Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Like previous speakers, I support the families outside Leinster House protesting to get their children the drug Spinraza. It is crucial that the Minister steps in and delivers this drug to save these children's lives.

I take this opportunity to congratulate team Ireland, which claimed the first ever world championship medal when it won eventing silver at the World Equestrian Games. This is a major achievement made very special for my own county because Sam Watson from Carlow was on the team. His father John won an individual silver medal four decades ago. Sam and his team are celebrating the fact that the Irish eventing team is the first Irish team in any sport to qualify for the Tokyo Olympic Games 2020. They arrived home last night and were a sight for sore eyes in Dublin Airport. There was no luck involved. It was the product of seriously hard work and a battle for funding for the sport, funding we should be able to provide. We are always saying we need money for this and for that, but when we have such sports people who work extremely hard and win internationally, we should enable them to go on winning, to make history, to set records and to have the world talk about our little country for good reasons. I want to say well done to the team and to wish it well.

I was very disappointed this week to read that the IDA has only made three visits to Carlow this year. In the south east region, it has made no meaningful visits at all, unless one counts Waterford, which received 14 visits.The south east needs investment. We need jobs, we need infrastructure and we need to get more IDA Ireland visits. We must stop the concentration on cities and spread businesses. We are a tiny island and we should be able to attract businesses to any part of Ireland, not only places five minutes from an airport. I am asking the Leader for another debate. We talked about the south east previously but we need another debate to know why the recovery is not as quick in getting to the likes of Carlow and other areas as it is in getting from Dublin to Waterford. Can we have a debate on that? Another debate is needed on why IDA Ireland is not paying more visits to towns in rural areas, such as Carlow, and other urban areas that need IDA Ireland investment.