-----which is where the employment, investment and finance will be.

I do accept that and I can understand the Deputy's frustration and why he wanted to ask the question. It is a fair question but I do not have the answer to it immediately. It seems unfair and I will ask the relevant Department to come back to the Deputy on it directly.

Will Deputies Cullinane, Michael Collins and Buckley provide me with specific details? We cannot have a 91-year-old woman in that situation. I do not know the circumstances. If the Deputies will provide details, I will forward them to the HSE to try to find out what happened. In response to Deputy Tóibín, we are in the second week of a three-week roll-out. In those circumstances, I trust and expect that if someone has not heard about their vaccination yet, they will hear about it in the coming days. If they do not,…

There has been a change with regard to the age rule. Until recently, the rule applied to those under 18. That change followed medical advice. I understand that the vaccine was not tested in those younger age cohorts and that is one of the reasons the vaccine is not to be rolled out to them. Their carers will all get vaccinated when their category within the order of 15 is reached. We want to get everyone, the entire population aged over 16, vaccinated. Anyone caring for those under 16 will be included. As I said to…

The Deputy makes a fair point. I will talk to the Minister for Education, who has responsibility for the budget for and operation of the school bus service. Under the current level 5 restrictions, capacity on buses is limited. Even at lower levels, capacity is still restricted to 50%. We have provided for that but I will check and report back to the Deputy.

I agree with both Deputies. I recall that in the last long and difficult lockdown in November, we made an exception to the rules to allow young people to train and take part in sport. I do not want to promise ahead because we must wait and see what happens in the coming weeks. However, in terms of the opening up that will occur if the numbers continue to come down, one of the first priorities will be the ability of our young people to engage in sport, which is so good for their health and well-being. Our health off…

No.

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter and I hope I can do exactly what he suggested. I welcome the opportunity to set out the actions we are taking with regard to the SDGs. The programme for Government was developed with close consideration of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and provides specific reference to delivering on objectives in line with the SDGs in many areas. The Government has committed to strengthen engagement and awareness at local level, with a commitment to ensure local authorities …

It is true. The response I delivered is, if I may say so, a kind of departmental presentation as to what the system is doing, which I believe is what was requested. I agree with the Deputy; we need to be more ambitious, heed that report from Social Justice Ireland and realise that we are not doing enough to meet the environmental goals in particular. We have to go further and to be far more radical. I commit to delivering on those goals as best I can. I will give some examples of areas in which we are starting to r…

I thank the Senator for raising this matter. The driver theory test service is the statutory responsibility of the Road Safety Authority, RSA. My Department has been in constant contact with the authority since the start of the pandemic regarding all of its services. The impact of Covid-19 on these services and how they can best be maintained in the current circumstances is a critical issue for us. The driver theory test has not been deemed an essential service under level 5. As a consequence, the service is closed…

I agree with the Senator. The Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, is the line Minister in this regard but I will work with her. I have a meeting coming up with the RSA and I will impress on it the imperative to get the remote system working not only for bus and truck drivers, but also for car drivers. We had a meeting of the Covid subcommittee last night. Unfortunately, the advice from the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, which is good advice, is that we will probably have to continue with level 5 rest…

I welcome the opportunity to set out the actions being taken by the Government in response to the announcement of the downsizing of the Moneypoint power station in west Clare. The programme for Government committed to achieving an average reduction of 7% per annum in overall greenhouse gas emissions from 2021 to 2030. This remains a key objective for the Government, and the changes to electricity generation within Moneypoint form part of the steps required to meet this goal. The 2019 climate action plan also commit…

I referred to the 2019 climate action plan. In truth, we will have to be more ambitious in many different areas such as agriculture and transport, but also in energy. One of the areas where things will probably advance more quickly than was set out in the plan is that of power generation. While preparing my response to the Senator, I noted that the price of carbon today is almost €40 per tonne. At that price, Moneypoint does not operate. It is outside the merit order. It does not make economic sense. As such, the 2…

I am grateful for the opportunity to address the House on the impacts of Covid-19 on the transport sector. I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, who has responsibility for international and road transport and logistics at the Department of Transport. I will update the House on the impacts of Covid on the provision of public transport services and the opportunities it has afforded us to make some much-needed improvements in sustainable mobility in our cities.…

I thank Deputy O'Rourke for his questions. This is the most serious issue and one on which we take and follow public health advice. The public health advice will come later this afternoon as to on which additional countries we, similar to the UK, should consider applying much stricter restrictions. We will implement that advice with full speed. I have been in regular contact with the UK transport minister and colleagues in the North - it does not have a commensurate minister for transport - to ensure that we co-ope…

I absolutely agree with Deputy Quinlivan that the people with whom I and my party have engaged in Moyross have shown real leadership and commitment and it is absolutely right to focus on the delivery of services for their community. They played a huge part in delivering this. There will be no delay in building the road. I hope that what the Deputy and I can agree on is that this in itself is not the only key thing. I was speaking to the city managers yesterday and to my mind, as Minister for Transport, it was appro…

My advice to constituents with questions as to whether they should travel home now is not to travel. If the question is when might be best, the answer is not now if there is a choice. ISIF funding is a matter for the Department of Finance. It is financially independent borrowing based on a contract arrangement with the company. The Government set up the fund to make sure we protected jobs and did not lose them but the specifics of the loan contract is a matter for the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, and …

I realise I did not answer Deputy Duncan Smith's other question about the report. In that newspaper report, Dr. Ronan Glynn said that, as he understands it, the HSE is the designated authority. I apologise that I did not answer the question. With regard to Carlow town, I absolutely support, and fully understand the Deputy's desire for, such a service. As we have seen in Kilkenny, a very similar urban bus transport service which was introduced prior to the onset of Covid was proving its worth and was hugely popular,…

I am happy to follow up on all four of those proposals, with which I am in broad agreement. First, in regard to changes to Bus Éireann services, we agreed on previous occasions, for example, when it took away a Cork route, that we would try to make sure that no town that lost a service would be left out, and that we would reconfigure the public service obligation to make sure we provided connectivity. I will come back to the Deputy with regard to those Limerick and Tipperary services.

I will have to do that, particularly in regard to the Ballybrophy line, in respect of which, as the Deputy said, I had a very good meeting with the local group.