Is the Taoiseach aware of the implications that the reduction in the nitrates derogation to 220 kg of nitrogen per hectare will have on dairy farmers? It will have a significant economic impact and could potentially remove €236 million from the rural economy. It will also threaten food security and increase the cost of food. Farms will become unviable. A farmer who now has 58 cows has been told that when the register comes into place and the derogation is changed, he will have to reduce his stock to 42 cows. His op…

I am glad to have this opportunity. The cost of electricity is very punitive and is hurting many people, especially those in rural Ireland, because they have no options when it comes to electricity for heating and all the other appliances. They find themselves hit so hard. The Government has been asked several times to put a cap on this and it will not do it. I honestly believe now that the Government is satisfied with the way things are going because it is getting more tax out of it. The more profit and the more V…

It is absolutely sickening to listen to what is going on here. Both sides are pontificating as to what they are doing and what they are going to do, while poor people are worried that they will not have a roof over their heads. The Government says that it is doing enough and that it will do more, but it is not doing enough. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have been in power one way or another now for the past 12 years, but why are they not funding the 171 voids in Kerry? I have been asked several times about it. The Gove…

The Government has not a notion and should not be talking about what it is doing now.

I thank Mairéad McGrath and Brian Ó Domhnaill for helping us to put this motion together. What we are essentially calling for is that the Government makes an order so there is a definite legal requirement on business and all entities to accept cash as a method of payment. Since Covid-19 we have sleepwalked into this situation where many places continue to demand cashless payments. In addition, the motion calls on the Government to lead by example and insist that it is a requirement that all public bodies accept or …

The Government has handed over the provision of sewerage and water services to Irish Water and the long-awaited Kilcummin sewerage scheme is now under way. It is in the Lough Leane catchment. We all welcome this. Some €9 million is to be spent. The problem now is that Irish Water is deviating from what Kerry County Council, the local authority, always did. It is looking for €4,000 per household for connection. This was always placed at the roadside boundaries free of charge to entice people to connect. Work has beg…

The purpose of the scheme is to enhance water quality, prevent pollution and prevent polluting the Deenagh River and the beautiful lakes of Killarney with algae blue. The full capacity of this scheme, which is paid for by public money, will not be realised if all the residents do not connect to the scheme. I would ask the Taoiseach to talk to Irish Water about this. There is €9 million. Surely another couple of hundred thousand euro that it is trying to get from the residents is not practical.

I am glad to get the opportunity to talk about the energy situation. The Government has been found out. It is bringing in this emergency legislation to make sure the lights will not go out. The Government has been reckless since it took office. It closed Shannonbridge and Lanesborough, even though it had no alternative. There was plenty of turf available to keep those generating stations going. There are even 10,000 acres in Littleton in County Tipperary that is untouched. I was always brought up to know that wilfu…

-----smart meters. Anyone who has put in a smart meter is paying through the nose for it. I want the Government to investigate whatever has gone wrong because, where a bill was €200 or €300 before, it is €700 or €800 now. Many people are blaming the smart meter. I want that to be investigated because it is time that people who are suffering are recognised. They are suffering and they cannot continue to for much longer. I ask the Government to deal with it.

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing this motion forward. It is a serious issue for people. They are driven down through the ground with the costs of electricity. The Minister was blaming the war but we know that gas is cheaper now than it was before the war started. That is a fact, but the Government will not bring down the cost of electricity. It will not cap the cost, though it was asked to do so several times. There are different categories of people. Business people are paying three and four times what they were for…

I raise with the Minister of State the Kilcummin sewerage scheme where work is now under way to connect residents from Kilcummin to the existing Killarney scheme. I ask that the connection for residents and others be left adjacent to their properties, on the roadside at their boundary fence. This is not happening at present. I ask the Minister of State to provide a funding incentive to help with the connection fee. Residents are being asked to pay in excess of €3,900 for connection. The scheme is 3.7 km long and th…

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. This is the first scheme that Irish Water has taken charge of and is responsible for in County Kerry. As I have said, up to now connections were left out on the side of the road for people, free of charge. While €4,000 may not sound like much to the Minister of State or to other people, if you do not have it, it is an awful lot of money. This is going to be a headline for all the other counties in which Irish Water will be responsible for sewerage schemes from now on. It…

I am asking the Minister of State to deal with it, to help them and to sort it out because Uisce Éireann is not playing ball.

Can I just say-----

I thank the Regional Group for this very valuable motion. I want to praise ambulance drivers and paramedics in County Kerry for the great work they do. They are under increased pressure because, as we all know, doctors' surgeries are generally open from 9 a.m to 5 p.m. five days a week. There are 128 other hours in every week. People get sick during those hours, be it late at night, at weekends or whenever, and need to be seen to. SouthDoc is our out-of-hours service, which is under savage pressure. Places like Ken…

I thank the two previous speakers for allowing me one minute to speak. I too acknowledge the magnificent role the credit unions play in our local communities. I thank them for the bridging loans they give people who travel to the North of Ireland to get their cataracts, hips, knees and all of those things done. Credit unions facilitate those people who travel to get that necessary intervention or risk losing their sight or ability to walk. People must put the money upfront but they get it back and are able to give …

I, too, thank Sinn Féin for tabling this motion. Until around 2011 or 2012, the ambulances were controlled locally but then a centralised service was brought in by the HSE which operated from counties Dublin and Donegal. There were two centres in total. Since then, the whole thing has gone wrong. Before I go any further, I want to thank all the ambulance drivers in County Kerry and our paramedics. Anything that is wrong with the ambulance service is not their fault. We have a number of ambulances in County Kerry. L…

I thank the proposers of the motion and I support their concern but I do not support their argument in its entirety. There is pressure on now and it has extended for a while, which is fine. However, we need to solve the problem. I welcome the Minister of State to his new position. I support People Before Profit's concerns, but we must do something permanent about them. I have been raising the matter for years in the House. The cost of rent is an issue, but we must realise that 52% of the rent is paid straight to th…

I thank the Ceann Comhairle and I am glad to get the opportunity to talk about this Bill tonight. The most joyous occasion in the world has to be when a little baby is born to a mother, whether it is a boy or a girl. It is very sad to think this is what we are doing to those people who suffered in a darker time when people had different and wrong ideas. A child born to a girl or a woman in any circumstances has to be right. It is natural. Those girls and women were denied fair play, were sent to homes, were not let…

They rang Tusla in the past number of days and gave the timeline of having been born and the timeline of when they were adopted out. We do not know what kind of an adoption that was because in many of these instances we know the foster parents or whoever they were-----