Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 10 Oct 2024

With the Ceann Comhairle's indulgence, I will just say that my thoughts and those of the party are also with our troops in Lebanon and with UNIFIL. I am glad to hear from the Tánaiste that they are all accounted for. It is clear that Israel has crossed another red line and has to be held accountable. There are actions we can take. I ask the Government to join our call for the Central Bank to stop issuing the war bonds that Israel is selling through this country.

I will raise the very serious matter of the Donegal-Dublin flight with the Tánaiste. It is the State's only public service obligation air service. It has that status because Donegal has no motorway and no rail connection and because of its remoteness. The airline operating the service has been told it has to reduce its passenger numbers by 5%. The chairperson of the airline has said that this brings the viability of the service into question. The service is vital not just for tourism and business but also for the 430 cancer patients who currently use the service to access treatment in Dublin. This is Ireland's only public service obligation flight. Surely, the passenger cap should not apply to a public service obligation service. I ask the Government to make that clear to the relevant authorities.

That has to stop. We need regional connectivity. The north west particularly suffers from a lack of connectivity by rail and by road, because of the A5 debate. We have to keep the air links to the north west open. If I had my way, I would prefer Derry to also have an air connection. This is something that can and needs to be sorted.

I seek clarification on the ability of carers employed by the HSE or by private companies to administer medication to their clients. I am talking about medically prescribed medication that needs to be taken by those being cared for. Many people who require care have complex health needs and require daily medication. Carers help by reminding patients and clients of the need for the medication and by giving them the tablets, drops or whatever. I have been contacted by a number of families in Wexford who have told me that carers have now been informed by the HSE that they cannot administer medications to these families' loved ones. This is obviously causing great anxiety and significant difficulty, especially for those who live alone and who are physically unable to administer medicines to themselves. Will the Tánaiste have that matter reviewed?

I certainly can. I am not familiar with the background but it seems systems can tie themselves up in knots unnecessarily. I do not see how else prescription medicines can be administered, particularly to senior citizens, people who are infirm and so on, if not by family members or carers, in accordance with guidance-----

I return to the really serious and worrying situation in Lebanon. I welcome the Tánaiste's statement that all the Irish troops are safe. It is a big relief for everyone to hear that. However, it is absolutely despicable that Israel is firing on peacekeepers. It is clear that it is not respecting UNIFIL's mandate. Will the Tánaiste tell me what the Government is going to do to ensure the safety of our peacekeepers? Is the Government finally going to impose sanctions on Israel, whether economic, diplomatic or travel sanctions? We have heard an awful lot of talk about and condemnation of what Israel is doing but when is the Government going to take tangible action and impose sanctions on Israel so that it does not continue this kind of unacceptable behaviour, which is completely against its international obligations?

In the first instance, we need a full and comprehensive report regarding the reports we heard when coming into the Chamber. I do not have comprehensive report on what transpired in respect of UNIFIL positions in Lebanon prior to us coming in here. It would be wise to wait for a comprehensive account and report of the situation. Suffice it to say, a ceasefire should be immediately agreed between Hezbollah and Israel and the bombardment of densely populated areas of Lebanon should stop forthwith. Too many innocent people have been killed. A million people have been displaced. It is almost like a second Gaza in Lebanon. It is reprehensible. Ireland has taken action. We have raised this at the level of the European Union with particular regard to the ICJ and so forth.

I offer my congratulations to the parents, staff and children of St. Killian's Special School who have successfully campaigned to get HSE funding to hire therapists. I fully agree with the principal, Sue Lenihan, and parents' representative, Eibhlín Gleeson, who have welcomed this short-term solution although they demand a permanent one. The €40,000 will have to be stretched to cover the needs of a school with 104 pupils that used to need a similar sum to cover a school of 70. The €40,000 provided will cover the cost of paying therapists until Christmas and no longer than that. What has been conceded at the end of 2024, therapists for the children, must not be taken away at the start of 2025. If this funding ends up being an 11-week wonder and the State goes back to the position of abandoning these kids, the outcry will be without precedent. What guarantees will the Tánaiste give that he will not abandon these children again?

