Before coming to the Order of Business, I propose to deal with a number of notices under Standing Order 31. I will call on the Deputies in the order in which they submitted their notices to my office.
Request to move Adjournment of Dáil under Standing Order 31.
I seek the adjournment of the Dáil under Standing Order 31 to raise a matter of urgent importance, namely the failure of the Government to proceed as promised with the Clonmel flood alleviation scheme, leaving residents in flood prone areas in fear of their homes and businesses being flooded in a situation where they cannot get insurance cover.
In accordance with the terms of Standing Order 31, I seek to move the adjournment of the Dáil to discuss the following specific and important matter of public interest requiring urgent attention: the deferral of cardiac operations on children at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Dublin; the shortage of intensive care nurses at the hospital and the low availability of beds due to those staff shortages; the need for an urgent debate in this House on the situation; and the need for a comprehensive statement in response from the Minister for Health and Children.
I seek the adjournment of the House under Standing Order 31 to debate a matter of urgent national importance, namely the ongoing increasing assaults, some of them fatal, by a growing minority of young people on other young people; the causes of such often casual violence; the remedies and deterrents, if any, for these senseless attacks; and to debate seriously whether all of the needless deaths and serious injuries are simply part of human nature or part of a more serious malaise in modern-day Irish society, which is aggravated by current Government policy.
I seek the adjournment of the Dáil under Standing Order 31 to raise a matter of national importance, namely the disgraceful situation of an elderly woman who has become blind while waiting for an eye appointment in Galway, which was cancelled on seven occasions at short notice and without explanation between 29 May and 2 October 2004.
Having considered the matters raised, I do not consider them to be in order under Standing Order 31.