David Cullinane
Waterford · Sinn Féin · Ireland
“I met many of those patients and people with the illness yesterday. Many of them were here in Leinster House. They told me, as they have in the past, they cannot walk and they cannot swallow and, as the Taoiseach acknowledged, it is also very difficult for their families who have to watch as their condition worsens and the disease progres…”
“In fact, in the programme for Government the Government committed to reviewing that process because it was accepted it does not always work. The technical review group obviously now needs to be convened and needs to meet urgently. Emily cannot afford more delays.”
“Yesterday, as the Taoiseach knows, the HSE drugs group met to consider reimbursement of Skyclarys, the first approved treatment that can slow the progression of Friedreich's ataxia. Patients hoped for a positive decision. This process has been ongoing for years.”
“They were left desperately making phone calls, checking for updates, asking journalists and asking politicians if they had heard anything. They were treated appallingly. Then, when the news did eventually filter though, they were left devastated.”
“Richard Walsh, consultant neurologist and co-director of the National Ataxia Clinic, has described this drug as a ground-breaking development. He has said that he would prescribe it if it were available in Ireland and that it may reduce the rate of disease progression.”
“"We are not going to regain any of the abilities we've lost, but Skyclarys will give us time. Time when you're dealing with our progressive relentless disease is everything. We all deserve time with our loved ones." Those are the words of Emily Felix, a 28-year-old trainee solicitor from Kilkenny who is living with Friedreich's ataxia.”
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“On the thrust of this motion, many areas of general practice are working well and I am a big believer in the relationship between GPs and community care. All of the supports and additional services now being provided in primary care centres and the chronic disease management teams mentioned in this motion are important and they work. Where things are working, we need to work with GPs so that they can deliver those services. I was dealing with one GP in Waterford city. Five years ago, the HSE told him it wanted more space to provide some of these services. He jumped through every hoop and over every hurdle and to this day, there has not been any finality to that. The bureaucracy is ridiculous and needs to be addressed. I commend again the author of the motion on bringing it forward.”
“I raise a local issue that Teachta Conor McGuinness raised recently, namely, the need for a primary care centre in Lismore in County Waterford. Unfortunately, that is back to the drawing board. The preferred bidder, the contractor, pulled out because of the viability of the project, which means it is back at the starting block again. I ask the Minister to take that up with the relevant officials in the HSE. That project now needs to be seriously looked at. I visited the area with Deputy Conor McGuinness a number of times in recent years, and I know how much it is needed for the people of Lismore. There are also healthcare projects in Tallow that need to be funded too. There is a clinic there that has an application for capital funding which still has not been progressed. I could mention many projects in Waterford city too.”
“I am not so sure the same can be said of the Government when we look at its track record on Sláintecare. In recent times, we have seen what is happening with the elective hospitals, and also with free GP care. The previous Minister for Health announced 400,000 additional GP-only cards. The process was so complicated and convoluted. I do not know if anybody has gone and looked at it. It is almost impossible to say to people whether they are entitled to the card or not. That needs to be simplified because many people who are entitled to a GP-only care do not have one because they are just not aware that they are entitled to it in the first place. That, to me, is crazy, but maybe it is intentional. An awful lot more needs to be done.”
“The current Minister for Health, who was, for a short time, the health spokesperson for Fine Gael, said it was something she would look at. There are vague references to it in the programme for Government, but we need more because this is about choice. It is great if people want to become independent general practitioners. They should be supported and, as I said, I am an advocate for them. For those who want to work in the public system and simply want to be GPs, however, public contracts should be provided. This is all the more relevant when it comes to the cost of GPs. We all signed up to Sláintecare. Most parties signed up to it, not just in principle but because we believed in it, ideologically but also practically, and we know that a barrier is the cost of GP care.”
“They are the referral pathway on to other services. The problem is that we need more GPs, just as we need more staff in almost every part of the health service. I know from talking to recruits who have come out of training that it is sometimes daunting to be an independent general practitioner and, on occasion, maybe going in and working in a private practice, but working for that practice. The thought of being an entrepreneur, setting up a practice, being an employer, dealing with the bureaucracy, the paperwork, regulations and the HSE is daunting and a real challenge, while GPs are at the same time trying to provide services. That is why the notion of a public GP contract is important and needs to be taken up. We called for this strongly during the election campaign. It was in the health plan that I launched before the election.”
