Micheál Martin

There are two points there. First, an extra 20% has been allocated for services, some of which is for respite and residential. I have asked for this item to be put on the next agenda for Cabinet subcommittee in respect of accommodation. We need to create a proper sustainable structure linking the providers, the section 39 bodies, the HSE and the local authorities in terms of proper structures and …

It is opening in the next two weeks. There are no restrictions on where it can be applied or on who can apply, and there never has been, other than the population threshold. Some new developing areas have received it as well as areas where people wanted the rejuvenation of older parts of a city or a town. The Deputy has named so many towns that I would say he would nearly take the budget himself. …

This issue was raised yesterday. The note I have here states that there will be continued expansion of the front-line workforce of the National Ambulance Service. Plans for 2026 include an additional 263 staff and €20 million in new funding. That will deliver 21 extra crewed ambulances operating at peak demand, four additional intermediate care vehicles and continued development of the clinical hu…

I will talk to the various Ministers. Every year, people look for an extension of deadlines that we already put in. There is a reason they are there, by the way. There are two sides to the story and we need to be conscious of the other side as well. For safety, it has to be done. I will talk to the Ministers to see what the actual position is and get the background to the situation.

I appreciate the Deputy raising the issue. I was at the weir some years ago and saw the damage done and so forth. It is a huge amenity in a beautiful area. What is the cost? I am not aware of the council having come to me about the issue.

The council is willing to pay €3 million.

We are getting close, so. I was going to call it was a drop in the ocean, if you will excuse the pun. I will ask the Minister to engage with the council to see what can be done here. It is important work that has to be done. It has been a long time since that storm damage. We will see what we can do.

Mar a dúirt mé cheana inniu, bhuail an tAire, an Teachta O'Brien, leis na comhlachtaí cheana. Mar aon leis sin, tá an CRU ag déanamh fiosraithe ar an margadh faoi láthair agus go háirithe na praghsanna wholesale go dtí retail. Tá sé sin faoi chaibidil ag an CRU ag an mbabhta seo. Mar aon leis sin, tá an tAire, an Teachta Peter Burke, ag déileáil leis an scéal chomh maith leis na húdaráis a bhainea…

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. I am reminded that Deputy Timmins was the only Deputy in the House yesterday who said we need to be careful not to think that public expenditure has to increase all the time. We need value for money, too. The Deputy is looking for more money, but we did allocate approximately €1.13 million to Kerry under the LIS. That is the largest amount in a long time a…

I appreciate the issue. About 350 special classes have already been sanctioned, which is higher than the number sanctioned last year. That illustrates the need, and bringing the date forward has clarified the extent of the need for the school year beginning next September. I ask the Deputy to engage with the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan. I will alert him to the fact the Deputy has raised th…

I disagree with some of the points the Deputy has made. We have the highest population since the Famine. It went up by 52% since 1995. I am not going to go into all of the reasons and factors that underpin the homelessness situation, but they are quite varied and there are ones we did not have to deal with before. The Minister has a specific initiative in terms of families who are homeless. The mo…

I did not interrupt the Deputy. We are going to continue to do that. That should be acknowledged. On the latter point on the tenant in situ scheme, some councils were taking that funding to do deep retrofitting, which was never its purpose. It was meant to prevent people from falling into homelessness and we have done that in a lot of cases across the board.

A rent or eviction freeze would kill the market. That is what the Deputy wants to do. There will be no supply at all and it will make the situation even worse.

I will indeed, but the Deputy should declare a conflict of interest given his annual performances. I believe he was in the pantomime this year. People will say he is forever in the pantomime in Dáil Éireann and so on, but he is one of the great pantomime performers. Alan Corcoran on the local radio station in Wexford has spoken volumes about the Deputy's genuine acting ability in theatre, and he h…

Yes, it is a compliment. Our tradition of storytelling is part of the Irish story and we do it particularly well as a nation and a people. There are towns around the country that excel in amateur drama, Wexford being one. I think of Rossmore in west Cork, for example, and many others where there are decades-long generational commitments to amateur drama.

I will be happy to raise that with the Minister.

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. There are too many deaths on our roads. We do not have the figures for how this year will look, but we have already had too many deaths in the first two or three months of the year. I will give consideration to the Deputy's suggestion. The Minister for Transport comes before various Cabinet subcommittees. We have quite a number of them. I take the Deputy's…

I cannot get into the details of every specific school project but I appreciate the Deputy raising the issue in respect of St. Mary's in Lucan. I do not know why the Department cannot accommodate the alternative proposal. What is important is that the project is completed. Sometimes deliberations can slow the process down. I understand the importance of the playing pitch. Physical education is as …

It seems I have got to the bottom of this in terms of the note. What has been said is not accurate. The HSE has confirmed that full-time permanent contracts are available for all year 3 graduates completing training with the National Ambulance Service, NAS. That is the case. To ensure a fair and transparent allocation of posts, graduates have been asked to apply through a confined internal competi…

Ireland is in favour of a multilateral, rules-based international order and has consistently advocated for same. We believe in immediate de-escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, and particularly in Iran. We believe these issues ultimately, in terms of a sustainable resolution, has to be via diplomatic channels. Diplomacy, ultimately, is the only route that can sustainably bring about a la…

Deputy McDonald referenced Ukraine. It is the truth. Sinn Féin opposed the €90 billion loan from Europe to Ukraine. If we were to follow Sinn Féin's advice, it would have been tantamount to asking Ukraine to surrender now to the Russians.

There is no way on earth that Ukraine could sustain itself in a budgetary sense or in defending itself if it did not get that €90 billion from the European Union. Putin was delighted. If everybody else took the Sinn Féin view, the happiest man globally would be Putin. That was Sinn Féin's contribution to trying to resolve injustice and conflict in the world.

We have had this in other parts of the world, including Africa and so on, where democratic governments have been overthrown and people have been powerless. That has happened in the Sahel and so on. There are issues, no question, about where we are. There was no UN mandate for this action. No one is saying there was, and there was not. However, it is impossible to get a UN mandate even for peacekee…

We are in a very serious and dangerous situation.

I think history-----