I should have mentioned in my last response that there is also, as I said in my first response, my Department's investment in the community involvement scheme. Since the introduction of that ring-fenced funding in 2018, there has been a significant increase, with funding allocated in two-year tranches. Approximately €14.3 million was paid to local authorities for the community scheme last year. A new round of funding is starting this year for the 2022-23 period. While community contributions in the range of 15% to …

We look at that constantly. There was an underspend last year, largely because of Covid. The underspend has never been on the roads programme. We have a machine for building and spending on roads.

The underinvestment has been in public transport and active travel.

As for rural Ireland, if there is that underspend, to my mind it is on rural public transport. That is what I would like to focus on.

I am happy to make that statement. In 2021, we saw a step-change in our approach to climate action, with the signing into law of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 and the publication of the national development plan, NDP, and the Climate Action Plan 2021. The significantly strengthened legally binding framework established under the climate Act with clear targets and commitments set in law will help ensure Ireland achieves its national, EU and international climate goals and obligat…

Finance is not the key obstacle. It is one of the elements we need to have in place but it is not the biggest constraint. The biggest constraint is that we all - public and Government - must engage in a form of system change that takes time, especially with transport, agriculture and energy. With energy, there is probably a clearer, more certain path. All the finance in energy is going to go in this clean direction towards retrofitting, renewables and hyper-efficiency in what we do. We are on the path there. It wil…

The question I come back with is: where are those resources going to come from?

Yes, and my answer to that is much of the private finance is already going in this direction. What I say to the food industry and the farmers behind it is if they think that industry is going to be able to survive in this decade if it does not start addressing the ecological crisis we are in then they are badly mistaken because that funding will disappear. It is the same for forestry. We can, and will, examine new funding mechanisms to pay for nature-based solutions. However, I return to the key point, namely, that…

The programme budget for cybersecurity in my Department's Vote for 2022 is €5.1 million. That is broken down into €2.5 million in current expenditure and €2.6 million in capital expenditure. While this is the same funding allocation as 2021, it represents a trebling of the budget when compared with 2020. In addition, provision has been made in the Department's Estimate for 2022 for a year-on-year increase in the payroll and administration of the National Cyber Security Centre, NCSC, in the sum of €2.5 million, €2.1…

I am glad that the Deputy acknowledged that the appointment of Mr. Browne as director of the NCSC was a key appointment. Mr. Browne is well qualified and was centrally involved during the HSE attack last May. I can confirm that we have already brought on board many of the people we want. The NCSC is being moved to new offices that are fully equipped and secure. Further down the line as my Department moves to Beggar's Bush, we will be building a state-of-the-art, secure and isolated facility to give us all the capab…

I agree with the Deputy on the risks in terms of crime as well as national security. It is vital that the Garda cyber unit, the NCSC and our Defence Forces cyber capabilities work. Each has a separate but co-ordinated role. The central co-ordinating role lies with the NCSC. It has to have the best expertise and contacts with international networks in order to assess risks and share knowledge and information. I saw that in evidence during the attack last May when there was a weakness in our system, which allowed an …

It is important that we help our people through what is, unfortunately, an historic period of high international fuel prices caused by international events - not just what we now see as the war in Ukraine, but a variety of factors that are outside our control. At the start, the Government's response was to monitor the situation constantly. This year's budget contains significant increases in social welfare that are designed to help those who are most at risk of fuel poverty. There has also been a significantly incr…

The Bill to allow for the payment of the credit still has to come back to the Dáil. It was amended in the Seanad this week. Subject to it being able to return to the Dáil, which I presume will be next week, the Business Committee will have to decide. That would bring us into early March. It will have to be signed by the President and the various regulations will have to be put in place, so it will be the end of March and into April that we should start seeing bills being adjusted. In recent days, I was speaking wit…

On the regulations, my understanding is that they were to be ready in weeks rather than months. I will have to check that and revert to the Deputy. He is correct that our response in reducing our emissions and our dependency on imported gas, regardless of where it is from, has to be in every different location and every school building. We have to avail of every opportunity to make the switch in our heating systems particularly and in our power generation. The heating plan we are working on with the SEAI will be de…

My Department published the general scheme of the circular economy Bill 2021 on 15 June last. It is my intention under this Bill to facilitate not only the use of CCTV but the use of a broad range of audiovisual recording, AVR, equipment to assist local authorities in their efforts to combat litter and illegal dumping. Drafting of the Bill is well advanced and the final report of the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action was published on 16 December last. The Bill will be published in quarter 1 this yea…

I agree. In that regard, the circular economy Bill, which will be published within weeks, will be critical. My understanding is that alongside that it is proposed to implement mandatory codes of practice that will ensure relevant data protection legislation is complied with by any local authority. The combination of legislation, non-statutory guidance and the use of mandatory codes of practice will ensure that the processing of personal data can be carried out by local authorities tasked with enforcing litter and w…

That is what we need. An Garda Síochána and the local authorities have been hindered previously for the lack of legislation that provided real clarity on data protection and privacy protection and, at the same time, allowed for enforcement. As I said, the combination of legislation and the codes of practices we propose to introduce will resolve that problem.

The EU just transition fund is a newly established fund for the 2021-2027 period operating within the framework of the EU cohesion policy. The fund is to address the adverse socio-economic effects of the climate transition by supporting the most affected territories and workers and ensuring a fair transition. Ireland must prepare a territorial just transition plan and accompanying programme for approval by the European Commission to secure access to our allocation of €84.5 million under the fund. I have appointed t…

I will give the Deputy some of the numbers involved in response to her question about the survey. There were 82 responses to the online public consultation survey and 41 submissions from individuals and groups. We are only just assessing those at the moment so I do not have a timeline yet for the delivery of the report, but as soon as I do, I will share it with the Deputy. With regard to the existing projects, 55 just transition projects have entered into contract and are delivering. The total value of projects in …

I had the pleasure of visiting County Offaly late last year and meeting council officials, the people involved in organising these transition fund projects and a number of those who are involved in the projects. Rather than it being a story of a lack of success, what I heard from both the council and the people involved was that this is working. It took time. If I was in here saying the process around the spending of public money did not have every i dotted and t crossed, I would be lacerated. We have done that and…