As Deputy Barry will know, Deputies Pádraig O'Sullivan and Christopher O'Sullivan have been relentlessly pursuing this issue on behalf of St. Killian's. Yesterday, they received communication from the HSE in respect of St. Killian's and the use of funding to provide therapeutic support. I have spoken to the principal on this issue. My clear position is that we need school-based multidisciplinary teams in all special schools. There has been resistance to this idea, which I have put forward in Government, from the HSE because of the progressing disability model that was started in 2013. That has not worked. It has resulted in a decline in the number of therapists in special schools. Ostensibly, these therapists were to become part of CDNTs but those CDNTs have not succeeded in recruiting the necessary staff. There are all sorts of issues with it. A pilot has been agreed between the three Departments. I believe that is ultimately not sufficient. The next government will simply have to implement-----

Discussion on the Gambling Regulation Bill continues in the Seanad this week. A particular area I have raised in the House before does not come within the scope of this Bill. That is the gambling lock, which is the ability for customers to put a gambling lock on their bank accounts. I commend AIB on finally implementing this ability. From speaking to counselling services, it will have a beneficial effect. More than 100 customers of AIB have already availed of this gambling lock. That shows that the need exists. Will the Tánaiste and Government go one step further and engage with Permanent TSB and Bank of Ireland to ask them to follow in the footsteps of AIB and Revolut and implement this tool? If this could be done before Christmas, we could be protecting families from further financial loss. Will the Tánaiste please look at that?

-----before anything else happens in the time ahead. I appeal to everybody in the House for co-operation in getting that legislation through. I agree with Deputy Shanahan about that gambling block. I will talk to the Minister and engage with the other banks about following the lead given by Allied Irish Banks with that initiative. Gambling has created enormous harm for families and individuals throughout the country. At long last, the Oireachtas is taking it seriously with the legislation. We need to follow through on it with actions.

A Tipperary teacher who has taught SPHE over a period of 16 years says she is one of several teachers who have resigned or are considering resigning from their roles because they are completely appalled, sickened and deeply concerned at the new SPHE curriculum, which they say has the potential to be very harmful to young school students. I am not against sex education in secondary schools but the explicit content in this textbook and associated material has crossed a line. The Department of Education has failed to conduct a proper risk or impact assessment on the potential harm this material could cause to young students. I call for the Minister for Education to immediately withdraw this textbook from the teacher training. What is going on in the Department of Education? This is not the first time that we have seen things like this. Who is driving this agenda? This has to be withdrawn immediately. I call on the Minister, Deputy Foley, to act immediately and, if not, the Tánaiste should act on it.

I am glad the Tánaiste is here because I am raising once again the issue of Galway and the housing crisis. Back in February 2019, more than five years ago, a task force was set up, such was the seriousness of the problem and the emergency. I am on record as saying the housing crisis in Galway is worse than in Dublin. The Simon Community does quarterly reports. There are no properties available under HAP support schemes in each of the quarterly reports the Simon Community has done. We have had a task force sitting since 2019. It is now 2024 and the only that has happened is that it has changed its name from a task force to a delivery task force and it has streamlined the number of people on it. There is no final report that tells us what the barriers to housing in Galway are. Worst of all for me, as someone who lives in Galway, is that I am looking at empty local authority houses. Without exaggeration, there has been one in my area for more than three years. Other houses have been vacant for longer while others have been vacant for one or two years. There is no sense of urgency whatsoever.

There is no excuse for empty local authority houses. The local authority should get going. I remember in 2020 and 2021 that we provided additional resources to get voids done. Thousands were done across the country. It is unacceptable that houses have been left idle after they have been vacated. Local authorities really need to get going on the voids too. Social housing is the key way to deal with homelessness.

I add my voice to those saying any firing by the Israel Defense Forces on UNIFIL positions or facilities is an incendiary and reckless move. I absolutely support the stopping of that and a strong response.

