Pádraig Mac Lochlainn

You wanted Michael Lowry. The Healy-Raes just left you.

Not agreed.

Absolutely not agreed. It has been three weeks now since the Taoiseach was accountable to these Houses - 20 days this Dáil did not sit and he would not reconvene the Dáil when we asked him to deal with this crisis, to have this place sitting. He would not do it. Arrogance and entitlement seems to be the mentality here of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Will the Taoiseach start listening, will he do his…

Will he just do his job?

On a point of order.

To be very clear the record needs to be corrected. Leaders' Questions were not scrapped previously. Taoiseach's questions were not scrapped previously. Questions on Policy or Legislation were not scrapped previously.

It is completely untrue to say this is normal.

This is not normal.

This is immunity from accountability.

That is nonsense

With a straight face.

Is this a comedy? Maybe he will do stand-up next week?

Absolute nonsense. That is wilful nonsense.

How much more time does he get?

The arrogance and smugness of the Minister-----

It is not agreed. The Government has had weeks now to respond to this crisis. There has been a lack of communication to the Opposition. We have been frantically trying to get clarification on votes to allow us to prepare amendments. This is no way to do business and we strongly object to the way this has been handled today. We will push a vote on this matter.

The Minister of State should not misrepresent what we said. The way this has been handled today is completely disrespectful to the Opposition. We had no chance to prepare amendments. We are frantically trying to get information from the secretariat and there is a vacuum. We are calling a vote in protest at the way the Government handled this today, considering it took it weeks to get to this point…

79. Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will campaign for the reform of European beneficial ownership laws to ensure transparency and accountability on the ownership of fishing vessels and the allocation of fishing quota by states across the European Union and in quota transfer deals with third-party countries. [20934/26]

In a county like Donegal, we are uniquely impacted by these increases in oil and fuel. We rely heavily on home heating oil to heat our homes. You cannot work in Donegal unless you have a car or van to get around. Public transport just is not there. We are uniquely affected. I find it astonishing that we are weeks into this crisis now and there is not a clear indication from the Government that it …

Deputy Ó Laoghaire advises that he is on his way.

13. Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn asked the Minister for Health when the HSE will allow the home support service in Donegal to resume recruitment for healthcare assistants to address the growing waiting list for the service in the county.; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17182/26]

This question relates to the waiting lists of 324 for home support services in Donegal. I am very clear from speaking to staff in the service that the HSE recruitment policies are preventing it from recruiting the necessary assistants to get those waiting lists down. That also has a knock-on impact on Letterkenny University Hospital. I wish to get a sense of what is happening and why it is happeni…

We are very proud in Donegal that we have the strongest level of home care assistance delivered directly by the State through the HSE and that is the way we want to keep it. My concern is that there is an agenda to privatise the service in Donegal, that is, to hold back recruitment in the public system and secure the services of private providers. I am aware of incidents in Donegal where the HSE h…

I will continue to monitor this closely because it is clear that in recent years there has been an agenda at senior level in the HSE for a sneaking privatisation of the service in Donegal. In a response to a parliamentary question, it was confirmed that the use of private providers increased from 13% to 19% in one year. I am clear that recruitment through the HSE for home care assistants is being …

159. Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage when he will request that the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland, SCSI, draft a follow-up report on construction costs for the defective concrete blocks grant scheme, considering that the last one was almost two years ago and costs have considerably increased in that period. [17183/26]