“I commend Deputy Rice on tabling this motion. GP care and GP services are an important issue. This motion is about something very simple but also important, namely, that when people need to see a GP, they should be able to see one, and they should not have to worry about whether they can afford it or not. GPs are the backbone of our health service. The GP is the first person most people turn to when they are sick, worried, pregnant, struggling with their mental health or managing a long-term illness. I am a great advocate for our primary care system and GP service. We all know that the family doctor, family GP and family practices we have in this State are really important. They work. They are a person's gateway into the health services. Everybody knows their GP and most people trust their GP.”
“It was only when protests were being organised outside Government Members' constituency offices in county after county, when an online public meeting took place and when it became clear and obvious that this was not going to go away that we saw a partial temporary climb-down from the Government. I have a message for the two Ministers across from me. Temporary solutions are not going to cut it. They have to show respect and dignity to SNAs. They have to give a guarantee that there will not be any cuts this year, next year or the year after. Where more capacity is needed, they need to recruit more SNAs. They need to value all of the work SNAs do in every school across this State.”
“Over the last number of weeks, children, SNAs and parents were put through mental torture because of a decision made by the Ministers' Government. What happened was disgraceful. The Ministers had a plan to cut SNAs from schools and to deprive some children of the supports they had. They thought they would get away with it. Over the course of the last two weeks, I listened to both Ministers doubling down because they thought this would blow over and go away. They were asked time and again on national media whether any schools would lose their SNAs. They were asked whether they could give a guarantee that no schools would lose SNAs and that no children would lose their supports. They were not in a position to do so because they were hoping this issue would go away. It did not go away because SNAs and parents stood up and were not having it.”
“The Taoiseach mentioned the HSE capital plan announced earlier. I welcome the €50 million for the surgical hub adjacent to University Hospital Waterford. However, there is also a need for a new adult mental health unit in Waterford, a multi-storey car park at the regional hospital and a new medical school in South East Technological University, SETU. Unfortunately, plans for a primary care centre in Lismore have been put on hold. I also want to ask the Taoiseach about the need for 24-7 cardiac care, specialist care and emergency care. This is a long-running campaign. The Minister for Health announced last year that the Government was committed to it. Where is it? How long will it take? What is the timescale? What additional staff are needed to scale up to get there?”
“I want those people to be marginalised. I do not want those people to be listened to in the communities I represent, but if we do not do our job and if the Government does not do its job, we allow those voices to be heard. That is the biggest mistake the Government has made. The amendment that has been put forward, in my view, is reasonable. The thrust of it is what the Government needs to be looking at. If the Minister is not minded to support the amendment, he has an obligation and a responsibility to point out what it is he and the Government will do to get much better at engaging with and listening to those communities who have, unfortunately, been left behind and not properly represented by the Minister's party and the Fine Gael Party for far too long.”
“There was huge support and buy-in, and local communities and people who live there supported the people who were coming and did everything possible to welcome them. They were promised additional resources would come but they never came, and that undermined the good work that was done by community leaders and local politicians in showing leadership. If you do not provide the support, that creates more resentment and a vacuum and provides an opportunity, as I said, for those bad faith actors. There are few Members of this House who would stand over some of what we have seen from a small number of people who live in our communities who attacked IPAS centres, who aggressively attacked asylum seekers, and who live on X and spread their hate, bile and all the rest of it. Nobody wants that. I want that to end.”
“I have heard the Minister state on many occasions that he does not believe that hotels should be used, if possible, for IPAS accommodation, but it is still happening. I am making all of those arguments because it goes back to the point I am making, which is at the core of what I am saying. If you do not listen to communities, that is a massive failure. They just want to be heard. That is all they want. They want to be heard. They want to be reassured. The want information, and when that is provided, that is the best way to ensure you win over the support of those communities. The points made by Deputy Kerrane are fair ones because Ballaghaderreen is a perfect example of where we got it wrong.”
