The Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, is very welcome.
Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters
School Accommodation
The Minister of State is welcome. I thank him for being here. I know the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, has to attend a funeral and cannot be here, but she is aware of the issues I am about to raise. I hope there can be action on them.
Danu Community Special School opened in November 2019 under the patronage of Dublin and Dún Laoghaire Education and Training Board, DDLETB, in a temporary location in the Hansfield Educate Together Secondary School building. It made do while it was there even though it was on the first floor, which is not ideal for a special school, and did not have its own distinct space. It then moved to what could be its permanent location, at Rath Dara Community College. There it is accommodated in an annexe of an existing school. It is not appropriate accommodation for this special school.
This is the first special school that has been built in 15 years by the Department of Education, the first special school in Dublin 15 and DDLETB's first special school, but it is not what should be. It does not have the purpose-built accommodation tailored to the complex needs of the school that is required and it does not show the ambition these children deserve. It does not fit with the vision we all hoped for when we campaigned for this school. When I use the term "we", I mean the parents and school community in Dublin 15.
Every child needs to be able to reach his or her full potential. I will address three specific areas of concern. The first is that I do not understand why the school was built by the DDLETB rather than through the expertise of the Department of Education for a special school. One can see this in the current accommodation. New schools such as Edmund Rice College, the national school in Palmerstown and Coláiste Pobail Setanta have a dedicated space, base or unit, whatever way one wishes to describe it as, that is tailored to the children and learning life skills.
I visited Danu Community Special School and saw that, because the accommodation is not appropriate for these children, the teachers are burning a lot of energy doing things they should not have to do. The accommodation is not wheelchair accessible and the students do not have an appropriate outdoor sensory space similar to those present at many other schools. There is hoarding around the outdoor space and a lot of noise from traffic. The classrooms are not of a suitable size. There is not enough space to design a flow that accommodates the needs of children. There is supposed to be a living space like a kitchen or a mini-apartment but it is tiny. The school does not have facilities of its own, such as an assembly room or outdoor facilities. It does not even know where the perimeter of its outdoor space is.
A second issue is that I do not believe the special education review committee, SERC, allocations for special schools are sufficient. They are based on primary schools. The school has one special education teacher and two special needs assistants, SNAs, per class. That is the same as a special class. Where is the special status that should be attached to a special school? The principal is in charge of 40 staff but, because there are only six teachers, she does not get the supports she should have for managing 40 people. It is severely restricted. I will address the other issues after the Minister of State replies.
I thank Senator Currie for raising the matter. It is vital that every child and young person with special educational needs be fully supported in the education sector, whether in mainstream, a special class or a special school. Significant investment and reforms have been made to ensure this is the case. A priority for the Government is to ensure that all children have an appropriate school placement and that the necessary supports are provided to our schools to cater for the needs of children with special educational needs.
This year, the Department of Education will spend in excess of €2.6 billion, or 27% of its budget, on providing additional teaching and care supports for children with special educational needs. In 2022, funding for an additional 980 teachers and 1,165 special needs assistants was provided. For 2023, the Department has further increased the number of teaching and SNA posts in our schools. There will be an additional 686 teachers and a further 1,194 SNAs in our schools next year. For the first time ever, therefore, 19,000 teachers will be working in the area of special education, alongside more than 20,000 special needs assistants. Together, almost 40,000 qualified and committed people in our schools will be focused wholly and exclusively on supporting children with special educational needs. Children will undoubtedly benefit, as is right and proper, from the additional focus these resources will bring to their education. The 686 new teacher posts will support children in both mainstream and specialist settings, including 205 new posts in mainstream schools and 480 posts for new special classes and in special schools. The 480 posts in specialist placements will facilitate the opening of 370 new special classes, catering for more than 2,000 children, and support an increase of 250 new special school places in 42 special schools.
Budget 2023 also provided funding for additional staffing in both the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, and the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS. Both these measures will ensure our schools and students benefit from the additional practical support from special educational needs organisers, NCSE advisers and educational psychologists. The NCSE has a process in place for reviewing the level of supports allocated to individual schools such as scoil Danu, which the Senator mentioned. Where schools consider they may require additional resources, they can engage directly with the NCSE to seek a review at any time. This review considers the specific needs of the children enrolled in the school. The NCSE has advised the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan’s, officials that they are working closely with the school in question to ensure it is resourced and supported to meet the needs of the children attending it. I assure the Senator the NCSE will continue to work with the school on any issues that may arise.
