I will send on the information.

I signed that Bill on behalf of Sinn Féin. The review of the North-South interconnector presents an opportunity to get this right once and for all. That opportunity should be grasped. If the review happens as outlined by the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, at the committee that discussed the Estimates last night, it will not amount to a hill of beans. In fact, it will be a pointless waste of time. A short desktop review of the existing reviews will not do. We have an opportunity now. I encourage the Taoiseach to take …

I thank the Minister for bringing forward this Bill. We have already had one vote on it and we will have plenty of discussion and many more votes. It is acknowledged this Bill benefited greatly from the pre-legislative scrutiny at the Joint Committee on Climate Action before Christmas, which was ably chaired by the Minister's colleague, Deputy Leddin. The climate committee members worked on a cross-party basis, heard from a wide range of experts, in private and public, and made 78 recommendations to the Minister wi…

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Electricity Regulation Act 1999, to include explicit provision for the Minister to provide policy direction to the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, to introduce a moratorium on disconnections of gas and electricity supply to domestic customers for non-payment during the annual fuel allowance season or during other periods of time the Minister may deem appropriate. This is a simple, straightforward Bill that tackles an important is…

I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

With regard to the vaccine priority list, the Minister has said medical conditions and the magnitude of the risk they pose will continue to be monitored and periodically reviewed. There is robust evidence for poor outcomes in Covid-19 in the presence of pre-existing heart failure. This is for hospitalised patients and patients in the community. I can send the references to the Minister. I understand the HSE's national heart programme has made submissions to the NIAC advisory group on cardiovascular patients. It bel…

I thank the Minister. Is it the normal course of events that there are reviews? Are there ongoing reviews or scheduled dates for reviews? The Minister might come back to me on this. The next issue I want to raise is the roll-out of vaccines to adults with intellectual disabilities and Down's syndrome, particularly adults with intellectual disabilities in residential care who have been shown to have worse Covid outcomes. Advocates and support groups in my county report that the roll-out is patchy. There seems to be …

I ask the Minister to come back on whether the reviews are scheduled. I might contact the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, on one or two cases in my area with regard to the roll-out to people aged over 85 who are confined at home.

The Government has an ambitious retrofitting plan but I am concerned that it is a case of building castles in the sky. I could list many cases of families, renters and homeowners, who are pensioners in some cases, who live in cold homes that are D-rated or worse. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland was with them a decade ago so they will not see it again, such are the rules. There is no funding for windows or doors. These people are not in a position to avail of other subsidies because they do not have disp…

The aviation sector is facing an unprecedented challenge. Most people acknowledge the need to suspend international travel at this time as part of the State's pandemic measures, but it is also recognised that this puts significant pressure on an already crippled sector. Aviation workers need financial support and protection during this time. The sector also needs a survival and recovery plan to be put in place to help it to recover when it is safe to travel again. I ask the Minister of State to outline her plans to…

Aer Lingus today announced an expansion of its air services from Manchester. I saw a communication sent within the company which offered staff here the opportunity to move to Manchester and base themselves there on local terms and conditions, that is, Manchester terms and conditions. That is deeply concerning for those workers. It has been said that this is happening because there is such uncertainty regarding the Irish response and commitment to the aviation sector. It really indicates that those companies want a …

I have not gone through the other measures under consideration, such as routes potentially being moved to Belfast. I mentioned the situation at Manchester Airport. I refer to the operations at Shannon and Cork airports. I raised this issue with departmental officials at a public meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communication Networks. I am deeply concerned in respect of the issue. Workers in the sector are deeply concerned by it. Does the Minister of State share that concern? To what degre…

There is a massive problem in the area of driving tests, lessons and licences. I do not yet see a sense of urgency from the Government. There are 100,000 people waiting for driving tests and more than 80,000 waiting for theory tests. The demand for lessons is huge. It is having a major impact on workers and families and it needs to be a priority. How are the Minister and the Minister of State addressing these problems?

We received lots of documents at the transport committee and we have heard from the RSA. I read one document we had not previously seen in the media at the weekend, which outlined the concern in the RSA about the impact the backlog will have on road safety and insurance costs. Those are real issues that need to be addressed. The limited capacity that is in place currently is not even being used at 100%. It is being used at 75% because essential workers cannot get lessons in order to sit their test. In effect, they …

I ask the Minister of State to go back and speak to the RSA because what she said is not actually the case. The RSA has clearly said there is spare capacity currently as essential workers cannot sit the test because they have not completed their lessons. I am not trying to make a meal out of it, but I ask the Minister of State to go back to the RSA and confirm whether what I have outlined is the case. The issue of concern is NPHET's advice on essential workers being able to get their essential driver training, EDT,…

I ask the Minister about his plans for the transport sector as part of our overall action against climate change. I very much welcome the revised climate action Bill published yesterday. The scale of the challenge is huge and with the transport sector accounting for 20.3% of emissions, I ask the Minister what contribution he sees the transport sector making to our 2030 target.

I have supplementary questions on two matters. One is the Connecting Ireland programme. There are particular challenges in Ireland because of the spatial configuration of our communities. We are unique in many respects, specifically the dominance of Dublin and the types of rural and sparsely populated communities we have. Connecting Ireland is essentially a BusConnects programme for the rest of Ireland, as I understand it. Related to that, there will continue to be significant car dependency. Our electric vehicle p…

I thank the Minister. On that point, at the climate committee yesterday we heard from Dr. Lynn Sloman who referred to a Swiss example of good rural public transport. Built into it were performance and service standards that were binding. That is the type of direction we should be moving in. I will let the Minister come back to me on the point on electric vehicles. I refer to the Road Traffic (Amendment) (Personal Light Electric Vehicles) Bill 2021. Does the Minister know how quickly that legislation will move forwa…

As the Minister knows, before Christmas, the Joint Committee on Climate Action did a huge amount of work on the draft climate Bill at pre-legislative scrutiny stage and submitted 78 recommendations to him. Where does the Bill stand? When will the Dáil or Seanad see it? Has the Minister taken on board any or all of the recommendations?

I thank the Minister for his response. He will appreciate that it does not provide the type of clarity I was hoping for. Will he give some indication of the date on which we might see this? Will it be in a week, a month or a year? I am conscious that there was great energy to try to get the Bill before the Dáil prior to Christmas. In fairness, a massive amount of work was done by the members of the committee across the political spectrum. It has been with the Department since before Christmas. What is the timeframe…