“The coffee shop routinely closes because there is no business. The one hotel in that town was then used for IPAS accommodation. The people there who I met genuinely had no difficulty in supporting people who were coming. In fact, they were talking about alternative accommodation in that same town. Why can that alternative accommodation not be used? There are over 300 IPAS centres. I asked Deputy Carthy earlier how many of them are hotels still. I would say there are dozens of hotels still being used, so there has to be a plan to phase that out and to find better alternative accommodation. There was a White Paper on purpose-built State IPAS centres a long time ago. I do not know what has happened, where that is, how that is to be delivered and where the Government is at.”
“I had to accept that was not the best location. In fact, at the time, the plan was to reopen that as a hotel. If you walk down the main street of Lismore, half the shops that are there are gone. That is down to the desolation of rural communities. Post offices have been taken out. Schools have closed and Garda stations have closed. Housing was not provided in those areas. Those towns then end up not being properly supported. When I went there the first time to meet them, I walked down the street and I was shocked at how many premises were empty. There was one coffee shop. It was about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. I walked up to the front door and there was a sign on the door that said it was closed for a half day. I went into the butchers next door to ask why the cafe was closed and they said it was because there are no customers.”
“The Minister might disagree with some of what is in that. He might disagree that it should be the local authority that should do them. The Minister might even disagree with the concept. I do not know. We will see what the Minister will say in a few minutes. What is the alternative? That is the question that has to be asked of Government. What is the alternative? I met a group of people who live in Lismore, County Waterford, about three years ago. I met them in Lismore, I met them again in Dublin and I think I met them in Dungarvan as well. They were a mix of ordinary people who live in working-class housing estates. There were business people there and there were about ten people at the first meeting. The reason I met them was because the hotel in Lismore was being used as IPAS accommodation. It is the only hotel in the town of Lismore.”
“When there is then no consultation of any kind with communities, including elected representatives being the last to know, those communities being the last to know and people who live in the communities and those community leaders being the last to know about anything that is happening about IPAS accommodation, it creates suspicion and mistrust. Sometimes, that is exploited, as we have seen by those bad faith actors. That vacuum that was created has allowed those people to come into those communities and sow more distrust. To me, that was the most heartbreaking part of what happened over the past number of years. If we have not learned those lessons, shame on us and shame on the Government. The amendment that is being put forward here by Deputy Carthy is an entirely sensible one where it talks about community impact assessments.”
“There are people who are fleeing poverty, war and persecution. People are coming for all sorts of different reasons. I believe in a rules-based system. We had a discussion on this and I raised these issues on Second Stage where I said I support the rules-based system. If I want to go to America, I have to abide by its rules. I have to get an ESTA form and I have to go through customs. If I want to go Australia, I have to abide by its rules. I do not mind that. We must have rules. People want the system to be fair for people who are coming but they also want that system to be efficient and it has not been efficient. People have seen the failures with their own eyes and it has not been enforced. When they see a system that is not enforced, that is the big weakness and that is the problem.”
“The people who were ignored were obviously the communities but also those strong community leaders. We had a resource. We had networks. We had opportunities to mobilise those positive forces to actually engage with communities and we did not use them. What happens then is all of those bad faith actors and those on the extreme of politics come in and mix it up. They come in with their mobile phones - we have all been victims of it - and put them in our faces asking us were we consulted, were we engaged and what is our position. Communities and those community leaders, who are good people, end up on the back foot. They are on the back foot - including local representatives - because the Government absolutely failed. I thought about this issue long and hard over the last number of years because it has evolved. We have more people coming.”
“These were big working-class communities that were built without proper amenities that had to be built up and it was hard fought and hard won over a large number of years. Trust in the system, the establishment or the Government is always very low. There is always a mistrust because they always have had to fight for everything. They have a fear or view that the Government does not always have their back or very rarely has had their back, as they see it. I come then to the immigration issue, because it broke my hearts to see all the wrong moves made by the Government where again, people's fears were dismissed as irrational. People were called racists at times for raising for what they saw at times as very legitimate issues from their perspective because they are their own communities.”
