time. I acknowledge the frustration. In the last term of the previous Government, we were not in a position to get it over the line but we have made it clear we want to do it this time. That is not the full answer but it at least allows for and would create a multidisciplinary within the special schools that we could then evaluate and expand to the broader school system.
Sentiment score: 0.20
The Minister, Deputy McEntee, and the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, have met the parents. We are saying we are doing everything we can to provide places. We have already provided 372 school classes. We are making very significant progress this year. Delivery is more important than making promises. Next September, we want every child to have a school place that is appropriate for the child. That is what is being worked on right now. The Minister and Minister of State are saying - the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, spoke to me this morning - that for next year, they want the applications brought forward to November of this year for the following school year, and that the NCSE and the Department would have in place by 2026 - that is the aim - a common application system where people would apply in November and where there would be a liaison with parents and schools to make sure that children would get places early, taking the anxiety out of it.
Sentiment score: 0.19
I am not an expert on discs in terms of presentation and so on. I will ask the Minister responsible to come back to me on it and to respond to the specific query the Deputy raised this morning, if that is okay.
Sentiment score: 0.25
I am very familiar with the service, and Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan would have raised it with me. I think Councillor Tony Fitzgerald, as the Deputy knows, has done fantastic work in that area over the years and has been very active on this. Hence the allocation. I spoke to the former Minister, Roderic O'Gorman, on foot of representations from Deputy O'Sullivan and Councillor Fitzgerald specifically on this issue. I will check with Deputy O'Flynn on what the issues are around the building and the delays. The Deputy might know some background himself as to why it has not physically got under way. I will certainly pursue that. By the way, the Four-Faced Liar did get funding, as in, the Shandon clock.
Sentiment score: 0.07
I am not familiar with the full background of the specific application and this specific wind farm development. Obviously, I would want to be apprised of that in terms of what the issues are around planning and so forth. The Government will not be introducing a moratorium on onshore wind, however. It is just simply not in a position to do that given the huge pressures we are under in terms of the increasing prices, particularly of a predominantly fossil fuel-based model at the moment. That will continue for quite some time. We have to get more renewables. Hopefully, offshore wind will be the way of the future. We are hoping we can get the first offshore wind farms before 2030. That would take pressure off the onshore sector because there has been significant onshore development in Ireland, which is making a huge contribution to electricity generation. Ireland is under a lot of pressure on the energy question-----
Sentiment score: 0.11
We do not have great resources other than wind and solar-----
Sentiment score: -0.51
----- but I will talk to the Minister in respect of the guidelines as to when they will be issued. I will come back to Deputy McGuinness on that.
Sentiment score: 0.32
I fully accept that there is a real need and issue with regard to expanding capacity of undergraduate dentistry places in Ireland. I understand that the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, RCSI, will be producing approximately 75 graduate dentists. There is an issue as there will be 25 Irish and EU graduates and 40 non-EU graduates. RCSI is hoping to increase capacity by approximately 20 extra places. Then we have UCC and Trinity College Dublin. We need greater coherence from the other colleges as to what their priorities are from a capital investment point of view. The Department of Health and others are working with these colleges with a view to seeing how we can increase the number of dentistry places. I take the Deputy's point about the need for interim solutions.
Sentiment score: 0.25
I am aware of reports in the media in respect of a decision ordering two Irish citizens to leave Germany. That is of fundamental concern in terms of the freedom of movement rights that EU citizens have. Approximately four individuals, I believe, are being deported, including two Irish citizens, namely, Shane O'Brien and Roberta Murray. The other individuals are from the United States and Poland. The embassy in Berlin, I understand, has raised the matter with the German foreign ministry, and we will raise this issue with the German authorities. Each of the four is apparently facing differing charges. It is reflective of a completely different climate in Germany as opposed to here or other European countries in respect of the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I have been saying that for ages in the House. This is a manifestation of that. I am not justifying it in any shape or form; it is just illustrative of a completely different approach taken to protest to Germany on this issue as opposed to what would be taken here.
Sentiment score: 0.12
The individual buyers from the help to buy or first home schemes, which are very significant interventions by the Government. The waiver of development levies goes to the builders. It has led-----
Sentiment score: 0.19
Yes.
Sentiment score: 0.40
Okay. In general, it went to all sorts of applicants. The bottom line is there were approximately 60,000 commencements, which we now need to see them completed and delivered. We are not extending it. I want to make it very clear to everyone out there: build what you have signed up for and get it built before the end of 2026.
Sentiment score: 0.14
No, I am not-----
Sentiment score: -0.30
This will go on and on forever. I will talk to the Deputy again.
Sentiment score: 0.00
I will have to examine that. Presumably, they could have applied for more at the time if that is what they wanted to build.
