Government Departments are telling lies.

I welcome the opportunity to speak to the motion and thank People Before Profit for bringing it forward. Families and workers in the midlands and across Laois and Offaly must contend with increased fuel costs and the worry of how to keep the heating and lights on this winter. Our region in particular will be hit hard. Unfortunately, the Government continues to implement proposals that disproportionately hurt lower-income families, rural households and the elderly without providing affordable and accessible alternat…

I concur with what has been said by the previous speaker. This is a significant blow in the local area. The Deputy referred to County Offaly. There will also be a significant effect in County Laois, since there is an effect on the workforce. Almost 90 people were working in that business. It is a sustainable business, with long-serving staff, some of them with up to three decades of service, on the Laois-Offaly border. Glenisk is a strong brand. Anybody who likes yoghurt will know that. It is a sustainable brand. I…

I welcome the response about State agencies and particularly the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. That is essential. I also urge that the Department of Social Protection provide a liaison because there are 90 households without an income today and this week. Everything is destroyed, including offices. Those people will need every assistance in the short term and hopefully the company can get back up and running again. Glenisk is exactly the kind of company that we want in Ireland. It is a local compa…

I welcome the opportunity to address the motion. The constituency that I represent, Laois-Offaly, has witnessed the healthcare system struggle consistently for years. This is despite the exceptional work of the front-line staff in the services. There are now almost 30,000 people in Laois and Offaly on hospital waiting lists. This is from a population of 150,000. In Laois, 13,411 are on outpatient waiting lists and 2,038 are on inpatient waiting lists. In Offaly, 11,572 are on outpatient waiting lists and 1,709 are …

I raise the problem with ambulance services in Laois-Offaly. There have been a number of cases over the past two years of very long delays and, in one case, a no-show. One case was an elderly man in Clonaslee left lying in a yard. That went on for over two hours. There was a case in Rathaniska in a sports field involving a massive delay. There was a case in Portlaoise recently where there was a no-show to pick up the injured party. They had been advised by the ambulances services not to move the injured person. The…

I thank the Minister of State for his response and join the other Deputies in thanking the ambulance crews and the staff for the absolutely magnificent work they have done over the past year, in particular the past year and a half. As for the reply, the Minister of State said that while Laois-Offaly has between five and nine "vehicle resources", which can mean cars as well, support is also provided by other crews from Athy, Roscrea, Athlone, etc. The problem is that the region has been left exposed because at times…

-----and staff. The distance factor-----

-----needs to be pushed on. Lastly, we need to prioritise deployment in terms of fine-tuning that.

I want to raise with the Minister the crisis in the timber industry and the forestry industry. Farmers cannot get a felling licence. Over 5,000 licences are held up in the system. One case I have is three years waiting and the forestry is nearly within a stone's throw of a sawmill that is importing timber from Scotland. The reality is sawmills are importing from abroad where there are forests within a four-to-five mile radius of them that need to be cut. It has gone past the time to do so. Confidence has collapsed …

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill and I commend Deputy Eoin Ó Broin on bringing it forward. The facts are that consecutive Governments have failed to provide affordable homes across the country on the scale that is required to address the housing crisis. There has not been one single affordable home delivered in Laois-Offaly in almost 15 years and there does not appear to be any plan in place for cost rental projects in either county. The Government, just like its predecessors, seems either incapable …

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill, at which I had a good look today. Many homeowners across my constituency of Laois-Offaly are experiencing serious financial hardship, not just with huge debts on houses but because the last 18 months of Covid have meant a huge hit on their income. For many of those families, the recent announcement by the Government regarding the local property tax has caused further distress and concern. The truth is that the local property tax is a tax on the family home, not on we…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill, which is about easing the pressure on renters by bringing in a three-year rent freeze. It can be done, as has been shown during Covid. We have witnessed a massive escalation in rental costs across the country, including Laois-Offaly, over the past decade. People need a rent freeze to give them a break. Since 2013, rents in County Laois have increased by 85.4% and in County Offaly by 67.2%. Those are whopping increases by any standards. This surge in rental costs has p…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this legislation. While Sinn Féin supports the Bill, we also think it fails to address many of the larger problems and issues that plague our planning process and slow down housing developments. Local authority county development plans must be the primary documents, as councils are democratically elected and accountable to the local community. It is infuriating to see their authority being diminished and their powers bypassed over time as key decisions continue to be transferre…

The Bill before us is important and has some welcome measures but rents continue to rise. Figures released recently by Daft.ie highlight that rents continue to escalate massively in Laois-Offaly. Despite Covid, rents in Laois went up by 3.4% in the past 12 months while in Offaly they shot up by 6.6%. This comes on top of skyrocketing increases during the previous five years. Sinn Féin welcomes the decision by the Government today to extend the emergency eviction ban until 2022, but this ban should be extended to al…

I wish to raise with the Taoiseach the fact that massive wind turbines are still being built across the country. They are up to 600 ft in height and are being built on sites very close to dwellings. They are being built using outdated 2006 guidelines that were designed to cover small turbines of less than 50 m in height. The way things are going, the Laois and Offaly area will soon become the wind turbine capital of the country. That is not an argument against wind turbines or wind energy. I have been chasing the i…

-----to finalise and publish the revised Guidelines as quickly as possible." The problem is that the Government is closing the barn door when the horse has bolted.

I am almost finished. We need proper regulations. We saw what happened with Wild West-style development with housing and we are still dealing with the economic consequences of that. I appeal to the Taoiseach to ensure that wind turbine guidelines and regulations are put in place. When will we see that being delivered?

They have had eight years.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. A national recovery plan is important and I want to focus on the training and apprentice element. I want to raise the importance of training and proper apprenticeships, and I emphasis “proper apprenticeships” as we attempt to recover and emerge from the pandemic. We are in a housing crisis and it will only get more demanding. It will require an army of workers. Hundreds of thousands of homes must also be retrofitted. However, there is a shortage of construction…