Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In response to Deputy Collins, private nursing homes are not covered by section 39. As he knows there is a separate financial mechanism. The National Treatment Purchase Fund is the mechanism through which private nursing homes get funded. I agree with him that it was a welcome development that the section 39 issue was resolved through the pay talks.

Deputy Gibney raised the issue of the European Council. As we have in previous Councils and in the Foreign Affairs Council, we have always sought to get the strongest language possible in terms of the appalling atrocities in Gaza and the shocking bombings of the last 48 hours leading to so many innocent children, men and women being killed which is an abhorrence. We will do what we can.

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