I did not write the letter.
Sentiment score: 0.00
I did not write the letter.
Sentiment score: 0.00
We paused it now.
Sentiment score: 0.00
I would be worried if we brought clarity to Deputy Michael Collins's campaign-----
Sentiment score: 0.13
We assess it.
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We would assess it.
Sentiment score: 0.00
First of all, some of the Deputy's language and the untruths she says are difficult to comprehend in respect of the Government's position in respect of the Rotunda. She said we put the hospital "through the wringer" and we denied it investment.
Sentiment score: 0.07
Is she not conscious of the Hampson House project? Some €16 million was allocated to the Rotunda. It has been a great success. The works are completed and so forth. The budget increased by 47% or €35 million since 2020. That is not putting anybody "through the wringer". The Deputy casually gets up and says stuff that is completely untrue.
Sentiment score: 0.18
The Deputy seems to be-----
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The Deputy is in a parallel universe that is governed by politics, electoral gain and nothing else.
Sentiment score: 0.53
Others in the House raised this issue-----
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-----substantively during Leaders' Questions and I gave comprehensive replies to those.
Sentiment score: 0.25
I made it very clear that the critical care wing is needed now-----
Sentiment score: 0.58
-----and that the Government is very supportive of the Rotunda's plans.
Sentiment score: 0.36
We will continue to support them. The Minister is now engaging-----
Sentiment score: 0.20
Obviously the thalidomide facilitation process is under way under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Paul Gilligan. There has been good engagement with the Irish Thalidomide Association, ITA, and the Irish Thalidomide Survivors Society. The Tánaiste and I met the ITA twice in the last quarter of 2025, in October and then before Christmas. These were constructive meetings. Several complex issues were raised. Officials are following up on these matters. I am as frustrated as anybody by the length of time this has taken. I do not think there is a need for that. I think these issues can be resolved. There is ongoing correspondence. We will meet, certainly, our objectives by the end of February. We have established, as the Deputy knows, a national thalidomide advocacy office. A wide range of health and social care supports are being provided, have been provided and will continue to be provided in terms of medical cards, annual assessments, access to allied health professionals, access to international centres of excellence when expertise is not available nationally, prophylactic MRI, unlimited access-----
Sentiment score: 0.16
-----to exercise and hydrotherapy facilities, and personal living supports. All that is in place but there are outstanding issues we want to resolve as quickly as we possibly can. We believe the Mr. Justice Gilligan process is a good process and one that should be availed of.
Sentiment score: 0.66
Yes. We will come back with a date to the organisation.
Sentiment score: 0.20
I have dealt with this extensively in the House. There are 4,000 schools in our system. By the start of the next school year, there will be up to 25,000 SNAs. As I said earlier, there has been a 45% increase in the number of SNAs over five years. I would caution against the breadth and the range of services the Deputy says SNAs should be obliged to provide. We need to be very targeted in our approach. The children who need SNAs the most should have them allocated to them. The danger with mission creep is that sometimes the child most in need does not get the attention that he or she requires and deserves. We are bringing in other therapies, initially into special schools. We then want to spread that into mainstream schools. That is nothing to do with the SNA situation. There should be regular reviews of SNAs to make sure the resource is targeted properly. I am sure nobody could object to that. The difficulty here as a result of the review the NCSE initiated last October - approximately 500 have been completed - is that the impact on some schools is too severe. This is in terms of the new school year, from September of this year.
Sentiment score: 0.02
I do understand, Deputy, that there are those, like your good self, among us who have plenty of energy and so on. The Deputy will recall that was discussed by a previous Government and Cabinet. I will engage with the Minister for justice and ask him where that legislation lies. As the Deputy knows, there have been different views across the House on how far the legislation is going. Some wanted the opening hours to go until 6 a.m., and the Deputy is nodding approvingly. There is an issue around the night-time economy. There have been different dimensions to that debate. I will speak to the Minister of justice to see where we are on that and to bring clarification to the House.
Sentiment score: 0.22
In terms of cancellations, the latest information I have from CHI and the Department of Health for last year states that about 164 surgeries were cancelled, some due to clinical decisions. Some 48% were cancelled due to clinical decisions. Some 19% were due to personal or family reasons and some were due to a patient's ill-health, about 11%.
Sentiment score: -0.17
Of those, 115 cases were replaced with another spinal patient. I would like to see more follow-through on the number of patients who were cancelled. Timely information should be given to parents of children in situations like that. The Deputy must be aware why phase 1 of the Nayagam report has not been published.
