There is an extensive plan outlined for a wide range of areas across Cork. The Minister of State outlined the back and forth with the Ballyvourney and Ballymakeera plan. Is there a fast-track approach available to advance it through the planning process once the design is finalised? The work in that area is very much needed. There were hopes to advance works in Ballingeary and Inchigeelagh. It has been moved to a tranche 2 scheme and, in the meantime, some smaller remedial works are being conducted. Will the Minist…

While there is much prestige and more money involved with the larger schemes, the smaller schemes have huge impact in areas such as Crookstown, Curraheen and Ardcahan Bridge. One of the key roads into west Cork is via Crookstown, the R585. When that floods, it shuts out a significant flow of traffic from west Cork. The council is awaiting approval from the OPW. Will the Minister of State give an indication if the OPW can give the council the go-ahead? Funding for the Ardcahan Bridge works is available from the Depa…

There is definitely a growing demand among the public for public EV charging points, from people living in apartments to tourist destinations to car parks. Macroom Town Council, for example, led on this a number of years ago and installed one of the first charging points in Cork. I acknowledge the Minister has made funding available to local authorities. However, there seems to be little interest among local authorities in accessing it. In the past year, only two of them accessed the funding and less than half made…

This forestry Bill aims to speed up the appeals process that has been clogged for the past year and more. The position with delayed applications and appeals was allowed to fester by the previous Government and it really needs to be tackled so we can get planting and felling moving once again. The supply of timber has been dwindling and jobs are very much at risk locally. For example, in Lissarda people have been put on a three-day week and many harvesters have been parked throughout the summer around me. The vast b…

The Garda station in Macroom is very much showing its age. The need to upgrade and to replace the station has been very well established over a number of years. That is why it was included in the capital programme for the period from 2016 to 2021. Even though the land was bought some five years ago, very little progress, if any, seems to have been made in advancing the project. The Department of Justice and Equality was to confirm that it was a priority project. Can that now be confirmed? Is it a priority project? …

Considerable energy has been added to the project since it was promoted to a new divisional headquarters. The divisional headquarters will serve the entire county of Cork, one eighth of the entire island. The Minister of State can well imagine the additional demand on the station. I imagine he will well understand the frustration locally, having seen little progress on this project for several years. It is good that new energy is coming to it at this stage and I thank him for that. Can he clarify who the different …

There has been engagement with the county council in respect of the planning, preparation and design. Will the Minister of State clarify whether it will be a county council application? Will it be an OPW Part 9 fast-track process? Can such a fast-track process be used? We have seen so much lost time on the project over several years. Could the fast-track process be used to move this along? How soon will we be able to see the much-needed Garda station project advance to planning and tender? Can the Minister of State…

The wider mid-Cork area is well recognised as an area of significant population growth. A range of bus services operate in the area but there are well recognised difficulties with the overall level of service. A number of places do not have a regular service, there are problems with the frequency of services and some villages have no service at all. We need an established plan to improve those services. Will the Minister outline how he proposes to improve bus access for people across mid-Cork? They need to have rea…

I thank the Minister for that overview. As he points out, the Macroom service was one of the services identified as being particularly problematic and as offering an opportunity for growth in serving villages such as Ballingeary, Inchigeelagh, Kilmurry, Crookstown, Cloughduv, Aherla and on down to Killumney and Coachford. If one wants to get in and out to Cork city from Coachford, for example, one can get a bus in the morning at 7.40, but to get back home again, one has to be out of the city before 1 p.m. It is not…

I very much agree with the Minister on supporting services in and out of Macroom. Ballingeary and Inchigeelah only have one bus to Macroom per day, which leaves people having to return home very early in the day. In the absence of bus options, we see huge tailbacks at the Ballincollig bypass near the EMC facility and at Leemount Cross. Macroom is being choked. Bus services to both of those villages need to be improved. People also want to be able to get in and out to Cork and that bus service needs to be advanced. …

I want to raise the issue of the TB strategy 2030 which is committed to in the programme for Government. Separately, it seems the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has gone ahead and issued correspondence to livestock owners across the country in recent weeks. Farmers are very concerned about this correspondence. They feel it devalues the status of the entire herd. The unsigned correspondence allows them to identify the TB status of other herd owners if they bought cattle from them and it also points o…

I wish to focus on three areas, namely, the community and voluntary sector, transport and mobility and broadband. Broadband is a major issue for so many rural communities and has been thus for many years. The recent increase in working and studying from home has further intensified the problems and has highlighted the broadband black spots. While additional bandwidth has been made available and wireless connections have improved, the black spots remain where wireless coverage is not available. Is there any way that…

The situation with childcare is a growing concern for parents, so much so that many are very upset trying to figure out what the plan is and where they are going to go with this. They are already struggling to balance changing shifts, using up holidays, reducing their hours and many different ways to try and cope with this situation. It is not exclusively an issue for front-line workers. As more people return to places of work, this is a greater concern for more families. Tá brú ollmhór ar dhaoine maidir leis an ts…

Ar an gcéad dul síos, ba mhaith liom mo chomhghairdeas a dhéanamh leis an gCeann Comhairle as a bheith atofa. Léiríonn an vóta ollmhór an t-ardmheas atá ag na daoine go léir air. I wish to thank the people of Cork North-West for their trust and support in the election. It was some time ago but this is my first opportunity to speak in the Thirty-third Dáil. I wish to acknowledge their support and thank my campaign team. Students who appeal the decision on their exam results, and then go on to sit the written exam an…