We have only 15 minutes today, one minute for one question.

This morning the NESC published a report calling on the Government to build homes on publicly owned lands. It is extraordinary that a body of its significance still feels it has to remind the Government to take this. The report states, "Publicly owned sites now have a central role in addressing the housing crisis and starting the transition to a new system of active land management and urban development." It is extraordinary that there is not a programme in place to build actively on State-owned lands already. We are five years into a housing crisis. What is the Tánaiste's response to the NESC report and can he confirm what State-owned sites, in particular in Dublin, are ready to go to construction?

I might, if there is a detailed follow-up, ask the Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Damien English, to contribute.

We discussed the report in Cabinet this week. Effectively, the report endorses what the Government has been doing, particularly with regard to Ireland 2040 and medium-term planning to make sure we see the next phases of residential development in Ireland happening on the basis of proper and good planning as opposed to being driven by individual developers on the basis of what sites they can access and so on. We have undertaken an audit of all available public land for housing throughout the country. Every local authority has been asked to report comprehensively on it. I remember it clearly during my time in the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. We are now putting pressure on to make sure we maximise the potential of those, whether it is social housing, social housing and private combined, a public private partnership or affordable housing schemes. That is exactly what is happening now. What the Government is doing, I am glad to say, has been endorsed by and large by the NESC report that was published this week.

This morning there were reports of families sleeping in Garda stations. I understand in April and May there was a dramatic increase in the number of families unable to secure emergency accommodation. These families are then referred to Garda stations for child protection reasons. We can all agree it is a completely unacceptable situation. It is another example of the failure of the Minister with responsibility for housing to get to grips with the problem. Will the Minister of State tell us how many referrals to Garda stations happened in the months of March, April and May of this year? Will he tell us what the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government is doing to get to grips with the issue? Will he assure us the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and the Department of Justice and Equality will come up with a co-ordinated approach to deal with this problem?

I do not have the figures for the numbers that presented to Garda stations but I can certainly try to get them for the Deputy. There is no reason for people to spend a night in Garda accommodation. There is no reason for it whatsoever. There are a lot of service providers and €120 million was spent this year directly on homelessness services. People are placed in emergency accommodation. Sometimes people present as homeless late at night and the services are not there and they end up in Garda stations. There is no need for it. In the stories that were reported in the media at the weekend, people said they knew they were going to be homeless. They would not need to go to a Garda station. The services are there. A lot of people are moving through emergency accommodation and placed in homes. Last year, the number was 4,700. There has been a lot of movement. The numbers are still far too high. We all accept that. It is untrue to say that the numbers presenting have been increasing in Dublin. They have been decreasing. Overall the figures nationally are still far too high. We are dealing with that but it is not true to say there has been an increase in presentations in March and April.

If the Minister of State sends those figures, it would be very helpful.

I certainly will.

A Belfast High Court ruled on Monday that civil servants cannot make major decisions normally taken in Northern Ireland by Ministers. A judicial review there ruled that civil servants had no power, in this case to approve a planning application, but the expectation is that it is likely to have consequences for other significant administrative decisions. It is clear the Westminster Government is consumed by Brexit. There seems to be little progress in restoring an Executive in Northern Ireland. Is there any initiative under way by Government to facilitate the restoration of power-sharing and an Executive in Northern Ireland or are we going to face a situation where there is simply no effective authority to implement normal administrative procedures in the North of the island?

I share the Deputy's frustration and concern but my job is to get things moving, which is what I am trying to do. In the past week, there have been some positive developments in Northern Ireland with regard to the launch of a public consultation process around legacy which is something we have been awaiting for quite some time. It is hugely important to many families in Northern Ireland.

What we got from a court decision this week is a reminder that the status quo is not okay in Northern Ireland in terms of normal basic decisions that impact on people's lives and livelihoods. In this case it was a decision that said a civil servant was not empowered to make the decision he or she did on a planning application for an incinerator. There are a lot of other decisions stacking up now. There are hundreds which need political input. They need a Minister in a devolved government to make a decision. Those decisions are not being made.

I am speaking to the Secretary for State of Northern Ireland to ensure she can take a practical approach to making important decisions. We want to do it in an appropriate structure. Ultimately, we continue to talk to parties to try to find a way forward to return Northern Ireland to the devolved governance it should have. In the absence of that, we are drifting in a way that is very concerning for many decisions that need to be taken in Northern Ireland.

My question is about the programme for Government and support for education in national schools. St. Mary's CBS primary school in Carrick-on-Suir is an excellent school with excellent staff and principal, Denis Cotter. In February of last year, the school got DEIS 1 status and was delighted. Last September, after enrolments, the school was one short. It had 132 students but it needed 133 to retain its staff. Its DEIS status allowed it to have classes with fewer than 25 students, which was wonderful for the school. Lo and behold in September, a few months after it lost its staff, the direct provision centre, which had been closed, reopened and the school now has six pupils enrolled from that centre. They are very welcome. The school educates them and does a very good job, but now the school is way over the threshold and is losing a staff member. Will the Minister for Education and Skills intervene? As a result of the intricacies of the categories and numbers, it is a numbers game and if a school does not fit into a category, it is in trouble. It is reprehensible. The school needs to retain its staff to deal with the extra pupils it got in addition to those it already had.

