There is a substantial number of vacant houses right across the country. We have a housing crisis and we have to look at building as many houses as possible but we have 1.75 million existing houses and we must do our utmost to ensure that as many of those homes are occupied as possible. The number of those vacant at any one time varies at present between 50,000 and 180,000 depending on the source. Every effort must be taken to ensure that we maximise the occupancy of existing housing.

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. I accept that this is a complex area and yes, there are initiatives such as the repair and lease scheme, the buy and renew scheme and the acquisitions fund. The difficulty is that there are blockages within the system at present. One of them is the fair deal, or nursing home support scheme. There are 9,000 vacant houses across the country where older people are in long-term care. If those older people lease out their home, they are penalised three times. The capital valu…

Another bottleneck in availing of these schemes is probate. People in County Roscommon and the adjoining county of Galway, for example, have to wait an average of three and a half months for a probate application to be processed. If one is unfortunate enough to live in County Kilkenny, the process can take four and a half months. In Cork city it is taking two and a half months. In Waterford, which the Minister of State has already mentioned, it takes three and a half months to process a probate application. Clearly…

That is great. I have two more measures for the Minister of State as well. The first is that his Department is spending approximately €31,000 through the local infrastructure housing activation fund and the serviced sites fund in releasing sites for housing development, mainly across the urban centres, the eastern part of the country and in our cities. At the same time, we have a substantial number of vacant houses in many rural villages and towns. The local authorities are not interested in the context of the vari…

There are multiples of those 72 properties in Roscommon alone. I could bring the Minster of State to locations adjoining our constituency in Monksland where there is huge housing demand and where houses are vacant for one reason or another. If we are going to encourage families to relocate to some of these communities, we must look at the tax credit system currently in place. It needs to be modernised and updated. Finally, across my constituency there are problems with raw sewage running down the main streets of vi…

The Minister is aware that the ban on hedge cutting applies from 1 March to 31 August. At long last, on 1 March next year we are going to have high-speed broadband outside people's homes. As a basic offering, they are going to be offered 500 Mbps. Next March, I do not want people to be refused access to broadband because they are prohibited from trimming back hedges or cutting trees to access it.

I bring the Minister of State back to my original question. This should not come as a surprise to him because I raised it with the senior Minister here in the Chamber two weeks ago and she gave me a commitment that she would bring this directly to the attention of the new Aire Stáit. I will ask him again, as he comes from a rural constituency. On 1 March next year people will have 500 Mbps, high-speed broadband, outside their home. I want to know what he is going to do to ensure that people are not going to be deni…

I am trying to protect the Minister of State's rear end here. He represents a rural constituency, just like my own. Next spring, he is the one who will be blamed when people are denied access to broadband. I ask him to pick up the phone to National Broadband Ireland to find out exactly what the specifications are in terms of bringing fibre cable from the telegraph pole into those homes and to circulate that widely across rural Ireland from 1 September to ensure that people have their hedges cut back and trees trimm…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the European Council's conclusions. In the seven pages of the conclusions that focus on the CAP, there are nine references to climate and climate change and one to food. This shows the change in focus at European level with regard to food. In fact, there was no reference whatsoever to the issue of food security. Surely, in the context of what we have seen in recent months with Covid-19, and because the primary focus of the Council meeting was Covid-19, the issue of food securit…

The Minister stated on Committee Stage last week that the purpose of the amendment is to facilitate investment in Bord na Móna projects. I understand that is the basis for this amendment. On that basis, I will be supporting the amendment. I want to address the purpose of the amendment, which is to facilitate the employment of Bord na Móna staff to work on the cutaway bogs across the midland counties. I commend that provision, which I asked this time last year to be included in the climate action fund. I thank the M…

Ballydangan and Cloonfad. We have milled peat on bogs right across the midlands.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion. This day last week the House discussed the need for a temporary extension on maternity leave to mothers of young babies. I stated then that the one point we must accept is that Covid-19 has changed matters utterly and we cannot simply dismiss proposals like those that were rejected out of hand by Governments in the past. Who would have thought that the Government would introduce a one-tier health system overnight or ban rent increases, a policy the very same Govern…

No student accommodation provider should be able to avail of financial supports from the State if the provider is not prepared to refund students who have been forced to leave college early. This not only applies to private accommodation providers. The University of Limerick had to be shamed into refunding students. It is not good enough that students are not being refunded fees for half a semester despite the call from the Minister that he would like to see private providers of student accommodation provide pro ra…

I accept the Minister's response, but numerous reasons are being given by this sector for refusing to provide refunds. The fact is that student accommodation is shared by between three and up to seven students, which makes it impossible for them to socially distance. Tax reliefs are still being claimed by more than 200 providers throughout the country. In 2017, 246 providers claimed the relief. They were given tax relief to build these facilities. Some of them got free sites and others will come back, cap in hand, …

The reality is that some of these providers will avail of some of the Covid-19 supports that are being put in place, whether that is restart grants or rate reductions from local authorities. I put it to the Minister and his colleagues in government that a clear and unambiguous message has to be sent out from the entire Government that we will not tolerate a situation where private providers are not prepared to refund students. If they cannot show that they have refunded students, then they should not be eligible fo…

I move amendment No. 1: In page 6, between lines 2 and 3, to insert the following: “ “air quality” means the reduction in air pollution as defined in the Air Pollution Act 1987; “carbon sequestration” means a natural or artificial process by which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and held in solid or liquid form;”. I am speaking to amendments Nos. 1 and 11 to 16, inclusive. There are two issues regarding these amendments. First, I believe that air quality must be included as part of the remit of the cl…

We are speaking to my amendment now.

I promise the Minister that I will continue to remind him about the report from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine because it is urgent that that evidence is published. It will dramatically change the focus of climate and energy investment in this country. I wish to correct a couple of interpretations the Minister has tried to give that are inaccurate. This money is in a bank account. He tried to insinuate that if we do not introduce this legislation, the €10 million a month in the account might be …

It is not. It means we cannot draw down the money for another month but next month, we can draw down the €10 million that has gone in this month. It is disingenuous to say that this money is being lost. The money is being delayed, but not lost.

The Minister is misleading the House.