Willie O'Dea
Limerick City · Fianna Fáil · Ireland
“In Limerick, women who need maternity services have long enjoyed an excellent system. It is called a midwife-led series of community clinics. Effectively, what it means is that a woman will deal with the same midwife during the entire course of her pregnancy.”
“While we welcome the fact that the Minister for Health has been quite proactive in following up the accident and emergency difficulties in the mid-west following the HIQA report, I nevertheless want to draw attention to the report and the statement from the medical board of University Hospital Limerick, UHL, yesterday, which pointed out t…”
“Recently the courts exonerated a number of gardaí from the mid-west region. They had been subjected to a seven-year investigation for being involved in practices that were commonplace in every single Garda district from one end of this country to the other. They were they only people who were prosecuted.”
“Twenty years have elapsed since the financial criteria for qualification for civil legal aid were last set. It was in 2006. It is estimated that someone who purchased goods or services in 2006 with €100 would have to pay €250 to €300 today, which means that two of every three people this State judged eligible for legal aid because of thei…”
“Surely there are no commercial considerations in asking whether the site has been acquired, when it will be acquired and whether we will be told when it has been acquired. It is also proposed that a project management board be established to drive this project forward, which is essential.”
“Will the Taoiseach comment on the ambulance service in the area? Two private hospitals were built in Limerick after the last 96-bed block was commissioned. They were built in two or two and a half years. It took six years, from start to finish, to build the 96-bed unit.”
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“Has the Minister for Health received the interim report from HIQA on accident and emergency facilities in the mid-west? Does the Minister expect the final report to be published next month as promised? Is the Government committed to implementing the recommendations of the final report?”
“In some, though not all, of those cases, the parents of those kids have made no attempt whatsoever to control their children's behaviour. In those situations, if that can be established, I would not mind parents being called upon to pay the appropriate compensation. The Minister for Justice, Deputy Jim O'Callaghan, has made a very good start in his job. The feedback on him is extremely good throughout the country. I wish him the very best. I am confident that he will continue as he started.”
“A much more effective way to collect fines would be to apply the attachment system to people's income, whether it is from employment, social welfare or whatever. I have come across many cases of people, especially those in deprived areas, on fixed incomes and the elderly, who have incurred financial losses as a result of the activities of people engaged in antisocial behaviour. I would like a system to be in place whereby people who are convicted of this antisocial behaviour, whether they are fined, or an attachment order or whatever is made against them, that this be directly related to compensating those people for the losses they have suffered. Some of those convicted are underage. They do not have any income and are not even old enough to be on social welfare.”
“I ask the Minister to conclude and act on that study as soon as possible. It is also a fact that as the population increases we will need more prison spaces, but we cannot go down the road of permanently building prisons and incarcerating people in them. I agree with the Minister that quite a large percentage of prisoners in the country probably should not be in jail. We should deal with them in some other way. The difficulty is that the non-custodial sanctions we have are pretty useless, not to put too fine a point on it, for example, the recent scandalous revelations about non-collection of fines. We have a very antiquated system of collecting fines in this country. It wastes Garda time going around begging people to keep up their instalments, etc.”
“I congratulate the new Minister of State, the Ceann Comhairle and the Leas-Cheann Comhairle on their new positions. I wish them well. It is self-evident that with the rapidly increasing population, more gardaí are needed. I am very glad that the Government has taken very positive steps in that regard. Figures from Templemore indicate that it will probably be successful in its attempt to recruit 5,000 extra gardaí in the lifetime of this Government. I hope that it does so. I will make one special plea to the Minister of State. A study is under way on the reconstitution of the Garda Reserve, which has the capacity to be a powerful adjunct and addition to the Garda force, not just in policing public events but in deterrence, especially in areas afflicted by antisocial behaviour.”
“There is no clear commitment in the programme for Government to continue the tenant in situ scheme. This is a very good scheme. It has saved many people from homelessness. Unfortunately, I am personally acquainted with a large number of people who will be homeless unless this scheme is restored immediately. Landlords have agreed to sell their houses to the local authorities but because of the delays with the scheme, local authorities are becoming impatient and are threatening to put houses on the private market. People are asking me about this. I cannot answer them and neither can the local authorities. I was in touch with the Department but it does not seem to have an answer either. When is this scheme going to be restored?”