Sentiment score: 0.00
Anything will push you to An Bord Pleanála. That facility was created to enable them to get a faster permission and to go directly to An Bord Pleanála. I will check the background to this, but my understanding is 96-beds is what was sanctioned from an earlier bed review. I will check it out, because we want to provide beds as quickly as we possibly can in UHL. Obviously, it has to be done legally but I will examine what the Deputy has said.
Sentiment score: 0.08
I thank the Deputy for raising the case of William Jonathan Moore. Normally, the treatment abroad section is very responsive to cases. I understand that the guidelines stipulate treatment should be within the European Union, although with the common travel area with Britain, we also send people with rare conditions to get treatment in the UK. If the Deputy can send me the full details of the case, I will certainly examine it. The child should get-----
Sentiment score: 0.22
If it is only available in the US, we should do something about that. I will come back to the Deputy about it and will talk to the Minister for Health.
Sentiment score: 0.00
I thank the Deputy for raising these issues. If he could identify those schools with places that are, for some reason, not being filled, I will take that up with the Minister. I know the Deputy has been engaged with the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan.
Sentiment score: 0.25
The Deputy might provide them to me afterwards. Our immediate focus is on getting places for all children. I understand that in the Munster area more generally, that is more or less on track, and we just want to keep on top of it. As I said earlier during Other Members' Questions, there are still challenges in Dublin.
Sentiment score: 0.09
I do not have the specific timelines on that but I can revert to the Deputy. I fully support the concept of colocation. The absence of colocation is a sad indictment of many of the healthcare structures and some of the hospitals themselves. The most significant colocation happened in the early 2000s with Cork University Maternity Hospital because the two hospitals involved and the private hospital in the city agreed to it. It happened and then we have had the Holles Street saga, which went on for far too long. it is incredible that it has not happened in other locations. Limerick seems to me to be the more obvious one, where there is apparently not a land issue. There will be huge expenditure, it will be subject to resources and so on, but at least the group could start doing all the planning, site assessment and so on. I will talk to the Minister about that.
Sentiment score: 0.07
I thank the Deputy for raising that. He is correct that there is an issue. Issues can always emerge. There are many older schools that had huge numbers in the past, which have declined significantly. They are in older buildings, are harder to heat and have issues. I will talk to the Minister about whether we could devise a bespoke solution that would help schools in certain circumstances to more sustainably deal with the financial pressures they are under.
Sentiment score: 0.21
I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. The multi-annual financial framework negotiations are starting. We had a first meeting last week, which was a general tour de table type of exploratory meeting. I made it clear that Ireland was interested in protecting the common agricultural payments system and the CAP, as well as investment in the Horizon research programme, which is important. The problem will be that everybody is looking for more funding for more new initiatives. Defence is looming now as an issue that people want to have some provision inserted into the multi-annual financial framework for their member states to avail of. This would require alternative revenue sources. The Commission is looking at own resources. We favour the GNI metric, which would mean an increased contribution from us but would be fairer and more transparent. There are two issues here. Can we increase the budget in a realistic way to accommodate the increased needs? The CAP is important to us, as is food production more generally.
Sentiment score: 0.16
I will have to counter and say there has been significant investment in Waterford in recent times, particularly the €170 million north quays project. As the Deputy said, Waterford has been a good and attractive location for foreign direct investment companies, especially American multinationals in the pharmaceutical sector. The objective is to protect as many jobs as we possibly can and to work both with the European Union and bilaterally with the US, and also with multinational companies, to get the best strategy to protect those companies to keep them in Ireland and to continue to export to the European and Asian markets. Those companies have done very well in Europe because of their base in Ireland and our strong workforce with high-quality skill sets that are not easily replaceable, certainly not in the short term. We want to do everything possible to protect pharma as best we can. We are not starting these tariffs. The US has decided to go down this road.
Sentiment score: 0.42
I thank both Deputies for raising very important issues. I will talk to the Minister, Deputy Jim O'Callaghan, with a view to trying to get the legislation to which Deputy Gogarty referred restored to the Order Paper. It has not come forward from the Department yet. The behaviour in question is very sinister and reprehensible. I do not understand why people do this sort of thing. We can understand it, but I do not understand it, if the Deputy knows what I am getting at. It is horrible. Anything we can do to create legal deterrents and the potential to punish people is important. On school completion, I will talk to the Minister in respect of the commitment in the programme for Government. The previous Government nearly got there but when Departments are transferring functions, they have a habit of frustrating the best-laid plans. School completion in its entirety should be under the Department of Education. It should be part of the ethos of education to enable every child not just to participate in school but to complete it. That then informs policy in education and curricular matters. If it is divorced from education, focus can sometimes be lost in respect of curriculum design and how the school year is organised and so on. I thank the Deputy for her commitment to school completion throughout her career so far. Hopefully, we can move this on together.
Sentiment score: 0.07