I call Senator Gavan.

I was delighted to attend, with some of my colleagues from the Dáil, the momentous and historic occasion last Saturday when Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill was elected First Minister with the DUP’s Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly. With many others, I witnessed first-hand epoch-making events. It was a day like no other in Ireland’s long and conflicted history; a day of great hope for the people of Ireland and of great opportunity for a new beginning. It was a great day for the Good Friday Agreement and its all Ireland and east-west institutions; a great day for reconciliation between the nationalist and unionist people and others of no declared aspiration. It was a great opportunity for local politicians to bring their collective skills to bear to resolve the many social and economic problems that people of the North are experiencing, in a similar way to the elected representatives in this Chamber and the Dáil on behalf of the people who elect us.

Last Saturday, the framework of the Good Friday Agreement had new democratic life breathed into it in the Assembly’s Chamber when the mandate of the people was respected and a Government was elected to work in conjunction with the Irish Government in the exercise of its duties across Ireland and between Ireland and Britain. With an eye to our tragic past, Michelle O’Neill’s election was a moment which was not supposed to happen because of Britain’s partition of Ireland and the system of injustice and discrimination that maintained the unionist state but far-reaching change is now rooted among the people of the North. I look forward to seeing all the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement operating in full and, alongside this work, Sinn Féin and the SDLP will continue to campaign for constitutional change and a referendum North and South to peacefully bring about a unified and independent Ireland, a referendum which is a pillar of the Good Friday Agreement. I call for a debate on how we can best support the important work of the Assembly.

The second issue I wish to raise is one that I must have risen to bring up 100 times by now, namely the continued and abject failure of this Government when it comes to University Hospital Limerick. I would not have believed that we could reach the stage we did yesterday with 150 patients languishing on trolleys. The record of failure is consistent and it gets worse year after year, month after month, and I hold Stephen Donnelly wholly responsible for this. This is a Minister who denies the INMO figures and has done so in this Chamber. He is in denial about the state of failure across University Hospital Limerick and we are losing lives as a result of this failure. He has had four years to actually implement measures. Even today, if you ask the Government what is its plan to deal with this crisis, it simply does not have one. I am calling, as I have done before, for an emergency debate on University Hospital Limerick. I hope I have the support of everyone in this Chamber for that debate given how appalling the circumstances are. I want to call here, publicly, for Stephen Donnelly to resign. He has failed and failed the people in Limerick and the mid west in the most abject manner.

I also welcome the restoration of the Northern Ireland Executive. The opening remarks of both Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly were very inclusive. I think we wish them all the best in their work. I also want to wish a special best of luck to Andrew Muir, a friend of mine who is the first openly gay Minister, as the new Minister for Agriculture. I know he has already set to work. It is important that this House does wish them the best in their work.

I want to raise the Irish Independent story which has been covering the shortages of GPs, particularly in rural areas. This is something I have raised before. It is an ongoing issue. In my own local area in north Wexford, one of the fastest growing areas in the country, one of the GP practices no longer takes anyone new onto its practice lists.

Many of those who have moved into the north Wexford area have to keep their GP links wherever their GPs were originally. I am conscious, and it is very welcome, that the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, is ramping up the number of GP training places this year to 350, which is up 35% on last year, and that the Government has increased significantly the number of places in undergraduate medicine that are available, but they will take a bit of time to come through the system. We need to look at the graduate medicine programme and perhaps some ways whereby, in the funding of students who go through that, if they enter into GP practice, the State will cover the costs of their training on the graduate medical programme. I would like a debate about the question of general practice and its availability. This is critical. Ours is a growing country, but it is important that everybody has access to his or her local GP.