Chris Andrews (Sinn Fein)

I congratulate my colleagues from Cork. The team played fantastically. It is a great team and I wish it well in the final.

On a more serious issue, it is deeply concerning that the Government has stalled the evacuation of desperately sick children from Gaza due to bureaucratic visa delays. There have been almost two years of genocide in Gaza. For nearly two years, Israel has been massacring men, women and children across Palestine without consequence from the Irish Government and without any action from the European Union. These children urgently need to be evacuated before it is too late. Ireland has a commitment to provide medical care to these kids. It is simply unacceptable that these children's lives are potentially put at risk because of miscommunication and mishandling between Departments. Government Ministers need to act without delay to ensure that the evacuations get back on schedule.

Moreover, we need clarity on what within the Civil Service is causing these visa issues so we can prevent the problem happening in the future. Assisting children who need medical attention is the very least we can do to help the Palestinian people and the Irish State cannot fail to meet that bare minimum.