While the additional funding being made available to provide more special education teachers, SNAs and NCSE supports in our schools is significant, it is accepted that a range of additional challenges face our special schools. These schools support children and young people with the most complex special educational needs. As for additional supports, special schools receive significant funding and have been resourced to reflect their particular needs. The Department recognises the additional challenges that arise for them and is actively engaging with the National Association of Boards of Management in Special Education, NABMSE, to address some of these issues. It facilitated a series of meetings with special schools in November and has focused on a number of issues special schools face. The Department is collating the feedback from these meetings and will work further with NABMSE on the priority areas to be progressed. It is committed to progressing these issues from both an administrative and a budgetary point of view.
The experience of the school is that because it has 36 children, everything is capped according to that, and their needs and what they need to excel are not being accommodated appropriately. It is a one-size-fits-all approach, as opposed to a child getting additional support where he or she needs it. As for the building, the classrooms are not purpose built and teachers are spending a long time doing things they should not have to do, such as minding doors as opposed to teaching in a purpose-built environment. Furthermore, the school is in a DEIS area and is conjoined to a DEIS school, but it is not getting DEIS supports such as hot school meals. Very important oversights need to be looked at.
The hope, from a parent's perspective, was always that this would be an autism school that was a centre of excellence. That is what we should aspire to. The best site for the school is the urology building in Blanchardstown, where a purpose-built school can be accommodated, not just for the children who need it now but for the growing need in the area into the future.
I will ensure the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, is made aware of the specific points the Senator raised. She has visited a large number of special schools and special classes since she took office and has seen the excellent work done for and with students. I have no doubt she would be more than happy to visit the Senator's area and the school in question. There are challenges and the Department and both the Minister for Education and the Minister of State are committed to continuing to work to ensure school communities will be supported in the vital work they do in special education.
Anti-Racism Measures
I am grateful to the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth for coming personally to deal with this matter because it is one of tremendous importance, and we know how topical it is in light of recent demonstrations. "Demonstration" is a very soft word for what has been happening in places such as Ashtown, where there have been attacks on people from different national, ethnic or racial groups. There is a significant risk that as a country we are allowing ourselves to go down a road where racism is becoming normal or somehow quasi-acceptable. What are we going to do to tackle that?
I acknowledge the presence in the Public Gallery of Emer O'Neill, an anti-racism activist who has been vocal, as a black Irish woman, in talking about her lived experience. While I note the bravery of my colleague, Senator Flynn, in respect of these kinds of issues, almost all the rest of us in this Chamber cannot understand the lived experience of people in this society who look different, come from different backgrounds or are of different ethnicities or races. When they go for a job interview or anywhere else, it is immediately obvious, in most cases, that they are different. The result of that is often discrimination, even if that is unconscious on the part of the person carrying out that discrimination. Almost everything about them, whether that is the way they look to their name, their background, where they attended college or whatever it might be, can tell an employer or someone else they are dealing with that they are a little different from an "Irish" person. That has resulted, in a number of instances about which I have been told, in people changing their names, for example.
When they then go into an interview for a job, the employer realises that the person is not in fact who they expected. Emer O'Neill may be a case in point, because she sounds like an ordinary Irish person and she is mixed-race. If she goes into an interview, she is different from what the interviewer is expecting. This can have a knock-on effect for a person. This is what we are talking about when we talk about lived experience and the fact that we, or certainly I, cannot understand what that is. The reality, though, is that it has a huge impact on individuals, but also across society. One of the major issues is that it forces people to change who they are, what they have been and where they have come from. This is a shame, because one of the great benefits of cultural diversity is that it enhances our society and makes us stronger as a nation and a community. It renders this a nicer place to live if we are not totally homogenous in terms of the make-up of our society.
The other danger that comes with this situation is that if we let the message go out to our young people that somehow diversity is a bad thing or that somehow people of colour or people who are ethnically or racially different do not occupy positions of power or leadership, then they do not learn that this is a normal thing. They do not learn that it is perfectly normal to have people who are different from us in roles that involve leadership and power. Those young people who go to America or Britain for jobs, for example, and find themselves in a situation where their manager or their boss, or whoever, is ethnically different somehow do not understand how they are going to deal with that person. We are, therefore, doing a disservice to our young people if we do not deal with this issue.
