The Tánaiste is right that it is difficult to compare like for like and that we have to look at working families and their budgets in the round. He has consistently referenced childcare as an area where he wants to support working families. Every week, I speak, as I know the Tánaiste does, to families, women and services about the cost of childcare and about provision. Today, with Deputy Carrigy, I met with Longford Women's Link. I know the Tánaiste is completely committed to reducing childcare fees to €200 per mon…

I thank the Minister and the Minister of State for their work on the town and village renewal scheme, the town centre first scheme and their engagement with me on these issues. I want to keep them on the agenda. Town centre first and town and village renewal are excellent schemes delivering tangible results for rural towns and villages. Suburban villages, like ours in Dublin 15, are not technically eligible. Will the Minister widen the schemes so more communities can benefit and could he do this for budget 2027?

I thank the Minister. I appreciate how positive and successful the town centre first and town and village renewal schemes have been for my rural colleagues, which is why I want to access them for Dublin 15. There is a distinction between Dublin city or major population centres and then suburban villages that have been subsumed into the wider metropolitan area. Despite suburban growth, which we need, these communities still have village hearts, with residents eager to nurture, support and develop their village centr…

I thank the Minister. He is absolutely right. There is a lot of interest in this. Interest is growing. I am just going to talk about Castleknock. The population directly around and including the village is about 15,000, whereas the wider area has about 30,000 people. That is why we are not eligible. We would not be eligible either under the urban regeneration and development fund. I have said before that we are falling between two stools. Just over a year ago, Fingal County Council agreed that under the town centre…

I warmly welcome the latest Garda recruitment campaign. It is encouraging that we are on track to surpass 15,000 gardaí by the end of this year. As the State recruits more gardaí, I want to raise how and where the State trains gardaí. The town of Templemore has served the State well, hosting the Garda College that has trained men and women who have proudly served the people of this country as our gardaí. I hope the Garda College in Templemore has a long future as the primary Garda training college. I wish to ask th…

I was careful to state that Templemore should be retained as the primary Garda college but a second located in Dublin would be regionally advantageous for recruitment. It would broaden appeal. Progress is being made in capacity. The Minister has spoken about increasing capacity at Templemore to 250. We need more investment in roads policing, community policing and community safety strategies. Where better to do that than among the fast growing and most diverse population in the country? It is not just about numbers…

Fine Gael has always believed in rewarding hard work, encouraging initiative and aspiration and supporting people who try to build a better life for themselves and their families, but increasingly our tax system is sending the opposite message. Workers today are pushed into the 40% tax band at income levels that are no longer considered high by any reasonable standard. We now have one of the lowest entry points to the top rate of income tax anywhere in Europe. That means people who take on extra hours, who go for p…

I welcome the publication of the National Safety Camera Strategy. I fully support fixed speed cameras, average-speed cameras and bus lane enforcement because, without the infrastructure upgrades we desperately need, our public transport system is stuck. The core bus corridor for Dublin West remains tied up in legal challenges. Until that changes, our buses will continue to crawl through congestion at 12 km/h or 15 km/h, which is roughly the speed of a race walker. That is not a modern transport system. Bus lane enf…

The proposed scrapping of the 70 bus service under BusConnects represents a downgrade in public transport for Littlepace residents. This is a direct commuter service into the city centre, operating with reasonable frequency at peak times and then once per hour during the day. Under BusConnects, peak-time services would remain direct but during the day, they would be replaced with a connection at the Blanchardstown centre. I met the National Transport Authority, NTA, a month ago and it said the community will have a…

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Valuation Act 2001 in order to provide that property occupied for the provision of early childhood care and education, where such is provided either otherwise than for profit or subject to Core Funding and caps on all provision at Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE Programme) rates, and property consisting wholly or partly of a building, which is used partly as a dwelling to a significant extent and occupied for childminding servic…

I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

I am raising childcare again today. There are not enough places and we have poorly planned spaces. Dublin West is peppered with either unused crèche buildings or sites where crèches were supposed to be built but were not. I know this is happening in other parts of the country too. Developers are currently required to supply crèche facilities in large housing developments but not to industry viable specifications. The result is that some crèches are built too small, are poorly designed or are badly located and they …

I move: That the Ceann Comhairle direct the Clerk of the Dáil to issue her Writ for the election of a Member to fill the vacancy which has occurred in the membership of the present Dáil consequent on the resignation of Deputy Paschal Donohoe, a Member for the constituency of Dublin Central.

I also welcome this debate. We have had great engagement on the Good Friday Agreement committee in our work examining the constitutional future of this island. Everybody has a voice. I welcome research and information from anywhere to contribute to this debate. Two things that have not been referenced are the productivity gap that exists North and South and the difference in educational attainment. There are great opportunities on an all-island basis. I am thinking about mid-Ulster, where I am originally from, in t…

Over recent months, I have been vocal in this House and elsewhere in supporting the Government's proposals for personal investment accounts and calling for further tax reforms to ensure that existing investors will not be not left behind. I have pushed the need to abolish the deemed disposal rule. As long deemed disposal exists in Ireland, it will discourage international funds, including many domiciled in Ireland, from being offered to Irish retail investors. This is because funds would have to create a complicate…

I thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive response, including the reference to growing exchange-traded funds, which is something I want to see. I welcome the reduction in the exit tax, but the issue that remains is the deemed disposal rule and taxing unrealised gains, which interrupts compounding and undermines long-term savings behaviour. That is something the Tánaiste is looking at. The Minister of State spoke about it earlier. I also note that new polling by Amárach highlights the resounding public sup…

I was elected for the first time in 2019 as a councillor in Dublin West in the election after the Minister. In preparation for tonight, I looked back over some of my leaflets on transport and infrastructure from that year. One referenced €1.5 billion that was ring-fenced for BusConnects that would cut journey times by 40%. Another referenced a €2 billion investment in rail to electrify and upgrade the Maynooth line to a DART service in line with the national priority to double frequency and triple capacity by 2027.…

The Minister and the Minister of State will both be familiar with this question because I have met them previously. When it comes to funding streams and Dublin West, our Dublin 15 villages are too big for the likes of town and village renewal scheme or are too small for the urban regeneration and development fund, URDF. I would like an update on our discussions on that please.

I thank the Minister and the Minister of State genuinely for engaging with me on this because I feel they understand the challenge we have. Our Dublin 15 villages are falling between two stools. I am talking about villages like Castleknock, where the Minister was yesterday for which I thank him, along with Clonsilla, Blanchardstown, Mulhuddart and Corduff. These are distinct communities. They are not just traffic through ways and they are not just part of urban sprawl. They want to support their businesses, they wa…

Those villages are entitled to apply under the town and village renewal scheme but our villages in Dublin 15 currently are not. I will touch on what our communities are doing. The Castleknock business forum was set up at the beginning of last year. The members have done a survey that points to traffic issues. They are diagnosing the problems but do not have the funding to come up with the solutions and to activate those. In Corduff, we have just launched a standard 2 report about place-making, and 146 residents and…