Extra examination time is already the standard in many European countries for students with dyslexia and other learning difficulties, but in Ireland, students with dyslexia receive extra time just at third level. I know the Tánaiste will agree that extra time in second-level examinations is essential for students with dyslexia, dyscalculia and other learning difficulties. The State Examinations Commission has promised a review but the timeline for that is two to three years, which is a little worrying. Many parents in my constituency have expressed concern to me about the lack of extra examination time in State exams, seeing it as a disadvantage for their children. I know the Tánaiste would agree that introducing extra time would be a reasonable accommodation for these students.

I agree with the Deputy and I agree with the concept of extra time. In fact, when I was Minister for Education and Science between 1997 and 2000, I introduced an extra half hour for dyslexia. At that time we did not have a State Examinations Commission, but then when I left education, it changed and they took it back again. They said some people were complaining it was too long for students, but a review should not take an inordinate length of time. I would say to the State Examinations Commission that sometimes it can be overly restrictive. We are losing a sense of perspective here with regard to students with additional needs or learning difficulties. I have had these rows on an ongoing basis. It really is an opportunity for a child or student to let the examiners know that the child or student understands the issues pertaining to the subject. Sometimes, I think we get it wrong.

I also remember, if I may say with a bit of levity, that there was a great third-level professor, Donnchadh Ó Corráin. I was studying hagiography. He came into us. There were only six of us since it was a specialist history subject. He said he was giving us the three questions we were going to be asked. We all looked at him in disbelief. He said he was not here to catch us out but he just wanted to give us an opportunity to show we understood what he had been teaching us for the past year and that we could articulate that. That has never left me through education and through learning.

There are serious concerns among people with disabilities with regard to the requirement to carry out a means test when making an application for disability allowances. Many with serious disabilities can fall just outside the threshold for the allowance. Their quality of life is severely affected as a result. Can this be looked at urgently and can the Government eliminate the need for a means test for those with a disability applying for disability allowance?

Obviously, changes in this area can have repercussions and implications. I will refer the matter to the Minister for Social Protection and ask that a response would issue to the Deputy in respect of the issue he raises. I understand the point he is making, which applies in means-tested situations. I will come back to him.

The Tánaiste would have heard me in this House and elsewhere, on numerous occasions, highlight the unacceptable delays in children with additional needs in Cavan and Monaghan getting an assessment of needs and, where necessary, follow-up therapies. I fully appreciate the substantial increase in funding for such services since 2020, but the bottom line is that services are far from satisfactory. I heard some people in education say that, in some instances, less than the full assessment of needs would be sufficient. For example, they say a speech and language assessment alone would be sufficient to identify the particular supports essential for some children with additional needs. I am not in any way suggesting less than adequate assessment of the needs of such children. The overriding consideration must be the provision of appropriate supports in a timely manner. This is critical in so many instances in ensuring children are in proper school settings too. Recruitment of clinicians must be speeded up. Retention levels must be improved. Too many parents are literally going around in circles, being referred from one service to another and meanwhile the children wait and wait for therapies.

The Deputy is making fair points. The situation is not satisfactory at all.

Since the High Court decision of more than a year ago, we need to legislate. The Oireachtas needs to bite the bullet and legislate on assessments of need because big delays are coming. There is now a huge absorption of professionals on the assessment side but not on the intervention side. It certainly needs reorganisation. The disability sector has been taken from the Department of Health and moved to the Department of children. I expect there will be further reorganisations. We have to get to the core of this, which is greater interventions and legislative change to deal with the assessment issue.

I raise the BusConnects project, in particular, a plan in the area where I live to remove a wall between the Malahide Road and Ayrfield estate in Dublin 13. There is a green space behind this wall where children play daily. There are real concerns about the safety of children in the area. Residents have raised their concerns with the NTA as well as elected representatives. The removal of this wall will mean that there is open access into the estate from the Malahide Road, which is one of the busiest roads in Dublin. The proposals make no sense. They are not essential to the plan whatsoever. To be clear, we are not objecting to the BusConnects project. Will the Tánaiste raise this with the NTA in the interest of the safety of the children who live in Ayrfield estate?

