Before coming to the Order of Business I propose to deal with a number of notices under Standing Order 31.
Requests to move Adjournment of Dáil under Standing Order 31.
I seek the adjournment of the Dáil under Standing Order 31 to debate the following urgent matter, namely the need for further funding for Tralee General Hospital, the shortage of financial resources, under-staffing and the lack of medical care for patients in cardiac units, oncology and accident and emergency leading to patients spending long hours on trolleys and resulting in the unprecedented protest by 40 Kerry general practitioners on the grounds of Kerry General Hospital on Monday, 14 November.
It would not have happened a few years ago.
I seek the adjournment of the Dáil under Standing Order 31 to raise a matter of urgent importance, namely, the need for the Government to deliver designated transport for cancer patients attending centres in Cork and Dublin for radiotherapy treatments. Critically ill patients are under severe financial pressure trying to find their own transport, with local charities being forced to help out.
I seek the adjournment of the Dáil under Standing Order 31 to discuss a matter of major national importance, namely, the dire predictions for the BMW area for 2025 in the NUI Maynooth report on rural Ireland, showing a decimation of full-time farmers from 40,000 to 10,000 and those to be located in the south and east; the continuing bias favouring development in the south and east due to Government policy; and considering the underspend identified in the mid-term review of the national development plan for the BMW area, the need for the Estimates to make up the BMW under-spend in the capital envelope to address the regional imbalance in infrastructural investment and give the BMW area and rural Ireland a future.
I ask that Dáil Éireann be adjourned under Standing Order 31 to raise a matter of urgent importance, namely, to allow the Minister for Defence explain why he allowed himself to be photographed pointing a gun at a cameraman——
He should be arrested.
Deputy Sargent should get a life.
——and to hear the Government policy on how it can reconcile this promotion of a gun culture with the horrific shootings and escalating levels of violent crime occurring on a day-to-day basis.
Keep taking the tablets, Trevor.
I wish to have the business of the House suspended under Standing Order 31 to discuss an issue of urgent public importance, namely, the use of white phosphorous weapons against civilians in Fallujah last year and the fact that this was denied by the Pentagon; and in the light of this deception, the need now for the Irish Government to authorise searches of planes in Shannon which the Bush Administration claims are not carrying terrorist suspects.
Having considered the matters raised, they are not in order under Standing Order 31.