Brian Stanley

It involves a small amount of money and requires a ministerial directive from the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, who was sitting beside the Taoiseach. Maybe she will address the matter.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this issue of workers' rights. Over the past 40 years, I have long been involved in campaigns, with workers and as a worker myself on many occasions, trying to get basic rights. I broadly welcome the Bill. It makes the necessary changes to the insolvency payments scheme but it is coming late. I welcome that it will cater for the situation at present regarding…

The issue I am again raising with the Tánaiste is the bar on over-70s being allowed to drive under the school bus scheme. Drivers should be able to continue working within the scheme until they are 75 provided they pass a strict medical test and a strict eyesight test annually. The situation whereby they are arbitrarily forced to retire at 70 is wrong. We already have a shortage of school bus driv…

Both the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach have agreed with me on the floor of the Dáil that we need to change this. A review has been carried out by the Department of Transport. That is now complete. The Government is now talking about an independent assessment according to a parliamentary question reply I received this week.

The Government has the review done.

That should be enough. We need to fix this and sort it out because we have only 13 weeks left to do it. We have 13 weeks until 25 August.

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to regulate wind turbines to provide limits on the exportation of product generated from wind turbines, to protect nearby dwellings from noise and shadow flicker by providing minimum set back distances, to allow access to public consultative processes; and to provide for related matters. I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for the o…

I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

The level of death and destruction in Gaza demands us not just to talk but to act and to do everything possible. What is happening is genocide and war crimes. Gaza is not just a warzone; it is a horror zone. The State of Israel is a terrorist state. Its Government has stooped to a level of depravity never seen before. It is shameful, and that Government will never be forgiven lightly for what it i…

We need to pass the occupied territories Bill, step up efforts at EU level and use our position as a neutral State on the international stage.

I, too, welcome Cara and Mark to the Public Gallery today. I will be speaking about the issue that concerns them later in the day. It is a scandal that Cara has to be here again to protest on the issue. The issue I want to raise with the Taoiseach is the absence of primary care. It is over eight years since the Sláintecare plan was agreed for a public health system by all parties in this House. I…

Will the Government start resourcing primary care in County Laois and other counties?

Money.

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply, but we also need GPs. Mike O'Callaghan of the Irish College of General Practitioners said that we clearly have a deficit in our GP numbers and he listed out a number of counties, including Laois. The last time I checked, we were way below what is required. Primary care centres and health centres in other countries include a whole range of services - physiothera…

Will his Government commit to the capital funding needed to construct a new primary care centre in Portlaoise? The site and the design are there. Will the Government provide the funding for new health centres for Mountrath and Rathdowney and upgrades in Borris-in-Ossory and Graiguecullen? Will the Government increase the number of GPs per county? There is a commitment in the programme for Governme…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important motion and commend the campaign team and Cara and Mark Darmody. They should not have to be here. This should have been sorted because people have been raising it for over two decades. The waiting times are scandalous. Under the Disability Act 2005, the waiting time is supposed to be a maximum of six months, so the law is clearly being broken her…

I thank Deputies Paul Murphy and Ruth Coppinger for bringing forward this important and timely Bill. As a State, Ireland is well behind other EU states in terms of the rights of workers to be represented by a trade union. In most other EU states this is legally guaranteed. Ireland is completely out of line with most of our European neighbours. This right has been resisted by successive Governments…

The importance of the driving licence issue cannot be overstated, in particular for workers in rural areas. For example, in County Laois, many workers have to get to work in Portlaoise, Mountmellick, Portarlington or Graiguecullen and they are travelling from outlying areas such as the Swan, Ballinakill, Errill, Rathdowney and other areas where there is no public transport early in the morning, or…

This is a public body accountable to the Minister.

We need to employ more testers. In the meantime, in the short term, we should give people overtime to clear the backlog and deal with this issue.

The time should be reduced to six weeks and not 12 weeks.

It has taken a long time to get the Government to accept that there is a housing crisis. The Minister of State's predecessors would not accept it, but I think it is now accepted. We have huge constraints when it comes to water, wastewater and electricity infrastructure. In County Laois, the county I am most familiar with, 13 towns and villages require improved capacity. I will name them. In Portar…

I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward this progressive motion. It is a case of here we go again. We have a shortage of school places for children with special needs, and there are huge gaps. In addition to the obstacles with the lack of nearby school classes in their catchment area, children are experiencing exclusion and extended absences from school. In some cases, they are receiving no …

I congratulate the Minister of State on his appointment. The revision of the national development plan is supposedly to accelerate the delivery of housing in particular. There are a couple of things needed to accelerate that. The first is the need to replicate existing plans so the same plan for social and affordable housing and other houses can be used in Waterford, Laois or Donegal. The private …

I raise the child disability network teams and the chronic situation regarding their staffing. There are vacancies across the State. They run between 22% and 29% according to replies I have received from the HSE. In County Laois, however, the situation is far worse. I will read the figures for the shortages: occupational therapy in network 12, which covers most of the county, is 33% staffed; speec…