I certainly will. I will raise it with the Minister, who will raise it with BusConnects. This is the Clongriffin core bus corridor and the proposal for pedestrian-cyclist connection, which plans to provide direct access for the residents of Ayrfield estate to the high levels of bus service on the Malahide Road. The Deputy has said that a safety issue then arises. The NTA engages in consultations with Deputies, councillors and so on. It is to be hoped that the NTA will listen to concerns-----

Very serious allegations have been made against a Member of the Oireachtas, including that he or she is being used as an intelligence asset by the Russian Government. That any Oireachtas Member elected to represent the interests of the Irish people would allow himself or herself to be manipulated to work in the interests of a foreign government is scandalous. It is actually treacherous. Ireland is a member of the EU. We have a common travel area with Britain. We are the location for a high concentration of tech companies. We have underwater transatlantic cables off the coast above which two Russian ships parked recently. In 2021, we were hit by a cyberattack that cost €100 million, which could top out at €650 million. We have Defence Forces that are weakening in numbers by the year. When the Seanad discussed this issue yesterday, Members of the Seanad sniggered like giddy children. It looked like an episode of "Killinaskully", to be honest. Is this a laughing matter in reality? The Tánaiste is the Minister for Defence. He receives national security briefings. He knows who the individual is. What will he do to ensure that this person is held to account?

Yes. Let me finish. I will make an important point and statement. When I was Taoiseach on the dates concerning the allegations against this individual, I received security briefings but I was never told and never briefed that there was a spy in the Oireachtas, which to all intents and purposes is what the article in The Sunday Times asserted. I am very surprised at the degree to which everybody, herdlike, has grabbed onto the story and said, "This is it; who is the person?". I am absolutely amazed. There is a more fundamental question to be asked, which I will ask as Minister for Defence. As Minister for Defence, I have never received a security briefing stating there is a spy in the Oireachtas. There may be or there may not be, but I have never been briefed. There is an issue of accountability for our intelligence services because if this is true, then someone gave that information out. I do not think that is acceptable.

There is a broader issue. Future governments and the Oireachtas at large need to be very clear-eyed about the need, in a democracy, for intelligence services to have an accountability chain and be accountable. I argue, and a national security strategy is being developed, we lack that at the moment. I am not comfortable with the situation pertaining to intelligence. It is very important that we have intelligence in respect of the external dimension. Our Defence Forces do a very good and necessary job for the protection of our country. I have real concerns about how all of this has emerged into the public arena. I am somewhat surprised that politically it has all been in one direction and not in the other.

I raise a local GP issue that we have in County Clare. A local GP, who is a naturalised Irish citizen, applied in January for a visa for his mother to come to visit him. He was told in March that he needed more paperwork to prove his relationship and to show that she did not intend to overstay. All of that information was provided in April. The visa office recently advised that it is currently processing appeals for visas to visit families submitted in May 2023. This GP cannot apply again until his appeal is processed. We have a real deficit of GPs. We want to keep the ones we have. It is an issue to highlight to the Tánaiste. The wait time is very concerning, given that the visa office is only processing for May of last year now. This GP just wants to see his mam and spend two weeks with her. That is it. If there is anything that can be done in respect of that, it would be great.

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. I understand fully the points she made. I do not know whether she has spoken to the Minister for Justice or the Minister of State at that Department about the case. Obviously, we need GPs. They are vital in rural Ireland in particular. I do not have the details of the case. In fairness, there is an independent process for the granting of visas and so on. If the Deputy forwards the details to me or the Minister for Justice, we might be able to progress it.

I honestly believe that most people in this country will see the performance of An Taoiseach, Simon Harris, after he left the meeting in Washington with Joe Biden yesterday as woeful, pitiful and feeble. Anyone who was given an opportunity to say to Joe Biden to stop arming Israel would use it. Emmanuel Macron has done so. What is the problem with our Taoiseach not doing so? This morning, the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza has been ordered to evacuate by the Israelis. No doubt they can order and threaten that through use of the munitions supplied by the US and flown over our airspace. In April, the Tánaiste told me to stop muddying the waters when I questioned him on this. Will he now clarify the waters? Are we still allowing flights over sovereign Irish territory that are carrying munitions to Israel? What are we going to do to intervene? The Tánaiste's favourite publication, The Ditch, stated that this week more flights carrying munitions have gone over our sovereign space from the US to Israel. Will he give clarity on this? If not today, when can he tell us what he will do to stop it happening?

