On health legislation, in the past few hours I received a copy of a letter which has been sent to the chief executive officer of Tallaght hospital and copied to the Minister for Health and a number of other people. It details in an horrific way the circumstances in the emergency department in Tallaght hospital in terms of how senior citizens are being treated. It states that on one particular evening 79 people were in the emergency department. It refers, in particular, to the treatment of elderly people and how one elderly individual who was over 90 years of age was on a trolley for 29 hours and how painful and sore that was for the individual concerned. He was on a trolley in a conduit between the psychiatric rooms and some cubicles.

We are dealing with the Order of Business.

I know. This relates to legislation. The consultant stated this man, like others in non-designated patient conduits, had no privacy and no dignity, and had been subject to constant noise and light torture, resulting in major sleep deprivation and pressure effects causing pain from lying for a prolonged period on a trolley which had not been designed for that purpose.

This is not a matter for the Order of Business.

The letter goes through the safety issues and previous experiences in Tallaght hospital when HIQA protocols were introduced. The Taoiseach may remember the case of the 101 year old patient. No. 42 in the Government's legislative programme is the health information and patient safety Bill. This represents an appalling indictment of the Minister for Health. The Government needs to respond urgently to situations such as this that are occurring in emergency departments across the country, particularly Tallaght hospital, where the consultant said all of the HIQA protocols were being breached, particularly in terms of patients not being put in isolation rooms when required. It is a very serious matter. When can we expect the health information and patient safety Bill to be introduced?

I take it that the Taoiseach has read an article in yesterday's edition of The Guardian - it may have been brought to his attention - on undocumented workers, how they are being treated on certain vessels in the Irish fishing industry and allegedly being paid half the minimum wage.

I remind the Deputy that we are on the Order of Business and dealing with promised legislation-----

I will deal with it.

-----not an article in a daily newspaper.

This is leading to legislation which has been promised. I want to set the context for the question I wish to ask.

It is a very well researched article in The Guardian and the workers in question are from Egypt, Ghana and the Philippines. There have been cases in the past when we brought forward legislation. The Government's legislative programme provides for the introduction of an international protection Bill. I respectfully suggest to the Taoiseach that there is a need to accelerate this legislation and for the Government to take this report seriously and liaise with the International Transport Workers Federation and labour agencies to ensure very basic and minimal standards of protection and rights are afforded to migrant workers and particularly to ensure they are not undocumented. There seems to be a very sorry tale in this context.

Obviously, we do not need legislation to know that the situation that the Deputy has described is not tolerable. If the letter has been sent to the Minister for Health, I am sure he will respond directly to the Deputy. The health information Bill is due for publication next year, but as I said, we do not need legislation to know that there should not be a situation like the one the Deputy described. The Minister with responsibility for the marine has responded initially on the report in The Guardian which took a year to put together. He intends to form a working group on Thursday to respond to the issue. It will involve a number of Departments. This situation applies to a number of other countries, particularly Scotland, where the human slavery Act 2015, which is very modern legislation, has dealt with the matter in a very comprehensive way for those involved. There may well be problems in some parts of the pelagic fleet. The Minister will respond to them in a very determined way and will announce the forming of a working group involving a number of Departments which have various responsibilities to deal with the issue of migrant workers. The Garda has a very active unit which deals with the trafficking of people. Obviously, it will have a central part to play if the allegations contained in the report in The Guardian are true.