I am delighted to hear of the development of a smart green aviation ecosystem. We must be with the trends and ahead of other countries in trying to capture some of the money that will follow this trail. There have been many new points coming from COP26 but one of the take-home points is that money will follow the greening of industry, aviation and pretty much all sectors in society. We can consider the carbon dioxide outputs of aviation. Overall, commercial aviation accounts for 2.5% of global carbon outputs. We mi…

I will be hard pushed to use seven minutes, so I will follow the lead of Deputy Nash in that regard. I apologise to Deputy Shortall. I think I have taken the seat of the leader of the Social Democrats. I did not mean to do so but I like this seat. It is like the front row of the circus as we get to see people when we are talking to them, which is important. It also carries a level of risk.

I think I am already on the left. Sitting here carries a risk.

I have noticed on the cameras in the last few weeks that the bald patch is visible when sitting here but if I am up at the back of the Chamber, I can pretend I am younger and still have thatch on the roof. To make a serious point, this is a technical Bill. It is not the most exciting thing we will do over the next 48 hours in the Dáil. I support the Bill, as does my party in government, because it ratifies amending agreements to the European Stability Mechanism treaty and the Single Resolution Fund intergovernmenta…

I wish to speak in support of this legislation. It is very positive. I was someone who up to ten months ago took off every day from Clare in my diesel Honda car and drove to the gates of Dáil Éireann but in recent months I have embraced multimodal transport. This morning I took the car to the train station, from which I took the train to Heuston Station and then I took a bike. I have seen some unusual behaviour as I have pedalled along the quays. On one occasion I met our colleague, Deputy Jim O’Callaghan, who was …

I congratulate the Minister, Deputy Harris. He has great energy in the Department and a good, driving team around him. I say well done on that. As a teacher, part of me still believes there should be one Department of Education from top to bottom. I know some would say that some days it makes sense to have two separate Departments but on days such as World Science Day it probably does not make sense. That is just my personal view as a teacher; it is not the view of the Government. I have always held the view that r…

I might be substituting in his local school before we know it. The day was an eye-opener. The teachers I saw were doing everything they have done so well for many years, but now with added pressures and strains. I have a suggestion to make to the Minister. When I was walking down the corridors last Friday there were two trainee teachers, one at the junior end of the school and the other at the senior end. They were locked into classrooms teaching rigid lessons that were given to them by the training colleges. They …

I raise the closure of the Doolin Coast Guard station in County Clare on Tuesday. This fabulous Coast Guard station opened in 2015 at a cost of around €2 million. There are 18 people working there, nearly all of whom are volunteers. Six of them resigned this week due to: "... irreconcilable divisions that have unfortunately existed within the unit for a number of years". That spake is coming from the Irish Coast Guard itself. I urge the Government, the Minister and the Minister of State at the Department of Transpo…

I wish to go a little off the programme with my contribution vis-à-vis what others have said. In the last 12 months, the Irish Government and its counterparts in Europe have looked at the issue of supply chains in the context of making vaccines available to Europe and dispersing them throughout the EU. This has been very successful. Many potholes were met along the way, particularly in the early days. We saw with both Oxford and Janssen how difficult it was at times to get supplies into the country but that has all…

Deputy O'Donoghue, have you spoken?

There are other speakers, unfortunately.

Deputies Funchion, Martin Kenny, Ward and Ó Laoghaire are sharing time.

We must adjourn the debate for the sos. It will be the Labour Party speaking slot when we reconvene.

I wish to go slightly off script at the beginning and commend the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan. When we have statements or a discussion in this Chamber, Ministers and Ministers of State do not generally move outside their ministerial area to comment. However, the Minister of State has every right to lead the discussion here this evening given the immense courage she showed last July when she stood in the convention centre and declared that she had been a victim of sexual harassment and assault. I commend her o…

I begin by joining others in congratulating the Minister and his wife, Caoimhe, on the birth of their son, Cillian. I am sure that it is a busy and sleepless time for him and I wish him all the very best. My question is to ask the Minister or the Minister of State to provide an overview of how the University of Limerick, UL, will expand into County Clare in the years to come.

I thank the Minister. It is now 17 years since I graduated from UL. At the time I went there it was very much a Limerick campus. It was in Castletroy but its footprint has extended into County Clare. It is widely believed the campus is now at saturation point on the Limerick side. It has very little room to expand unless it starts knocking and rebuilding some of its facilities or building on playing pitches. Thus the future of the campus is on the County Clare side. Clare County Council, in co-operation with other …

UL has produced thousands of aviation graduates. The same can be said for Limerick Institute of Technology, now part of the Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands Midwest. It would be remiss of me to not mention that this morning as I will shortly head out to meet the chief executives of Lufthansa Technik and of Atlantic Aviation Group. Yesterday we had a double-edged sword announcement in the region. For many years, 485 people have been employed by Lufthansa Technik. They have been hugely hampered and d…

I am sharing time with Deputy Griffin and will be taking six minutes. The Minister and Minister of State represent the two sectors most ravaged by Covid. It has been predicted by those within those industries that the post-Covid recovery could take three or four years. That is certainly the case in respect of aviation. There has been a little bit of a bounce back in the tourism sector as a result of domestic tourism and the whole concept of staycations. That has been excellent but we will not see a full recovery un…

Some weeks ago the Government approved a transfer of Shannon Heritage sites out of the Shannon Group to local authorities in the mid west. This was a positive development. A lengthy due diligence process is under way, which we thought would end around 31 December and which could now run until March. In that interim period from January to March, Shannon Heritage and Shannon Group are talking about closing these sites again. This is unthinkable, commercially unwise and represents a head in the sand approach. They are…

I am delighted that Housing for All has finally been published. Now, the real work gets under way. Fianna Fáil in government always had a track record of building houses and ensuring that the most marginalised people in society are looked after. We again see that at the centre of Government in Housing for All. I am glad that the Department, led by the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is leading this initiative. We are hanging our coats and our hats on this because, when this Government's term ends, this is what we…