Micheál Martin

Sinn Féin voted against the reduction in the price of diesel and petrol, which is quite extraordinary.

I thank the Deputy for raising a very important issue. I met with the Before We Die campaign well over a month ago in Cork and listened intently to what they had to say about their personal situations. Their personal situations could be amplified with many more. There are 1,389 active applications for residential services, with 281 assessed as priority 1. We are investing and there are investment …

In my view, those most in need are those without housing and whose parents are getting older.

Certainly, as I said, this is an issue I am going to deal with personally, as Taoiseach, with the Minister, Deputy Foley, the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, and others, including the Minister for Health. It needs an integrated response, without question. We certainly will provide the necessary funding but, again, we have to get the design and the structures right. In my view, there is funding …

The HSE has to be involved in that process as well.

I thank the Deputy for raising this very serious issue in the House. I do not have the full background to the case to hand. I have read some reports in the media in respect of it. Clearly, I do not want to prejudice anything that may be in train but it is very difficult to comprehend how somebody against whom these complaints and charges have been made could be promoted. I do not have the full bac…

Fundamentally, in any organisation, it is about the culture. In all of the work that has been done within the Defence Forces, the one word that kept emerging in terms of all the analysis, inquiries and so on was "culture". There are numerous policies in respect of these issues but the biggest difficulty and challenge is around culture. Changes are occurring in the Defence Forces, which should be a…

The Deputy’s assessment is not correct in the sense that he ignored the extension of the fuel allowance for four weeks, which will help about 470,000 people to deal with the rise in the price of home heating oil. There is no doubt that there is huge pressure on families and people across the country. The price of home heating oil has increased very significantly because of the war, not because of …

Yes, he would. Honesty is what we want here because the Government would then need to find €1 billion to do what the Deputy wants us to do. That means taking money from farmers. It means taking money from the retrofitting programme because we would not be able to do the retrofitting programme without it. The retrofitting programme helps people to reduce their costs over time and is a far more effe…

The Deputy is wrong in his assessment of the Government’s increase in revenue.

That is absolutely wrong. The Deputy is raising the general issue of taxation overall. He cannot have both ways. What he is really advocating for is a cut in public services.

Of course he is because if you reduce taxes on one front, you are reducing your revenue and resources to pay for public services in education, health-----

However, they are a revenue source. The Deputy would either increase income tax or increase taxes elsewhere – he should tell us what he would do - to offset-----

------the significant reduction in excise duty that he is proposing because he would have to find the money from somewhere. We cannot have everything we want. We cannot have our cake and eat it, which seems to be the Deputy’s response. The Government is targeting its resources and 50,000 extra families on the working family payment are in receipt of the fuel allowance. We introduced that in the la…

I thank the Deputy for raising this very important issue. It is fair to say that we are ageing as a society. Our lifespan has improved dramatically compared to 20 years ago. Irish lifespan has increased more than most in the European Union, which is a good thing for all of us, potentially. On the other hand, it creates more challenges in terms of care costs, health costs and so on. Every year, the…

I fully appreciate the Deputy's advocacy for his home county. In terms of home care, day care and meals on wheels, there are very significant extended resources all working together and they are particularly effective in rural areas. I am sure the Deputy will agree what is needed is additional resources, particularly in County Clare. That is what he is advocating for. The fair deal scheme support…

My sympathies go to the family of Chloe Maher, who died recently. She was formerly, as the Deputy said, a patient at CHI's spinal services. I offer my deepest condolences to Chloe's family and friends at what is a very sad time for them. As the Deputy knows, the Minister has announced that Mr. Remy Farrell has been appointed as the facilitator for the scoping exercise in terms of an inquiry into …

Ireland has been very strongly adherent to the EU sanctions framework and principles. The Aughinish plant is not subject to EU sanctions, and there is no proposal at EU level to sanction it. Alumina is not a sanctioned commodity and so under the current framework that is the position. There were reasons for that in terms of the complex supply chains in the modern era where different industries in …

It is an outrageous assertion that we have waited and watched for years and done nothing. That is just wrong. The fact of the matter is that Ireland has strongly articulated on the West Bank issue for many years. We have taken a range of measures with the other EU member states in terms of sanctions against violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank. We have deplored and condemned the behaviour of …

We are constantly investing in public transport and public buses as well. I do not have the specifics of the breakdown between replacement and additional buses arising from the very significant investment in 60 double-decker buses. I will revert to the Minister of State with responsibility for transport who is here and who is from Galway as well. I will get the full details and background on the b…

I do have confidence in Cork ETB in respect of special education. A number of years ago, it stepped into the breach to establish the school to provide desperately needed places in an area where children could not get places at the time. We had to take action. For the long term ETBs have a very significant role in special education across the country. That is my view. If we look at how it is evolvi…

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. He is saying it is an illustrative example of the challenges when numbers are reducing and then the impact on capitation. We did increase capitation by a record amount of €20 in the latest budget, which is unprecedented in terms of the scale of the increase. The Deputy has raised a very interesting point that I will bring to the attention of the Minister…

The implications of this war are widespread. The danger is that there will potentially be secondary effects on the wider economy. Governments cannot chase inflation. We cannot compensate for every price increase everywhere. That will not work. We have to try to target our resources as best we can at those most in need. There are concerns about the inflationary impacts of this crisis, which may fee…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. Bohernabreena Road opened yesterday, which was some help. We welcome that. The flooding as a result of Storm Chandra was quite shocking. As the Deputy will know, it has had a significant impact. The Minister sought submissions from all county councils in respect of the damage done to the roads. We announced various investments in February. Some €718 milli…

My sympathies go out to Joachim's family. It is quite a shocking event and very distressing and traumatic for the family. There has been extensive investment in piers over the last number of years. A significant amount of Brexit adjustment reserve funding was allocated to piers. I am of the view that we should continue to invest in piers the length and breadth of the country. We are an island nati…