I, too, echo colleague's sentiments and unwavering support for the Tánaiste, Deputy Simon Harris. I also echo my colleagues who have called this out for what it is and pointed out the Tánaiste is upstanding and hard-working, and has delivered in every role he has ever taken on. Today is SUDEP Action Day - sudden unexpected deaths in epilepsy day. SUDEP is one of the most devastating aspects of epilepsy. Thanks to research supported by Epilepsy Ireland, we know 33 people die of this in Ireland each year. When other …

I mention a particular issue, namely, a report that was published earlier today which ranks Roscommon as the highest tallied scorer, making it statistically the safest place in Ireland to raise a family in 2025. Leitrim, Mayo, Sligo, Donegal, Monaghan, Clare, Kilkenny, Longford and Galway all follow in the top ten. This is something that I have personally known about for years and something I have promoted for years, which is all the positive things we have in Roscommon. On the other side, however, when it comes to…

I propose to share time with Senator Noel O’Donovan.

The Minister stated, "Budget 2026 is a pro-enterprise budget that recognises the critical link between industrial development, infrastructure investment and job creation." In this volatile time, the focus was on protecting the 2.81 million jobs in our economy that we cannot take for granted. First and foremost, the reduction of the VAT rate from 13.5% to 9% has straight away saved and protected 191,000 jobs that would probably be the most susceptible in a volatile economy. The Minister must be credited for that. I …

Like my colleague before me, I welcome Senator Andrews back. I cannot wait to hear the stories about his ordeal. It is good to see him return safely. Following on from the budget, I want to acknowledge the €130 million in grants for older people for housing adaptations; the €140 million for the retrofitting of social homes; the €558 million in funding for residential and community energy schemes from the SEAI, including the warmer homes scheme; the better energy home scheme; the national home energy upgrade and ret…

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the Chamber this morning. This is my fifth Commencement matter for the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and he has not entered the Chamber at all yet. I just want to put that on the record. We have just had Storm Amy and a lot of my constituents in Roscommon once again spent the weekend without power. That follows on from Storm Éowyn back in February when 768,000 customers across the country were without electricity supply because of that storm. On the August bank holiday weeken…

I thank the Minister of State very much for the response. A total of 768,000 customers were without electricity in February. We face another winter with the same uncertainty. Probably the only certainty is the chance that we will have power outages. I could bring anybody in the Chamber to forestry in west Roscommon right now and show them which trees are going to come down and take out which power lines and knock out which group of people in the coming weeks. My constituents and the people of the west deserve to ge…

I had a Commencement matter this morning on Storm Amy. I failed to acknowledge and recognise the staff of the local authority who worked all weekend across Roscommon and the west cleaning up the mess, along with the staff from the ESB and the forestry management services. I want to congratulate them now and thank them for doing this work in difficult times. I also want to congratulate the 72,833 people who are receiving their junior certificate results this morning. They will be visiting school to get their results…

I wish to raise an issue following Storm Amy last Friday. We were protected up here in Leinster but in other parts of Ireland there were widespread power outages and issues with Irish Water and the water supply. I was dealing with this all across the weekend because hundreds of people and households were affected by power outages. I made phone calls to PowerCheck and the ESB yesterday with regard to reporting issues with power outages and the notifications that people get. For those who are not familiar, a person n…

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House to give us the opportunity to make statements on the budget. I compliment him and his Cabinet colleagues on the delivery of the budget. To remind people, budget 2026 is worth €9.4 billion, €8.1 billion of which is spending and €1.3 billion is tax. It represents increased spending of 7%. Through budget 2026 we will provide as much certainty as possible in a turbulent world. This is a Government that has based itself on fiscal responsibility. We have steered the e…

I raise the issue of the impending storms that are about to hit the west at the weekend. The review into the co-ordinated response into Storm Éowyn needs to be published and made available to us before the forthcoming storm season kicks in. Not enough has been done to ready the western part of the country for the next season of storms. We still have many broadband lines that are down and leaning against hedges. Electrical wires have been repaired but a permanent solution has not been put in place for them. I do not…

I thank the Minister of State for coming to discuss this very important issue. Small businesses and retailers are the very heart, as he said, of our economy. They make up the majority of the businesses in our country, employing two thirds of our workforce. As the Minister of State mentioned, they are the lifeblood and part of the fabric of our towns and communities. they hold everything together. The headline or overarching message here today is resilience. If we consider what our SMEs have done in the past 15 or 2…

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the Chamber. I welcome the students from St. Paul's College. I am sure the Cathaoirleach will make an announcement before they leave. I raise an issue that is very important in the area I am from, Castlerea in west Roscommon, which is to prioritise the upgrading of the N60 national road through Castlerea. With the imminent completion of the N5 project - the extension from Scramoge to Tibohine, representing an investment by the Government of over €450 million - everyone wi…

We know the money has been allocated for the N5. I take on board what the Minister of State said about engaging with the local authority. When the TII conversation came before the councillors, it was a matter of taking all or none of the safety measures. As a result of the lack of engagement on the ground, none of the measures was taken on board. However, the roads engineer in Roscommon said at the time that if we were to try to look at a ring road or a float road in Castlerea we would be looking at an eight-to-ten…

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Murnane O’Connor, to the House.

I, too, wish to be associated with the condolence messages that have been echoed in the Chamber today. Last week, in the Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence, we heard from the young people and youth representative bodies regarding AI and the impact on their lives. This morning, we also heard from representatives from the older bodies, people representing the older demographic. A lot of the information we heard from both demographic groups was about what the apps and the tech companies are doing with our data…

I thank the Minister of State for being here and I thank the Cathaoirleach for organising this discussion this evening. Like Senator Curley, I want to acknowledge the 178,000 students that are getting on buses every morning, the 8,200 buses, and the 10,600 routes in the system. The Minister of State said that no child should be left behind and it is great to hear that. The increase in spending in this sector in recent years is impressive, going from €200 million to over €500 million, and shows that the Government i…

The Minister of State is very welcome this morning. I thank him for coming in to answer this Commencement matter. The situation regarding the courtroom facilities in Castlerea Prison is something I have wanted to raise for some time. Castlerea is a medium-security prison, purpose built to serve as a committal prison for Connacht and counties like Cavan, Donegal and Longford. It has a capacity of 340. It is a modern facility equipped to deal with the realities of the prison population in the 21st century. However, p…

I thank the Minister of State very much. It is interesting to hear there has been no change to that, but I welcome the additional court staff. I am looking at a newspaper cutting from 2020 with the headline "Harristown courthouse makes history as video-link installed for hearings". It was celebrated at the time. Obviously, we were dealing with a situation where we were trying to stop the spread of Covid-19 at the time. However, for some of these travels, I would hope that the videolink system could be used more to …

I wish to raise an issue that came up at one of the committee meetings yesterday regarding Oireachtas enquiry lines. I was trying to highlight with the witness a delay in getting responses. Following a bit of research, I found it is a much bigger issue across a lot more of the boards and agencies that we have access to. We as public representatives should not have to go back to members of the public with excuses as to why we have not received an answer within a specific time. I did some research. For State agencies…