Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I concur with the Order of Business as outlined by the Acting Leader. I acknowledge the decision by Cabinet today to proceed with the new national maternity hospital. It has been a difficult couple of weeks in terms of there being strong views on both sides. However, it is my strong belief it is the right decision to proceed without any further delay, given we have had nine years of delay already. I hope developments over the past couple of weeks, given the Minister has been at the Committee on Health and we have had various medical professionals from the current National Maternity Hospital, from Dr. Rhona Mahony to Professor Mary Higgins to Ms Mary Brosnan, and many other clinicians and midwives come out to voice their support, have allayed at least some, if not all, of the concerns of many of those who were on the other side of this argument. Ultimately, it is the intention of Government to provide a world-class healthcare facility for women and babies at the new site at Elm Park. Even by getting the go-ahead today and proceeding to the next phase, it will still take us a number of years to deliver this project. It is expected the hospital will open its doors in 2030. One can understand the urgency to try to get this matter progressed.

The issue of Brexit remains high on the agenda. We have seen confirmation from the British Government and Liz Truss that they intend to proceed to table legislation to take unilateral action on the protocol. It is very disappointing, to put it mildly, that the UK Government would take such a move. To disapply the protocol unilaterally, even some elements of it, is in breach of an international treaty, which I think we are all blue in the face from repeating time and again to the British Government. I would welcome a debate in this House at the earliest opportunity with the Minister for Foreign Affairs to discuss where we go from here, what the next steps are and to hear from the Minister what the European Commission intends to do in terms of its reaction to this. I note the comments of the European Commissioner, Maroš Šefovi, saying the EU will take action, but we do not know what that actually looks like. Ultimately, we need to ensure Ireland’s interests are protected and we protect our citizens and businesses as best we can, although we have ultimately no control over what the UK Government does. We are asking that it would act in good faith, but certainly the comments from Ms Truss appear to be to the contrary.

I acknowledge the fantastic work done by a local school in my town of Castlebar, namely, Breaffy National School. It has seen its numbers treble in recent weeks, with so many new children attending the school who have fled from Ukraine. Many of them are being housed in the hotel across the road, Breaffy House Resort, which is one of the largest hotels in the county. It is the area where we are accommodating most of our new visitors. The school across the road is a small rural school. It is a big school in the area, but it is still a rural school. It has seen a huge increase in numbers. As the weeks and months progress, we will need to provide further assistance to these schools to help them work with the additional numbers that they are now seeing. I commend the school, teachers and school community on putting the shoulder to the wheel and making sure these children have felt welcome.