“That is what happened for a very short time in that instance. We all know those very same communities. We all know them. You can pick any working-class community or any community in this State. There are strong community leaders. There are people who run the local community groups, local crèches, the soccer club, the hurling club, the boxing club and so on and they are people of good standing. They are people who have built up those communities that very often have been ignored by the Government and left behind. There were high levels of deprivation and low levels of educational attainment. They are the same areas where classroom sizes have often been too big. We do not have enough teachers.”
“Let us see what this will mean and then, people can make decisions. That happened in a follow-up meeting. It was much more positive and a bit more calm. A small number of residents were selected to go and visit centres in different parts of the State where the same organisation had similar houses providing similar services. Over time, the fear dissipated. The service providers won over the local community. That service has been there for the past 22 years and nobody gives it a second look. In fact, it is supported by the local community. It was a very harsh lesson for me that if you do not communicate, if you do not listen to communities and do not engage and if you dismiss as what you might see as an irrational fear as an irrational fear that somebody or a community has, you then lose those communities.”
“People with drug problems and alcohol problems were going to be coming in and living in the community. They were asking who they were, what was this organisation and so on. For weeks, there was a vacuum. The vacuum made the situation worse and it got to a point where there was a meeting in the local community centre that was full. There was a lot of tension. It struck me very quickly that the people who were speaking had genuine concerns. The problem I very quickly saw was that the fears they had been raising were dismissed as irrational. That was what was causing the problem. Those of us on the council, and two of us especially, proposed at the meeting to bring in the organisation that provides the service at a future meeting. Let us hear the organisation out and see what it provides.”
“I was first elected to Waterford City and County Council back in 2004. Sometimes, I have to pinch myself that it has been 22 years since I was first elected to the council. I learned a very harsh lesson very quickly in the first number of weeks I was elected. In the biggest working-class housing estate in the ward I represented in Waterford city, there was a plan to put in place a service in a house right in the middle of the estate by an organisation that supported people with drug and addiction problems. There was a lot of fear in the community. Some people dismissed the fear as irrational and people were not listened to. I was a local councillor and I received phone calls at the time. People who lived in the community came up to me and asked me what was happening.”
“He has to be meeting the same families with the same experience and the same circumstances as the families I am meeting. They are under fierce pressure, and they have been watching on aghast as these investor funds come in, buy up homes and make huge profits. Now, to really add insult to injury, the Government is going to bring in a rip-off rent Bill that will force up rents even more. In Waterford, rents are going to go up by €4,000. The Minister needs to get a grip and start representing ordinary Irish people, workers and families and not the big investor funds and big landlords, which the Government is doing.”
“It has scrapped the eviction ban, and it has not reached its own social and affordable housing targets. I met six families last week who have notices to quit. I am meeting one of them on Thursday. It was a couple who were a Waterford local radio station today, and I was asked to meet them. What am I to tell those families? When I meet them, they are absolutely in despair. There are no houses for them to rent and certainly not within their means. They are all corralled into the private rental sector, trying to get homes that do not exist. They have not a hope of getting a social house and they are facing homelessness. They are facing eviction. These are families with children. I have to say I do not believe that this Government really cares about them because the Minister must be meeting the same families.”
“If you tried to create a housing crisis, you could not do a better job than this Government is doing. It has allowed investor funds to come in and purchase family homes - ordinary homes - from under the feet of families who need them. Big corporations and big multinationals are coming in to make money while families are looking for a roof over their heads and for their own homes. The Government has created a situation where house prices have increased by 50% in the last five years. We have record homelessness. We have sky-high rents that are outside the availability and affordability of the vast majority of people. Evictions and notices to quit are on the up. While that is happening, the Government has ripped supports from families, such as the tenant in situ scheme, which it has gutted and turned down to a trickle.”
“There are challenges whereby people who want to work in our health service and train here cannot get into hospitals because of employment barriers. They are issues that need to be resolved. If we do not resolve those types of issue they will create tensions that are unnecessary. Some of the racism we have seen is obviously ugly and has to be faced down. The best way to do that is for us to agree what the rules are, put in place a system that is fair and efficient and then enforce it. If we do that, we will get the confidence of the vast majority in this State and that is what I want to do. I cannot support this Bill for the reasons I have outlined.”
