It certainly does emphasise the Government's commitment. I welcome the funding that the Minister has delivered. It is very rare for a Minister to deliver such a level of funding in an area such as this. She has played her part. However, I certainly feel, and I agree with the Minister, that it is time for other Departments to chip in, particularly large capital budget Departments like the Departments of Transport and Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Those Departments have a role to play. It cannot just be lef…

I appreciate the efforts that have been made with the Department of Transport. I have been a long-time advocate of the Department of Transport supporting the local improvement scheme. The Department should not have abdicated all responsibility back in 2016. It should have retained its commitment to co-funding the scheme, as far as I am concerned. I wish to acknowledge the efforts that were made over those years by both the current Minister and her predecessor, the former Minister, Deputy Ring, to get the scheme mov…

On a point of order-----

The Question Paper for today has not a single oral question from the Rural Independent Group to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. It is black and white. I have in here in my hand.

I pointed out the truth to these Deputies.

It is in black and white. I challenge any Deputy to look at the first five pages of this document. It is clearly there.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this matter for discussion. It is important to the people of Cromane, County Kerry, on whose behalf I am speaking, that this matter is being discussed in Dáil Éireann. I thank also the Minister for being present to hear the case I am about to make and to discuss the matter. Cromane is a small coastal community in mid-Kerry, overlooking Castlemaine Harbour on the Iveragh Peninsula. Other than for its natural beauty and vibrant mussel fishing industry, it is probably most fam…

I thank the Minister for his very positive answer. I very much welcome the fact that he will come to Cromane to see exactly what we are dealing with and what the people working in the industry must contend with. That is very proactive of him. It is a long journey from Donegal down to Kerry but I assure the Minister it is a very beautiful part of the world and he will enjoy the journey and will be well looked after by the people of Cromane. They might even bring him into Jack's Coastguard as well, which is always wo…

I ask the Taoiseach if the Government would consider introducing a new weapons amnesty. The Taoiseach will recall that he was a member of a Cabinet that introduced an amnesty in 2006. That took hundreds of lethal weapons off the streets at the time - everything from shotguns to knives to all sorts of devices. I am very concerned about the level of knife crime in this city and throughout the country, currently. I feel that an amnesty would take many of those weapons off the streets but also, more importantly, it wou…

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for being here on the graveyard shift and the Minister of State, Deputy Malcolm Noonan, for staying late to take this Topical Issue matter. It is a very important issue that affects thousands of families all over the country. Right now, thousands of local improvement scheme, LIS, roads are awaiting funding to be repaired and brought back to an acceptable standard. There is a misconception that these are private roads and they are often referred to as private roads. The reality in m…

I appreciate the Minister of State's response. I also appreciate that it is not his primary area of expertise. I think it is pertinent that he is in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. That Department can play an enhanced role, as can the Department of Transport. While the intention was positive, it was quite regressive that the local improvement scheme was moved out of the Department of Transport. It is such a large Department with such a large budget that the scheme could have been better of…

I commend Deputies Calleary and Sherlock on tabling these questions. I acknowledge the work of the Minister and Minister of State in trying to resolve this matter but I agree with everything the two Deputies have said. This issue needs to be resolved now. I call on the Ministers to listen to the counterproposal put forward by the unions. This issue has been going on for far too long. It is frustrating and disheartening for people who play a pivotal role in all our communities. I appeal for progress and urgency in t…

I wish to raise the issue of the shortage of quality used cars on the Irish market and the difficulty this is causing consumers, who must pay more for cars than they are worth. Used car retailers are also experiencing severe difficulties trying to import cars from the UK, especially with the extra 10% tariff arising from Brexit. They must also pay the top rate of VAT. There have been VRT changes relatively recently as well. This matter spans a number of Departments. Will the Government take immediate action to exam…

I acknowledge Deputy Ó Cathasaigh for tabling this question and I also want to acknowledge the work of the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, on this. It is a very important development that additional boots on the ground, as the Minister of State put it, will be in place. I thank the Minister and the Minister of State for coming to Killarney so swiftly recently in the aftermath of the devastating fires there. I want to emphasise how important it is that those personnel woul…

My question relates to the considerable number of properties around the country that are currently uninhabitable and have, in some cases, been abandoned for a long time. It is not viable for first-time buyers to purchase and do them up. It is a crying shame that we have so many vacant properties all over Ireland, yet it is too expensive to get them up to the proper standards. We need to be more imaginative and that is why I am asking the Minister to engage with the Department of Finance to see what can be done to a…

I thank the Minister of State. It is welcome that the help-to-buy scheme would be expanded because it is a good scheme. It would make sense to do that where properties have been vacant for, for example, two years. I also feel that an expansion of what worked under the home renovation incentive, HRI, scheme, that is, tax relief on the VAT on materials and labour, in respect of such properties for first-time buyers would be very welcome. A long number of years ago, I helped to draw up what became the repair and leasi…

Town centres are very important but there are also huge numbers of properties scattered all over the countryside. Such a scheme could very well apply to those properties. I will also add another suggestion. Right now, under planning laws, a person can extend at the rear of a building without planning. I believe the dimensions are approximately 400 square feet. It might make sense to double that exemption in rural areas, and perhaps within a 50 km zone, and increase the dimensions by 50% to 800 square feet in a rura…

I add my voice to the condemnation of what has been happening in Hungary and Poland recently. I encourage the Minister to keep up his work on highlighting our outrage at what has been happening. Last night, as I arrived back in Leinster House from here, the Pride flag was being shone on our Parliament Buildings. This is the position we need to maintain. We need to be a beacon for the rest of Europe and the rest of the world, that we stand in solidarity with those people who feel so marginalised by what has happened…

I welcome what the Minister said about universal agreement across the House, which we rarely get. On this issue it is very encouraging to see. I also wish to acknowledge the Houses of the Oireachtas authorities for their work at this time. Members of the LGBTQI+ community have seen the Pride flag flying in the Parliament, and it will be in place over the weekend. It means an awful lot to people. In the context of the current situation in some countries in Europe, for us to that do that in our Parliament is very imp…

I am sure that the Taoiseach will agree that the incident involving Danish footballer, Christian Eriksen, ten days ago was very distressing to watch. It reminded us all how such tragic events can occur in everyday life. It can happen to anybody. In the course of my work, one of the issues that is raised frequently is the lack of supports for community groups that provide defibrillators. I acknowledge, in particular, that the sports capital programme, along with other funds, provides assistance in the purchase of de…