Sorca Clarke

The cost of children returning to school is an annual issue. Year in, year out a consistent theme from my constituency of Longford-Westmeath is the cost of uniforms, but never so much as this year as families grapple with the cost of living. The current system, as Deputy O'Rourke said, embeds avoidable expenses. The CCPC's recent investigation urging generic uniforms and a competitive tender proce…

Families across the country are at breaking point and people are being hammered with sky-high costs every which way they turn, from rent, to food, to fuel and to insurance, and now they will be forced to pay hundreds of euro more on energy bills. We already have the highest energy prices in Europe and families are paying on average €500 more than households anywhere else - money they simply do not…

90. Deputy Sorca Clarke asked the Minister for Education and Youth to provide an updated list of all primary and post-primary schools that have been sanctioned for an ASD class for the 2025-26 school year. [39382/25]

I want to ask in particular about the schools in which these works are ongoing but yet to be completed and by which a letter of suppression has been received.

I cannot accept what the Minister of State has said to me. I know what he has said to be untrue. I am happy to share information with him after this session. I have stood in a school in Athlone - Scoil na gCeithre Máistrí - that was approached by the NCSE to open a second autism spectrum disorder, ASD, class. I stood in the classroom. The plaster was drying on the wall when the letter of suppressi…

There are good working relationships 99% of the time between schools and the NCSE when it comes to opening ASD classes. The same can be said for this specific school in Athlone, which already has an ASD class in its Gaelscoil. However, the Minister of State is familiar with the 2022 document entitled "Autism Good Practice Guidance for Schools", which clearly states that autistic students who atten…

Pride is about continuing solidarity with the members of the LGBT community we are lucky enough to call friends, privileged enough to call family and also the wider community. It is also about remembering how far that community has come, how we got here and why we, as a collective, must never take the progress made for granted. The LGBT+ community has in the past been a painful contradiction, with…

While the establishment of the long-overdue commission of investigation cannot but be welcomed, I will not, in good conscience, applaud a process that has taken far too long to come into being. I think today particularly of the older survivors I have met and engaged with. They expressed to me how they felt through the years that the State was waiting for them to die, hoping time would erase their …

I move amendment No. 2: In page 16, to delete lines 32 to 35 and substitute the following: “ “mental health difficulty” and/or “psychosocial disability” mean, in relation to a person, any mental disorder, illness or disability, whether of a continuous or intermittent nature, which affects the person’s thinking, perception, emotion, or mood and impairs the mental function of the person;”. We had…

I move amendment No. 9: In page 21, line 9, after “Act” to insert “and shall carry out an interim review after 2.5 years”. This is an area that has me very concerned. While five years is some progress, it is not enough. The Government has the opportunity here to put some very real and substantial oversight into the Bill by accepting the Sinn Féin amendment which proposes the carrying out of an i…

I understand that completely. My concern is that “not later than five years” can mean four years and 364 days. I want to see something that is more tangible, and I think it needs to be put into this Bill. While five years is a standardised approach, two and a half years is much more effective because it allows us, as legislators, to make the appropriate changes as soon as possible. It means those …

By not accepting the amendment and not recognising the value of the two and a half year interim review, the Minister of State is closing the door on potential learnings for the new parts of the Bill that may not be enacted or may not be fully in place. There may be very valuable learnings from parts of the Bill that have been enacted and the services that have been in place for two and a half year…

I move amendment No. 29: In page 37, line 22, after “for” to insert “no more than”. As the Chair said, amendments Nos. 29 and 30 are related. They concern one of the issues that has most frequently been brought to my attention since Committee Stage of the Bill, namely, the extension of the involuntary detention period from 21 days to, potentially, 42 days. The doubling of that timeframe has caus…

I fundamentally disagree with the last part where the Minister of State said it should be left to secondary legislation. This House has seen no secondary legislation. I agree that regulations have a place, but it is not here. It would not give the confidence or reassurance to a patient who is being involuntarily detained, their loved ones or their advocates that at some point a regulation may exis…

I move amendment No 30: In page 37, between lines 39 and 40, to insert the following: “(c) where a person is subject to involuntary treatment for a period exceeding 21 days, shall carry out a formal capacity assessment at regular intervals to determine whether the criteria for continued involuntary treatment still apply.”.

I move amendment No. 47: In page 64, line 21, after “made” to insert “within 5 days” This amendment relates to a potentially prolonged involuntary treatment period without timely access to decision-making supports. This amendment seeks to put in a definitive timeframe for when an application to the Circuit Court to put decision-making supports in place for somebody who lacks capacity or who is w…

With the greatest respect to all those health professionals and to the Minister of State, nobody knows what is going to happen in the future. There may be a presumption of two or three weeks but that presumption may turn out to be false. There may be a presumption of a week that turns out to be false. None of us has the ability to see into the future. I agree with what the Minister of State said e…

I move amendment No. 51: In page 68, between lines 6 and 7, to insert the following: “(4) The use of chemical restraint shall be notified to the Mental Health Commission within 24 hours and made available for review upon request by the individual or their advocate.”. This amendment relates directly to the use of chemical restraint on those subject to involuntary admission and treatment. This is…

After such a length of time since the Bill was introduced, that is simply not good enough. Chemical restraint must be governed with the same clear rules and subject to the same level of oversight as any other restrictive practice outlined in this Bill. I do not know why the decision was made to take out the reference to chemical restraint but that was the Minister of State's decision and this is w…

What kind of government looks struggling students in the eye and says, "You're on your own"? That would be those sitting on the opposite side of the House. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael came into power on a narrative of fairness and support for young people, and access to education, but instead we got the Minister touting that student fees will rise in September. From the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, and …

When we speak of the GPO and the Moore Street area, we are not just talking about buildings and laneways, but of the cornerstone of our rebel history in a city that fought an empire. The GPO is not architecture; it was the battleground of striking for Irish independence. It is a monument to selfless sacrifice, and, when heavily shelled by the British forces, leaving much of it in ruins, it now app…

I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach for facilitating us.

I want to begin by acknowledging the great work done by staff in Children's Health Ireland, CHI. However, in the past month details of an unpublished report conducted on the clinical department of CHI at Crumlin hospital has been put into the public domain. One of the revelations in the report was a finding of several inappropriate and unnecessary NTPF-funded Saturday clinics conducted by a consul…

I thank the Minister. There has been a significant increase in Saturday clinics over the past years. An example of this concerns scopes. More than 10% of scopes are now done on a Saturday but the distribution is very uneven across hospitals. Of the scopes carried out in Cavan hospital, one third are now done on a Saturday, that is 900 out of a total of 2,700. However, hospitals are still conductin…

Will the Minister detail the steps she has taken to improve governance and accountability at Children's Health Ireland and will she publish the unpublished review of a department at CHI at Crumlin? Will she outline the steps she has taken to address the issues highlighted in the report?