The Taoiseach is very familiar with the N25 between Carrigtwohill and Midleton, which is one of the busiest roads in the country with 30,000 traffic movements per day. It is a very dangerous road. The Taoiseach is also familiar with the former Amgen site, which is now landlocked because the N25 is not being upgraded. He is also familiar with the 2,500 houses that were to be built in Water-Rock which are also at risk because of a decision not to upgrade the N25. Will the Taoiseach intervene and make it happen?

I congratulate the Minister of State on the work he is doing in this area. Until recently, in County Cork, from Castletownbere to Youghal to Mitchelstown to Newmarket, there was one part-time vacant homes officer, and that was the tenth job he had. Would the Minister of State agree with me that County Cork should have three full-time vacant homes officers to cover such a huge area and in order to deliver what the Minister of State wants to deliver?

This question is about affordable housing. I am particularly interested in what the Minister is doing to unblock the blockages that are there, in particular for people who cannot get a mortgage at the one end but who are earning too much to avail of social housing at the other end, that is, people in the middle.

I ask the Minister of State whether he agrees with me when I quote the new housing plan for Ireland, Housing for All, which states: "Housing cannot be delivered unless we have the supporting critical infrastructure, including transport.." That includes affordable housing. Is the Minister of State aware that Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, has recently decided not to proceed with an N25 road in County Cork, which was vital to support in the delivery of 2,500 houses, including many affordable houses? I wrote t…

I agree with the Minister of State fully on this. There is a rail link at one end of this development and a motorway at the other. There is public transport between Midleton and Carrigtohill. The Government has now decided to ruin this project. The Department has funded the project to the tune of €4.13 million already. That is now going west. Some €1.3 million has been spent on the road network. That is also going west. It is critically important that the project is delivered. I ask the Minister and the Minister of…

I support Deputy Griffin's comments on incentives. In one particular small town in my constituency, and there are many others like it, there are at least ten vacant properties on the main street. One man owns them all and when I asked him about these properties he replied that he was under no pressure to do anything with them.

They need a small amount of work but he said he was under no pressure whatsoever. He also said that if he did them up and rented them out, the tax would make them unviable. What kind of incentives and supports are available? The man in question stated the properties could not be taken off him because he owned them and they were his property. What incentives can we give this man, and others like him, to develop and open up these properties so that people can live in them?

May I ask a question?

I am sorry. I did not realise.

That is fine.

I have been told recently that as we accelerate and expand on digital reforms and transformation, our mobile phone networks are not secure. They are easily hacked and tracked. As we become more dependent on this technology, what guarantees can the Minister give us that these networks are secure and people cannot be tracked and hacked, have our conversations listened into and so forth? An expert recently told me that this is quite easily done. VIPs, such as the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, can be targeted, especially if t…

The Industrial Development Agency, IDA, owns a fully serviced, 150-acre site between Carrigtwohill and Midleton in my constituency. It is lying idle since 2007. There were plans to upgrade the road outside, the N25. Millions have been spent on the plans to upgrade the road, but the plans have now been shelved and there is no clarity. There is also a plan to build 2,500 houses at the other end of that road. That is also in jeopardy. The road is extremely dangerous. I have written to the Minister for Transport and Tr…

I ask the Minister of State the steps that are being taken by his Department to ensure security of electricity supply this winter and beyond, given the fact that there was a danger of brownouts and blackouts earlier this year.

I thank the Minister of State for his response. On a calm winter's day like today, what is the typical electricity demand? On a day like today, when there is very little wind and it is cold, how much of that is produced by renewables, and how much is produced by the thermal suite of coal, oil and gas?

I thank the Minister of State for his response. If the demand is 6 GW per day, what is the supply? Is the supply matching that? What amount over and above that 6 GW is available? Does the Minister of State agree with me that the cutting-edge way to store wind energy is through the use of green hydrogen? How close are we to seeing the production and availability of green hydrogen become a reality?

Is the Government proactive in examining ways of sharing intellectual property throughout the globe with countries such as India, which I understand has the capacity to produce large volumes of vaccines? What is the Government's position with regard to the coronavirus treatment acceleration programme, CTAP?

I join my colleagues in asking the Minister of State to look at ways of streamlining the system. I have met farmers who are facing into a very busy period at present with milking, cows calving and so forth. It is a 24-7 job with health and safety issues involved. They have identified workers abroad in places such as the Philippines, but the amount of time it takes to get the work permit issued and the visa on top of that means that the calves will be ready for slaughter by the time it is done. It is too long. The s…

The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has said that within the next 30 years, 2 million of our citizens could be impacted by rising sea levels. It is projected that we will have a permanent sea level rise of up to 1 m within the next 30 years. Should we not be planning for this now, as other countries are? The national coastal change management strategy is long overdue. Will the Government take this issue seriously and what are its plans to offset the inevitability of a pe…

In my constituency, Cobh, Youghal and Midleton will be flooded if this happens.

I congratulate the Government and Minister on this initiative. I suggest we have to scale this up even further to target larger employers who might employ hundreds of people, many of whom travel for many hours every day to cities and so forth when they could work in their own towns. We have, as has been mentioned, community centres and old buildings being repurposed. We need more than that. We need to think big and look at centres that house 100 people or more.