Regarding what the Minister's Department needs to do, and I know he is strong on this issue of integration, we also know there is an anti-racism action plan. I understand it is ready to go and yet we have not seen it. This has never been more urgent than it is today. We have seen what happened in Ashtown even in the last week. This anti-racism action plan has never been as urgent as it is now. Where is this anti-racism action plan? What will the Minister's Department put in place to help us all understand the dangers and the harm that racism does? Equally, what are we doing to support those who are subjected to racial or ethnic abuse, to show them they are welcome, that the Government supports them and to put in place measures to ensure they know they have everyone's support, and not just that of a small number of people?
I welcome Ms O'Neill to the Public Gallery. I compliment her on the great work she does. I call the Minister.
I thank the Senator for raising this really important issue. I did want the opportunity to speak to it myself. In my follow-up at the end, I will come back to some of the recent incidents. In the last 12 months, however, we have seen the largest humanitarian effort made in the history of the State. Since the start of last year, more than 85,000 people have arrived in Ireland fleeing war and persecution. In these difficult circumstances, Ireland has provided shelter and security. This is something we can be proud of as a country. However, there is clear evidence that racism exists in our country and we know there are some people who feel its impacts in their day-to-day lives. The Government has responded to this unprecedented humanitarian crisis in several ways in the past year. Several existing programmes also empower communities by funding anti-racism and integration activities throughout the State.
It is important to say that the response to racism is a State-wide and country-wide response. No one Department will have the monopoly in terms of this response. Regarding the actions taking place within my Department, we have a range of funding streams in place to support locally-organised diversity and equality projects. We have the asylum, migration and integration fund, the communities integration fund, the national integration fund and the European Social Fund, ESF. In more specific areas, we provide funding to gender equality groups and to Traveller and Roma organisations to organise local diversity and quality events. There is, therefore, a wide range of funding mechanisms to support primarily local responses, recognising that it is also often these local conversations that are the most effective in tackling racism.
Turning to the Senator's question on the national action plan, in 2020 the Government established the independent anti-racism committee with a view to strengthening the Government's approach to combating individual and institutional racism, and build on existing strategies. This was part of Ireland's response to a UN global call to tackle racism. Extensive public engagement and consultation was undertaken by the anti-racism committee across 2021 and 2022. The committee has submitted its final report to my Department and I and the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, intend to bring the national action plan against racism to Cabinet imminently. Our plan, and I spoke about this at the UN last week, is to launch it in early March. This is an important step. It will be our first detailed national action plan against racism since 2008. This has been a gap in our State's response to the issue of racism, one that will be filled rapidly.
On some other responses on the criminal law side, which I think are also important, as the Senator knows the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 is before the Oireachtas. It will update laws on criminalising hate speech and legislate against hate crimes for the first time in Irish law. Although hate speech is currently an offence, the legislation is complex and has not delivered in a meaningful way. The new legislation will enable prosecution of offences which are motivated by prejudice against protected characteristics, including race, nationality or ethnic origin. Obviously, we know that much of the recent rhetoric has been focused on migrants. We do have a migrant integration strategy and this works to promote social cohesion across the State. There are mechanisms within it for the State, Government Departments and State agencies to support migrants and their wider integration in society.
As I said earlier, financial supports are important, but it is supporting communities and on-the-ground engagement with people who may have heard incorrect rumours and lies and demonstrating to them that they are falsehoods that is often the most effective way to tackle some of the incidents we have seen recently.
I appreciate what the Minister said. I acknowledge the work his Department has done in integration and in accommodating people who have come here fleeing situations. I also recognise what he said about funds. He also said that it is not any one Department's responsibility. This is, of course, true. As I look at the students from the Loreto school in Dalkey sitting in the Public Gallery here, though, I wonder what we are doing to educate children in this regard? What are we doing in terms of the national anti-racism action plan? I appreciate this is coming to the Cabinet now and that is great, but what in that action plan is going to provide for education for people so that we start at the very beginning to show people where things lie? I say this because the real danger, as things stand, when we look at what happened in Ashtown, for example, is that we are allowing a them-and-us situation to evolve, where Irish people, mar dhea, are being pitched against people who are not Irish. This is really dangerous and really damaging. The thing many of us do not understand is that sometimes people who are ethnically different are accused of playing the race card, as it is called. They never want to do that. They just want to live their lives and be part of our community and if we had any sense we would realise that we gain enormous benefit from their being part of this community. Let us, therefore, do everything we can to ensure they can play that role.
