I thank the Minister of State for taking this Topical Issue this evening. I am not sure if he has been to Sallins, County Kildare. I know he has had many a nice day in Kildare previously. Sallins is a growing town with a population of over 6,000 according to the most recent census. The Minister of State can imagine the news in 2024 when the community was awarded €3 million as part of the large-scale sport infrastructure fund, LSSIF. It promised to be a very exciting time for the community. The town is served well b…

You can see it in the response - "The Department anticipates the project will pass approval gate 1 in the coming weeks" - but it is two years since the funding was secured. I will emphasise a couple of points. From the Sallins perspective, it is Kildare County Council running this. It is not a community group that may or may not have the time. It is the local authority running this project. How can the local authority not be trusted, having to put it through so many hoops or what you might want to call "gateways"? …

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this important legislation. I join colleagues in welcoming Mr. French and his family and colleagues to the Gallery. We are here to honour Valerie and her family for their enduring commitment and to honour Valerie's children. This is a very rare occasion, certainly in my short spell as a TD, to see such overwhelming support across the House for legislation. I commend the Minister and his officials on the short time it has taken from the publication of the programme for G…

I thank the Minister for being here this morning, for her detailed contribution and for meeting the party in advance of this debate. I also commend Deputy Cairns and my friends and colleagues in the party for bringing forward what is, as we have said, the wording from a report commissioned by the Government. This is what we are trying to do. In my political naivety, I thought the days when we asked women to share personal stories of trauma in order to enact legislative reform were behind us. Notwithstanding many of…

Did the Minister say it would not pass a vote?

I ask for clarification.

What I have learned, as a still relatively new TD, is that when legislation such as this comes before the House, the Government either amends it into an abyss or it goes to the next Stage to have what I think we can all agree is something of a meritable debate. It needs to debated further. We all have different opinions and conclusions. As part of that, we bring in the expertise and the different stakeholders and talk it through. It would be deeply regrettable to say "Goodbye" to this legislation when a committee r…

The student council from Scoil an Linbh Íosa in Prosperous is in the Public Gallery today. Those students have written this question directly. I am merely reading it out for them. It is their words. They ask: We do enough work in school. Our teachers agree. Children, families and teachers are so busy in the evenings. We want to promote well-being and nurture our hobbies and skills as children. There is no expectation that adults bring their work home, so why must children? Will this Government consider putting an e…

Today, Social Justice Ireland has launched its national social monitor painting a very damning picture for young people in this country aged 18 to 24. Rising youth homelessness and decades of underinvestment in mental health services are just some of the issues. I ask for statements on these issues facing young people aged 18 to 24.

I thank the Deputy.

We are moving to the Labour Party.

Is that agreed? Agreed.

I commend Deputy Gogarty on bringing forward this motion. The Irish State can no longer facilitate children and young people being silenced within the courts system. I have read the in camera rule report commissioned by the Minister's Department and published by UCC and Trinity College Dublin in May of last year. It is undoubtedly research of fundamental importance that cuts to the heart of our family law system, most specifically problematic interpretations of the in camera rule. As Dr. Aisling Parkes said when la…

That is the Deputy’s time up.

It is time for Tusla to undergo a complete and independent review. I have heard from too many social workers in Tusla who are worried about the reforms recently undertaken. We have heard from too many judges who are frustrated at a lack of action regarding court orders and, most recently, we have heard from too many young people who have shared their harrowing experiences of involvement in State care. Does the Taoiseach have full and unreserved confidence in Tusla because I do not? We must be able to trust Tusla's …

I thank the Minister of State for being here this evening to take this question. I appreciate that. The Minister of State will not need me to tell him that the people of Kildare and the eastern region are sincerely sick and tired of waking up to dry taps. In Kildare, in particular, we have had such consistent outages over the past number of weeks and months in many different areas that frustration is really at boiling pint at this stage. For context, we saw in the census very recently that Kildare's population 100 …

I thank the Minister of State for that response. Even in Kildare, you can see the impact of that funding. You can see the works happening from a capital perspective, whether it is roadworks or significant works that are happening to unlock that residential development within the county. The problem is we are midway through that in Kildare and I wonder whether the capacity is increasing at reservoir level. That is a concern for me as a wider piece. The Minister of State might come back in on that. The bit that irks …

We now enter a 20-minute question-and-answer session with the Minister of State.

I thank the Minister of State. We are getting through time so let us keep to it. I call Deputy Boyd Barrett.

The last couple of Deputies will have 30 seconds each to make sure we get everybody in. I call Deputy Healy-Rae.