I think the Deputy would have a much bigger concern if we came in here and said that the Government and the taxpayer were going to pay for the advocacy of an industry body. It makes entirely appropriate sense that industry would meet the costs of its portion of any conference or the likes. In terms of any public servants attending, those costs will be met from within the Government Department. Contrary to the Sinn Féin view of the world, we need private investment to build private homes and apartments in this country. It cannot just be about State housing. We are spending more money than most European countries in relation to putting direct Exchequer funding into housing. I am proud that we are doing that and prioritising housing, but we also need private investment. The Housing Commission is clear in relation to this point. I certainly view the point made by the Deputy the other way around, in that I definitely do not think the taxpayer should be picking up the tab for industry bodies that are well able to fund these things themselves.
Sentiment score: 0.19
Yes, I do, is the truthful answer. I thank the Deputy and acknowledge her and her party's work on this issue. As she rightly acknowledged, I think there is a political consensus that this is an area that we should see progress on. I know that the Minister, Deputy Peter Burke, is doing work in relation to this matter too. I hope the Government will be in a position to have proposals on this shortly. I will certainly ask the Minister to update the Deputy directly.
Sentiment score: 0.38
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue again. I acknowledge that he raised it last week and on many other occasions. His colleagues in Kildare have done so as well. My understanding is that the Department of education made contact with the patron and school authority. I understand arrangements are being considered, possibly while we are here. I understand a meeting is under way now to ensure the school reopens as quickly as is possible. The Department has received a number of emergency works applications from the school. There has been a back-and-forth discussion. Frankly, I do not think it is helpful to read it out. This needs to be sorted. The Department needs to sort it as well. We do not need to be penpals international here. We need people in a room working out these issues so this school can reopen as a matter of priority. I know the Minister, Deputy Naughton, is very engaged on this issue. As the Deputy will know, she visited the school on 14 January this year. I will ask that the Deputy be given an update after that meeting today.
Sentiment score: 0.13
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue and bringing it to my attention. I will certainly speak with the Minister for Health on foot of him raising this issue here today. I would make the point broadly that any dispute gets resolved by people engaging. I certainly hope we do not get into a position of seeing an industrial dispute that causes a disruption to service. I know nobody will want that, including people who do an excellent job in the service. I hope we can find through the mechanisms available an opportunity for substantive engagement. I will certainly pass on the Deputy's views to the Minister for Health.
Sentiment score: 0.37
The rules do not allow me to reply. The Deputy knows that.
Sentiment score: -0.08
I thank Deputy O’Meara for raising this issue in relation to Rathcabbin and the affect this is having on his constituents in a very practical and real way. Broadband has become such an important part of how we live and work. It is an essential part of the infrastructure and utilities we all need. I will certainly ask the Minister, Deputy O’Donovan, to engage directly. This is an interesting example of State intervention at one level and commercial intervention on another. We need to make sure nobody falls between the stools. I will ask the Minister to engage with the Deputy directly on this.
Sentiment score: 0.32
I thank Deputy Burke for his time in Cork last Friday and for facilitating the meetings we had with the CEO of Cork City Council, the Cork Business Association and indeed, the Port of Cork and many others. I found it to be a very useful series of engagements. What is very clear is that the people of Cork through the local authority and others are about to embark with Government support on this whole look at – they do not like the word taskforce in Cork, we use it in Dublin – the future of Cork report and regeneration and rejuvenation will be a part of that. What came up at our meetings last week was the idea of the current maps not addressing all of the potential there could be. The Deputy will understand I do not make budget or tax commitments outside of the budget cycle, but if the whole of this issue was looked at in the round as the Deputy suggested as part of the future of Cork report, I would be willing to engage enthusiastically on any findings that might emerge from that.