Sentiment score: 0.14
There was a court injunction. The Deputy must be aware of that. My understanding is that there was a commitment given to the High Court that until phase 2 was completed, phase 1 would not be published. There is a lot of litigation around this and that is the main reason stuff is not being published. The inquiry will be focused on that.
Sentiment score: 0.11
I will believe there will be progress on that.
Sentiment score: 0.42
I will undertake to put this item on the agenda for the next meeting of the Cabinet subcommittee.
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I cannot get into individual allocations in specific schools without being aware of the details. That is a matter for the National Council for Special Education in the first instance. Yes, the school should appeal. The review has been paused. It was to continue until March. The Minister is going to engage with the NCSE. For those schools where decisions have been taken, there will be engagement between the NCSE and those schools, but I always recommend that schools should appeal any given decision. It strengthens its position overall.
Sentiment score: 0.28
I will communicate the issue the Deputy has articulated to the Minister for Transport. In general, road funding is increasing across the board. There are significant increases this year. I do not have the specific county allocations, but I will raise the issue that the Deputy has raised with the Minister. In the context of the flooding and so forth, estimates are coming back in from local authorities in respect of that. I have told the Department of Transport to tell the local authorities to fix those roads that have been damaged by the floods.
Sentiment score: 0.04
I understand that funding to get the ball rolling was allocated to that project by the Minister today. It was announced at 12.45 p.m., subject to being checked. The Deputy can check that. I do not race ahead of the announcement of the news like some people do. I will leave it at that, but I acknowledge that it is an important project.
Sentiment score: 0.13
He has got a kind of half-positive response from me. My good colleague here has alerted me to the fact that the announcement today includes an allocation of funding for the commencement of that project.
Sentiment score: 0.22
We are obviously talking about the next school year. As I said earlier in respect of Our Lady of Good Counsel, no school should lose close to six SNAs in one fell swoop or one decision. I have communicated that to the NCSE. I said it to both Ministers as well when we discussed this. Everyone acknowledges that it is too severe an impact. It is probably because there have not been regular reviews of allocations and such reviews are needed. We need to be very clear on the role of the SNA. Maybe it is not as broadly based it is now developing in some cases. There is specific training for SNAs and specific functions as per the circular in respect of supporting children with additional needs. Going from nine to 3.83 SNAs is a huge drop in a relatively small school. It has appealed. I understand that the NCSE will look at all of these cases again and will assess the appeal.
Sentiment score: 0.11
Sorry, we are increasing the number of SNAs. There will be no cuts to the number of SNAs in our school system, no SNA will lose his or her job and no SNA will be taken from any school in this school year. Those are the fundamentals. It is important that needs are reviewed and assessed on an ongoing basis. That is logical and that is the way it should be. For the next school year, we will be at 25,000 SNAs. That will be about 45% of an increase over five years. I do not know how anybody in their wildest imagination can call those cuts. It is expansion, but this review is about making sure that each school has the right level of SNAs for its needs.
Sentiment score: -0.02
I met with the Before We Die campaign group and we had a very good discussion. These are very serious issues. There needs to be stronger co-ordination between local authorities, section 39 bodies and Government Departments, particularly the Department of housing and the Department of disability. I am placing it on the agenda of the next Cabinet subcommittee meeting with a view to creating a structure that will work to support families in this situation. There are a lot of issues we have to work through. I do not have the length of time to go through it all here but suffice to say it is not enough. The HSE will say it looks after moderate to severe disabilities. There has to be a continuum of care, of sheltered housing and of supported housing, depending on the needs of a given individual.
Sentiment score: 0.12
Between the local authorities, Government and the approved housing bodies, we should be able to create a structure that is proactively supporting families in this situation.
Sentiment score: 0.78
I think the Deputy asked me about this last Wednesday.
Sentiment score: 0.00
I have spoken to both Ministers. The Minister for public expenditure, Deputy Chambers, will be back to me fairly shortly on this and we will try to get it resolved. I do not have a date yet.
Sentiment score: 0.06
There was always contingency funding within the Department of Transport in terms of damaged roads as a result of flooding. There was a lot of damage as a result of the recent flooding, and we have made it very clear, through the Department of Transport, to say to the local authorities that they should get on with doing the roads that have been damaged, specifically by the flooding. They should not be hanging around; they should get them done and they will be covered.
Sentiment score: -0.31
I will talk to the Minister with overall responsibility for An Post. I do not have the specifics of the case here yet but I will certainly talk to the Minister to see what can be done.
Sentiment score: 0.24