Results 621-640 of 50,909 for speaker:Micheál Martin

Gaza: Statements (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: It is hard to find words sufficient for the topic before us. It is hard to describe the immense suffering, physical and psychological, that civilian Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have endured for more than 19 months: to never feel safe; to be uprooted time and time again; to feel the desperation that comes from not being able to find food for your children; to see your elderly parents and...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: My understanding is the Department, together with the HSE, will provide a total of €6.53 million to meet the full operational costs of the 51 beds in the new facility in 2025. I will follow up again with the HSE and the Department to confirm, but that is what I am being told.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: Further resources will be available to expand the capacity of the new facility on an incremental basis in 2025, subject to an agreed business plan between the HSE and the Dublin Simon Community. The Deputy is correct that it is a very significant development. The Government has already provided €35 million to construct the facility. That provides for the 51 beds that were, up to...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: -----per year across four clinical programmes can be provided. Approximately €6.5 million will meet the full costs. I will get the Department to come back to the Deputy on that.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: I thank the Deputy for eloquently and very strongly putting the issues pertaining to what is happening in Gaza in terms of the behaviour of the Israeli Government and Hamas, and stating that action is required. We have taken a series of actions but I take the Deputy's point. The focus now has to be on this EU-Israel association agreement because, without any question, Article 2 of that...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: It needs to be expanded. I will talk to the Minister in respect of it. The funding was allocated. There could be issues clinically - I do not know - with the allocation of resources. However, I will ask the Minister to revert to the Deputy in respect of the issue.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. As I said, the situation is barbaric. We urgently need to facilitate a high-profile visit by the international community to Gaza, including both political and media representatives, who could see at first hand the level of destruction and the appalling situation the civilian population there is now in. That would do more than anything to change the...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: I agree with Deputy O'Donoghue and sympathise with his point. I will again talk to the Minister for Transport on this and ask him to engage with Bus Éireann to get this issue sorted. Chronological age is meaningless as a metric. It can be general but it is meaningless. There could be a very fit 75-year-old and an unfit 65-year-old. To borrow the phrase again, we need a little common...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: The Deputy is saying there is a general problem-----

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: -----and an insufficiency of general school places.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: It is very distressing for them and for their families. I will talk to the Minister in respect of this.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: There has been an increased allocation for the tenant in situ scheme. There were reviews around making sure the resources would go to those tenants who were in danger of being rendered homeless. The tenant in situ scheme is not for general acquisition of second-hand homes. It is specifically for those in danger of becoming homeless. The Minister is engaging with local authorities to make...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: This is a disability service, is it?

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: For where?

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: The introduction of free schoolbooks for some 940,000 children and young people in primary and post-primary and special schools in the free education scheme from the start of 2025-26 was a really significant progressive decision that was taken some years ago by the then education Minister, Deputy Foley, and has been continued. The Deputy has raised interesting points about the mechanics of...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: I fully understand the issue the Deputy has raised. The ask is that there would be access to a single public service pension scheme. That is something that needs to be resolved through the industrial relations processes. We have made progress in respect of the salary side and the payroll aspect of this. Since September 2023 the Department has been providing a payroll service for formerly...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: The Deputy has raised fairly legitimate issues. There has been a tendency lately in planning to have no car parking spaces in certain developments. The Deputy made a fair point about restricting car use but not car ownership. There has to be more flexibility in the planning frameworks governing developments of this kind and, as the Deputy said, the Adamstown plan itself. I would like to...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: That is the highest ever on record. We need a private sector dimension to house building. I do not know whether the Deputy believes in that.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: Does the Deputy believe there is a role for institutional funds, for example?

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (21 May 2025)

Micheál Martin: I am just putting it to the Deputy because I have watched over the past three or four years on housing. All I get is an antipathy on the Opposition side towards any private sector funding in housing. If they maintain that position, we will not deal with the housing supply issue.