Sentiment score: 0.48
I thank Deputy Cronin for raising what is a very serious matter that has caused significant worry and concern and as she rightly says, huge inconvenience for parents before we even get into the educational impact, which is also real. I acknowledge she has raised this in this House before. I will ask the Minister, Deputy Naughton, to come back to Kildare Oireachtas Members including the Deputy, today. I have been told there is a meeting taking place between the school and the Department today. I am also told - the Deputy knows more locally than I do - that significant works have been carried out in the school, remediating flooring, electrical issues, drainage and guttering. The Department believes this should address many of the safety issues. The point I made to Deputy Farrelly is the point I make today. We need one set of facts. We need the Department and the school to agree a way forward. The Department needs to take a hands-on approach in resolving this. The Minister, Deputy Naughton, is doing just that. I will ask her to come back to Deputy Cronin today.
Sentiment score: 0.11
I thank Deputy Clendennen for raising this issue. He is entirely right; there is a real sense of anxiety in general, including economic anxiety. What is going on in the world is frightening and deeply concerning. As I said yesterday in the finance committee and today in the Dáil and as the Taoiseach has also said, the Government keeps all of these matters in terms of interventions under review in terms of the impact of prices, and we will continue to keep this under review. We have to get a sense of the economic impact. It is a very different economic reality if this is something short versus if it is something that goes on for weeks and months. We continue to monitor it. We also need to work on it at European level and that is why I will engage with Eurogroup colleagues on Monday, specifically on the issue of energy affordability which is an agenda item. I thank the CCPC for the work it does. I happened to have an opportunity to meet with it at the Cabinet committee on the economy. It is our intention to give the CCPC further powers and there will be legislation forthcoming in relation to that. In the here and now, within its existing powers, it has opened an urgent investigation into reports of price gouging. I would encourage all Members of the Oireachtas to provide any information or evidence they have in relation to price gouging for that investigation.
Sentiment score: 0.12
I thank Deputy Connolly for raising this matter, which I will immediately raise with the Minister for Transport because we have provided significant capital uplift to the Department of Transport, quite rightly, for both road and public transport projects. I am aware there are specific issues around congestion, traffic and transport links in Galway. We are eager, as a Government, to see progress on them as well, specifically on the 424 bus route and the Dublin Road bus corridor as well. I will ask the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, to get clarity for the Deputy on that. He will come back to the Deputy directly.
Sentiment score: 0.35
I thank Deputy Carthy. I will certainly engage with the Minister for Transport on the specific issues he has raised in relation to Cavan-Monaghan. We are increasing the amount we are providing to the Department of Transport, increasing the amount of capital funding and announcing additional road funding allocations. I need to get a better understanding of the situation in relation to Cavan and Monaghan so I will ask the Minister-----
Sentiment score: 0.35
My representatives keep me very informed. In fact, Deputy Carthy will be glad to know-----
Sentiment score: 0.23
This is the problem with the Deputy. When you try to answer a question-----
Sentiment score: -0.20
-----in good faith, he immediately resorts to partisan politics. That is his choice. Senator Joe O'Reilly and Deputy David Maxwell raised this matter at the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party last night, Deputy Carthy will be glad to know. I also told them the Minister will be looking into the issue. I will give them the news as well.
Sentiment score: 0.35
I want to answer the very serious question but I want to make the point that the Deputy must win the award for the party leader most effective at naming his councillors in this Chamber, particularly in the context of a by-election. I say that from a point of admiration. I must learn further from the Deputy. Senator Seán Kyne is ours. There is a serious matter, though, that the Deputy raised and I genuinely do not want to take from that. In regard to Pathfinder, University Hospital Galway tells me it is using the period of the next two weeks to focus on de-escalating the hospital after what has been an exceptionally busy period in the past two months. The regional executive officer, at the request of Bernard Gloster, the CEO of the HSE, has put a plan in place to take the pressure off the Galway sites and all services are assisting with that. The National Ambulance Service, though, is an essential service and while all staff, including Pathfinder, will play their part in supporting what is a temporary plan, there is absolutely no question of the service ending. I assure the Deputy and the House of that today. I have spoken to the CEO of the HSE on this and he has assured me of it as well. I will also ask him to come back to the Deputy on it directly.
