Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I want to welcome Senator Flynn back and congratulate her. I was not in the Chamber last week on her return.

Yesterday, County Roscommon and the Galway part of the Galway-Roscommon constituency welcomed the great announcement on active travel. A great many issues have been with us for years like the need to extend footpaths, walkways and cycleways, to take away dangerous bends and so forth. For the first time, we have seen a Government providing money to sort out such problems. I was in contact with a number of local authority members yesterday evening and I must say that the announcement got a great welcome. Of course, the fact that it is a roll-over fund is very important. The situation where local authorities are forced to spend money coming up to the end of the year or else send it back will not apply. This is a roll-over fund which is really important for some projects.

We also had school announcements from the Government recently. Six schools in my own county of Roscommon and the Galway part of the Galway-Roscommon constituency received very good news under the summer works scheme. On the subject of education, I have spoken to the Minister for Education about giving some sort of break to leaving certificate students this year and of course, the Minister of State at the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Niall Collins, was in the House earlier to respond to the Commencement matter raised by Senators Dolan and Carrigy. The news was positive and of course, the reopening is also positive news. It will be lovely to see a real buzz back in Leinster House, with the groups coming in and out from our constituencies and from different areas to meet us.

During a Commencement debate earlier today Senator Boyhan raised the issue of neurological nurses and the shortage thereof. This is an issue that I brought to the House before Christmas and at that stage we got good news in relation to University Hospital Galway to the effect that three or four neurological nurses will be appointed early in 2022, hopefully. There is a shortage of eight or nine in the hospital. I fully support what Senator Boyhan said earlier but I believe that the Minister for Health and the Government are committed to making more nurses available in that sector because many people are affected by neurological issues.