Conor Sheehan

I heard it.

Today I again raise the issue of overcrowding in our emergency departments. Last week, we saw 14 ambulances queued up for up to eight hours outside Wexford hospital. As a local representative for Limerick, this healthcare crisis is something I know the Minister is also familiar with. In our city of Limerick on 3 December, UHL management once again urged the public to avoid the emergency department…

I thank the Minister for his response. I am glad he acknowledged options A and B were happening anyway because we did not need the HIQA report for them. We need the Government to commit in the longer term, beyond the next five years, to option C because we need a new stand-alone hospital in the mid-west. The Minister referenced staff burnout, which I am very concerned about, as well as staff leav…

I have only been a Member of Dáil Éireann since December of last year. In the short time that I have been here, I have witnessed the Minister and his Department do things like this at the last minute, railroad them through without giving us, as Oireachtas Members, enough time to properly consider what the implications of these changes are. This is an entirely inappropriate way of doing what the Mi…

I support these amendments. They are sensible amendments and they lay out what is wrong with this scheme. Although this is legislation to lift the cap and the cap needs to be lifted, the fact is that lifting the cap alone, in combination with what the Minister is proposing here, is not enough. We know what works and we know what does not work. The end-to-end Fingal pyrite scheme has worked really …

It is not at all clear to me what this amendment will do because this is something that I have dealt with in my constituency with one of my constituents whose property is a semi-detached house and the house next door does not meet the damage threshold. I do not even know how the Minister will realistically get builders to do this work. It is incredibly complex. It involves essentially splitting so…

Certain.

I want to go back to something Deputy Ó Broin said earlier. It goes to the point I am trying to make. I am dealing with a constituent at the moment who is in a semi-detached house. She has met the damage threshold but the house next door has not. If she can be included in the scheme and the house next door has been told it does not meet the damage threshold, by what mechanism under what is propose…

I support the amendment from Deputy Ward. I too tabled an amendment about the arbitrary deadline of 29 March. I understand why the amendments were ruled out of order, because they place a charge on the Exchequer but the Minister needs to look at this again because the deadline is arbitrary. It is bad enough that the Government took a year to come up with what is simple legislation to lift the cap.…

I congratulate the Minister of State on her uplift to higher office. I welcome this Bill. I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on it and more broadly in support of the arts, one of the most powerful forces shaping our culture, society and reputation around the world. The success of the Irish film industry is something we in the Labour Party are very proud of. It was Michael D. Higgins, as…

This decline is not sudden; it is the cumulative result of years of neglect. In the time I have available to me, I want to talk about the fantastic work being done in my constituency by Film in Limerick, which is an initiative of Innovate Limerick that provides valuable local supports and acts as a point of information and contact for film in the region. We had a film lab that launched in Limeric…

Hear, hear.

That is our-----

I am proud to stand here today as a Labour Party TD to close this motion. I commend Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, on his very thoughtful and heartfelt contribution. It really reminded me why we are here and why we do what we do, especially compared to some of the contributions we heard before it. However, I am disappointed that this debate is coming to a conclusion at 11.45 a.m. I am disappo…

Hear, hear.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire. After months and months, we finally have the Government's new flagship housing plan. After almost a year in office, we finally see how the Government hopes to bring an end to the housing catastrophe in this country. However, what did we get? We got very little. We got, essentially, an admission of failure and a total and complete lack of any vision or ambition. We go…

As far as I understand it, the position at the moment is that the 2000 Act is still partly in force and the 2024 Act is only partially commenced. My understanding of this is that section 4(6) of the 2024 Act allows the Minister, by regulation, to modify any provision of the Act if there is a difficulty with bringing it into operation. Such regulations cannot be made more than three years after the…

I concur with what Deputy Mac Lochlainn said about the defective concrete block amendment Bill. The further amendments were only published at 3.30 p.m. We also need more time for statements on the housing plan.

This amending Bill is a tweak to a scheme that does not work. The scheme does not work because it is not an end-to-end redress scheme like the pyrite scheme that people on the east coast of the country have been able to avail of quite successfully for a number of years now. Recently, myself and Senator Nessa Cosgrove visited Donegal. We went to Letterkenny and met with Deputy Charles Ward and some…

That is not true.

That was an awful comment.

That was an outrageous statement.

The Labour Party, too, will support this motion. The move to allow more outdoor seating and socialising in our towns and cities was born out of necessity during the Covid period but it has been a really welcome development. In my city of Limerick, I have seen how welcome the parklets and outdoor dining in the city centre have been. I have also seen the opposite, where the council has gone in and u…

Ar dtús báire, gabhaim buíochas le Sinn Féin as ucht an Bille seo a chur faoi bhráid na Dála anocht. Today is International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. While I acknowledge things are changing slowly and that we have had the establishment of Cuan and the zero tolerance strategy, the fact of the matter is that when it comes to violence against women, far too often we are reac…

5. Deputy Conor Sheehan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the timeframe for the implementation of the recommendations of the approved housing bodies strategic forum report; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [65673/25]