Nobody is disputing that.

The Irish women's football team have qualified for the World Cup in Australia in July. This will be a major boost for football in Ireland and particularly women's football. It is an enormous achievement for the women's team under the stewardship of Vera Pauw. What measures are being put in place to address the expected increase in participation in grassroots football ahead of the finals in July 2023?

I thank the Minister of State for the reply. We need to ensure that the grassroots level is the best it can be to ensure we capture the almost certain increase in participation around the finals in Australia. We need increased investment in facilities across the country, particularly for grassroots development. Regional development is very important. It is great to see a Kerry football club starting up and developing into the League of Ireland. With all the clubs throughout the country, including in my constituency…

I acknowledge the Minister of State's reply. I do not want to labour the point but we need to move away from the sports capital grant scheme. We need to move to national sports facilities. In 2012, the Government developed a draft sports facility strategy which was supported by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI. A circular was sent to all local authorities to try to develop the strategy. Has the Government completely ruled out a national sports strategy or is it open to developing one? In order to ha…

I welcome the chance to speak on Irish forestry. It is of vital importance not just to rural TDs but also to urban TDs. It a vital part of our commitment to tackling climate change, to reversing the damage done to our ecosystem over decades and also vital for supporting local communities across rural Ireland and strengthening the local economy. When it comes to forestry in Ireland, the reality is clear; we have been massively failing year after year. The climate action plan suggests that upward of 8,000 ha. of land…

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, for his attendance. I have been meeting with tenants living in flat complexes across Dublin. I attended a meeting earlier today in Pearse House. The level of neglect by the Government and Dublin City Council is horrendous. There are affected flats in Beech Hill, Rathmines, Cuffe Street, Digges Street and York Street. There are too many flat complexes to name individually but I assure the Minister of State that every block of flats has shocking levels of damp and mould. …

The problem of mould in flats is not being taken seriously by the Government. We cannot entrust the local authorities to fix this problem which has been there for decades. The homes are passed with just a bit of paint or bleach, which some tenants are given. The days for that are long gone. Government needs to intervene and ensure that the funding is there. The funding can be there if the Government is committed to it. It is not being taken seriously. We need action. We are not seeing action. We have inadequate fun…

I want to thank Deputies O'Reilly and Cronin for bringing the Parental Bereavement Leave (Amendment) Bill 2021 forward. It could equally be called the compassion Bill because that is really what it is about. It is about showing compassion to people who find themselves in horrific circumstances, something that none of us would ever like to imagine facing. This will impact a very small number of people and, as the Minister said and everyone would agree, the vast majority of employers will accept that and be understan…

Carbon emissions, climate change, the climate action plan, COP26, and COP27 are undoubtedly very important to us all, but they mean very little to those living in Dublin City Council flat complexes. The Government talks about this scheme and that scheme, but none of them impact on residents living in Countess Markievicz House or Whitefriar Gardens. The Government regularly announces how many schemes it has provided to help households to reduce emissions, but the tenants in Bishop Street or Rathmines Avenue do not s…

Clearly, the Minister has worked particularly hard on this and it is important to acknowledge that. It is great there appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel for homeowners for whom this has been an utter nightmare. The devil is in the detail and we will see that detail in time. When it comes to home defects, it is hard to know where to start. Throughout the country, there is no community without a story about defective apartments. So many people scraped together and saved money to buy their dream home. A…

I, too, extend my Christmas wishes to the Minister, the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Deputy James Browne, and all the Houses of the Oireachtas staff, who have kept the wheels turning over the past year and do a fantastic job. The increase in income thresholds is very welcome. I believe the levels should be greater than what is proposed. Inflation, which will continue, was mentioned. The thresholds have to be more flexible. We have called for an increase for years. For too long, workers and famili…

As the Minister of State will be aware, Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000 has been the backbone of the provision of much-needed social housing stock across the State for many years. Without the requirement that each private developer provides a percentage of social housing for the local authority, it is hard to imagine how much worse off the housing crisis would be. These housing units have been essential in trying to protect inner-city communities that are being pushed out by big high-tech companies.…

The last few sentences of the Minister of State's response provided some bit of hope, because there is clearly an issue around developments being exempted due to the site being 0.1 hectares. The scrapping of height restrictions has led to applications for ten- and 15-storey buildings. There was an application for a 15-storey building in Ringsend with public housing available on the site but that did not happen. We need to ensure this loophole is closed. There are other sites next to Pearse House flats, which are no…

Housing and health have become intertwined into one big mess and that has happened on Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil’s watch. Government policies in health and housing over the past decade have brought us to a crisis. We are now facing a brain drain from the health service like we have never seen before. A perpetual crisis in the health service under this Government is forcing nurses and midwives to emigrate. A staggering 65% of nursing graduates are considering emigrating. A third of them have already been approached b…

I apologise for being late; I was at a Zoom meeting. I thank the Minister of State for his patience. Life is hard enough for children with disabilities. Families with children who have disabilities are already creaking under the pressure. As the Minister of State will know, waiting lists for children are growing at an unprecedented rate. More than 18,000 children are now on the waiting list for initial contact with the children's disability network team, CDNT. According to the latest data available up to the end of…

I acknowledge the commitment of the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, to children with disabilities. There is no questioning that because she put in a great amount of work. She is very committed and is trying and working very hard to unpick or disentangle the mess that applies to her brief. This is not about lack of will from the Minister of State. The Government very much needs to step up to the plate and to invest in resources. The measures mentioned by the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, need to be fast-tra…

I thank Deputy Bacik for introducing this very good Bill. It is also welcome that the Minister is welcoming it and will work with it on Committee Stage. Dublin Bay is hugely important to everyone in this country, not just people living close to the coast. It is an environmental jewel that needs to be protected. During Covid, many people discovered swimming and how important and healthy is sea swimming. Before Covid, I would not have gone near the coast but for some reason it was probably one of the few activities y…

With each passing week, the situation in Palestine becomes worse and worse. Israel, an apartheid terror state, makes that community an area of terror and fear for anybody who happens to be Palestinian in their homeland. Two weeks ago, apartheid forces dragged children from a primary school in Masafer Yatta to make way for bulldozers. It is another example of a community being ethnically cleansed from their homeland by apartheid Israel. This school was funded by the European Union, yet the EU says nothing. Since las…

I certainly believe the Minister is working exceptionally hard. Every Minister works hard but the Minister for Health goes above and beyond in his commitment. I support the Bill. There are good things in it and it is an important Bill. However, it will not build trust in the health system, where trust is in short supply. It will not build trust in the cancer screening process or the CervicalCheck system. It will not build trust in any of those. As has been said previously, we have no issues with what is in the Bill…

I welcome the Minister's movement on some issues. I also welcome his candour. It is clear that the Minister is listening. With regard to anonymisation and having listened to Deputy Kelly, regardless of whether that it is to be done here or in the Seanad, we have to take another step and ensure that people can sign up to what is in the Bill. That is very important. The whole debate is very important. It is very important that the Bill is right. Families will understand if it takes a bit longer as long as we get it r…