It is important that we call out these recent incidents. People are entitled to protest and to have a different view from the Government's. This is absolutely fair and this happens. It is really important, though, to call out several recent incidents. Senator Ward referred to an attack on migrants in Ashtown, which was fuelled by lies put on social media regarding someone having been the victim of an assault. In recent days, we have also seen a building in Dublin set on fire. Again, this was as a result of lies put around by far-right groups. There is a deep and disturbing strand of racism behind several of these incidents. We must be very explicit about this. It is worrying and requires an all-of-government response. It requires parties across the Oireachtas to respond. In my engagement with the Government and the Opposition, I recognise that many people are showing leadership in their local communities and at some risk to themselves because politicians across the spectrum in recent weeks have had their houses and offices picketed. I wish to recognise, therefore, that there is leadership being shown across the spectrum, but this needs to continue.
I also welcome the students from the Loreto school in Dalkey. I wish them the very best on their tour of the Oireachtas today.
Energy Prices
I am convinced someone is trying to sabotage me because we keep changing the order every week. We are here this morning because it has been impossible not to notice the welcome news in the newspapers that €50 is going back into every household's electricity accounts as a result of an error made by ESB Networks.
The bigger question is as to why domestic customers were subsidising large energy users for 12 years. In 2009, the Government gave an instruction to the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities, CRU, to implement a subsidy on a permanent basis. The instruction was for domestic users to subsidise the network tariffs of large energy users. Large energy users include data centres and pharmaceutical companies. Those entities are very profitable. The plan was basically an instruction to the CRU to rebalance things in favour of large energy. It was allowed to go on for 12 years and was couched in language about protecting jobs because of the financial crash. Many households were on their knees at that time and could have done without subsidising these profitable companies, but it happened.
The CRU allowed it to continue for 12 years. The CRU notified the Government that it had made a decision last year that it would unwind this subsidy. I have asked the Minister of State to come before the House because the Department of his predecessor, An Taoiseach, made a submission to the CRU on the back of the decision to unwind the subsidy that domestic households were paying to large energy users. The Department criticised the decision and said that the CRU was acting contrary to a ministerial direction. It said that the decision was punitive to industry and big business and that it would probably cost big businesses approximately €70 million. What the Department did not say is that it cost households €70 million and that the position in this regard needs to be redressed.
Does the Minister of State support the view of his predecessor and the Department that the subsidy domestic households are paying towards large energy users should continue indefinitely as a permanent measure, as the Government of 2009 indicated to the CRU it wanted to see happen, or does he support his other colleague in Government, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, who stood up in the Dáil last week and claimed credit for the removal of the subsidy by saying he had instructed the CRU to remove it, because it was unfair, after 12 years? Which does he support? Does he support the Minister, who is trying to claim credit for putting money back in people's pockets, when it was us who were chasing this for months, or does he support the view of the Taoiseach and that of is own Department to the effect that this is a punitive measure and that the average domestic household should continue to subsidise large energy users such as Amazon, Google and big pharmaceutical and agribusiness companies, which are all very profitable, and foot the bill for them in this regard in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis? That is the question for the Minister of State. Does he support the view of the Minister or that of the Taoiseach with regard to who should be paying this subsidy?
I am grateful to the Senator for bringing this matter to the floor of the Seanad. I agree with her that it is very welcome €50 is being refunded into many people's electricity bills this month. However, I am under no illusion about this being a tiny amount compared with the substantial rise in costs that individual and businesses of all sizes have been faced with when it comes to energy prices, largely due to Russia's brutal war in Ukraine and the knock-on effect that is having on the Continent. It is important to remember the various measures the Government has brought in to support business through the temporary business energy support scheme, TBESS, which has been extended as per the announcement today, as well as the three €200 electricity credits that will be rolled out to households; not to mention the 80,000 additional households that will be eligible for the fuel allowance.
