Micheál Martin

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I also welcome the CIÉ workers - perhaps they are gone now - given my background.

Deputy McGrath said the Minister announced-----

It will be next week. I could not agree more with the Deputy about the importance of road infrastructure. I always argue that the primary objective is road safety. When we did the motorways and so on, that contributed to the reduction of road fatalities and injuries on our roads. We have no issue there. I will talk to the Minister and ask him what his plans are for the N24. The Deputy said that a…

I hear the Deputy loud and clear about keeping the project alive. As I said earlier, we should try to progress projects as far as we can. There are not endless sums of money for every road project at the one time but we can progress projects and I will talk to the Minister about this to see what the pressure on him is and what he is in a position to do. We certainly hear the Deputy loud and clear.

It is a serious report. I regret the propagandistic politicking the Deputy has just engaged in on what is a serious issue for families and children. No report was sitting on the Minister's desk. The Deputy knows well there were legal injunctions on how this report would be handled. She knows well it was not sitting on the Minister's desk. Why did she say it was in that throwaway phrase, as though …

It is very serious. I spoke to the Attorney General about this yesterday. Up to 62 cases have to be looked at. We were only briefed on Monday evening, again due to legal constraints in terms of how it can be shared. We will have to deal with that, yes, but the Deputy should please not trot out reprehensible comments about people's motivations. That is just wrong.

It is too serious for that.

The Stardust fire was a national tragedy that has left an enduring legacy of pain for the country, particularly the people of north Dublin and the families of the 48 young people who were tragically killed. They suffered a terrible loss, and there has been a lasting impact on the survivors who were injured in the fire. Following the State apology and engagement with the legal representatives of th…

I will revert to Deputy Gannon.

Is this in relation to-----

I am familiar with the issue. I will engage with the Minister for public expenditure on this in order to see where we are. The issue of CIÉ pensions needs to be sorted as well. My understanding is that we are close to getting that one resolved. I will see where we are in respect of the An Post and Eir pensions.

I will engage more with the Deputy on this matter. I will certainly see what potentially can be done in respect of the utilisation of these devices, particularly to prevent antisocial behaviour.

In the budget, about €2.74 billion was allocated to the Garda in the recent budget. Within that is enough money for about 1,000 new gardaí, 200 more Garda staff and a doubling of the Garda Reserve to more than 600 this year. A total of 223 trainees entered Templemore in November. That is the largest intake to Templemore since 2014. That brought the total number of trainees to enter Templemore to 7…

Since Deputy Pat the Cope Gallagher raised this with me, I met with the Minister. The challenge is that if the contract had not been signed yesterday, we would have no service at all.

Let us try to share the problem now. If it had not been signed yesterday, there would be no service. We have to try to work within that constraint. There was one tenderer to my knowledge. The Minister does not get involved in the tendering negotiations. He cannot. I presume the Deputy approves of that in the sense that we do not get involved with companies, tendering processes and all of that. The…

We are looking to review this within three months and to engage with the successful bidder for this contract.

I certainly will. I will engage with the Deputy in the aftermath of this. Is he saying that any Irish citizen entering the UK? Does it include Northern Ireland?

We will pursue this with Aer Lingus and more generally. I will talk to Deputy Gallagher too.

I accept the issues that have been raised by the Deputy. Ten recent break-ins seems to be a fairly high number. I will engage with the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration and the Garda Commissioner in respect of maybe specific actions to stem the tide there and to get to the bottom of what is going on in terms of that level of that particular type of crime. We will also make represent…

I thank the Deputy for raising a very important issue. There was a meeting this morning of the Cabinet subcommittee on evaluating Storm Chandra. We will deal further with the issue of insurance but there needs to be a balanced, combined approach between the insurance industry and the State. It involves the investment the State is making in a quite significant number of flood relief programmes and …

In my view, institutionalisation was the great stain historically on Irish mental healthcare. Without question, we over-institutionalised in the past. Over the past 40 years, we have substantially deinstitutionalised mental healthcare from the old-type buildings and have put more emphasis on primary care and community-based mental healthcare. I accept we have a lot more progress to make and a lot …

As I have outlined, we have given a huge funding allocation to An Garda Síochána and record numbers are going through Templemore. A total of 223 trainees entered in November, which was the largest intake since 2014. The total number of trainees to enter Templemore in 2025 was 794, which was the largest yearly total since 2018. A total of 215 trainees entered on Monday, 9 February. That is the thir…

There is established industrial relations machinery to deal with disputes, be they local disputes in particular hospitals or national disputes, and I encourage all involved to refer this to the industrial relations process so that these issues can be addressed.

We need to stand back a bit in terms of the situation regarding SNAs. There has been an incremental exponential increase in the number of SNAs. We now have about 25,000 SNAs - 24,925.

I know. I am making the point about whether the view is that we keep on increasing, that we have no reviews or that we do not evaluate the system. We do need to stand back a bit. I spoke to a principal recently who said we need other forms of provision as well. We are bringing in school therapy for special schools through the national therapy service. In some continental schools, they have behavi…