In response the Minister can update me on where the task force is at at the moment and its current work programme. I will leave him with a final point about blockchain. Blockchain has the potential to benefit everyone in the beef sector in this country, from farmers, right through to the middlemen, the processors and those who are selling it directly as an end product. It has the opportunity to disproportionately benefit Irish suckler farmers and give them a decent financial return on the product they produce, whic…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion. The objective behind it is that we would have a strategic plan for regional development and make it a reality by investing in our water and wastewater infrastructure in towns and villages across the country. I welcome the contribution by the Aire Stáit, who is accepting the core principle behind our motion and the motion itself. The reality is that local employment opportunities are being stalled as a result of the failure to upgrade and provide wastewater treatmen…

Data centre security and its impact on patients has rightly dominated the headlines this week. I want to focus on the related issue of data storage. We have taken a strategic decision to ensure that Ireland has become one of the key global centres for data storage. This has the potential to create and maintain long-term high-value jobs in the Irish economy. These jobs can be located in the most isolated house in Ireland. I fully support this strategy. However, these data centres have significant demands for electri…

Real climate action is about encouraging people along the climate journey in a constructive and positive way with the aim of achieving the goal that we all want, which is a long-term sustainable planet for our children and for their children. The new Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill can provide the legal tools needed to bring this about but in the rush to get things done families are being needlessly sacrificed when there are alternative approaches which could be taken to achieve the exact…

I am sharing time with Deputy Tóibín. Homebuyers should not have to compete with investment funds. While the measure before us is a starting point in tackling this issue, it is no more than that. I fear that the 10% stamp duty provision does not go far enough. It was pointed out earlier today that share prices in the largest REIT in Ireland went up 4% this morning on foot of the Government announcement. That has to give rise to genuine concern for all of us in the House. I want a commitment from the Minister that t…

The primary objectives of all measures across the housing sector should be to increase supply of accommodation and keep people in their current homes, be those rented or owned, where those homes meet their needs. While State support is available to those who are renting and cannot meet their housing costs, the State has, since 2014, turned its back on those who have a mortgage and have lost their jobs. This is unfair.

I accept that mortgage interest supplement should be a short-term measure. The problem is that there is no short-term measure in place at this time. Three years after the scheme closed for existing recipients, there were still 1,700 people receiving payment. After intensive support being provided by the Minister's Department and direct engagement with the financial institutions, 1,700 people were still getting payment under the scheme. Clearly, the other supports that are in place are not working. If 1,700 people w…

I note what the Minister is saying and I do not dispute it. In fairness, Abhaile is a great service. However, there are people falling through the cracks. Her Department has accepted that, given there are 400 families still in receipt of mortgage interest supplement seven years after the closure of the scheme and following intensive engagement with them. I want to focus on the unfortunate families who in the weeks and months ahead, as the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, ceases and they try to go back to work, w…

The National Principals Forum has reported that 84% of schools have seen an increase in pupils with additional educational needs in the past four years. Over the same period, only an additional 31 front-line educational psychologists have been appointed to our primary schools, which leaves a dramatic deficiency in capacity within the system.

I do not disagree with the model that is being used. The difficulty is that, in tandem with that model of supporting schools, in order for students to access additional support, they require a psychological assessment. To have just 31 additional front-line psychologists over the last four years, when 84% of primary school are stating there has been an increase in the number of pupils presenting with additional educational needs, is insufficient. It is the case that psychologists are appointed to schools but they ar…

To correct the record, if a child is in need of assistive technology in order to access the curriculum fully, this would not be granted without being strongly recommended in a report. Therefore, that report is essential in that scenario. I accept the principle of what the Minister is telling me here but the practical reality on the ground is very different. I know of schools where there are proactive teams of staff, where they use all the mechanisms available and all the resources, they engage directly with the edu…

Students who sit their exams in June of next year will have missed out on a considerable amount of class time due to the lockdown restrictions. They will be the first leaving certificate class to sit a State examination without ever having completed one before. These two factors, along with the potential threat of further restrictions, in addition to the mental health challenges every pupil has faced, place additional stresses on this cohort of students.

I thank the Minister. The point I want to make is that this cohort of fifth year students, who will sit the exams next year, is unique in that they have never sat a State exam before. They have not had the experience or the pressure involved in a State exam before because they did not sit their junior certificate examinations. These students need additional supports over the coming year. I bring to the Minister's attention that there has been a 58% increase in the number of children presenting to our emergency depa…

I acknowledge what the Minister is saying but it is important that we also acknowledge that next year's leaving certificate class, this year's fifth year class, finds itself in unique circumstances. Additional supports need to be provided. In general, we need to put additional supports and new approaches in place to deal with and prevent the growing mental health issues that we have among our students at primary and post-primary level. The results from the Growing Up in Ireland study that was carried out prior to t…

During the past school year, nearly one in five of our primary school pupils were in classes of 30 or more. The failure to tackle these super-sized classes means that many children are being subjected to a significant educational disadvantage, which has negative long-term consequences for their progression through the education system.

I thank the Minister for her reply. I acknowledge that the pupil-teacher ratio is decreasing and that is positive but this ratio wallpapers over what I believe is an unacceptable situation whereby there are more than 5,000 primary school children in classes of 35 or more. Any teacher in such a situation is not teaching but is undertaking crowd control. That is all that is involved. There are 84 or 85 children in classes of 40 or more. That should not happen in any economy in the developed world. We need to address …

There is something fundamentally wrong with the system if there are 5,000 children in classes of 35 or more. This has a direct impact on the amount of their time teachers can give pupils. It impacts on individual students and has a disproportionate impact on weaker students who have learning difficulties and on brighter students who need encouragement to move a bit further on. As a result, such students become bored in their classes for one reason or another, end up disrupting those classes and every single pupil i…

School transport applications for the 2021-22 school year are currently being processed by Bus Éireann, but no one knows whether there will be 50% or 100% capacity on second level buses. This issue caused major problems last September and could cause chaos this September for 13,000 post-primary concessionary pupils across the system. We need clarity.

I accept that it is difficult to be definitive at the moment because we must consider the public health advice, but the Minister's officials are engaging with Bus Éireann and I presume that that involves some scenario planning. Could we be looking at a 50% reduction in capacity? What impact would that have on the 13,000 students who avail of concessionary school transport? Their families need clarity for September. Families whose children are starting the junior or senior cycle might have the opportunity to switch …

I thank the Minister. Reading between the lines, what she is saying to me in plain English is that, while she hopes it will not happen, it may be that the advice is that school transport should continue to operate at 50%. If that is the case, there will be 13,000 students left on the sides of our roads from the beginning of September because the capacity is not there while services are operating at 50%. What was the additional cost for the current academic year of operating the public health measures to reduce capa…