The Deputy is reading something into the planning amendment that is not the case. There is no intention in it to open the door to changing the position with regard to either fracked gas or the development of commercial LNG facilities in this country. It was purely made for technical reasons, namely to ensure the legislation would be in line with other legislation so there would not be legal uncertainty regarding any development here. It gave no preferential benefit or signal in that regard. We do have to tackle the…

That is true.

To respond to Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, our Department will be looking at the roads allocation for both national and regional roads now. It will have to be agreed with Transport Infrastructure Ireland. That will be developed and agreed with TII before the end of the year. I absolutely agree that we need to maintain maintenance funding for roads because, once a road falls below a certain standard, it costs a lot more to bring it back. I agree on the likes of the roads on the Ring of Kerry and bridges on such roads. It…

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Lawless, for allowing me to address this question. Under the Air Navigation (Carriage of Munitions of War, Weapons and Dangerous Goods) Orders, 1973 and 1989, the carriage of munitions of war by civil aircraft in Irish sovereign territory and by Irish-registered civil aircraft, wherever they are operating, is prohibited, unless an exemption from this prohibition is granted by the Minister for Transport. From 19 August, media reports began to be published alleging contraventions…

I will come back with the remainder in my follow-up answer.

First, to be clear, I agree with the Deputy. It is totally unacceptable, should any munitions carried through Irish airspace or landing in Irish airports en route to the conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon and the Middle East, especially following what we heard earlier about our soldiers being on the front line there, and the citizens of Gaza. Every party, and I think every Deputy, in this House agrees that it is completely unacceptable that there should be any support for that through the provision of weapons munitions thr…

The information provided relates to a wide variety of carriers. We have contacted every single one of them. The initial allegations were related primarily to carriers based in Belgium. We have been in contact with the Belgian Government, and I expect we will get the same information that The Ditch has been releasing. That will give us much greater insight, we expect, into whether munitions were carried for which an exemption should have been sought. We are engaged directly with the Belgian authorities. We expect to…

Okay.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 50 and 72 together. As the Deputy may be aware, the all-island strategic rail review was undertaken in co-operation with the Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland. Following two public consultations, the review’s final report was published on 31 July 2024. The review's final report sets out 32 strategic recommendations to enhance and expand the rail system in Ireland and Northern Ireland up to 2050, aligning with net carbon zero commitments in both jurisdictions. The rec…

I will conclude as I have a minute of speaking time remaining. This will give us time to start ramping up what I see as key strategic projects, many of which have already started. There is the likes of the western rail corridor where we have started clearing the line this year. There is also building a rail link to Shannon, which refers back to what we said earlier about how we get better balanced regional development and arrive at a situation where not everything goes through Dublin. A critical piece of infrastruc…

In this way we could create a cluster.

I will try to answer all of the questions. I will begin with Deputy Ó Murchú's questions. The next Government and the one after it will have to recognise that we do not have the funding for everything. We are going to have to make some hard choices. To my mind, the choice should continue to be the prioritisation of public transport. The real benefit is that it will bring us housing development that is sustainable and more economic and in line with the national planning framework. We have to invest in public transpo…

I will have to disagree with the Deputy regarding the Foynes experience. It is possible to work very quickly when we work in this way because we are not caught in planning. Irish Rail turned around the Foynes line really quickly and I hope it can do the same on the western rail corridor. Regarding Deputy Harkin's question, I accept the need to improve access to the north west. Much of the investment on the existing mainline network I mentioned is designed to do that. In response to Deputy O'Callaghan, as a later pa…

I am glad Irish Rail was able to adjust the timetable on the eastern corridor because it was inconveniencing commuters. I hope the change will bring the schedule back on track. We are investing significantly in the east coast. As I said, the first line to be part of this new electrified rail system will be that running to Drogheda, which will see the use of new battery electric trains. We are putting major investment into Drogheda to upscale the power system to be able to run the battery electric trains there. Simi…

I agree with the Deputy 100%.

It is the stop-start nature of it. The proof of this can be found when we look at what happens when we do not do things that way. If we look at when we built out the motorways programme, which was done in a strategic way, with long-term certainty, money guaranteed and contractors knowing they had two decades of work, we see we were, in international comparative terms, able to deliver relatively lower costs, on time and to high quality. We now need to do the same in the area of public transport. We have created a ca…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 52, 74, 79, 88, 92, 110 and 111 together. In my earlier answer, I outlined the requirement to receive an exemption to carry munitions of war on civil aircraft in Irish sovereign territory or on Irish-registered aircraft wherever they are operating. I outlined the two categories the majority of granted exemptions fall into. I also outlined the difference between Irish-controlled and Irish sovereign airspace. I wish now to provide some detail on the complexity of international aviatio…

On a regular basis, we uphold the law by refusing applications for munitions to be either carried through Irish airspace or land in Irish airports. It is a relatively small number. Each year, on a routine basis, the Minister for Transport will assess any such application and, on a regular basis, say "No" under international law and under our rights as set out in the Chicago Convention. It is important that we uphold the rights in international law and get it right in international law, so we have that power and cap…

I was in New York at the United Nations General Assembly where I was asked to present the Irish Government's position in an initiative we are taking with Arab and other European states to advance the two-state solution. At the sidelines of that meeting, I had the great privilege of meeting the Prime Minister of Palestine. He could not have been more supportive of what the Irish Government and Irish people have been doing. He could not be more explicit as to how we have stood up and tried to protect the rights of th…

-----better searches, better sampling and better sanctions. That will not be delivered in the lifetime of this Government but absolutely, it is my intention to go back to my Government colleagues when I have the information provided by the analysis being done by the Department to report on this issue, and also-----