Micheál Martin

We assess it.

We would assess it.

First of all, some of the Deputy's language and the untruths she says are difficult to comprehend in respect of the Government's position in respect of the Rotunda. She said we put the hospital "through the wringer" and we denied it investment.

Is she not conscious of the Hampson House project? Some €16 million was allocated to the Rotunda. It has been a great success. The works are completed and so forth. The budget increased by 47% or €35 million since 2020. That is not putting anybody "through the wringer". The Deputy casually gets up and says stuff that is completely untrue.

The Deputy seems to be-----

The Deputy is in a parallel universe that is governed by politics, electoral gain and nothing else.

Others in the House raised this issue-----

-----substantively during Leaders' Questions and I gave comprehensive replies to those.

I made it very clear that the critical care wing is needed now-----

-----and that the Government is very supportive of the Rotunda's plans.

We will continue to support them. The Minister is now engaging-----

Obviously the thalidomide facilitation process is under way under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Paul Gilligan. There has been good engagement with the Irish Thalidomide Association, ITA, and the Irish Thalidomide Survivors Society. The Tánaiste and I met the ITA twice in the last quarter of 2025, in October and then before Christmas. These were constructive meetings. Several complex issues were …

-----to exercise and hydrotherapy facilities, and personal living supports. All that is in place but there are outstanding issues we want to resolve as quickly as we possibly can. We believe the Mr. Justice Gilligan process is a good process and one that should be availed of.

Yes. We will come back with a date to the organisation.

I have dealt with this extensively in the House. There are 4,000 schools in our system. By the start of the next school year, there will be up to 25,000 SNAs. As I said earlier, there has been a 45% increase in the number of SNAs over five years. I would caution against the breadth and the range of services the Deputy says SNAs should be obliged to provide. We need to be very targeted in our appro…

I do understand, Deputy, that there are those, like your good self, among us who have plenty of energy and so on. The Deputy will recall that was discussed by a previous Government and Cabinet. I will engage with the Minister for justice and ask him where that legislation lies. As the Deputy knows, there have been different views across the House on how far the legislation is going. Some wanted th…

In terms of cancellations, the latest information I have from CHI and the Department of Health for last year states that about 164 surgeries were cancelled, some due to clinical decisions. Some 48% were cancelled due to clinical decisions. Some 19% were due to personal or family reasons and some were due to a patient's ill-health, about 11%.

Of those, 115 cases were replaced with another spinal patient. I would like to see more follow-through on the number of patients who were cancelled. Timely information should be given to parents of children in situations like that. The Deputy must be aware why phase 1 of the Nayagam report has not been published.

There was a court injunction. The Deputy must be aware of that. My understanding is that there was a commitment given to the High Court that until phase 2 was completed, phase 1 would not be published. There is a lot of litigation around this and that is the main reason stuff is not being published. The inquiry will be focused on that.

I will believe there will be progress on that.

I will undertake to put this item on the agenda for the next meeting of the Cabinet subcommittee.

I cannot get into individual allocations in specific schools without being aware of the details. That is a matter for the National Council for Special Education in the first instance. Yes, the school should appeal. The review has been paused. It was to continue until March. The Minister is going to engage with the NCSE. For those schools where decisions have been taken, there will be engagement be…

I will communicate the issue the Deputy has articulated to the Minister for Transport. In general, road funding is increasing across the board. There are significant increases this year. I do not have the specific county allocations, but I will raise the issue that the Deputy has raised with the Minister. In the context of the flooding and so forth, estimates are coming back in from local authorit…

I understand that funding to get the ball rolling was allocated to that project by the Minister today. It was announced at 12.45 p.m., subject to being checked. The Deputy can check that. I do not race ahead of the announcement of the news like some people do. I will leave it at that, but I acknowledge that it is an important project.

He has got a kind of half-positive response from me. My good colleague here has alerted me to the fact that the announcement today includes an allocation of funding for the commencement of that project.