Simon Harris

I share the Deputy’s view of some of what we heard in the press conference in the Rose Garden, and that is what it was. One must then work through the legal detail. We are already seeing that things, which were announced as coming in at midnight last night, are not coming in until 5 or 9 April, so there is a fair bit of teasing through beyond the headline announcements. Certainly, the European Uni…

I am very clear that there will be many moments - I think the Deputy is right about that – and there will be sector-specific moments to come. The point I was making was that in my engagement with the US Commerce Secretary and others it was very clear that the US was not mandated to engage or negotiate until after this liberation day as they bizarrely described it. That has happened and now we need…

I thank Deputy Ward for the question and his advocacy on behalf of his constituents in Donegal. I certainly will engage with him, as will the Government, on some of those technical matters. While I am taking the question, it very much relates to the testing standard that is used to evaluate the impact of defective concrete blocks. I realise this is an issue that is having a very significant impact…

I say sincerely that the fact he and constituents of Donegal have had to get into such a level of technical detail shows the complexity and seriousness of this issue for people in the constituency, and the seriousness with which the Deputy takes it as their representative. I would be happy to set up a technical briefing with officials from the Department of housing. I would also encourage the Depu…

I thank Deputy Collins for raising this important issue. I should say about the comment on mná na hÉireann and the likes, I am very proud of a lot of the work we have done together in this House, often on a cross-party basis, to make progress on women's reproductive health, whether around contraception, repealing the eighth amendment or a number of other important steps. I accept we have much more…

I want to be very clear, in that I am certainly not, and I hope no one in government is - I have not heard anyone in government doing this, and the Minister for Health certainly is not - blaming pharmacists at all. Pharmacists have an important role to play. In fact, in our programme for Government, we commit to wanting to see an expanded role for pharmacists and a new pharmacy contract. When prop…

I thank Deputy Malcolm Byrne for raising this important issue, which affects his constituency and mine. It actually affects quite a number of constituencies and our region. In many ways, it speaks, as Deputy Byrne rightly said, to the issue of infrastructure. We are too slow at delivering infrastructure. This is why when we came together to form this Government, the programme for Government was ve…

That is right, but in fairness to the NTA, the policy direction of recent years in terms of roads was regrettable. It delayed the delivery of the projects needed as regards the N11. There needs to be absolute policy clarity on this now, and I believe there is. All of us, regardless of party affiliation or of being in government or opposition, from Wicklow-Wexford and Wicklow should come together a…

I will endeavour to work constructively with Deputy Doherty and others in Donegal on this issue. As Deputy Doherty said, I met the Raphoe community playgroup. It told me about the great work it has been doing and I am in no doubt about that. It has been in operation since the early 1980s. It moved into a new purpose-built facility in 2000 and, as Deputy Doherty rightly said, that building has been…

I thank the Deputy for the constructive suggestion. He is right, in that we have to get a hell of a lot better at planning. The sense of surprise when a child seeks to move in a moment of transition in his or her life is not acceptable. We need to break down the silos. We have established the Cabinet committee on disability. We met last week, or the week before last, and a number of decisions were…

I like "páistecare"; it is a good way of putting it. What emerged during the election period is that while all parties had different areas of focus, they all said that something significant needs to happen on childcare. I take the point, and while it is not for me to tell committees how to do their work, but as they are established, a focus on how we can advance a proper fit-for-purpose childcare …

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. I thank those workers and everybody who works in the Oireachtas complex for the important role they play in how this place and our democracy functions, and the broadcasting of all that to the public. It is not out of any lack of sympathy or respect for the workers and the issues the Deputy raised but this is a matter for the Oireachtas. We have had signifi…

The Government will have members on it too, and Government parties certainly take precarity of employment seriously.

I thank the Deputy, and I hear his frustration on behalf of his constituents. My understanding is that in April 2024 a delegation of Cork County Council officials and representatives from the Union Hall Save Our Pier Committee had a meeting with the then Minister and the assistant secretary general for the seafood and marine division in the Department headquarters in Agriculture House. At the meet…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. Indeed, I heard him comment on it publicly this week as well. I first admire his guts in putting forward radical ideas on energy policy. That is worthwhile in this Dáil because energy and security of energy supply is really important for homeowners, businesses and for broader security reasons. The best advice available to me in Government is that the path…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. As he rightly said, the National Transport Authority, NTA, has a responsibility for transport planning in the greater Dublin area and the development of the Luas red line extension to serve Poolbeg is currently one of the projects they are giving real consideration to. Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, is the sponsoring agency for the proposed Luas t…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. I take those parents extraordinarily seriously. Parents are busy and have a lot going on, particularly parents of a child with special needs. To come and sleep out at the Dáil shows the sense of real frustration, worry and concern they feel right now. Some 369 of the 400 classes for next September have been sanctioned as of today. The NCSE cont…

I thank the Deputy for the ongoing work he has done to promote closer relations and engagement throughout this island. Of course, he is right. The Good Friday Agreement committed to facilitating a number of initiatives, including the widespread availability of TG4 in Northern Ireland. I will certainly raise that issue, the issue of BBC Radio Ulster and all the other issues the Deputy has raised wi…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. He is right. We are in a phase now when it comes to trade policy and our economy where we have got to keep influencing what we can influence, including the United States and the EU but we also have to control what we can control. As to what we can control, we can help companies diversify and help open up new markets throughout the world to Irish companies…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I agree with him that we need to continue to invest in the bases for our ambulance service. I will certainly seek an update from the Minister for Health on the plan for the new ambulance base at the Tipperary hospital in Clonmel. My understanding from conversations I have had is that the Minister hopes to bring forward the HSE capital plan this month. Tha…

I thank the Deputy for bringing this situation to my attention. It must be a very stressful time for Filip, his mother Kasia and the family, made all the more stressful by this confusion, to put it mildly. I suggest that the Deputy, with the family's permission, send the details to my office and I will link with the Minister for Health and the head of the HSE and l ask that they provide some clari…

I thank the Deputy for the important question. I will ask the Minister with responsibility for older people to meet her to discuss what more can be done. We are spending more on home support now than ever before. The home support budget for this year is the largest ever at €840 million, delivering more than 24 million hours of home support to more than 60,000 people at any one time. However, the D…

I thank the Deputy and I join him in thanking Colin Dempsey for his work on this project and bringing it to the Deputy's attention, and the Deputy, in turn, bringing it to the attention of the Dáil. He is right that everyone wants to see an efficient public transport system but other issues also matter. Safety and inclusion also matter. As we go about out daily lives, all of us want people to acce…

I thank the Deputy. I do indeed know Carnew well as I represented it until the Electoral Commission took it off me. I am sure it is well represented now. Regarding IPAS centres, I am not familiar with that one. It is always important that communities are informed. However, I am also very proud to live in a county that has welcomed so many people from migrant communities and people seeking internat…

The Deputy is right. Survivors should never read that information third-hand or in the media. The Minister, Deputy Foley, shares that view. I will speak to her about what can be done to update the survivors directly and to apologise for any way in which that information has been disseminated and put into the public domain in a way that is not sensitive to the survivors and does not attach paramoun…