“We are calling on the Government to end planning exemptions for this type of accommodation, to access local services and to engage properly with communities. Ireland must support integration properly from the ground up through community-based supports. There must also be zero tolerance of racism. Everybody in this House should state that clearly because we have seen examples of it and it is wrong. As the health spokesperson for Sinn Féin, and as someone who has visited hospitals the length and breadth of this country, I am proud that people of so many different nationalities work in our health service. I ended up in the eye casualty department of a hospital a number of weeks ago. I was struck by the number of doctors from outside the country. They do wonderful and fantastic work, and without them, our health services would not work.”
“Accommodation policy has been driven by private interests and profiteering rather than public planning. The reality is that we have made a small number of people very wealthy on the back of international protection accommodation. When communities see that, and particularly when they see vital amenities being used when they could point to alternatives in the communities, it creates upset, anger and challenges we do not need and would not have if we had better public planning and resourcing of accommodation in these areas. Transparency and accountability around contracts are essential. The approach to locating accommodation must be based on community capacity and service availability and not on who can profit the most and the fastest.”
“Once we agree on the rules and have a rules-based system, enforcement is the most important part because in any situation, if you develop and put in place rules but then ignore or do not enforce them, you do not have rules at all. That will be exploited. It makes no sense to the communities who watch on and see it. They support fairness and efficiency but also want to see this State and the Minister doing more to ensure that the rules which we have agreed to put in place are enforced. Otherwise, public confidence is low. It has been low because our system is operating in crisis mode. We can see that in communities. We can see that in relation to how applicants who come here are treated. It is because there has been systemic Government failure for too long. Decisions and appeals take too long. Enforcement is inconsistent.”
“We must deal with the delays and enforce outcomes much faster so we can avoid the unnecessary detentions that can develop if cases are not dealt with as quickly as they should be. Where protection is granted, integration must be real. Family reunification is part of integration, especially for parents and children. We have seen that play out in the United States and we certainly do not want anything like that in this State. Any policy must be sustainable, but must also be fair and humane. Public confidence depends on rules being followed at every stage. At every stage of the process, we need fair processing and protection, where justified. We have all agreed, or most of us in the Chamber have agreed, what that means, what is justified and what the rules are.”
“That makes sense to help tackle trafficking, which needs to be tackled, and to support returns, where appropriate. However, Sinn Féin is opposed to opting wholesale into all of the measures that reduce Ireland's sovereignty, control and flexibility. We also have serious concerns about whether deadlines for the pact can be met without undermining fairness and robust decision-making. The Minister has indicated proposed changes to restrict or delay family reunification. That is a distraction from the real problems, which are delay, backlog and a failure to enforce outcomes. That is where people see the problems and challenges in our migration system. They want the Minister to spend his energy to resolve those issues and resource the system to ensure quicker decision-making.”
“There are deep concerns about the impact on the civil legal aid scheme and Tusla, both of which are already stretched. If the Government expands legal and procedural obligations without resourcing these services the outcomes are predictable: more delay, more frustration and less fairness for applicants and wider communities. Sinn Féin supported the parts of the pact that are clearly in Ireland's interests. That is obviously the right thing to do. We support the asylum and migration management regulation, which determines responsibility and allows applications to be processed in the correct member state, supporting a fairer sharing of responsibility. That makes sense. We support participation in Eurodac to improve consistent access to appropriate biometric data to support vetting and checks.”
“The same committee raised concerns that the State might not be able to meet the commitments it is making under the pact, which may result in failure-to-comply risks, infringement proceedings and heavy fines. We have seen that in other areas where targets are set. Everybody knows the targets are not going to be met and we end up having to pay fines because the targets that were set in the first place were unrealistic. I do not want to see us paying fines and chasing them in this situation, rather than putting in place proper rules, procedures and processes that have a real impact and better equip this State to operate the rules-based system that exists. The Government should not sign up to obligations that the State is not capable of delivering because it leads to more dysfunction and public mistrust.”
“These are crucial detriments to how migration flow works in Ireland, as the Minister knows. We should retain the flexibility to respond, including retaining the ability to legislate in a bilateral way, where necessary. We should not tie the hands of future Irish Governments to EU policy. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice recommended that the Government should reconsider opting into the majority of the pact. I take the view that where it suits us and where it is in Ireland's interests, there must, of course, be co-operation and there can be mutual arrangements and obligations. However, where it does not suit us, if it is possible for us to opt out we should do so if it is in the interests of this State. Unfortunately, the Government has ignored that recommendation, which is a serious failure of judgment and accountability.”
