I wish to advise the House of the following matters in respect of which notice has been given under Standing Order 20 and the name of the Member in each case: (1) Deputy Theresa Ahearn — the totally unacceptable condition of Scoil Carmel, Cashel, County Tipperary, a school for the mildly mentally handicapped; (2) Deputy Michael Kitt — the need for the appointment of a remedial teacher to Mountbellew, Moylough, Cooloo and Briarfield national schools; (3) Deputy Upton — the need to ensure that the maximum possible number of organs for transplantation are made available here; (4) Deputy Eric Byrne — the urgent need to regularise the position of those illegal immigrants who have been in the State for five years or more who have committed no offence other than being illegal immigrants and who have no criminal record in their countries of origin; (5) Deputy Lynch — the urgent need for Ireland to declare a unilateral ban on the manufacture or assembly of landmines, instruments of torture or their components; and to campaign an international fora for a worldwide ban in the manufacture, assembly, trade and use of such instruments; (6) Deputy Ó Cuív — the need to provide alternative housing for families in the south Galway area whose houses have been flooded for the past six weeks and are likely to be flooded for the foreseeble future; (7) Deputy Hugh Byrne — the need for spread super-levy fines over a full year to alleviate hardship to farm families; (8) Deputy Shortall — the need for the urgent commencement of section 41 of the Road Traffic Act, 1994, in order to tackle the serious problem of joyriding; (9) Deputy Brendan Smith — the need to provide a substantial increase in funding to Cavan County Council for regional and county roads and for the re-opening of Border roads; (10) Deputy O'Dea — the need for action in view of the serious escalation of crime involving the use of firearms in the past few days; and the need to commence the legislative provisions concerning money-laundering; (11) Deputies Geoghegan-Quinn, Killeen and Noel Treacy — the need to declare the severely flooded parts of Galway and Clare as disaster areas; to provide special aid to the affected people; to ensure that the relevant State and public service agencies are available to provide assistance on a whole-time basis for the duration of these floods; and to take remedial action to reduce the risk of reoccurrence of these floods; (12) Deputy Molloy — the need for action to secure EU agreement to the introduction of a new third tier of extremely disadvantaged areas for peripheral mountain regions and areas subject to severe flooding; (13) Deputy Leonard — the use of INTERREG funds in subsituation for Exchequer funding for roads; (14) Deputy Batt O'Keeffe — the situation in Cork maternity hospitals where women who miscarry share the same ward with those who have healthy children born to them, causing great trauma and stress; (15) Deputy Kenneally — the need to improve existing legislation in view of a recent case of bullying in Waterford city; (16) Deputy Deasy — the need to order an inquiry into the assault on a ten year old boy in Ballybeg, Waterford, by classmates in view of the fact that nobody appears to accept responsibility for an investigation into the assault although the identities of the assailants are known; (17) Deputy Cullen — the need to approve a Garda substation in the south-west area of Waterford in view of the recent savage attack on a child and the low ratio of gardaí per head of population in that area and (18) Deputy Keogh — the need to consider measures to cap freight transport at 1973 levels through Dún Laoghaire and to secure funding to develop tourist and leisure facilities in Dún Laoghaire harbour and its environs.
The matters raised by Deputies Geoghegan-Quinn, Killeen and Noel Treacy, and Deputies Leonard, O'Dea and Cullen have been selected for discussion.