Sentiment score: 0.22
Sure.
Sentiment score: 0.32
I thank Deputy Rice. The Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, has responsibility for the delivery of health policy and the oversight of the HSE, so I will speak to her directly on this. I take the point that newly qualified paramedics are a scarce commodity with regard to their skill set at a time when we are trying to increase the numbers we have working in our ambulance service. The Deputy is right; ambulance service issues come up in this House regularly. We will want to do all we can to retain them within the health service but I will ask the Minister to come directly back to the Deputy on the issue. I will also ask Bernard Gloster, the chief executive of the HSE, to update me on the matter and we will come back on it.
Sentiment score: 0.12
I thank Deputy Lawlor. I know Alan Corcoran and I will listen back to his programme and the information the Deputy has just put on the record of the House. I am sure the Minister for housing will do so as well. My starting point in this conversation is that the new rules are not meant to affect existing tenants.
Sentiment score: 0.23
Laws do need to be complied with by landlords and existing tenancies need to be respected. We do have oversight mechanisms in relation to anybody who breaches those rules, including the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, and other mechanisms too. It deserves a substantive reply because, clearly, this has affected quite a large number of people. I will ask that the Minister, Deputy Browne, hears the information the Deputy has.
Sentiment score: 0.22
In that case, I will ask him to come back to the Deputy directly.
Sentiment score: 0.00
I thank Deputy Murphy and join him in welcoming CBS High School Clonmel. I met a very busy Deputy Murphy - he is very busy; he works hard - last night coming back into the Dáil with Capri-Suns and Hula Hoops and the likes in anticipation of the students' visit today. I hope they will get an opportunity to enjoy that hospitality. He was genuinely looking forward to having them here today. They are welcome to the Dáil and the Oireachtas. I thank Deputy Murphy for raising this important issue. I know he is in ongoing contact with parents and teachers at Scoil Aonghusa in Cashel and that he worked with the then Minister for education, Deputy McEntee, on it previously. This will deliver 14 special education classrooms of ancillary accommodation. The selected modular provider has recently submitted the required documentation to the Department to enter into that contract. The documentation is being reviewed by the Department and was shared with the school this week with a view to the project proceeding as quickly as possible. It is expected that designs will be ready for local authority review in the quarter 2 of the year. However, I will certainly speak directly to the Minister, Deputy Naughton. We want this to be delivered as quickly as possible. I know how important it is to special education in the Deputy's area.
Sentiment score: 0.37
I am going to check that for the Deputy today with the Minister for Transport and the Minister for public expenditure and reform because everyone is eager to bring this to a conclusion. The Deputy's point about being able to provide clarity to people is reasonable, so I will ask the Ministers to come back to the Deputy urgently on that matter and try to provide clarity for those workers. Considering St. Patrick's school has been brought up a couple of times in the House today, I will add that I have just received an update that the meeting with the Department was constructive and the board of management is now due to meet later this evening to discuss next steps, so I hope that can provide progress for St. Patrick's school in Kildare.
Sentiment score: 0.60
I thank Deputy Coppinger for raising this issue. I extend my full solidarity and that of everyone in this House and every right-thinking person to the victim. Far from discouraging the students who gathered in protest, I commend them on what they did. Sharing abusive images of a person is obviously abhorrent but it is also a crime. I am informed there is a Garda investigation into this and I hope the full rigours of the law will be applied. I will also ask the Minister for higher education, Deputy Lawless, to come back on the points the Deputy made about that specific student being supported.
Sentiment score: 0.04
I will certainly ask the Minister if he would consider meeting her. That could be useful and important. In the past, Dr. Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin highlighted some serious issues to me and did some very good work. I found my meeting with her to be very helpful and insightful so I will certainly ask the Minister, Deputy Lawless, to consider meeting the victim too.
Sentiment score: 0.48