Before I begin, I acknowledge our good friend and colleague, Deputy Fergus O'Dowd. I echo what the Cathaoirleach said about his immense contribution to public life in this country, which will have an indelible legacy. I welcome his guests.

I congratulate wholeheartedly our new Deputy Leader. I have no doubt he will bring his vast experience as a Dáil Deputy, Government Chief Whip, Minister and genuinely decent, kind, sincere person to the job of Deputy Leader. In the last number of months of this House, we need solid, dedicated and firm leadership. I know Seán Kyne very well and know that he will provide that leadership. I wish him well. We will all do what we can to help and support him. The Seanad is a great place and we can certainly make it even better by working together.

I wish to highlight an important issue in the mid-west. The Deputy Leader, being from a neighbouring county, will understand the challenges and difficulties with UHL, where there are 100 people on trolleys every single day. About a month before the local and European elections, the Minister for Health announced he was sending HIQA in to carry out an emergency capacity review in the mid-west, yet we have had no timelines and do not know when the review is to commence and conclude. We do not know when to expect recommendations and when to expect those recommendations to be acted on. We were told we would have to wait until the report on other matters was concluded before the terms of reference would be put together. I do not know what the terms of reference are. Most of us here would be able to write the terms of reference at this stage, given our knowledge of the seriousness of what is pertaining in UHL.

I want to know what is going on with the HIQA review. The Minister needs to come in here and make a statement on it. We need to get the dates and timelines and know the terms of reference. We also need an overall update on the situation in UHL because the problem in the mid-west now is that, although there is a lot of good work happening in other parts of the healthcare system in the mid-west, the public have lost confidence in all of it because of what is happening in the emergency department in UHL. That is a great pity. It is a great pity for the thousands of people who are working with might and main day and night to provide top-level care in the mid-west region because all of them are being tainted at this stage, and the public have lost confidence in the system. It is hard to blame them when we see what is going on.

What I want are statements with the Minister for Health on UHL. However, what we really need are answers on what is going on with the HIQA report that was announced. We were told HIQA was to carry out an investigation, yet we have not got a clue about what is happening.

I join others in congratulating Senator Kyne on his appointment as Deputy Leader of the Seanad. I wish him well. He is a very experienced politician and I have no doubt that he will have no problem with the job.

I support the Order of Business and welcome that, at last, we are to start engaging on the Planning and Development Bill 2023. I look forward to respectful and meaningful engagement across the Houses on it. Yes, we will have differences of opinion.

The Deputy Leader will recall that we met in the west of Ireland last week. I spent a week there after that and had the opportunity of travelling all along the western seaboard. A recurring theme was the need for one-off rural housing and the promise of the current and previous Governments regarding the rural housing guidelines, with which the Deputy Leader will be very familiar because he lives in one of our most rural parts and has served the rural community of Galway county. This is important and we should have a debate on it. It will feed somewhat into our debate this afternoon but the officials tell me it really has nothing to do with it. Despite this, we are talking about proper planning and sustainable development, be it urban, regional or local. That is important. I look forward to the debate this afternoon.

The other key issue related to housing I want to bring to the Deputy Leader’s attention is the so-called fast-track planning process that we had involving An Bord Pleanála, the famous board whose reform we are going to discuss this afternoon. Despite this, we do not fully understand the difficulties and problems it has, because it entails an ongoing process. It is all not quite connecting as it should be. I have in front of me a spreadsheet listing over 20,000 residential unit applications stuck in An Bord Pleanála awaiting a decision. We have a housing crisis in this country and are talking about reforming our planning system and bringing speedier and more timely processes into the process, yet we have sat on these applications for a number of years. There are 20,000 residential unit applications sitting in An Bord Pleanála this very day that we need expedited. I am not looking for a favourable decision or a rejection but simply a determination so we can plan for these houses. The developers can organise the necessary funding to build and the critical infrastructure needed. That is another very important issue.

These are two issues on which I ask that we continue to remain focused. I will certainly be raising them this afternoon.

Again, I wish Senator Kyne well.