I thank Deputy Pringle for his question and Laura for its preparation. This is a matter which is obviously of great interest to those in secondary school and to those who will be coming up to do the leaving certificate. The Minister, Deputy Foley, and her Department have been actively engaged. We have made quite significant reforms to both the junior certificate cycle and, indeed, the leaving certificate cycle just in the past year. On the examination process and how that is working through, I will relay the points…

I thank Deputy McAuliffe. This is a very serious issue for many people. As the Deputy rightly said, public transport use is back to pre-pandemic levels. We want to ensure we are investing in public transport. It is a better way for people to travel. There are issues with recruitment and filling of vacancies, which have been raised. We have also had significant complaints in respect of buses not turning up or, in fact, turning up late. We in government will do everything we can to support both Dublin Bus and private…

Particularly in growing and developing places mentioned by the Deputy, such as Adamstown and others, families need to have childcare facilities in place. That is why, as regards the planning system, we very clearly tied the provision of childcare services in particular with new homes being delivered within estates. Where that is not being provided, I put it to the Deputy that it is a matter for planning enforcement. Planning has a role in making sure that what is granted in the permission is actually delivered. As …

There are many addiction services throughout the country. I am chair of the North Dublin Regional Drug and Alcohol Task Force. I see the work done in addiction services throughout the country and in the area in which I live, which is invaluable and continued during the course of the pandemic. I am not familiar with the specific case the Deputy raised regarding the Clondalkin addiction service. If he provides the details to me, I will certainly raise it with the Minister for Health and ask him to respond directly to…

I thank the Deputy. I look forward to the legislation coming to the House and debating it fully here. His point is very valid. I am not familiar with the exact details of the legislation but I certainly take his point on board.

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue of Enfield Community College. I assume he has tabled parliamentary questions regarding it. If he gives me the details following this debate, I will raise the matter directly with the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, and ask her to respond to the Deputy.

As the Deputy knows, budget 2023 provided a total package of €11 billion, some €4 billion of which were one-off measures that took effect from the final quarter of last year. One of those measures related to a reduction in excise duty. Those matters will be discussed by the Government in the coming weeks in February. A collective decision will be made by the Government and the House will be advised accordingly.

This is a very serious and real issue. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue, and the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Humphreys, held a meeting regarding the control of dogs on 9 January. The working group met on 8 February. Two senior officials from my Department are involved in that group. It is a very serious issue for people. We need to make sure that proper controls are in place, especially for certain breeds of dog. That work is ongoing and we want to do it…

Again, I assume the Deputy has tabled parliamentary questions about this and is pursuing the matter herself. Certainly, I will raise those matters directly with the Minister for Education on the Deputy's behalf and ask the Minister to respond to her on the query she has raised.

Deputy Connolly does not have to do so.

Aontaím leis an Teachta faoin gceist seo faoi Munster Technological University. I spoke to the Minister, Deputy Harris, just this morning about this. Cybercrime and cyberterrorism are ever-present. This is a significant breach. MTU is involved with all relevant authorities, including An Garda Síochána, the National Cyber Security Centre, the Higher Education Authority and the Department. There is a contingency plan in place for such events. That means that the core systems, such as HR, finance, payroll and others, …

It is a very important issue, particularly for the communities in his constituency that the Deputy mentioned. That work is nearing conclusion, as is the review of the multi-annual rural water programme. As for water pre-connection applications, if an application has been submitted to Uisce Éireann and the Deputy has not heard back from it, I ask him to get the details to me and, through my team in the Department, we will follow up on the specific water pre-connection applications that have gone in. The overall revi…

I thank Deputy Farrell for his question. He is right that it is a very important authority. It has been established and we have appointed the chairperson. The board will be appointed between this week and next. It will streamline the maritime area consent process, which is badly needed on the basis of ensuring that we can protect our maritime area, utilise the resources of our maritime area in a responsible way and harness the resource that is offshore renewable energy.

As the Deputy will know, 2022 represented the commencement of a very ambitious programme of delivery of affordable homes under the provisions of the schemes which we introduced with the Affordable Housing Act 2021. This saw significant delivery of cost-rental homes by Approved Housing Bodies, AHBs, in particular through the cost-rental equity loan, the first cost-rental and affordable purchase homes also delivered through the Land Development Agency, LDA, and the first affordable homes for purchase made available v…

It is not controversial.

We will not have the debate on the first home shared equity scheme today but it is equity that purchasers get and it is an extremely popular scheme that is working. As I said, more than 800 approvals have been made already to real households for real homes. That is good. We will break down that data when it is finalised. We will break it down between cost rental, affordable purchase through local authorities and Land Development Agency delivery as well. We are validating that data. We do not have the returns from e…

The first cost-rental tenants are actually in place. I met many of those residents. They have long-term, secure tenures with below-market rent. The rent is calculated on the basis of covering the cost of the delivery and management of the development. We have set an income cap of €53,000 net for that scheme. I am looking at changes to the cost-rental scheme and we are working through that. Every single cost-rental development we have advertised has been oversubscribed by ten or 12 times. It is a very popular form o…

As the Deputy knows, Housing for All is our plan to increase the supply of housing across all tenures to an average of 33,000 homes per year. This includes the delivery of 90,000 social homes, 36,000 affordable purchase homes and 18,000 cost rental homes, so it is a very ambitious and badly needed programme. Housing for All is supported by an investment package of over €4 billion per year, through an overall combination of €12 billion in direct Exchequer funding, €3.5 billion in funding through the Land Development…

The targets under Housing for All are set out year on year. They were set based on very detailed research and input from the sector. It is about building the capacity within the sector to deliver the homes that we need, doing things better and having more people in construction to build the homes we need. We have had about ten to 12 years of significant under-delivery across all tenures but if we look at 2020 and 2021, in those years there were just over 20,000 new builds. Obviously, that was impacted by Covid and …

I will use an example. In 2021, the last full year for which we have published figures, we had just over 5,000 new-build social homes but, overall, just over 9,000. We need to do more than that. In 2022, we set a target of 10,500 overall and we will be very close to that, and the figures on new builds will greatly exceed the figure the Deputy referenced from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, and I can give Deputies an assurance on that. With regard to HAP, it supports about 60,000 tenancies and, of c…