First, I commend the Ministers, Deputies McGrath and Donohoe, the Ministers of State in their respective Departments and the officials in their Departments who worked tirelessly to deliver this budget last Tuesday. I commend the leaders of the three parties in government. Everybody on this side of the House would acknowledge that there were very serious and intense negotiations between the three leaders but they would not have been doing their duty if they did not bring those negotiations to the very last evening a…

Thank you for allowing me to speak on this, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. At the risk of straying into the Minister's other portfolio, given that we are talking about air quality, I will add to the points made by Deputy Ó Cathasaigh. I have a very strong concern that we do not have a true picture of the effect of traffic on air quality. The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, published a very good report last week. It provides a macro view of air quality across the 116 stations in the country. In a response last week,…

I find it remarkable in this day and age that we have a system whereby every year there is a scramble to find places on school buses and elected representatives of this House and on the local authorities across our country are contacted by concerned parents in their thousands, parents who are rightly worried about how their children will get to school in the upcoming year. It really is not a good system and it is flawed. The fundamental flaw, in my view, is that responsibility for the system sits in the Department …

I wish to ask the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications about his plans to provide funding to increase the number of traffic-sited air pollution monitors in towns and cities, particularly on high-traffic streets, to gather data to help raise awareness of the harm of car fumes and the need for modal shift to active and public transport, and if he will make a statement on the matter.

Notwithstanding the Minister of State's answer and the good work that is being done in the roll-out of air quality monitoring stations across the country, we are looking at a total of 116, which is not a lot given the number of urban areas we have. The latest EPA report highlighted localised concerns around air quality and I do not believe the monitoring system we have now is really picking up the real situation that is there. It needs to be looked at. The Minister of State mentioned the urban transport related wor…

Excellent work is being done in the area of smoky fuels by this Government. We really are turning a corner there but we are not looking closely enough at the air quality issue due to traffic. The analysis in the EPA report simply is not there and it needs to be there to instill confidence in the population that this is being monitored properly. That does not come from the EPA report with respect to traffic air quality. It is a very serious issue. We need to apply as much rigour to the traffic air quality issue as w…

I thank the Minister of State for bringing forward this Bill. I understand it is a technical Bill that transfers all functions for the national gas infrastructure from Ervia to the new publicly owned Gas Networks Ireland. With the transfer of functions, there will be some changes, specifically the inclusion of the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications and the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform as minority stakeholders with 5% of the shares each, while t…

It says something that the very first debate of the new term of this Oireachtas is this Second Stage debate on the legislation for a directly elected mayor for Limerick. It says that this Government intends to get the legislation onto the statute books and hold an election for mayor of Limerick in June of next year, as the Minister of State, Deputy O’Donnell, confirmed in his opening statement. I thank the Minister of State for his efforts in bringing this draft Bill to this point. I have no doubt that as a Limeric…

What welfare measures have been taken in the greyhound sector in the past 12 months, to satisfy the programme for Government commitment that State funding of the sector will be contingent on a guarantee of welfare standards being upheld annually?

My fundamental question is to ask if the Minister is satisfied that the programme for Government commitment is being addressed. He shares the concerns of the public, to put it mildly, when it comes to the greyhound industry and what has been revealed in recent years. Greyhounds are killed annually because they are not fast enough to make it on the track. Dogs are being killed because they get injured. There is widespread use of banned substances to improve performance of greyhounds. Greyhounds are also being export…

I thank the Minister for his answer. I appreciate that he takes the matter seriously, and ask that he continue to do so. It is of particular importance and concern to the public. I ask that he look at the independence of the animal welfare assessment regime. That also needs to be examined on an ongoing basis. The public needs to have confidence that any welfare assessment is independent. If that confidence is not there we are at nothing. I urge that the Minister continue to make this a priority matter. I reiterate …

Will the review of public service broadcasting examine the role of advertising and programme sponsorship on influencing public opinion with respect to climate change, and will the Minister make a statement on the matter?

I commend the Minister on the speed and effectiveness with which she has handled the crisis we are seeing in public service broadcasting. She has played a strong leadership role and she is continuing to play that strong leadership role with the answer she has just given me. That is very welcome news. The influence of advertising sponsorship and product placement is at the very front of the Minister’s mind when it comes to public service broadcasting. As she and all Members of the House will know, money buys influen…

That is very good news. As I understand the Minister, the public will have an opportunity to contribute to the consultation on the Coimisiún na Meán code. With respect to advertising and regulation, we do this all the time and we have done it for very good reason, particularly in the area of public health and most notably with respect to regulating cigarettes and alcohol. There is a strong climate reason to regulate and to have very strong oversight of how money is spent on advertising, programme sponsorship and pr…

I appeal to the background of the Tánaiste as a historian with this suggestion from my home city of Limerick. As a Corkman I do not expect them to know the detail of Limerick as I would do. The medieval spine of Limerick goes from King John's Castle all the way up to St. John's Hospital. That takes in Nicholas Street, Mary Street, Broad Street and John Street. Limerick city was formed around this medieval spine and, unfortunately, it is in a very poor state. Some good work has been done by the council with respect …

First, I commend my Green Party colleague, Deputy Matthews, on bringing forward this Bill. It says something that it is a Green Party Deputy who is introducing this Bill. It speaks to the seriousness that the issue is taken by our party. It also says something that so many Green Party Deputies have turned up to speak on this. It is something we are very serious about in our party because we want to see our towns, villages and our cities, and the buildings in them, brought back to life. It is no surprise that Deputy…

I am sharing time with Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan. The Ceann Comhairle has been around this House a lot longer than I have, but it is fair to say that what we saw last night was quite a rare and remarkable thing. We saw Members across the floor of this House come together and vote together, overwhelmingly, for the nature restoration law. That is something that needs to be acknowledged. We saw last night a political consensus on the importance of restoring nature. If only we could find that consensus with respect…

In my view, Deputy Fitzmaurice, whom I hold in very high esteem and who introduced this motion, represents his community and constituency very well. I can say the same for the cosponsors of the motion, Deputies McNamara and Harkin. However, with respect to them, I believe they are wrong with this motion. The nature restoration law is not the portent of doom that many portray it as; it is critically necessary legislation whose purpose is to restore nature. The reason is that the destruction of nature is the destruct…

I commend my party colleague, the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, for setting the terms of the review of the public service broadcaster. That is a significant and welcome step and we look forward to the outcome of the review. The events of the past three weeks have amplified a niggling concern I have had for quite a while. Last year, I proposed that the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action would hold a series of public sessions on the role of media in climate action. I was in no doubt as to the infl…

I welcome the Bill. Profiteering on war is wrong. We have seen significant profits being recorded by the fossil fuel industry over the past two years, even while energy prices for consumers rose constantly. While I welcome and acknowledge the support from the Opposition for this important Bill, I listened to some of the debate on Tuesday. I do not want to tar all of the Opposition with the same brush, but I was amused by the too little, too late response to the Bill from some in the House. It rang hollow on two pri…