Micheál Martin

The Deputy does not want to build anything, does he?

You do not want to build anything.

I welcome the Irish Wheelchair Association and the Tipperary Volunteer Centre. We will maybe meet them all again in two weeks at the all-Ireland hurling final. I cannot say, "Up Tipp" or "Up Cork". I am going to try to be neutral but I think people know where my heart is. On the issue of assessments of need, we set up a special Cabinet subcommittee on disability, which met yesterday. There has be…

I share the frustration with this process. I will say two things in passing. First, notwithstanding the fact we await the signing off of the process, not on our side but by the group and the legal representation, a judge has been appointed. We sought nominees for the judge and accepted the nominations that were put forward. Meanwhile, anything relating to health is now 100% available for survivors…

Sorry?

The Deputy called it a transition plan but she is masking her real view that farmers should get out of farming. That is what she is saying. We have a different approach.

No, I have not.

MARA is part of the solution. In 2022 the Government introduced the nitrates action programme. The Deputy knows there is an action plan there. She also knows it is the most robust nitrates action programme to date in terms of water quality. Last August the Department of agriculture and marine published Water and Agriculture - A Collaborative Approach. Progress has been made with a 10% reduction in…

We are not failing farmers; we are endeavouring to get a sustainable landing zone for all concerned.

I answered some of this earlier in response to a different question. Just to get a sense of perspective, progress is being made even within the existing system. There is no doubt there is a significant increase in people waiting. However, over 4,000 assessments were completed in 2024, a 30% increase on 2023. Some 1,400 assessments were completed in the first three months of this year, a 65% increa…

Everything has to be evidence-based. The Deputy's assertions-----

The biggest major research into sexual abuse in this country was done nearly two decades ago and was quite revealing. It was not revealing in terms of race or anything like that. It was revealing in terms of the prevalence of abuse across the country. One can argue that was earlier, but it still continues. One can look at all of the inquiries we have had. We had one into institutional abuse in in…

Get my point. We need to-----

We do need-----

I do not have to prove you wrong. I just told you-----

I mentioned what happened in industrial schools and in schools, in terms of other institutional settings-----

-----long before there was any modern sort of increase in terms of different nationalities coming into the country.

Again, as I said earlier, we are providing funding in the interim both to the HSE but also to private providers. Last year private providers cost about €6.8 million and we have allocated a further €10 million this year to deliver close to 3,000 more assessments and to boost capacity, with new assessment teams and so forth. Perhaps the Deputy could work with the HSE to identify private capacity wit…

I will engage with the Minister in respect of this. It is my understanding that there is no cutback programme in place. We have been expanding services generally in the further education field but I will certainly bring this to the Minister's attention, with a view to reverting to the Deputy on it.

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. I do not know whether the person concerned has secured a personal insolvency practitioner because that is the mechanism to deal with this in terms of engaging with whoever has the loan now. Generally, the courts have been sympathetic to people in their primary family residence, in terms of not evicting. A process of engagement is required to see if a resol…

Given that the person has cancer, and I do not know the full background of the case-----

Over the last decade loans have been sold but that has not resulted in wholesale evictions, which was asserted at the time. If people engage, generally speaking-----

I do not know the background to this case but if people engage, cases can get resolved.

My understanding is that the Minister for Transport, Deputy O'Brien, is finalising work on a draft policy framework for unmanned aircraft systems. He expects to publish it in the summer and will seek to identify and address any public, regulatory or legislative gaps. There is a comprehensive EU legislative framework in place to regulate safe drone operations that is directly applicable in Ireland.…

Is Ballincollig on the south side or the north side? That kind of argument was used 30 years ago but the bottom line is that light rail will be good for every part of the city. On the Cork city task force, there has been huge investment in Cork over the last four to five years. I have indicated that we will be setting up a Cork city task force but we have to get the terms of reference and the focu…