Question No. 70 is in my name, but I will leave it until Deputy Durkan is in the Chair.

Thank you, Deputy.

Deputy, please-----

Deputy-----

Deputy Carthy-----

It is difficult to let in an extra speaker if Deputy Carthy does not comply with the time requirements. I have discretion and have used that discretion to let him in. I ask him to please comply with the time. I have been very strict with the Minister. The Minister has one minute to reply.

Let the Minister reply.

What interaction have the Minister or his Department had with the climate action regional office, CARO, which deals with counties Mayo, Galway and Donegal?

I left out County Sligo; there are four counties in the region. I have been looking at the local newspaper which has the headline: "Council coffers Covid collapse". There is no money in Galway city. That is one local authority and I am sure it is going to be repeated. A briefing document issued last Monday by Galway County Council set out its strategic projects. There was one little paragraph on climate change in the whole 20-page document. It referred to the regional office, but did so in the context of the need f…

I appreciate the Minister's goodwill, but the newspaper is telling us that Galway will not balance its budget next year. The report from Galway County Council is telling us it has the mitigation plan in place but it has no resources. I cannot help but think that this is a huge doubling-up of levels of bureaucracy now that we have regional offices as well. I gather they do good work in collecting data but one wonders why we needed that when we should have just resourced the local authority which is crying out for re…

On the same theme, the Minister's predecessor rolled out a pilot for six towns. My question relates to that. There are three Bs and three Cs: Ballinrobe, Banagher, and Boyle followed by Callan, Cappaquin and Castleblayney. The Department was to learn from the pilot and roll it out as a matter of urgency to all other towns. Where does this stand? The Minister had no input into the choice and said the towns were chosen by officials.

I am a little disappointed. The initiative was launched in January 2017 as a pilot. It took up to October 2018 to roll it out. The report, which I have read in detail, was published in May and was available to the Department in February. What did the report cost? The complexity was already noted when this was launched by the then Minister, Deputy Ring. He said the reasons more people do not live in town centres are many and complex. We knew that there were many reasons, we knew about consultation and we knew about …

We know that. We have had the Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas, CEDRA, report and many Government initiatives. Earlier this year, the Department established a steering group to do exactly what the Minister spoke of. It examined it and concluded the most effective way to do this was to set up a small number of well-planned pilot initiatives that could be delivered and scaled up quickly. Are we disregarding this report? Will we just shred it - I used this language about another report recently -…

The Minister should conclude.

There is only a little time left and I am trying to make sure everybody gets in.

I have two clocks contradicting each other so I will allow Deputy Mythen to raise his question and get a brief answer from the Minister. He has a minute and a half for the question and answer.

I ask that there be a little respect for the Chair, please. I also ask that we stick to questions and replies.

The Deputy is way over time. I asked for co-operation at the outset. Bhí mé ag lorg tacaíochta.

We have reached the end of Leaders' Questions. Gabhaim míle buíochas as tacaíocht na dTeachtaí.

Ní féidir leanúint ar aghaidh mar seo, a Theachta. Bhí nóiméad amháin ag an Teachta Doherty agus níl sé féaráilte do na Teachtaí eile. Tá mé ag rá é sin le gach Teachta. Deputies have one minute to put a question and one minute for a reply. It is to be fair to all Deputies.