Rory O'Hanlon (Cavan-Monaghan, Ceann Comhairle)
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I wish to advise the House of the following matters in respect of which notice has been given under Standing Order 21 and the name of the Member in each case: (1) Deputy Cowley — to ask the Minister if she will carry out an urgent review of the DEIS scheme situation for nine Mayo schools (details supplied) which will be affected; will she agree that this is an inequitable situation which is not in the spirit of helping the disadvantaged and will she confirm the affected Mayo secondary schools will be reviewed immediately, and funding guaranteed to avoid disastrous consequences for the affected students; (2) Deputy Ring — the flood relief package available for people who have had their property damaged, incurred stock losses etc. in the floods over the last few months in Mayo, particularly areas in south Mayo such as Kilmaine, Hollymount, the Neale, Aughamore, Claremorris and in Crossmolina; advise exactly what help is available for flood relief; what is proposed to resolve the flooding issue in the long term and what funding will be allocated for this purpose; (3) Deputy Ferris — the pressure being placed on fishermen to go to sea in dangerous conditions due to the current regulatory system; (4) Deputy Durkan — the serious and ongoing issue of overcrowding on commuter trains from Sallins, Hazelhatch, Kilcock, Maynooth and Leixlip to the city and return whereby passengers more often than not have to remain standing for the entire journey with consequent health and safety implications and the need for the Minister to issue instructions to increase the frequency of the service and the capacity of the trains with enhanced feeder bus backup; (5) Deputy Costello — the need for the Government to introduce a system of random searches of CIA-operated aircraft landing at Irish airports to ensure that Irish airports are not being used for rendition flights; (6) Deputy Callanan — to ask the Minister to expedite the building of a new school in Aughrim (details supplied) as this school is grossly overcrowded and does not meet the needs of the population of Aughrim; (7) Deputy McHugh — the need to provide a new national school at Aughrim, Ballinasloe, County Galway to replace the existing St. Catherine's national school (details supplied); (8) Deputy Lynch — the position on the possible loss of 300 jobs at the Motorola plant in Cork; (9) Deputy Connaughton — the very poor conditions at St. Catherine's national school, Aughrim, Ballinasloe, County Galway, where 120 pupils and their teachers operate in mice-infested, damp and grossly overcrowded conditions which include three fabricated buildings and where the huge increase in new houses in the locality demand a new school to cater for at least eight teachers together with all auxiliary services and to determine if it is the Department's intention to build such a new school; (10) Deputy Catherine Murphy — the continued method of allocating funds to local authorities based on the needs and resources model which is unfair to developing counties, when commercial rates receipts and transfers from the local government fund are combined the per capita spend demonstrates just how disadvantaged the most rapidly developing counties are. The ability of these counties to absorb additional population and build quality communities is impacted by this continuing situation; (11) Deputy Jim O'Keeffe — the closure of the national domestic violence intervention agency and the consequences of this for the victims of domestic violence; (12) Deputy O'Shea — the need for equal treatment of drift net fishermen in the Waterford constituency when administering the hardship fund; (13) Deputy Boyle — the position on the possible loss of 300 jobs at the Motorola plant in Cork; (14) Deputy Burton — the failure of the Minister to provide more language resource teachers for schools in Dublin West and other areas for large numbers of international pupils with limited or no English language and the huge difficulties this is causing for all pupils and teachers in such schools and for teachers contrary to repeated promises and undertakings made by the Minister and her officials to address this urgent problem; (15) Deputy Allen — the position on the possible loss of 300 jobs at the Motorola plant in Cork; (16) Deputy Gogarty — the need for the Government to purchase the lands at St. Edmundsbury-Woodville or to extend the special amenity area order as far as the Lucan road so that these lands can be preserved intact for future generations, preferably as part of a Liffey Valley national or regional park; (17) Deputy Deenihan — the delay in the technical assessment in relation to the amalgamation of Lixnaw boys and girls primary schools in County Kerry; and (18) Deputy Pat Breen — the issue of the recent flooding in the Clonlara area of east Clare, the remedial measures which are proposed to prevent a recurrence of this flooding, and whether a liaison structure will be put in place so that the ESB will be precluded from releasing flood waters without adequate notice and with full consideration of the damaging effects such actions may have on surrounding lands.

The matters raised by Deputies O'Shea, Lynch, Boyle and Allen have been selected for discussion.