Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)

That is a first for me also. It is nice to see the Minister going off script. This is what Senator Crown referred to when he spoke of leadership as opposed to management.

My query relates to the processing time of redundancy payments and the steps the Department will take to ensure it is shortened. There has been a transfer of responsibility to the Department of Social Protection. The call centre is being staffed by the people processing the claims. We tried to make a number of calls to it every day for a week but only received an answer once. This has nothing to do with the staff but is because they do not have time to answer the telephone and process the claims. We have been told they are now dealing with the claims that arrived in April, which means they will be dealing with the October claims next year. This is obviously causing severe hardship.

The Minister is familiar with the cystic fibrosis issue in the unit in Cork because he met Build4Life and realises the provision of €300,000 would allow the €2.3 million project to go ahead. The return to the taxpayer would be €450,000. These are my figures and I would appreciate the Minister's views thereon.

With regard to mental health, 1,200 nurses are due to retire in February, thereby causing a problem. The Minister is aware of this. What does he hope to do about it? Capital funding for mental health services is due to come from the sale of old institutions. We are all aware that there is no market any more and that there is no provision in this regard. Will the Minister clarify how the investment will be funded? How will A Vision for Change be funded? There are many recommendations therein.

On a lighter note, I invite the Minister down to Kenmare to open the hospital, before 2012 or in 2012 or 2013, or whenever his schedule allows. He will be informing his constituency colleagues. We would all like to welcome him down to An Neidín for the opening of the hospital, the campaign for which started in 1974. I welcome the Minister to the House.