With regard to the matter of the reallocation of network costs, I remind the House that the CRU is the independent regulator of various utilities in Ireland, including the electricity sector. The allocation of grid costs to energy customers, which was the subject of the CRU consultation to which my Department's submission relates, is entirely a matter for the CRU. The CRU is the appropriate regulator to ensure that grid tariffs appropriately reflect the cost of providing grid services alongside national policy objectives such as developing a smart grid system and decarbonisation. The CRU is directly accountable to the Oireachtas, and questions on the allocation of grid tariffs would most appropriately be put to it. The CRU consultation to which my Department was responding was about a proposed change to electricity network tariffs, which was in response to the national energy security framework agreed by Government last April.
It is important to stress the consultation did not relate directly to the earlier CRU decision to unwind the rebalancing framework for large energy users which has been determined beforehand, to which I believe the Senator is referring. It is clear from my Department's submission that the word "punitive" was used to describe the cumulative effects of both the significant proposals that were the subject of the CRU consultation and the previous decision to unwind the large energy user rebalancing framework, which did not form part of the proposal. The submission made no judgment on the decision to unwind the large energy users rebalancing framework, except to highlight that it had been done without consultation. The Government is focused on facilitating investment in our energy system to deliver price competitiveness over the medium term for all users. We are determined to deliver a diversified energy system with significant support for energy efficiency and renewables, alongside independent regulation in the event the CRU implemented its proposals only in part, with the changes aimed at protecting security of supply.
In its submission, the Department criticised the CRU for unwinding what it called a ministerial direction. That information was obtained, via a freedom-of-information request, from email correspondence. The CRU is independent, and yet it implemented this decision on the instruction of a Minister in 2009. It is being blamed upon unwinding a ministerial direction and told that this measure was supposed to be a permanent subsidy to large energy users. That was the language in the Cabinet memo that was sent to the CRU. Does the Minister of State support the fact that domestic households have subsidised large energy users - profitable companies - by upwards of €800 million over the past 12 years? Does he support the measure being unwound? Should it be more than the error being corrected and money going back into people's pockets? People are getting excited about it being the whole amount they have been paying to these large energy users. It is not. It is only a small amount in the context of the error that was identified when the measure was being unwound. Does the Minister of State support the fact that domestic households were subsidising large energy users?
It would be very easy to try to put the reply in a simplistic manner of "Yes" or "No". The Senator has been around politics in this House and beyond far too long not to know this is an extremely complex matter that involves a number of strategies. It is important to put to the House the fact that the Department has a keen interest in energy prices, not only for businesses and the implications for their competitiveness but also for individual users. The Department engages with the CRU frequently. The CRU has not indicated that the original proposals related specifically to extra large energy users, following input from stakeholders, although the system operators will continue to engage these and other industrial users to develop suitable energy demands seeing as that promotes security of supply. I stand over the submission that was made by the previous Minister. It was right. However, it is important to note that the submission was not just on one individual point. The work of the CRU should continue in that independent manner, and the Department will continue to engage it. I would be more than happy to speak with the Senator in more detail in order to work through this mater as we go along.
Health Services
Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as teacht isteach. I would love to have seen the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, here but I imagine that he has other things going on. I hope the Commencement matter falls on his ears. One could go on forever about the health issues throughout Ireland, especially the University Hospital Limerick, UHL, fiasco closer to home. Prevention is better than cure. If one can stop someone falling into a river, it saves one having to pull that person out of the river at the other end. To that end, this matter relates to Sláintecare and the plan to have primary healthcare centres built around towns and villages in order that people can go there in the first instance, instead of having to go straight to an accident and emergency department, because they cannot find a doctor or GP, or a health centre, that will take care of them.
The Minister has committed to me that he will increase the hours of the injury clinic in Ennis. That will be massive because the more services we provide outside of UHL, the more the pressure is taken off while we are waiting for one set of 96 beds to be built and then another set of 96 beds.
However, we know many people are going to UHL because they have nowhere else to go beforehand.
