Does the Minister have an exact date for when the LÉ Eithne will finally be taken out of service? Which of the vessels will be designated as the flagship vessel for the Naval Service? When does the Minister expect to finalise decisions with respect to the future of the LÉ Eithne , whether it will become a floating museum, visitors' attraction or whatever?

What is the current position on work-life balance and maternity leave and paternity leave in the Defence Forces? Are there plans to improve this?

What incentives exist to encourage and support people who own private vacant properties to make them available for housing, either for sale or for rental? What plans does the Government have in that regard? Does the Minister agree that in a county like Cork, which is the biggest county in the country, we should have three full-time housing officers looking after vacant homes and trying to get people to bring them back to use, rather than one who is very much working on a part-time basis?

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this topic this morning and the Minister of State for being here to respond. I am concerned by the decision by the Minister to issue direction to Cork County Council on the matter of section 31 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended. That is following the recommendations of the Office of the Planning Regulator with regard to the Cork county development plan, which was recently adopted by the authority's members. The Minister received recommendations from the O…

I thank the Minister of State for her response. I acknowledge that there are legal issues involved and an ongoing statutory process, which I respect and agree with. The reason I have raised this issue is because, as the Minister of State acknowledged, this is a major issue for the area and the country. We have to see where the balance lies. The members of Cork County Council are democratically elected. The vast majority of them, having spent a long time discussing and debating the matter, recommended that zoning go…

In light of the concerns reported recently on the strong possibility of rationing of energy in the coming autumn and winter, is the Government completely satisfied the amount of gas coming into Ireland through the Moffat interconnector is absolutely guaranteed to continue throughout the winter? If not, what contingency plans are in place in the event of any reduction of, or disruption to, supply?

I appreciate that. Things have moved on a lot faster than I expected this morning.

This has to do with youth services. I realise the great work going on in this regard and the funding the Minister has made available, but one of the issues youth services have raised with me is the need to have minibuses to bring young people from A to B. Is there any funding stream that could be used to assist with something like this?

I support what the Minister is saying. Many school buses are used during the day by schools and in the evening by youth services. Maybe synergies could be considered in this regard. When I was a Minister of State, I was involved with the youth justice strategy, which referred to integrating services and maximising the benefits, as the Minister has said. I support him in the work he is doing in this area. Perhaps he could talk to other Ministers and service providers to see whether there can be collaboration to maxi…

I am a big supporter of green hydrogen, off-shore wind, biomass and so on. The faster we can move in that direction, the better. I also support Deputy Bríd Smith in that we should not burn anymore LNG or fossil fuels; rather we should be reducing them. However, we are dependent on a pipeline from Moffat. The Minister, Deputy McGrath, told me earlier this week that there is a contingency plan if there is a squeeze in that supply this winter. What is that contingency plan?

I am happy the Ceann Comhairle's office selected this matter and the Minister of State is here to respond. I have been looking through the Housing for All local authority affordable housing delivery targets. The number is 189 for Cork County Council between 2022 and 2026, which does not seem very ambitious. In many other counties the number is higher and, for example, Fingal has a target of 981. Straight away, this raises the question as to how come there will be so few houses built in the Cork County Council area.…

I thank the Minister of State for her response. I highlight again, however, that these applications were submitted in February, some four months ago now. I am told that some clarifications were required regarding the applications, but it is still strange that it is taking this long for approval to be given. This is another delay, and I hope the process will be completed soon. What does "shortly" mean? Does it refer to weeks, months or whatever? Perhaps the Minister of State might use her good offices to make this h…

Given the volatile nature of oil and gas supplies in Europe at the moment, and given that we get more than 70% of our natural gas through a pipeline from the United Kingdom, has the Government any contingency plans in place in the event of a reduction or curtailment in the supply from the United Kingdom? If not, does it plan to put plans in place? It is a case of being ullamh and having other plans.

On 30 July 2009, the former Minister, Mr. Noel Dempsey, travelled from Cork to Midleton to reopen the rail link to Midleton. There had been a big campaign for a number of years and it was a huge success. I recently met with an official of Íarnród Éireann and he told me it is planned to electrify the system from Mallow to Midleton to Cobh and it is planned eventually to have services every 15 minutes. That is very good. Part of the issue that happened there was that a lot of land had to be zoned in the area to provi…

I support my colleague, Deputy O'Connor, on this matter and I thank the Minister for the great work she is doing. Are Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment involved in supporting the work to provide remote working hubs and centres? We may need to think even bigger on this issue. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been announced recently in various cities. Some of those jobs could be relocated to towns like Youghal if the hubs were large enough to take them. This woul…

I agree with the Minister and fully support her in what she is doing about vacant properties. The policy mentions the judicious use of compulsory purchase orders, CPOs. Is it possible to acquire property in that manner if the owner does not want to sell it and if it is lying more or less derelict and out of use? Is the Department actively pursuing that?

The Minister said that each local authority gets €400,000 to acquire old buildings. Cork is approximately four or five times the size of some other local authorities and yet each local authority gets the same amount. How is that decision made? A local authority with a fifth of the population gets the same amount. Is there not something unfair about that? There is a proposal to locate State agencies in rural towns and villages. Has there been any movement or is there any news to report in that regard?

I want to come back to a question I asked earlier and to the fact that largest county in the country, Cork, quite often gets the same funding under various local authority schemes as the smallest county. I ask the Minister to have a look at that and determine why that is the case. It is clear why the people of Cork feel hard done by. We are very humble and do not like giving out but the Minister might have a look at this and let us know why she feels this should be the case and whether it can be rectified. It does …

I join colleagues in asking whether the Minister will consider including dairy farmers in the scheme to which he referred. Will he give us an idea as to what the subscription to the scheme will be or what the take-up is at the moment? Has he any estimate of how many applicants there will be?

This question relates to the role farmers can play in reducing climate-based emissions. What supports is the Department making available to help them in this regard? Farmers are often demonised but they really want to play their part and are anxious to do so. They need help, support and guidance in that.