I will start by replying to Deputy Aindrias Moynihan. As it happens, I had a meeting with Cork County Council last week on the issue of sustainable travel in general. I take every chance I get to encourage local authorities to make an application for funding and look to develop their infrastructure. The benefits, as I see it, are setting out a direction of travel. We are running a towns first strategy aimed at bringing life back into the centre of Macroom and any other town. It would help if we could put good quali…

I have not yet responded to Deputy O'Connor, if I may briefly run over my allotted time.

I believe that the future will be all electric. Certain other players, including the likes of Toyota, would say that hybrid cars have a real advantage. Toyota would say that a hybrid vehicle is running on electricity 80% of the time, taking the energy from the brakes, and that there is efficiency because there is a large number of cars for the amount of battery power required. The reason I think electric vehicles will prevail in the long run is that there are fewer moving parts, the fuel costs are a fifth of those …

I mentioned the problem of the distribution grid. When we are using heat pumps as well as electric vehicles, probably the biggest engineering and technical challenge is how do we do that in an urban area. We will not have that problem in one-off houses in rural Ireland because cars can be charged right outside the door of the house. That vehicle and a heat pump can be managed. There will be new home energy management systems coming in which will turn the vehicle or the pump on or off and get power going backwards a…

In the year to date, funding of almost €3.4 million has been provided through the landfill remediation programme for the project at Kerdiffstown. It is expected that further funding in the region of €2 million will be drawn down by Kildare County Council by the end of this year. Following the completion of the 2021 Estimates process last month, I expect to be in a position to allocate funding of €23.5 million to the landfill remediation programme next year to continue the remediation of environmentally-degraded, di…

It is a sad tale but I hope it is one that has a somewhat better ending, as the Deputy says. It was a quarry, dating back to the 1950s. In 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, issued a waste licence. A revised licence was issued in 2006 but the EPA then had to take court action in 2009 because there was significant odour pollution at the site. The EPA found that the site was not operating in accordance with the licensing conditions. It was effectively abandoned in 2010, when enforcement actions were bein…

The importance of the post office network has been clearly demonstrated during the pandemic. We have seen a range of initiatives carried out through our post offices which have helped to support local communities, the elderly and vulnerable. However, the serious decline in the volume of mail and the impact of Covid-19 on footfall through post offices has had a severe impact on the postal network. I am aware of the concerns of the Irish Postmasters Union, IPU. I am also aware of the findings of the Grant Thornton re…

The Government has continued to look at this matter. Today, we announced a series of further Covid-related payments, in this case to the aviation industry because it is in real trouble. I would not rule out whatever further measures that the Government might have to consider. The Deputy is right when he says that the 25% reduction in footfall is a real issue. An additional cost of €6 million has been incurred in post offices to pay for PPE and other protection measures. There has been a further acceleration of the …

I join the Deputy in thanking the workers in the post offices for the really good work they have done throughout the year in this Covid-19 crisis. The Deputy mentioned European examples which we will look at. I should also mention, further to our previous discussion, that An Post availed of a European Investment Bank loan of approximately €40 million as part of its strategic investment plan. We have been tapping into European funding as part of the overall plan. Government funding is not the only funding that has b…

I remember the Topical Issue matter. I hope to get the placenames right in this case, rather than including west Kildare in my east Kildare line-up. My response is similar to the one I gave earlier in response to a Topical Issue matter. The national broadband plan, NBP, intervention areas are set out as those areas that cannot be met by targeted commercial operators. Premises in the amber area in the map will be provided with high-speed broadband through State-led intervention, the contract for which was signed las…

The Deputy is absolutely right that we should not simply rest on our laurels or wait for the national broadband plan and not do anything else. There are large areas in other parts of the country not in the intervention area and we have to have an eye on them. Competition does help here, particularly where a technology evolves. There may be innovation occurring in fixed wireless or other wireless systems that may even move into areas we had not expected. We should certainly encourage and support that without interfe…

I fully agree that there are developments in fixed wireless and other non-fibre based solutions but that is what we have gone for with the national broadband plan. It is largely fibre based. I remember talking to the engineers around the configuration of that. They found it was optimal in terms of meeting the needs of the national broadband plan. There was not a blind spot ruling out fixed wireless but if I remember rightly they found a difficulty with the configuration, particularly of our pole network along the r…

Of the 107 jobs there are approximately 50 within my Department, primarily in the energy sections. There are so many different projects going on at such a scale we find that we need additional resources. It is about the ability of the State to deliver but sometimes we meet a constraint. Fifty-seven will be in the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. It is an independent public agency but an agency of our Department so it is very closely connected, and that is a matter for the agency itself. It has already start…

I share the Deputy's interest in the importance of this area. The national broadband plan, NBP, contract was signed with National Broadband Ireland, NBI, last November to roll out a high-speed and future-proofed broadband network within the intervention area, which covers 1.1 million people living and working in over 544,000 premises, including almost 100,000 businesses and farms along with 695 schools. The national broadband plan will ensure that citizens throughout the entire country have access to high-speed bro…

I accept the urgency of this, especially during the Covid pandemic. I accept that the use of broadband is critical, particularly among those working from home or those who cannot contact relatives in person but who can online. Covid has also affected the national broadband plan. The contractors who were due to arrive from the UK have been unable to come. We ourselves and National Broadband Ireland are looking to see how it can catch up and whether the programme can be accelerated, which would be to the advantage of…

I thank the House for the opportunity to introduce this Bill and for agreeing to take all Stages of the Bill today. This is an urgent Bill and I am seeking the support of the House to ensure its passage through the Oireachtas so that it can be enacted before 31 October this year. The sole purpose of the Bill is to provide a statutory basis for continuation of the powers of the railway accident investigation unit, RAIU, relating to the reporting and investigation of accidents, including the Luas light rail system, h…

I will respond to some of the comments and questions. I thank Senators for their support for the Bill. Senator Dooley does not need to apologise for focusing on the local, be it in Crusheen, Ballycar or anywhere else because all politics is local and all safety is local. I assure the Senator that I will be looking at extending that line from Ennis up to Galway and not stopping at Athenry. Consider the potential if we develop a rail freight connection at Foynes and develop a section of rail from Athenry to Claremorr…

There is nothing in the current plans for rail in Limerick and that has to change.

That is not agreed Government policy yet but it is certainly my policy. I hope we can get support for that from all parties because this does not belong to any one party. In response to Senator Burke I again cite that section from Athenry to Claremorris. As I said when I was speaking in the Dáil on this Bill, the potential for freight connectivity is so important. In my mind the line will run from Ballina, if not Sligo, all the way down to Waterford which will open up the whole western region. I am talking here abo…

One could apply that to so many of the restrictions that are in place but we must heed the health advice. I will see if there are any ways in which we can improve. One of the ways of addressing it might be to stagger starting times. It would be an alternative way, particularly in the case of emergency workers who need to get there. I was taken by Senator Conway's knowledge of the staff and his contact in his everyday experience. I agree with the Senator. My sense of the staff, management and board of Iarnród Éirean…