The system caters for 3,200 schools and it is based on a schedule of allocation. There is an appeal process which is independently run. With such a scheme there is no ministerial discretion to deviate from it. It is provided and administered equitably across every school that applies. There is an appeal mechanism. I will check the position of the school the Deputy referred to but that is the situation.

Forty-four years ago today, the most terrible atrocity in terms of lives lost during the years of conflict that then raged was visited upon the citizenry of the city of Dublin and my home town of Monaghan. The Taoiseach is meeting British Prime Minister Theresa May today on the sidelines of the EU summit in Bulgaria. Will the Tánaiste advise if the Taoiseach will reflect on the fact the Dáil has on two occasions unanimously agreed to request the release by the British Government and its agencies of all relevant documentation regarding those attacks and that to date there has been only refusal and denial? Will the Tánaiste contact the Taoiseach and urge him to raise the repeated requests of this Parliament at today's meeting with the British Prime Minister? Will the Tánaiste and Taoiseach undertake to press this matter at every opportunity, mindful of the passage of so many years and the need for full disclosure in order that truth and justice can be achieved in memory of the victims, the surviving injured and the families directly affected?

I am very conscious that as we moved through Leaders' Questions today, the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, and many families of the Dublin-Monaghan bombing victims were commemorating 44 years since it happened. I have met the families and they are decent people looking for the truth. We want to help them get it. I have raised the issue with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in recent weeks and my office raises the issue regularly with both the British Government and the Northern Ireland Office. We will continue to do so and I will continue to talk to the Taoiseach about it.

In recent days, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a damning report on water quality in respect of five beaches in north and south Dublin which failed to meet minimum EU water quality standards. The agency says five more beaches, all in north County Dublin, are at risk.

In a region with hundreds of thousands of families and children, we are coming into summer and famous beaches such as the north beach in Rush, Merrion Strand and Sandymount Strand and others are at risk of becoming permanently closed if they continue to fail to meet EU water quality requirements. What does the Government propose to do about this? It is a disaster for the city but it is a particular disaster for the hundreds of thousands of children in the Dublin area who rely on beaches for recreational use, for sport and other activity in the summer but will now be barred from those beaches.

It is not all bad news, by a long shot. The EPA report on bathing water in Ireland in 2017-----

There are ten beaches in Dublin.

It is not just about Dublin. This is a national-----

My question was about Dublin, which is where the biggest population lives.

The overall quality of Ireland's bathing water remains good and 132 out of 142 beaches meet strict EU standards. Seven bathing waters are at poor status, which compares well with other northern European states. Having said that, it is still not good enough and we need to continue to improve. We need a plan for each of the areas where the water quality is not as good as it needs to be and we need the necessary investment to bring that about. We also need to understand in detail the reasons for the issues at present.

On people with disabilities, the programme for Government states, "We will examine transport service provision for young people with disabilities to ensure that the service is fit for purpose, consistent with their needs." A report commissioned in 2002 stated that a key responsibility for Government was to ensure that people with disability can move around freely to the best of their ability. A major component of this is the adequate provision of an integrated accessible public transport system. To my horror, I find out that a number of Bus Éireann routes are not wheelchair accessible. I watched a tourist recently trying to struggle onto a bus and, while I give full marks to the Bus Éireann staff who were excellent, it was appalling to see. A number of routes around the country are not accessible for people with disabilities. I implore the Tánaiste, as deputy head of Government, to take this matter in hand and ensure that Bus Éireann gets the budget to deal with this without delay.

I will raise this issue with the Minister concerned and make sure he comes back to the Deputy.

The programme for Government states, "We will set out capitation rates to schools on a rolling 3-year basis, allowing for forward planning." The reality is that capitation grants were cut from €200 per child to €170 by the former Government, a cut of 15%. As a result, most primary schools are relying on fundraising by parents to make up the shortfall in funding. I know this at first hand as I am on a board of management and I know the difficulties we have in trying to make up the shortfall by fundraising. This is putting huge pressure on parents and schools. When will this Government restore the capitation grant and properly fund our primary schools?

It is in both the programme for Government and the confidence and supply agreement that we will address capitation over the lifetime of the Government. In the first two budgets we gave priority to areas such as special education, the provision of SNAs, the reduction of the pupil-teacher ratio and support for disadvantaged schools and we have to make decisions within the available resources to prioritise the areas where we feel the greatest pressure is. I fully recognise that capitation is posing a problem for schools and we will be examining it in the context of the forthcoming budget.

In regard to the housing crisis, the programme for Government states, "To deter “land hoarding” by developers, we will monitor and benchmark the use by local authorities of the new “Vacant Site Levy” legislated for by the last Government, to take effect from 2018.". In an earlier response, the Tánaiste said the Government had undertaken a comprehensive audit of all State-owned land but how much of the land subject to the vacant site levy is owned by the State? How much will it cost the Office of Public Works, local authorities and NAMA to pay what is, in effect, their own levy?

I do not have that information but I will see if it is available. If it is, we can try to send it on to the Deputy.

A criminal law (sexual offences) Bill is promised and it proposes to provide for presumptive minimum sentences for repeat sexual offenders and to amend an anomaly with respect to penalties for incest. I ask the Tánaiste if and when this legislation will be brought before the House, given its importance.

It is on the priority list and the drafters are working on it. The Deputy can expect progress on it this year.