“I spoke about some of them already and there are others. Fixing them does not require signing up wholesale to a pact that does not reflect Ireland's circumstances. Not every country is the same. Every country has different issues and problems. We must have flexibility and be nimble enough to respond to issues that happen in Ireland, which may be different from those in other countries and unique to us. Sinn Féin's position is clear: the majority of this pact is not in Ireland's interests. It undermines Irish sovereignty by handing over more power to the EU and limiting our ability to make decisions in an area that must remain responsive to Irish realities. Ireland is in the EU but is not in the Schengen area. We operate a common travel area with Britain, which is a state outside the European Union.”
“The primary issue I have with this Bill relates to what it is designed to do. It is about giving Irish sovereignty on migration to the European Union. Deputy Carthy has already set out Sinn Féin's position on this issue very clearly. The Bill legislates for the EU migration and asylum pact and replaces the International Protection Act 2015. It introduces new processes for screening and biometrics; application procedures, including age assessments; first-instance decisions and returns; decisions made by ministerial officers; a new appeals structure via the tribunal for asylum and returns appeals, TARA, with tight appeal timelines; expanded return and entry ban provisions; and an independent monitoring mechanism via a chief inspector for asylum border procedures. The problems in our current system are real.”
“They also know the difference between people who come here seeking employment and people who come seeking international protection. There are instances in which people use the international protection system to come here as economic migrants. There are, of course, options available to people through work permits. That is what should be done. That is why we need a system that is enforced and that can make decisions quickly. What really upsets and challenges people is when they see situations where it takes three or four years, or longer, for a decision to be made. I know the Minister has looked to tighten up on that and to make the process much more efficient and quicker, and I accept that. I also believe that balance is essential. Humanity in order together must be the foundation of any migration policy.”
“For example, the Minister has acknowledged in recent times that using the only hotel in a community for international protection, when the community is saying alternative accommodation and options should be looked at, creates problems and tensions. If there is poor communication with communities about additional resources and supports, including for those people coming here who need to be supported, it raises tensions and creates problems. We always have to learn from mistakes that were made and improve. We cannot ignore people's lived reality. We must accept where they are at. We must accept what they see. As I said, people are fair-minded. They want a managed migration system. They want to support people who are fleeing war and persecution and are coming here to make a life. They support that, but they want the system to be managed.”
“We see them on the extremes of politics but the vast majority of Irish people are decent and fair-minded people who want a fair, efficient and enforced system. Talking about these issues and wanting to see the system enforced makes perfect sense. It is what any state should do. Communities have also felt aggrieved because of poor decision-making and communication. We always hear about communities looking for a veto, but I have never experienced that. While I may have seen some instances where some individuals demand it, in most cases what communities want is better communication and fair treatment.”
“Everything that can be done to speed up that process is in everyone’s interests, most especially those of the State. Of course, it must be enforced. When we say the system has to be enforced, we have to stand by that. If it is the case that someone applies for asylum and is refused, there is an obligation on the State and the Minister to enforce that. I support that because it is the only way to ensure we have a rules-based system that works. I say that because in a lot of the discussion and debate on migration over the last number of years, there has been, in my view, a quick reach to label anyone who talks about managed migration as racist, and that is simply not the case. There are racists in Ireland. Sometimes, we see them on the streets.”
“Ireland needs an international protection system that is fair, efficient and enforced. That means being fair to those coming here fleeing war and persecution. We have to respect and protect their dignity and provide clarity and timely decisions. It must always be fair to communities as well by providing resources and supports to them when additional people come. The system also has to be efficient. It has been accepted by the Government that the system has not been as efficient as it should be. We have not been managing migration or the efficiency of the system because we all know it still takes far too long for decisions to be made. That is not in anyone’s interests. It is not in the interests of the people who come here or the State that, in some instances, it can take years for an application for asylum to be processed.”
