Every medic to whom I talk says that when there is specialisation, volume is got through and hospitals are designed in order that they have real expertise, there are real benefits and-----

The argument made by the health system - we have to charge the HSE with the optimising of the forms of hospital we have - is that this model 2, and I think Navan hospital is the last of nine hospitals which have been transferred and changed in this way-----

I believe that getting that next tier down of hospitals is critical to getting them expanded and getting them doing more work. That is, I understand, what will happen in Navan, subject to medical advice. Lastly, I do not have the details Deputy Duncan Smith is looking for but I will ask the officials to provide them in order that he has that information.

I may not take the full amount of time allocated to me. I wish to repeat what I said at Cabinet yesterday, if that is not a problem in the context of constitutional difficulties.

What I said at Cabinet-----

I will say the exact same thing, which is that this Government is working well. In the past month, it has been working well, such as in its management of the pandemic. We all admit there were mistakes and terrible losses but, by any international yardstick, we have managed the pandemic as a people and as a country, and the Government is part of that. However, we now have to come out of the pandemic and recover from it. What has happened in the past month is a sign of a Government that is well equipped and well up f…

Yes. Part of it is standing up for taxation. The spending rule is a net rule. We absolutely want to increase current spending further, but it should be funded through taxation. My colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, has a €100 million budget for the circular economy, which is critical to where our country goes next. He has a quarter of a billion to deliver the national broadband programme which has been delayed by Covid. It will be delivered. I come back to the critical question of whether to tax…

There are 8,000 ha of zoned land which are sitting there at the moment, with land hoarding being the biggest cause of the housing crisis we are in. At last, we have the measure and we are delivering what we have been talking about for decades in our party.

We have introduced a zoned land tax. This ensures it is not the landlords who are dictating and determining housing policy; it is the public good. It is not a revenue-raising measure. It will not raise a lot, but what is important is the signal it gives, the heat it will take out of land speculation and the changes it will make. It will give local government the powers to start making sure we have zoning that actually means something and we are not just massively overzoned with nothing happening on the land because…

No.

I will share time with my colleagues the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, and Deputy Leddin, Chairman of the Joint Committee on Climate Action. I will not distribute a speech as I am using notes. The need for statements today was inspired by the need for us to consider where we are in our plans for climate action and to reflect on recent developments, including the Taoiseach's speech to the UN Security Council. I also want to reflect the broader context in which we operate. Since the Oireachtas passed the Cl…

I move amendment No. 1: To delete all words after “Dáil Éireann” and substitute the following: "notes: —that in June 2021, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) published a proposed Direction to the System Operators related to Data Centre grid connection,for consultation, setting out a number of options for managing data centre connection demand, and EirGrid has issued advice to data centres on new requirements to connect to the grid in advance of this proposed Direction; —that earlier this year, EirGrid…

I thank Deputies for raising these important matters. Clearly, the current security of electricity supply situation, together with high international price increases in natural gas, are a matter of serious concern to all. The Government will continue to help vulnerable customers by providing extensive supports for household energy costs via energy efficiency and welfare schemes. I expect to see further progress in that regard in the budget next week. Energy and climate policy is rapidly changing, driven by the urge…

I thank Deputy O'Rourke. The Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, has statutory responsibility for monitoring and taking the measures necessary to ensure the security of electricity supply in Ireland. It is assisted in this statutory role by EirGrid, which is responsible for the day-to-day management of the electricity transmission system. CRU has advised me that it has identified challenges to ensuring the continued security of electricity supply. It is in the process of addressing these. They include lowe…

This is a complex situation. There is multi-annual complexity. We have to look forward to the next decade and beyond, but particularly to the next three to four years. Our expectation is now that we will not have outages this winter but we never know. There could be a power station breakdown, or something similar to the loss of the two large gas power stations that went offline early this year. There are always developments that cannot be completely predicted but, subject to the return of the two gas power stations…

To go back to the last point I was making, the data centres have to fit in with our decarbonisation plans. We can achieve this by considering their demand response and whether location can vary demand. Many data centres have been located in the Dublin area. EirGrid has been doing a lot of work on the question of bringing the generation to where the power is used so our grid will work better. It is also a question of ascertaining whether the centres can have their own back-up power, and work within a system of back-…

I formally welcome Deputy Bacik to the House. Well done to her on her election. I wish her the very best and look forward to working with her as a constituency colleague. We have to make sure our transition is just. Social justice must be achieved in the wake of addressing the ecological crisis. There are so many different parts to that. The Government and its predecessor have done a lot of work on the establishment of a just transition commissioner, Mr. Kieran Mulvey, who has been working very specifically in the …

Interventionist measures are required and the State is going to have to play a significant role to subsidise and support the retrofitting of social housing and the provision of the fuel allowance. We will have to use a sufficient amount of the carbon tax revenues we are going to raise to make sure that people are protected from fuel poverty, particularly in this time of rising international gas prices. I will also make the broader point that many of the measures associated with the transition will bring with them a…

I agree with the Deputy and the Labour Party leader, Deputy Kelly, that we need to think long term. I also believe that the response to the climate challenges requires a politics of collaboration and co-operation. This is not an issue that should divide us. It is not a party political issue. It is an intergenerational issue but it is one we must tackle together. Probably the most contentious area of the just transition is agriculture. I am firmly of the view that we need to start paying a new generation of young fa…

The recent IPCC report is an important statement on international science's understanding of the climate system and climate change. Its publication could not be more significant or timely. It details the increasingly dangerous future that is ahead of us unless action is taken by all of us now. The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act, which was passed in July 2021, requires the Government to adopt a series of economy-wide, five-year carbon budgets, including sectoral targets for each relevant s…