You are on this side of the House now.

Have a word with your brother.

I thank the Minister for his response. I note the publication of that statement and that he has placed on the record of the House that at this stage, this is an understanding. At the time, my recollection is that he welcomed the removal of section 899 retaliatory measures and that is very important for businesses. We have to remember that Ireland has significant foreign direct investment in the United States. This has been described as a form of opt-out for the US. Does the Minister believe this may have worrying i…

I appreciate this is a bit of an moveable feast but there are uncertainties. The G20 nations were the guardians of the OECD deal originally. The OECD adopted it and we adopted it. I welcomed at the time that we adopted the process ourselves. That was not without risks for Ireland. It was a welcome thing to do. Because the framework of this deal is subject to EU legislation, I assume EU legislation will require to be changed to accommodate this agreement if indeed there is an agreement. That will require unanimity. …

I move amendment No. 1 to amendment No. 1: After "compare prices and make informed choices" to insert: "calls on the Government to: — commit to passing the Competition and Consumer Protection (Unfair Prices) Bill 2023; and — instead of using over €700 million to cut the rate of Value Added Tax on hospitality in Budget 2026, to use these hundreds of millions to reduce child poverty with a targeted second tier of child benefit, and other measures to provide income supports to households.". I thank the Social Democrat…

Do not be so cynical.

That is exactly what the Government has been doing for the past three years. This is why it is in this difficulty.

Tax cuts to target child poverty.

Absolutely.

And then you delayed my Bill by 12 months.

The failures of care exposed by the media in recent weeks are not just a failure of one private nursing home operator. This is a failure by our State, a failure of public policy, a failure of regulation, and an abject failure to uphold the dignity of those who have no option but to put their care into others' hands. It would be naive of us to think that we have seen is anything other than the tip of the iceberg. Just look at Aoife Hegarty's reports today. The abuse, the poor care, the corners cut and older men and …

I will cut to the chase. North Drogheda objectively needs a train station. It should already be in place. I was on Louth County Council more than 20 years ago when we masterplanned the provision of 5,000 new homes. Half of those homes have been or are in the process of being built. These plans included a site for a train station, but then came the crash. Up to half of those homes, as I said, have been built or they are in process and we still do not have a new station. The profile of the new residents of that area …

I congratulate my colleague Deputy Farrell for bringing this Bill forward. It is significant legislation. It very much aligns with the work that the Deputy has done since she entered this Chamber in 2020. She is very much focused on the question of public procurement and driving economic and social change through the development of responsible public procurement systems. It is quite extraordinary when we consider that €22 billion of taxpayers' money, generated by the hard work of Irish citizens, will be spent on pu…

Captured by civil servants-----

The Labour Party will amend the Bill on Committee Stage. I can assure the House that we will not amend it on the basis that we want to see what is a modest charge on properties abolished. It is extraordinary that every time we debate the principle of the property tax in this House there are parties who purport to be on the left in Irish politics which say they oppose it. They oppose it for their own reasons, and I respect that. In my view, parties are not entitled to refer to themselves as a social democratic or so…

I will be sharing time with my colleague Deputy Lawlor. We are in an incredible situation in this country and in the Middle East at present. For the first time, two weeks ago, in response to a Labour Party motion and a Sinn Féin Bill two weeks ago on Israeli bonds, a significant statement was made by senior Government representatives in this House. Finally, a senior Government figure in the State said unequivocally that Israel is carrying out a genocide against the people of Gaza. The Genocide Convention, dare I ex…

Will the Minister elaborate on the staffing composition of the new infrastructure division within his Department and on what he views as the key responsibilities and deliverables for the division in 2025? This is a key objective of the Minister and is contained in the programme for Government. Will he inform the House as to what the priorities are for the rest of this year?

That is not an insignificant number of staff. Can the Minister confirm that those from State agencies who will be working in the division will continue to be paid by their parent agencies? I assume that will be the case. The Minister was quoted in T he Irish Times yesterday as saying that the acid test will be delivery. I assume the action plan on infrastructure delivery the Minister referred to will be published side by side with the review of the national development plan in July. That would make a lot of sense. …

Will the Minister consider finding a way to include people with international experience from outside this jurisdiction in the division? I do not know the identities of the people involved and, in some ways, it is none of my business. I wish them well, because if they do a good job our country succeeds, so we should give this initiative a fair wind. However, a lot of the people involved in the infrastructure division and task force will themselves have considerable experience with delayed projects. I am not apporti…

I am sharing time with my colleague, Deputy Ahern. We will divide our time into seven and three minutes. I will focus my comments principally on the Drogheda and Baltray flood relief scheme, which was announced in 2021. Four years later, the latest newsletter proclaims it is still at stage 1 of five stages. The Minister of State set out quite clearly that, on average, the process involved five separate stages. It appears that this particular process is still at stage 1, which is scheme development and preliminary d…