We 100% stand up for the aspiration of purchasing apartments in our cities and right across the country. Apartments are part of city living and urban compact living. We 100% stand up for and support that and we did so in government this week. We got agreement with our colleagues that we will come back to this issue in the affordable housing Bill and look at further measures, as the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has said, to deliver on that. It will be part of a mix because this needs a multifaceted response. Ab…

It is not just about the housing but also all the other services that come with that at the same time. That is what we as a party are good at.

Following on from the previous question, there is a lot of emphasis on urban Ireland because of the issue of apartment living. We must be very clear that in the changes we need to make, it is about rural and urban. It is about towns and villages, country and city. This is particularly the case with meeting the climate change challenges we face where we need a switch to public transport and to reduce the demand to travel by creating services in our towns, so everything is close by and people do not have to travel al…

I met some of those County Galway private bus operators last summer and the Deputy is absolutely right that they run a first-class service. The really annoying thing is that just before Covid struck they were actually seeing a massive expansion in their services. They were looking at new routes like east-west, north-south and a whole range of different ones. They were finding that as soon as they put new routes on, customer demand was rising to meet them; they were on a big expansion plan. I hope we can get back to…

I agree with pretty much every one of the Deputy's comments about getting the balance right. We need to provide housing for young people and it must be close to the city centre, of high quality and in large numbers. The strategic housing development approach will not continue after early next year. It will be wound down and it will mean we will, correctly, have to rely on our councils to get much of this right. The council must deliver a range of other services, as well as housing, to get the balance right for good…

All of the SHDs may not go ahead. There are legal challenges and questions about some of them, and I understand many of those challenges have been successful. Within the provisions there is a "use it or lose it" clause for them to be built by a certain time. There is an underlying problem in our city with the cost of construction and the viability of it and the ability to have an affordable option for purchase or sale. One of the key solutions is for us to build ourselves, particularly on public land. We are agreed…

That is where we must work as well as here. The practical measures must include what the councils can do through local development plans. We will back this up and support the process as best we can with the likes of investment in public transport and other measures.

I join in Deputy Doherty's concern for those households where people's homes have such a fundamental problem. I introduced a scheme in June last year. As I understand it, there are differences between what happened to properties on the east coast and what happened in the Donegal and Mayo areas. I do not have the details, but it appears to be a much more extensive problem, with higher costs and much greater difficulties. I have heard from other Deputies about this problem and I commit to talking to the Minister to s…

I ask the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for a slightly longer time to respond to this question, because it is an important issue, and to give me a bit of time to explain. A lot of people are concerned.

I very much appreciated the meeting we had yesterday where Deputy Kelly and other Deputies were briefed by An Garda Síochána on the cybersecurity system issue, which is of huge consequence for our health system, for individuals and for families. Subsequent to yesterday's meeting, the Minister for Justice, the Minister for Health and I had a meeting yesterday afternoon. We took up some of the suggestions from our earlier meeting. We will establish a helpline, which will be a confidential crime-line type system, for …

Yes is the answer to that. We have engaged constantly since last Friday morning. There is a whole range of different issues of real concern. Absolutely centre stage in that is Tusla and its information systems that were connected to the HSE networks. To go further in response to Deputy Kelly, our second measure is to contact our media and social media companies to say that if anyone propagates any information, some of which is most sensitive, and which is a real possibility, on the dark web or other such sites, tha…

Deputy Smith is right that one can do things. It is one of the reasons that in government I was very proud, as a member of the European Council, to put real pressure on the European Commission in recent weeks to change the EU taxonomy rules away from favouring investment in gas systems, recognising that we must keep that gas in the ground, and keep the oil and coal in the ground, if we are to meet our climate challenges. They were real and effective changes we were able make in government. I am glad that we have de…

-----which we are actually doing. This is the change we can make, so we will not need LNG.

We will have alternatives. That is what we are doing in government.

It is critical. A survey commissioned during the week looked at the issue of remote working, with 95% of people surveyed citing the view that they did not want to go back to a five-day week all of the time, especially if there is long-distance commuting involved. The national broadband plan will be a critical part of facilitating this alternative and better way of doing things. We must be straight up that the roll-out has been affected by Covid in the context of getting contractors in and getting work done. They ar…

Apologies.

I commit to that. The various meetings I have had on this issue have been very useful. Tipperary town is one of many that needs the new town centre first strategy. We need to have various initiatives. As I said earlier, we need a range of bypasses in these fantastic 19th-century market towns. They have fantastic architecture, strong resources and schools, churches, retail and pubs all within walking distance. It is about restoring them and returning them to real vibrancy with young families living in the centre. Th…

My colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, will have a key role. It has to be an all-of-government approach. The town centre first strategy will help Tipperary town and others to rise.

I was not aware of this issue and I am glad Deputy Richmond has raised it. On first hearing of it, it is hard to see how a drive-in movie could be a public health risk for the spread of the coronavirus. I will speak to my colleagues in government, including officials dealing with the management of the public health crisis, to see whether anything can be done specifically in this instance. It will be part of a wider approach. My colleague, the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, is engaged on this and we will have fu…

I was very glad to take part in a recent Cabinet subcommittee meeting that exclusively looked at this issue for three hours. It was hugely informative. Perhaps I may share some personal reflections on this. There was some media comment in recent years on the New Brunswick model, whereby everyone can be in a mainstream school. The view of many parents' advocacy organisations here, and to my mind rightly, is that we will still need a variety of choice. For each child there is a different need. Included in this for a …