Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies for raising these issues. The security of our skies is a national security question and, therefore, I am limited in what I can say about it. What I can say is that any arrangements we have in place are consistent with our foreign defence and security policy. We have a very good and effective Air Corps in Ireland. We do not have an air force of the nature of the United Kingdom, France, Russia or the US and we never will. We have to put in arrangements for certain scenarios and we have arrangements for certain scenarios to assure our safety and national security.

With regard to the independent review on abortion services and abortion laws, my understanding is that the Business Committee decided to allow the committee to do its work first and then we can come back to this Chamber for further debate, which is appropriate.

Time has been set aside this week to debate the cost of living. The Government wants to use its time for legislation. It is important that we set aside time to talk about things. It is also important that we set aside time to do things as legislators and we will be using our time for legislation.

On the controversy around GAAGO, I want to express my support for the position taken by the Tánaiste the other day calling for this matter to be reviewed. I heard the former president of the GAA, Mr. Liam O'Neill, speaking on the radio morning. He made a very valid point that there could be as many as ten or 15 major matches on every weekend and that it is not possible for RTÉ and TG4 to televise all of those matches. The solution to me seems to lie in making sure that the most popular and important matches are the ones that are on RTÉ and TG4 and to use GAAGO for the other matches.

We all understand that all matches cannot be televised. There is potential win-win scenario here if we can identify the big matches to be televised on RTÉ and TG4, with other matches that would not otherwise be available being shown through the app. Let us allow RTÉ, TG4 and the GAA to talk about that.

Deputy Mattie McGrath asked about the nitrates directive. Let us not forget that we in Ireland have no entitlement to a derogation to the nitrates directive. We are one of only five countries out of 27 that have it. We are working hard to ensure we maintain that derogation. That means ensuring we satisfy what is required in the context of our water quality. That is the work the Government and the Minister are doing at the moment.

See this speech in context