To make it clear to colleagues who have arrived, I am taking the prearranged list first and then will move to give the vacant slots.

I raise an issue that affects many of us around the country, namely ice rinks. In many towns and cities, ice rinks appear at Christmas. Many people visit them from schools and from families who get great joy. They usually last six to eight weeks. This year, they are finding it difficult to get the insurance. Normally their insurance comes through London where ice rinks are able to get it. It is usually between €10,000 and €25,000 for the period. One ice rink operator from Limerick told me he has had no claims over the past 17 years, yet many companies have been quoted €300,000 to operate for the six-week period while some have received quotes that are even greater. When ice rinks are lit up it is very festive. It is associated with the Christmas period. It would be a shame if ice rinks did not operate in Ireland this year. I do not know where we can raise this but it is something that needs to be raised to see if it can be resolved.

I raise matters relating to the HSE. First, I welcome the full reopening of maternity services. I congratulate the Oireachtas women's caucus, Senator Fiona O'Loughlin and the Leader for all their work on this. It is really important and it is way beyond time. The situation was ridiculous.

Second, this morning the Joint Committee on Disability Matters heard incredible testimony from advocates of the personal assistant services. It would do us all well to look back on their testimony, as it was incredibly powerful.

Third, now that maternity services are moving towards a full reopening, I want to raise something that I am personally affected by. We are not doing adequate child development checks. This country has a significant backlog. Children are not being checked. Mothers are getting a booklet in the post outlining where their child should be on the general development scale. No child is general. This is an important issue that we have to start looking at. I have had contact over and back with the HSE. There seems to be no plan to get through the backlog of child development checks. In CHO 8, almost 20,000 children have not been checked. My son is one of those. Thankfully, I do not have any worries about my children. Hearing, sight, clicky hips and many other issues can be seen by parents every day but they might not notice. These development checks are important. This morning's committee meeting was a reminder that when children are left behind, we open a bigger can of worms. I ask the Leader contact the HSE on behalf of the House to ask for the resumption of child development checks.

I thank the Senator. I certainly relate to that matter because my wife does those checks every day.

To follow that theme, I went through a process of speech therapy with a four-year-old on Zoom during lockdown. It was the most bizarre experience of my life. There is a real need to look at the waiting lists that have arisen because of lockdown. There are issues with timelines, particularly for speech therapy, and they will be grossly affected unless we get movement.

I would like to raise amenities in State ownership, specifically the only publicly-owned swimming pool in west Cork. It an amazing amenity that we put nearly €6 million into four years ago. It is state-of-the-art. Unfortunately, we cannot get it open seven days a week. It is closed every Sunday and Monday. If money is put into amenities and we have a public swimming pool in west Cork, the most practical thing would be to put a plan in place that it would be open seven days. The lack of such a business plan is creating chaos, particularly for swimming lessons for people who want the opportunity to learn to swim, young and old. This is a state-of-the-art amenity and it is a disgrace that we do not have the opportunity to use it seven days. We need an explanation for why that is happening. The Government must also step in. It has put money in through sports capital grants for these projects. There must be criteria in place. Local authorities cannot step back and say we can only open five days a week. If they cannot keep it open seven days a week, they should not get the funding. We will have to come down hard to make sure that the local authorities step up to make sure these public amenities can be accessed on a seven-day-a-week model.