For the record, since the amendments are grouped we will discuss them together, even though the proposer is absent.

I also want to raise the wind energy issue. Back in the summer the Taoiseach launched the Shannon Estuary economic task force and it is estimated that the cumulative value of all of that wind energy coming in from the most ferocious wind corridor in Europe could be €78 billion. The wind on the Atlantic will never let us down but there is a worry that policy could let us down.

The future framework policy is coming up for consideration in spring 2024 and the ask is that phase 3 includes floating offshore wind, and in particular that the Wild Atlantic Way is looked at. There is also an ask for designated maritime areas where wind can be facilitated. In specific, the Taoiseach needs to give a role to Clare County Council and other local authorities along the western seaboard to lead some of this. It does not all have to be led by the Department; give the council the competency. Let us have …

Yes, I am using six minutes of this time slot. I believe Deputy Seán Haughey is-----

I will not need the full 11. At the outset-----

If Deputy Howlin wants to join us, he could have ten of the minutes.

At the outset, I ask the Tánaiste and the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach to greet Danny, an 11-year-old boy from Liscannor, County Clare, who is stone mad about politics. He has come up to the Dáil today to get a flavour of what life is like here. He has just seen a good ding-dong debate so he has seen a bit of action anyway.

It is good to see Danny. I welcome Katie, his mom, and Ruth, who are also here today. It is great to see young people coming into the House. This House does not belong to the Government or to the Opposition but to the people of Ireland. It is always lovely to see younger members of our citizenry coming in here. I welcome the debate we are having here this afternoon on the Consultative Forum on International Security Policy. I thank the Tánaiste for leading out on it. It is very important. Nothing remains static. Li…

Many parents and staff from Ennistymon Community School have been in touch with my office regarding the withdrawal of funding for school meals as a result of the amalgamation of three schools. Of the three, only the former vocational school had DEIS status and, as a consequence, school meals in place. The school meals were to be temporarily extended to all pupils until the DEIS issue was ironed out but the service has been gone since the Hallowe'en mid-term break. I met the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, the…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. It is important that Ireland exercise its democratic principles as regards constituency boundaries for the next general election. I was fearing the worst. I am from a community in a border area. My children frequently puck a ball over a fence and when I go over the fence, I not only leave my garden, I cross into another parish and another county. At one point I was also crossing into another European Parliament constituency. Many communities gather along border areas…

I thank the Ceann Comhairle. I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Employment (Collective Redundancies and Miscellaneous Provisions) and Companies (Amendment) Bill 2023. The debate is good and positive. I have been following it in my office and in committee rooms throughout the afternoon. I fully support the Bill and Fianna Fáil in government fully supports it. It will further enhance the protection of employees in a collective redundancy scenario. This Bill delivers on a promise in the programme for Government…

In recent months, there has been huge recruitment to An Bord Pleanála and cases are starting to move once again. However there is now a trend where people are appealing the residential zoned land tax, RZLT, which becomes a liable taxation payment on 1 January. All those cases are being appealed to An Bord Pleanála and it is clogging up the system. Last week, 146 cases were decided by An Bord Pleanála, of which 79 related to tax. They had nothing to do with building houses or any sort of development, whether schools…

What plans does the Minister of State have in terms of the Office of Public Works, OPW, carrying out substantial capital works in the Shannon town area? Specifically, I would like to know whether the Minister of State has any plans for the motor taxation office and passport control in the arrivals hall of the airport.

Earlier this year, I visited the motor tax office in Shannon with the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers. It is in a deplorable state. There are basins and buckets in various parts of the corridor. There is water dripping down on some of the computer servers that house the national database for motor taxation. I do not think it is a very safe environment for the people who work in there. It is quite a miserable environment. It is cold and wet at the best of times. It is unsafe when water is dripping down on compute…

I could understand if unit 153 involved some light reconfiguration, but what is going on in there at the moment is heavy reconstruction. This shell of a building will never be able to be used by any other Department now after this work has happened unless the Department gets in the big diggers and pulls it all out again. Going back to the airport, that passport control is the gateway to Ireland. It is where people first interact with Shannon Airport and the Wild Atlantic Way. Most of the airport has been overhauled…

The national development plan saw some projects blocked for ideological reasons. They did not make it in, and yet the Minister and his colleagues in Cabinet had the foresight to put in some enabling text. Sometimes that sentence at the end of a plan facilitates the projects that others would like to kill off. It allows them to proceed. I do not want to get the Minister to comment on specific projects but I hope that spirit of facilitation will continue, and that little sentence at the end of the plan will allow som…

Earlier this year, the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, came to Springfield, County Clare to open the Clonlara flood defence system, for which we had campaigned for more than a decade. We are grateful to him and to his Department. The people in Midleton and elsewhere in Cork who have endured this awful flooding in the past week should be aware that the flood defences planned for our community took many years to deliver, not because of local objections, but because of a man. I will name him. This is a fact. Pete…

It is a planning fact that he held up this flood defence for years.

There must be some pre-qualification rules to ensure that someone at the opposite side of the country cannot object-----

-----and cannot hold up a key critical project. The same thing will repeat itself in Cork.