“My colleague Councillor Donnchadh Mulcahy has raised this matter consistently at council level. The project relating to Tallow is important and needs to be delivered. All five projects are at an advanced stage and they need to be properly supported, funded and delivered, once and for all. I hope that will be the case in the aftermath of the Minister of State's visit.”
“Having visited Passage East before the Minister of State went there, it was obvious that multiple problems have been exposed. It is not just one problem; the whole system is antiquated. It is not just from the brook where, obviously, if you have very heavy rain and a high tide, a great deal of water is going to flow downhill. The water brings with it stones and other debris that block the system. The culvert there is fit for purpose. The drainage system comprises old clay pipes. The entire system is antiquated. What happens is that everything goes wrong when there is a high tide and heavy flooding. Homes are damaged as a result. There is a lot of work to be done in the village. There are five schemes that are at an advanced stage in Waterford. All five need to be developed, including the one in Tallow.”
“I thank the Minister of State for visiting Passage East on Sunday last. He met with the local authority and with residents whose homes were affected by flood damage. He would have heard at first hand that what those who were affected by the floods in Passage East want is less talk and more action. There were concerns raised - rightly so - by residents in regard to the response from Waterford City and County Council. They were not pointing the finger of blame at individual staff members. They acknowledged that the staff do a very difficult job in difficult circumstances, but it was acknowledged, even by the CEO of the council, that there have to be learnings. There were failings, and we have to get better at supporting communities during floods.”
“I have engaged with the Irish Cancer Society, which has advised that there is equipment which is either not available or only working partially because the staff are not there. A lot of it is outdated. We do not have enough radiation therapists. I do not want to see slippage. I do not want to see us go backwards. I want us to always have the very best, world-class, gold-standard cancer services. I ask the Tánaiste to engage with the Minister for Health to look at the data and ensure that the investments which are needed in the national cancer strategy and in cancer services right across the State are in place so that we do not have a geographical postcode lottery in accessing care. No matter where people come from, they should have access to timely care.”
“I acknowledge that Irish cancer services are among the best in the world. I want to pay tribute to all the staff who work in cancer services. However, we are beginning to see slippage in some areas which is disappointing. The response to a parliamentary question from me on key targets set by the HSE for diagnostics and treatment shows that we are beginning to see serious slippage. One in seven chemotherapy appointments did not happen on time. In my constituency of Waterford, it is one in three. Only half of breast cancer surgeries happened on time. It is worse for lung cancer surgery where 39% did not happen on time. For prostate cancer surgery 62% did not happen on time.”
“I also raise with the Minister an important project I have worked with and also visited a number of times in recent years. Naíonra Philib Barún is home to over 20 young children in Tramore in County Waterford. It does not have a proper building and is housed in a prefab. It is a very small, tight space. It needs capital funding for a new project but because the students are in early childhood care and education, ECCE, they fall through all the cracks. Nobody seems to want to fund it. Unfortunately, these children are being taught and having their preschool in this unsuitable prefab. The south east is not getting its fair share. I have given the Minister a list of projects, for which I and others have been campaigning and looking for Government funding, and what we have got is a stone wall of resistance.”
“A private investor had to come in from outside the country, by the way, to put money on the table to build a runway extension that this Government simply failed to do. We also have the case of the South East Technological University, SETU, which has had to wait years for an engineering block. We are now told funding will come for a One Health building and a pharmacy building in Waterford, but that will take years. Appraisals and business cases have been done and they are sent up to the Department. All of that gets put through all sorts of processes and there is no clarity as to when that funding will be made available. I have also been raising issues around Waterford Port and the need to invest in it. It has given good, ambitious plans for offshore renewable energy to the Government but funding has not been made available.”
“The preferred route is in place. A lot of work was done and then, lo and behold, the Government simply stopped the funding and for the past two years, no funding has gone to that project. The local authorities have been screaming at the Government to provide the funding because of road safety issues and because it is an economic corridor between Waterford and the south east. It is the same with the N25, the Waterford to Cork road. Again, it has not received any funding. I was blue in the face in this Chamber raising the need for State investment in Waterford Airport. The Government made us jump over hurdles and jump through hoops. It delayed and delayed, and it got to the point that a venture between a private consortium, the three local authorities in the region and the State collapsed.”