: I wish to advise the House of the following matters in respect of which notice has been given under Standing Order 21 and the name of the Member in each case: (1) Deputy Durkan — the need to discuss the impending deportation of a Romanian family who have lived here for a number of years and are not in a position to return to their own country; (2) Deputy Jim Higgins — the need to grant an amnesty to the Romanian family who have been living here for five years and are due to be deported; (3) Deputy Deenihan — the financial crisis facing many primary schools because of the lack of funding for heating, class materials, secretarial back-up, cleaning staff and other essential services; (4) Deputies McCormack and Ulick Burke — the need to discuss the proposed closure of two wards and a theatre and the laying off of 45 nurses at University College Hospital, Galway; (5) Deputy Connaughton — the need to release the first instalment of all 1998 headage grants due to farmers by this weekend and to immediately open the area aid office for phone calls to enable farmers to discuss matters relating to their own files; (6) Deputy McManus — the need to discuss the situation of the Costina family, originally from Romania, who have been threatened with deportation and the need for a more sympathetic and humane approach for dealing with asylum seekers; (7) Deputy Neville — the need for the Minister for Health and Children to respond to the statement on the scandal of abused children as revealed in the Irish Independent on the 2 November 1998; (8) Deputy Seán Ryan — the urgent needs of Malahide Community School which has an enrolment of 1,002 students; (9) Deputy Clune — the issue of fake driving licences in Cork; (10) Deputy Ulick Burke — the need to provide additional finances to the Western Health Board in order to prevent ward closures and nursing redundancies at a time of increasing waiting lists at University College Hospital, Galway; (11) Deputy Breeda Moynihan-Cronin — the need to discuss the closure of a direct phone line to the area aid unit in the Department of Agriculture and Food and to place sufficient staff in the unit to allow the phones to be answered throughout normal working hours; (12) Deputy Rabbitte — the steps taken by the Department of Agriculture and Food to comply with the order given by the High Court in 1991 to recover, from certain meat companies, their share of the legal costs plus interest incurred by the State arising from the legal action taken by Emerald Meats Ltd.; (13) Deputy Howlin — the action to be taken to oppose the construction of a nuclear waste repository in Pembrokeshire, Wales; (14) Deputy Sheehan — the steps the Minister for Agriculture and Food has taken to get an educational officer appointed to resume the career farming course which was suspended three weeks ago; (15) Deputy Allen — the uncertainty regarding the construction of the national conference centre arising from the reluctance of the EU Commission to approve urban renewal tax status for the Dublin docklands development; (16) Deputy Ring — the reason there is no dentist to cover Belmullet and surrounding areas of north Mayo in the Western Health Board area.
The matters raised by Deputies Breeda Moynihan-Cronin, McCormack and Ulick Burke, Jim Higgins and McManus have been selected for discussion.