Micheál Martin

I will take this further, and I will examine this. To be fair, I did not anticipate that this would be raised this afternoon, but I certainly will take the issue the Deputy raised in respect of this letter that written by Seán Drummond in the 1970s further and see how best to examine and deal with that. As I said, there is an interdepartmental group, but I will reflect on this and discuss it with …

The Deputy's portrayal of the Government's position on special education is wrong and does not accord with the facts. We have expanded provision for special education year after year, and we continue to do so, with thousands of more places, hundreds of extra special classes, new special schools, thousands of additional special needs assistants, SNAs, and additional special education teachers. The …

Thousands of additional places were secured last year. Where-----

Sorry, I am answering the questions but the Deputy is making false assertions.

The Deputy is.

She keeps with her feigned horror and all the rest of it. It is a feigned kind of presentation.

We are involved with parents. We have all been involved-----

-----in special education.

We know about it. The Deputy is not the only person who knows about special education. We all know about it because we all go about our work. I know about it. I have known it for a long time.

Deputy Cairns made it about me. She made it about us. She made the remarks. It is a serious issue. It was the Deputy who started throwing them out again, not concentrating and focusing on the actual key point.

There is ongoing engagement by the NSCE and the Department with schools and parents. There was a dramatic-----

In the past two years alone, there have been 2,000 additional special classes.

Come on, acknowledge the expansion that has occurred.

The Deputy is incapable of acknowledging it.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. The loss of life and the murder and killing of women is shocking. As the Deputy said, a large percentage of women are killed by people known to them. The horrific killings of Jamey Carney and of Adina Raluca Constantin in Portlaoise are quite shocking and the numbers are not going in the right direction in terms of the continued extreme violence that is o…

Again, I thank the Deputy for raising this. I should have referenced that the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Dara Calleary, has announced the introduction of domestic violence travel supplement. The Deputy is probably aware of that.

It was announced since the last time the Deputy raised this. That is an important additional measure. Broadly speaking, we have a significant issue more generally in terms of the level and scale of violence and attitudes. In particular, and separate from the murders that occurred, access to violent pornography, for example, by young males is an issue as well, which could be creating an environment…

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. In the first instance, each political party has its own rules in respect of a vote of conscience. In the Government parties' situation, it is in respect of human life issues. That is well known. Across the political system, parties vote in accordance with internal debates and under the Whip system. That is the position. Coursing is regulated significantly …

I have not seen the report-----

-----and to be frank with the Deputy, the provenance of the report is not something that I have knowledge of. It is not surprising that people would have done studies and analysis on this, but it is more than just economics in any event. When I referred to bringing people along, I meant there are people in rural Ireland who would have diametrically different opinions or approaches from the Deputy…

I thank Deputy McCarthy for raising this issue. I share his frustration with the progress of this project because it goes back to that storm in 2016. I subsequently visited the rowing club and am well aware of it. I have spoken to the county manager about this and to the Deputy's good colleague Councillor Frank O'Flynn. I hope the Deputy does not mind.

All things Fermoy and all that, as the Deputy knows. I spoke to them to get the background to this because different Departments have said that it not their responsibility. I will convene a meeting between the OPW and the Department of housing - I have spoken to the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, and the Minister, Deputy James Browne - as well as Inland Fisheries Ireland and the Ministers of Sta…

The application was originally made for barrier mitigation funding. The Fermoy project involves the rebuilding of a weir and then the barrier mitigation programme deals with mitigating existing barriers to fish passage, but both are combined in this project. It is about pulling people together to make sure that this can be done, and we need to get it done or costs will escalate, but it is importa…

Forgive me; I understood that the Deputy wanted the State to buy this site.

That was my understanding, so I thought the Deputy would be standing up to welcome this. Two weeks ago, she called for the State to buy this site.