I will conclude by saying the Minister, Deputy Coveney, is a good man. Several times over the past fortnight he has taken calls and texts from me relating to an Irish family stuck in Kabul. That is a real crisis. He has given of his time to listen to that case. Many in my party tonight will reluctantly vote confidence in the Minister, Deputy Coveney, but, let me be clear, this is not about the man. We have confidence in him to fulfil his role as a Minister. We have full confidence in him. It is the process that got…

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for facilitating this important Topical Issue debate. I also thank the Minister. He has had a busy day and I appreciate that he is in the Chamber tonight during one of the final speaking slots of this week in Dáil Éireann. I hugely appreciate his attendance to deal with this matter. Many Clare families have pyrite in their homes. Those houses are cracked and ready to fall in. Many of them are watching proceedings to hear the matter addressed on the floor on the Dáil. They are hoping for …

Exemption from paying local property tax is not a new phenomenon. It has been there for a number of years for new builds but also for houses in what were deemed to be unfinished estates. What we are talking about here in terms of defective blocks, pyrite and homes that are cracking from the gable end down is much different. It far outweighs any other category of exemption we have had heretofore. People in County Clare need some undertaking that when an application for a county is lodged, and it is imminent, the sam…

I am glad to be able to speak to this motion. I bow to the expertise of the previous speaker, the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, whose family has given a lifetime to the postal service and post office network. It is important that we work very quickly to bring about a medium to long term solution for the national post office network. The community and politicians, including the Acting Chair, fought the good fight for many months but on Monday morning a stepladder went up, the screws were taken out and the sign whi…

I apologise as the clock disappeared momentarily but we have been tracking the time manually.

I will speak in support of the Education (Student and Parent Charter) Bill. I see it as positive legislation. It puts a legal onus on schools to have a student-parent charter devised, published and available for the school community. That is a good thing. The main focus of this will improve the level of engagement and communication in the school community by inviting feedback, comments and observations from students and parents. There will be an onus on schools to consult students and parents on all their plans and…

I join the previous speaker in paying a short tribute to Vicky Phelan. I was pleased to hear earlier this week that she is on her way home. She has had six rough months in the United States. She was on "The Late Late Show" with Ryan Tubridy last summer, a day or two before her departure. She was filled with hope but also trepidation and fear. She has embraced the science of this from the get-go and is clinging to every tree that she can. I wish her every success going forward. It is important in the same breath to …

Wind energy is an important renewable, but the guidelines governing wind energy and wind turbines are 15 years old. They are out of date and antiquated and do not reflect where the industry is at the moment. New guidelines are almost in place. They have been on ice since December 2019, but they will be issued to local authorities shortly. Crucially for residents, the new guidelines provide for a setback of 500 m from homes. It is important that we get them out immediately. In the interim, I ask that the Government …

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, and the Taoiseach for the comprehensive report on the European Council meeting. I will hone in on three aspects. The first is Belarus. In the past 48 hours I have signed paperwork and been in contact with an NGO called Libereco. I am one of a group of European parliamentarians who have adopted, if one likes, Belarusian prisoners. There are 503 of them who have been detained for speaking out and protesting against the Lukashenko regime. I have adopted Siarhei Hatsk…

Thank you, Deputy.

I thank the Deputy, but his time is up.

I am going to go back and take each section of the Bill.

I am happy to speak in favour of the Land Development Agency Bill. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, has really taken the lead since he came into the Department. Housing has floundered for far too long. Fianna Fáil in government always delivered on housing and I am glad to see the Minister again taking the front foot in this regard. There are a few important details in the Bill we need to focus on rather than the sideline issues presented tonight. The salient points are that this will give a statutory basis to the Land…

I ask the Minister how social housing schemes are progressing in County Clare. Some 18 months ago, as mayor of Clare County Council, I signed a number of contracts in conjunction with the then Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, to deliver social housing. I want to know how that is progressing. Has the Minister any other good news this morning?

It is good to see progress. I thank the Minister. I am sure that we would all agree that this cannot happen quickly enough. I pay tribute to Anne Haugh, the director of service for housing, and her team. It is a tricky area to work in. We, as Deputies, bombard them with representations from people who need and are desperate to get housing. A few things need to be looked at urgently, including social housing income bands. Eligibility limits need to be urgently reviewed because Clare is currently in the lowest band, …

I thank the Minister. Returning the voids to use and getting people into those homes is important. It is awful to see a house boarded up or lying idle. On the theme of housing in Clare, I raise the issue of Traveller accommodation. The issue of Traveller accommodation has received a great deal of coverage in recent months. At times, the media and many people round on the local authorities and criticise them in that regard. I want to put that in context in County Clare. Fifty per cent of the homeless people in Clare…

In any county there are typically 15 to 17 communities which one can mark off on the housing application list in terms of where one would like to live. In between those communities, there is a scattering of towns and villages that do not have social housing or in which local authorities are no longer providing social housing. In county Clare there are places like Labasheeda and Lisdoonvarna which have a range of vacant properties on their main streets, with for sale and to let signs all the way along. People talk a…

I join others in condemning where Hungary has gone on this. It is archaic and totally out of date. It goes against the grain of where western democracy has gone. I was born in 1982 and went through primary and secondary school in the 1990s. The standard back pocket slagging in the schoolyard was to throw a homophobic jibe at someone. How far we have come now with marriage equality and the openness of our society, and this has been embraced in most other European nations. This is where people have gone and, rightly,…

Alongside all of the rainbow flags we have seen over the past few weeks, there have also been some fabulous and inclusive slogans throughout Ireland. Two of them are "Love is Love" and "The Future is Equal". Imagine using the laws of a state to also hurt, criminalise and harangue those who seek to love someone of the same sex. By any metric, that is wrong and everything that can be done diplomatically to call it out should be done. While we are on the issue of equality, it is reprehensible that there is a party in …

On 23 March, the eyes of the world were on the Suez Canal in Egypt as the Ever Given cargo ship became stuck in the canal. It was stuck for six days and there was a backlog of 400 ships in the canal area. The ship was dislodged. A huge volume of cargo destined for Ireland is still detained on the ship. Is the Minister engaging with his counterparts in Egypt, via diplomatic channels, to ensure the cargo is released and brought back to Ireland?