I wish to say something before the Tánaiste comes in. This is the second Deputy to criticise the Taoiseach. The Taoiseach will be here next week I suspect. If Members have matters to confront him with, they are more than welcome to do so then. I think it would be much better to voice that criticism to him directly than to ask somebody else to answer for his actions.

I make the point generally that President Biden was of some assistance to Ireland in respect of Brexit and in the Good Friday Agreement. He has supported the Good Friday Agreement all his life, but particularly during Brexit. We were anxious to commemorate 100 years of diplomatic relations between the US and Ireland. That is a good thing. I am not anti-US generally. The Deputy may be but not I am not. That said, I oppose what is happening in the Middle East. I do not believe the US should be arming Israel given the nature of warfare that Israel is carrying out in terms of the destruction of civilian infrastructure and the killing of innocent children, men and women.

We do not allow people to fly through airspace with weaponry. We have a legal framework, the Chicago Convention, which countries and companies are obliged to uphold. We do not have fighter jets. We do not have planes in the sky monitoring every plane that flies through. There is an impractical proposition implied in the Deputy's question that somehow we can physically enter the skies and by divine inspiration sort of-----

I was contacted last night by some concerned staff at Wexford General Hospital. They were told by a senior member of staff that their seasonal flu vaccines and Covid vaccines would not be provided to them in their workplace due to a funding issue. As the Tánaiste knows, this is a preventive measure for the health and safety of workers who are at high risk and it also limits the rate of absenteeism. I ask the Tánaiste to raise this health and safety issue with the appropriate authorities to verify if this is the case and provide the required funding if necessary.

I have a letter here from a senior management official in Clare County Council. I will just read the beginning of it. It is written to Government.

I am writing to you regarding the deepening focus on migrant accommodation in north Clare, specifically in Lisdoonvarna and Ballyvaughan. I am urging you to reduce the numbers of migrants in these settlements to reasonable levels as I have serious concerns about the health, safety and welfare of the people in these communities.

To make it very clear, these are two very welcoming communities. They are not communities of protests or noise making. I want to put some perspective on this. The migrant population of Lisdoonvarna at this time represents 125% of the settled population of the town and the migrant population of Ballyvaughan represents 95% of the settled population of this village. This contrasts very sharply when compared with the overall county of Clare where the migrant population makes up 4.3% of the population and even more sharply when compared with Dublin, which is 0.9%. The town has taken a large number of migrants, welcomed them and supported them but the ancillary supports such as education and healthcare have not increased to that extent. We have had ambassadors down. We have had official down. We had boots on the ground in the early weeks but they are not there anymore.

They are Ukrainians and international protection applicants. They have been welcomed. I want to make it crystal clear that there has been no hassle. The council, the county management team, the HSE and people in education have pointed out that when they represent 125% of the settled population, something has to give. We are asking for better management. A simple thing would be not to renew all the hotel contracts in the town.

I accept the point the Deputy is making. Obviously, the Russian war in Ukraine created many pressures and caused the largest displacement of people since the Second World War on the European Continent with about 12 million people displaced. That had an impact. There is a programme of change going on with some contracts not being renewed, and also relocation. The Ukrainian population has come down significantly, particularly the number of Ukrainians in State accommodation. I think it has come down to 63,000; I can check that just to be sure. That is ongoing. I will engage with the Minister for children, Roderic O'Gorman, on the points the Deputy has made. The Cabinet sub-committee has said that there cannot be an overconcentration in any one given area. I take the point the Deputy is making.

That is true and Clare generally has been a very receptive county overall but the challenges of migration are enormous. It is because of the earlier stuff we were talking about. There are wars all over the world and people are leaving with their children, trying to get out. What is going on in the world is terrible.