To keep it to the point, will the Minister of State give me an update on the Sláintecare plan to build a primary care centre for the north Clare area in particular? Of course, everybody everywhere wants to know about this sort of thing but there is a major problem in the area and the local doctors are at crisis point. I have had meetings with them regarding capacity, and if a new primary care centre were built, it would enable them to expand their services. This is unique because most places do not have enough GPs. We actually have enough GPs. We just do not have the physical building space. It is not a staffing issue. It is an issue of a lack of space and of rooms for the doctors and their staff. Will the Minister of State give us a clear timeline, please? We are lucky in north Clare, and it is such an amazing place. Many people are happy to live there, including very good GPs, and they have come together to try to get this sorted. They do not care if they have to build it themselves or if one is going to be built. However, they need to know what is happening because in the meantime they are at maximum capacity. As a result people are suffering, they do not have access and they go to UHL, which is where we do not want them to go.
I am taking this question on behalf of the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, who has asked me to thank Senator Garvey for raising this issue. He welcomes the opportunity to provide an update to the House on the development of primary care centres.
A central objective of the programme for Government is to deliver increased levels of integrated healthcare, with service delivery reoriented towards general practice, primary care and community-based services to enable a home first approach. Primary care centres play an essential in the delivery of that objective, and significant progress has been made on the delivery of these centre nationwide, with 165 opened to date and a further 14 currently under construction. In Mid West Community Healthcare, which covers counties Limerick, Clare and north Tipperary, 13 primary care centres are in operation. In County Clare specifically, there has been the recent addition of a new primary care centre on Station Road in Ennis. This centre became operational in quarter 4 of 2022. Furthermore, an additional two primary care centres are under construction in Mid West Community Healthcare. One, in Newcastle West, County Limerick, is due to become operational later this year, and one in Roscrea, County Tipperary, is due in early 2024. Primary care centres provide a range of primary care and community services throughout the mid-west, ranging from GP services to nursing, social work, allied health and disability services, dental, chiropody, ophthalmic, older person services, child health, and addiction counselling and treatment.
A number of additional primary care centres to be located in County Clare are at earlier stages of the planning and development process. The Department has been informed by the HSE that the planning process for a new primary care centre at Tulla Road, Ennis, is ongoing and it is hoped this will be concluded in the near future. Once the planning process has been concluded, the new primary care centre can progress through the next stages of development. It will then be possible to provide more detailed timelines for the delivery of that centre. In addition, a primary care centre in Ennistymon, County Clare, is at the early planning stages. The HSE has informed the Department that a number of submissions have been received for accommodation in Ennistymon via the operational lease model. Subject to securing HSE board approval in March 2023, an agreement for lease will be entered into. The selected developer will then progress to planning stages, and subject to a successful planning application with Clare County Council, the HSE estimates a development programme of works for the delivery of the proposed primary care centre of approximately 18 to 24 months thereafter. Both of these primary care centres will be a welcome addition to the people and healthcare workers of County Clare, and I assure the Senator that this Government remains committed to the provision of primary care centres in Country Clare, Mid West Community Healthcare, and throughout the country.
I thank the Minister of State. It is great that they have opened 165 primary care centres to date. That is brilliant. I am glad we have some timeline on Ennistymon because I know from Clare County Council that it has not received planning permission. However, the lease agreement is the first thing. I hope we can expedite it. If we are talking 18 to 24 months after the lease agreement and after the planning has been approved, we are talking about another four or five years, which does not take the pressure off of UHL today or tomorrow. However, it is definitely good to have some timeline on it and I will do my best to work with the council and whoever gets the contract to get it built as soon as possible.
The Minister would again like to thank the Senator for raising the issue. Primary care centres provide important primary care infrastructure. They can also support the delivery of integrated care by facilitating closer co-ordination and cooperation between health professionals from across different disciplines. They also provide a single point of access to services for the individual and can serve as a resource for the community more broadly by creating a focal point for health initiatives or providing community groups with a place to meet. It is for this reason the development of primary care centres is an important part of Sláintecare, and as part of continued Government investment in the development of primary care, there are now 165 primary care centres, as I mentioned earlier. Among these is the recently opened primary care centre in Ennis, and while further planned primary care centres for County Clare are at earlier stages of planning and development, no timeline for the opening of these can be provided at present. The Department and the HSE remain committed to the delivery of a strong primary care infrastructure in County Clare.
Cuireadh an Seanad ar fionraí ar 11.17 a.m. agus cuireadh tús leis arís ar 11.34 a.m.
Sitting suspended at 11.17 a.m. and resumed at 11.34 a.m.