This question has to do with the tax measures that might be considered to support the hospitality sector. Yesterday, representatives of the hospitality sector were in Leinster House and were lobbying Members of the Houses with respect to supports, were telling us that the sector was under pressure and that many of its members are on the verge of running out of liquidity. Is the Minister aware of this and has any work been done in his Department in this area? In particular, has the Minister any information as to the…

I thank the Minister for his response and I understand it is part of his budget consideration and that he cannot speak directly about this issue now. Has the Minister's Department carried out any analysis of the hospitality and food sector in particular? Has he or his Department engaged with the representative bodies from that sector and, if so, can he tell us what transpired and what findings has his Department come to with respect to the pressures that the sector is under, or at least that it says it is under, in…

I understand that an economic analysis was carried out with respect to the impact of the quite correct changes which the Government has brought about on the sector. This refers to the various changes we have done. I understand that impact is quite strong. Can the Minister comment on that? With respect to the increased cost of business grant, that is a one-off payment but the sector is looking for an ongoing support and not just a once-off grant. Loans are an issue because many businesses are reluctant to get into f…

When will the next call for proposals under the excellent urban regeneration and development fund be made? I understand it is overdue; it was expected last May. Will the Minister let me know, if not now, later, when this might happen?

We will spend it if we get it.

Will the Minister outline the current situation with regard to the Naval Service’s fleet of ships, plans to upgrade, how many ships are seaworthy and so on?

Will the Tánaiste comment on reports about his plans to purchase a multi-role vessel, perhaps with helicopter capability, to replace the LÉ Eithne ? Would he agree with me that it would be very important to have a vessel that can actually carry helicopters, especially in light of what happened recently in Cork where a large shipment of drugs was captured using a land-based helicopter? Does he agree it would be important to have one that will be based on, and can be deployed from, a ship? Where are the plans to purc…

Will the Minister comment on whether he feels it is important that such a vessel could carry helicopters? What other tasks would he envisage such a vessel performing? We have seen reports in the past of hospital ships, ships that can carry out rescue missions such as those we have had in the Mediterranean in the past, and ships that can carry cargo and so on. Will he give us an outline of what his thinking is with respect of the tasks such a vessel might perform, in particular with respect to the aerial capabilitie…

I thank the office of the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this matter. I also thank the Minister of State for being here. I had a bit of déjà vu recently when I visited the old technical school in Fermoy, which was built in 1931. I am sure the Minister of State knows about it as she has never been too far away from it. I started teaching there about 46 years ago when I was very young. The basement of the old school is now home to Fermoy Educate Together National School in Fermoy and I visited the place recently on an…

I thank the Minister of State for her response which throws up a number of interesting points and questions. For instance, she stated that "the role of the Department is to ensure that all schools in the area can, between them, cater to school place requirements in that area". I am sure the Minister of State will agree with me that the wishes of parents must also be taken into account. If more and more parents want to move to a different model or patron, then the Department's role surely should be to facilitate tha…

This is to give the Minister an opportunity to report on the funding provided to An Post to date as part of the €10 million per annum from within his Department's existing capital provision for the period 2023 to 2025.

I thank the Minister for his response. I am sure he will agree with me that An Post is a very important institution or organisation in the State. It does great work, especially what it did over Covid. The work the postmen and postwomen who went out and linked with people who were isolated at that time did was hugely important. I draw the Minister's attention to the publicity post An Post operates. The Minister mentioned small business in his reply. Publicity post zones have not been changed for quite a while. Many …

I thank the Minister for his response. Certainly, it did come from small businesses. I am also aware of the electoral and boundary issues to which the Minister alluded. It seems that some of these publicity post zones were designed at the time the stagecoach was in vogue. They are quite unwieldy. I am not sure if other colleagues in the House would agree with me but they do not seem to make any sense. They cross county boundaries and so on. Talking about getting business for An Post, would the Minister agree with m…

I want to ask the Taoiseach about the Forty-first Amendment of the Constitution (Agreement on a Unified Patent Court) Bill 2024, which is almost through the Seanad. Will the Government give consideration to enacting that Bill so we can have a referendum on it? When might a referendum be held?

If a jumbo jet with 500 people were to crash in the Atlantic Ocean tonight and all the passengers drowned, it would make headline news tomorrow. Last year, the equivalent of six jumbo jets full of people drowned in the Mediterranean Sea when trying to cross into Europe. These were desperate people getting on coffin ships. We had this happen in our own history. Some 186,000 people tried to cross the Mediterranean Sea last year. These were desperate people fleeing from war, conflict, climate change, famine and corrup…

This question was sparked by the real-life experience of a former constituent who is now living outside the European Union. He contacted me to say that his son, who was born in 2004, would like to come back to Ireland to go to college. His son has an Irish PPS number, an Irish bank account, and an Irish passport, but because he is living abroad he will have to pay non-EU fees, which are very expensive. He told me other countries in the European Union make an exception for their citizens who are living abroad to com…

I thank the Minister for his response and interest in this matter. He will appreciate that Irish citizens living abroad would like their children to come back here to go to university, but the fees are exorbitant. The Minister said he cannot intervene in this way, but is there any way he can make it easier? Will he consider examining the possibility of making it easier for Irish citizens living abroad to come back here - these are young people we need and want here - to go to university, who might stay here afterwa…

On that last point, I understand that some other EU countries have changed that rule in that they allow people to go to university there and accept them as European citizens paying only European fees. Even Irish citizens in some countries can have that benefit. I will ask the Minister some questions. When is this policy being reviewed? Has it been reviewed recently? Will he set a review of this policy in train with respect to the three out of five years issue? Indeed, will he go further, as I suggest, and allow Iri…

I am asking this question on behalf of Deputy Richard Bruton, who sends his apologies. He wants to ask the Minister if he has assessed the role artificial intelligence should play in shaping the future of further and higher education given that it has been described as the fourth industrial revolution, bringing a tsunami of change. I am interested in hearing the Minister's response.

I thank the Minister of State for his response. Deputy Bruton has requested that I ask whether the Minister of State will comment on the potential for individualised learning paths that AI opens up and its impact on teaching and learning and the complications for assessment methods for distinguishing student knowledge from machine-generated content. It is a cause of huge concern in some third level institutions that AI is generating the response and the work and there are questions about how to distinguish one from…