Not a single reference.

No, it will not. Deputy O'Reilly was not at the committee meeting.

Questions Nos. 99, 101, 104, 107 and 114 are related and will be taken together. I am informed there is an error in the list in front of me and I must ask the House if Deputy Murnane O'Connor will be allowed to contribute to the discussion on this group as a questioner as opposed to a supplementary questioner. Is that agreed? Agreed. I understand Deputy Ó Cuív is substituting for Deputy Murnane O'Connor.

Twelve months ago this week, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, published the public consultation process for the domestic, sexual and gender-based violence policy of the State. Would the Tánaiste accept it is a political and societal imperative that this policy is published as soon as possible so that not just the Department but Members of the Oireachtas can begin the process of implementing the findings of the publication, in order that we can collectively do our best to eradicate this scourge on our society?

May I raise a point of order? Not for the first time, although it is the first time in respect of the Minister's Department, my question has been grouped with Deputy Haughey's question, which is identical to the previous two questions, which were also grouped, and which is identical to the priority question the Minister has already answered. That means the Minister is now going to revisit the question for a third time. It is a dreadful waste of the Minister's time and absolutely a waste of mine. I know it is not in…

I understood it was the Department, but if it is the Bills Office, I point my ire at it.

I understood it was.

Like my colleague, Deputy Calleary, I want to focus my attention on the consequences of the public service pay talks in the context of a cost-of-living crisis. Where we would like to see the Government head with these talks is towards targeted measures at lower-income public servants, the threshold for which I will allow the Department and others to decide. If we are to be realistic about the effect of public service pay increases at this time, we need to target them at those who need it most, as opposed to those i…

My focus is similar to that of my colleague. What level of consideration does the Department give, in the context of the public service pay deal, and with the backdrop of the various tax measures that may be implemented in the October budget? As Deputy Calleary correctly pointed out, the difficulties in recruitment at certain grades and levels within the public service right across the board are of real concern. Many cite pay as the primary reason for not taking up posts. To be sector-specific, in the context of th…

I thank the Minister of State for her comments, which I welcome. I know she has brought a determination to the role and it is extremely important that the Minister of State with responsibility for special education has that determination because it is an extremely important role. I appreciate her efforts. As the Minister of State knows, I have a very particular personal and professional interest in the support of children with additional needs. It is important as a State that we recognise that thus far, we have not…

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate, although I somewhat echo the comments of Deputy Bruton on the retrospective look being a little too far back. I hope we can amend that in future years. I had the opportunity to attend a youth climate action debate in the Seanad Chamber. It was a feature of the climate action committee’s outreach on the subject. I am sure the Minister of State is aware of it. It was a reminder of the anxiety, worry and urgency that young people feel about climate change. Through…

The response of the Minister of State to the grouped questions is very welcome. The key question for us in the context of a cost-of-living crisis is to ask whether the fare reductions that have already been introduced are sustainable. I welcome the Minister of State's comments that she would very much like to see them being extended into 2023 but that is, I suppose, a budgetary decision that we will make in October. The statistics that the Minister of State has been supplied with by the providers across the country…

I thank the Minister of State again. It is essential that we as a Government support the reduction in the burden on people, particularly in the context of the cost-of-living crisis. I, of course, welcome the 50% existing reduction for students and the 20% reduction for everybody else and I would very much like to see that continue into 2023 and beyond. If further scope is available to us in the sustainability of the fare reductions I would like us to do it on an ongoing basis and that it would become a cornerstone …

While BusConnects is controversial in certain places, it really is not in others. We cannot wait for it on the north side, if I am quite honest, although there are a few pinch points along certain routes such as the Swords Road and the Malahide Road. I asked the NTA recently about the Swords Road. It serves Dublin Airport and is critical in serving the emerging city that is Swords. I was told it would be the end of 2024 before we would see that route being introduced. I must admit that this is a little bit of a dis…

I welcome the Minister of State's response. I understand the need to carry out further research when the scheme is bedded in. Two or three weeks ago, I raised the need to ensure certainty for the second half of the academic year in 2023. I encourage the Government to make a policy decision on ongoing fare reductions, as long as it is sustainable to do so, as I outlined in my prior remarks on the subject. To pick up on Deputy O'Donnell's point about private operators, there is a fantastic operator in my constituency…

We need to re-evaluate the carrot approach in order to remove people from larger electric vehicles. The electric equivalent of even the smallest combustion engine car on the market is heavier and that applies in the vast majority of cases. The approach of using existing taxation to help people to purchase a particular car because that is their tax point, as well as the taxation effect that affects the ability of people in the upper echelons to purchase a vehicle, needs to be re-evaluated as the State's means of dis…

The difficulty many of us have, which we have articulated here or at meetings of the committee over recent weeks, is that whatever about the redundancies offered in 2020, the DAA knew by 2021 that it was looking at an uptake in numbers. Therefore, it was completely illogical for it to have 1,400 passengers miss flights in May 2022 as a result of its inaction over the previous 12 months. It just does not make any sense. Representatives of the DAA told us at one point during the course of last week or the week before…

The marquees in terminal 1 and elsewhere are covering up the disorganised chaos we saw that Sunday in May. It is now organised chaos. While 1,400 people might not have missed their flights, turnaround times at the airport are unreasonably long because the DAA still does not have the necessary staff. The end of the month is rapidly approaching. A commitment from the Government and from the Minister to really ramp up the pressure on the DAA in regard to what we might expect in July is of key importance at this stage.

I welcome this debate, although the change to the title has caused some problems, which were entirely foreseeable. Therefore, I am quite surprised that the issue of the day was not front and centre in the Minister's contribution, but I will come back to that. I lend my support to the students of Ireland on the fare reduction scheme currently in place. I would like very much for that scheme to be continued to incentivise further the students to use public transport to get more people out of their cars. Most Members …

I thank Deputy Kerrane for her question on this interesting topic of which I was unaware. I am pleased to hear there is a policy brewing in this regard. It would be of great benefit to a great number of rural companies in the northern part of Fingal which have benefited from a great deal of investment in recent years. I am not sure how much joined-up thinking there has been with regard to those benefits. I would welcome the publication of the report the Minister has mentioned.