I thank the Cathaoirleach for his welcome this morning. I thank Senator Lombard for raising this issue, which I am taking on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. As the Senator has said, the second platform for growth scheme was launched by Fáilte Ireland in January 2020. The call was directed at local authorities. It was aimed to develop facilities at waterside locations, such as Garrylucas. In April 2021, €19 million worth of investment was announced for thi…

I share the Senator's frustration. I am familiar with these projects. I have seen one just beside me, albeit in County Sligo, and one in Mayo. They have been complex to deliver. If the Senator wants to engage with the CEO of Cork County Council, as I said, the two reasons that I have been given here are in relation to a stand-alone wastewater treatment system and Irish Water's concerns about taking in charge any specific wastewater infrastructure. Therefore, there are two issues but they both go back to the local a…

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Seanadóir as ucht an issue seo a chur os ár gcomhair. As the Senator knows, in order to plan for school provision and to analyse the relevant demographic data, the Department of Education divides the country into 314 school planning areas. It uses a geographic information system which facilitates the analysis of data from a range of sources, including CSO census data, child benefit and school enrolment data, to identify where the pressure for school places across the country will arise and …

I meant to state at the outset that I am taking this on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Foley, who has been very focused on school building. There has been record school capital investment during her tenure. There has been engagement by the Department in respect of county development plans and local area plans and, more specifically in the context of Gorey and Arklow, with plans below these at a granular level that have a focus on rapidly growing towns that have rural hinterlands and finding solutions for the challe…

I move: That Dáil Éireann approves the following Regulations in draft: Trade Marks (Madrid Protocol) (Amendment) Regulations 2024, a copy of which has been laid in draft form before Dáil Éireann on 16th September, 2024.

Go raibh maith ag an gCathaoirleach Gníomhach agus táim buíoch de gach Teachta as páirt a ghlacadh sa díospóireacht thábhachtach seo. I have remarks generally framed from my Department's point of view, which leads out on Powering Prosperity. I will try to refer to some of the more constructive comments. If I do not get to a Deputy's point, I will provide information to them. One thing on which everyone in the House agrees is the need to progress this agenda. We all realise that weather events, as we can see in Flor…

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta as ucht an deis labhairt faoi seo. I am taking this on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, and the Minister, Deputy Peter Burke. I know the House will join with me in expressing our sympathies to the Minister on the passing of his mother. As the Deputy indicated, statutory sick leave is a valuable public health intervention. It reduces the risk of workplace accidents and curtails infectious disease transmission. It is one of a number of measures this Government has intr…

Nobody is celebrating anything. I assure the Deputy that no official announcements have been made.

The introduction of statutory sick leave marked a key policy development for this country. It was introduced by this Government. For the first time, employees have a statutory right to employer-paid sick leave. That was done without us having carried out any comprehensive analysis of the sick pay landscape in the country. The data being collected now will be valuable in bridging the gaps within the scheme. The qualitative study being undertaken by our officials will give us additional insight into existing sick lea…

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta. I have a different topic. It is in the social protection area but it relates to obtaining payments. We can shoehorn it into what the Deputy has just said. I am taking this matter on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Humphreys. In my time I have not had any such experience. I have been fortunate in that we have had an excellent relationship with the Department of Social Protection right across the country. It has given excellent service. The delivery of crucial and locally based commun…

That is a given. If somebody is in a vulnerable or emergency situation, payment can be made on the day. In 19% of cases, payment is made on the day. I genuinely assert that in my experience, the CWOs my office and I deal with have always been attuned to the urgency of any particular circumstance. I will ensure the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, is aware of Deputy Durkan's contribution.

I am taking this on behalf of the Minister, Deputy McConalogue. The Minister believes that hedgerows are a significant component of the Irish landscape. We are fortunate in Ireland to have retained an extensive hedgerow network, with an estimated length of 689,000 km according to Teagasc research. As Deputy Ó Cathasaigh has said, hedgerows are multifunctional, acting not only as stock-proof fencing and boundary markers, but also providing invaluable ecosystem services such as crucial wildlife corridors, carbon stor…

I assure the Deputy that the Department is very much committed to the protection of our hedgerows. It strengthened the level of protection they receive within the basic payment scheme. They are identified as landscape features, as I said. Hedgerows are protected under good agricultural environmental conditions standards, through cross-compliance, and further strengthened with the current capital strategic plan. If a farmer in receipt of CAP payments removes a hedge, he or she has to plant double the length that was…

Gabhaim buíochas don choiste as ucht an obair thábhachtach seo agus an deis é a phlé. I join Deputy Ó Cathasaigh and, I am sure, the House in expressing my deepest sympathy to the Cathaoirleach of the committee, Deputy Denis Naughten, on the untimely passing of his brother John. Our thoughts and our prayers are with the Naughten family in these very dark days. I thank the committee members and the secretariat for the work they have done in preparing this report. As Deputy Ó Cathasaigh has said, the high cost of ene…

I thank Deputies Ó Cathasaigh and O'Rourke for their contributions. It is important to reflect on Deputy O'Rourke's comments. The retrofit plan is ambitious. We have a serious ambition here. It is also realistic. I absolutely agree with Deputy Ó Cathasaigh. We are not signing up to 220 years but we have been building capacity. In my opening remarks, I referred to the extra companies that are involved. The four of us know that our local ETBs are investing considerably in local apprenticeships and training in this sp…

They do not want to hear it.

I welcome this year's budget provisions for enterprise and for our Department more widely. I commend the Minister, Deputy Burke, and the officials in our Department on the work they have engaged in with the Department of public expenditure in recent weeks to secure a package worth €1 billion plus for our Department next year. The Minister has reflected on how far we have come over the course of this Government. It is useful to go back to the beginning. At the very start of Covid, we were paying people not to work a…

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta as an gceist thábhachtach seo a ardú . Ireland's offshore wind industrial strategy, Powering Prosperity, was published by my Department in March this year. The strategy seeks to maximise the economic benefits associated with our target of producing 37 GW of offshore wind energy by 2050. It includes 40 targeted actions for implementation in 2024 and 2025 to support our offshore wind industry to reach that ambitious target. We aim to build a strong and resilient offshore wind supply c…

I thank the Deputy. I acknowledge his work, the work of the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment and its report on this space in 2023. We are focused on this. Our Department is working through our regional enterprise committees right across the country to identify the opportunities, and especially looking at ports to identify the infrastructure we need. It is vital we are ready and that we have that infrastructure in place. On the Shannon Estuary economic task force, we are looking at all the recomme…

We are very well progressed. We are putting the foundation stones in place. We will ensure that when the technology is available to us to maximise the offshore advantages, especially off our Atlantic coast, we will be in a position to maximise it. Our Department is investing considerably in the supply chains issue. We had an excellent event with the Scottish Government recently and our agreement is we will share with it, co-operate with it and look to its lessons. Scotland is equally looking to what we have achieve…