Micheál Martin

I said already during Leaders' Questions there will not be any reductions in special needs assistants in our schools in the school year beginning in September 2026. There will be increases, but there will not be any reductions in our schools. There will be well over 25,000 special needs assistants, which will be an increase of 8,700 since 2020. That is expansion. We will then have the redeployment…

Workforce planning will be published and a new circular in response to that, which will give the template. No one has ever suggested to me that you have the same number forever in any given school. It depends on the need of the school at a given time in terms of the number of children it has who require supports and care. That has always been the case. The Deputy and everyone in the Opposition see…

I welcome the Kinsale Men's Shed. The Men's Sheds are wonderful organisations across the country generally. I also welcome the history of politics group from Wexford. It is a discipline close to my own heart, as both a student and a practitioner. On the short-term lets situation, I have watched the odd Facebook presentation from Deputy Collins. He is having meetings up and down and is enjoying hi…

He has a duty to tell the truth about these matters. I am willing to engage. The Attorney General is clear that from the get-go, from the beginning, if you move from residential to commercial activity, that de facto requires planning permission. There are certain rules that if you are at it a long time, you do not. That is the existing planning status. That is nothing new. No one is creating somet…

-----that when the Government brings its proposals you can register without planning permission-----

-----but there will be an expectation that, over time, you would regularise your planning.

I thank the Deputy for producing that Bill. I want to engage with him regarding how I can fast track it. It might matter for the House to be of assistance in that regard. In terms of tougher laws on the generation of images, the Attorney General and the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration are examining that issue. We do have very strong laws preventing the sharing of intimate images a…

I will raise the issue with the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, although there are offences and they are well provided for - any assault on any person. It gets a bit complicated if we start categorising. We have specifics for emergency care workers, bus workers and transport generally. The attack in Temple Bar was appalling. The issue is the behaviour of the individuals who do th…

Wicklow got about €14.9 million, which is a very substantial amount. In terms of the storm damage, we have told the county councils to continue and work away at fixing those roads. Estimates are coming in from the councils separate from their normal road budget, although there are contingencies built into their normal allocation. Nonetheless we do accept that under Storm Éowyn there were particula…

I thank the Deputy for his commentary. It is a sign of the high esteem in which An Garda Síochána is held in this country that every part of the country is looking for more gardaí but I know it is also to have greater security and safety. The new Commissioner is very clear on the importance of the visibility of An Garda Síochána on our streets. It will get there. The through-put in Templemore is v…

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. Obviously, I cannot deal with every school extension and so on. However, I will raise this with the Minister. There is, again, record funding for school buildings this year, with a particular focus on school extensions for special classes and special education. I will see what we can do in this case.

To be fair, the Minister, Deputy Naughton, who was the Minister of State with responsibility for special education in the previous Government, would be more than willing to meet with the various groups. The Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, has been travelling the length and breadth of the country meeting with parents, schools and stakeholders in respect of these issues and continues to engage w…

I propose to take Questions No. 1 to 18, inclusive, together. The Cabinet committee oversees implementation of the programme for Government commitments in relation to health, receives detailed reports on identified policy areas, and considers health reforms, including Sláintecare, the reform of public health and health system preparedness for future health threats. It also receives reports in rel…

Is it the principals of schools?

The Deputy referred to beds. It is an elective hospital.

I thank the Deputies for the questions. We began with Deputy Boyd Barrett in terms of special needs mental health and basically the recruitment issue. Yes, recruitment is the issue. We have allocated resources and what has stymied our endeavour to expand capacity has been actual recruitment itself. In fact, going back over the last two decades, we have increased places fairly significantly in all…

The other key challenge has been clinical placements in terms of people pursuing various disciplines. We are expanding that too. This morning, the Minister received further sanction for additional places in all our third level colleges in respect of medicine and allied healthcare professionals. The Deputy had a specific query in terms of clinical psychology and the short number of places. Again, y…

I am not clear but I would have hoped that there was a multidisciplinary team that would oversee the conduct of biopsies, either recommending them or not recommending them with a view to both the diagnosis and also the trauma on the child and the potential implications, negatively, obviously, as the Deputy has outlined and articulated.

I might take that offline with the Deputy and we will see if we can pursue it. Deputy Quaide raised the issue of long Covid. I would be open to meeting the group again. I did meet with the group last June, as the Deputy said. He knows the narrative in terms of the position in that the Labour Court made a ruling in respect of this. I will again engage with the Ministers responsible. There are comp…

Is there a project in the offing? I did not pick up----

I could not disagree with what the Deputy is saying. If you are onsite it is more seamless and faster, and better facilitates everybody working together on the situation. I will explore that and see what we can do. It is a good hospital, St. Luke's, with a very good track record in many areas and always was an innovative hospital in terms of how they do things. To Deputy Martin Daly, I will have …

No, he is not actually; he is after Martin Daly.

I have my notes here. I do take notice.

That auld bit of paper does not do you good but I would say it does not lead you astray too much.

Deputy Daly raised the issue of the failure to go ahead with a ten-bed rehab unit in Roscommon hospital, and that it was in the capital programme for 2025 and taken out in 2026.