That is the answer.

That is the variable. It is a demonstrable fact.

I am pleased we are having this debate. It is more than timely. To the best of my recollection, although I have not checked the transcripts of the debate on the previous Bill, we did not have this conversation three years ago. That is unfortunate. It is a conversation we should have had in this Chamber, but it appears we did not. The fact we are doing so now is illustrative of the degree of frustration our secretarial assistant colleagues are experiencing at present and have been experiencing over the past couple o…

Like my colleague the Labour Party housing spokesperson, Senator Moynihan, I want to give this Bill a cautious but qualified welcome. Any initiative designed to expedite the development of much-needed homes across the country, especially in urban areas where demand is high, is welcome. We would all agree on that. The theory was that the SHD legislation passed by the previous Oireachtas was going to do the devil and all. It sought to create an environment where homes could be developed at scale and in a more efficac…

I again want to raise with the Minister the need for a Covid-19 testing centre and vaccination centre in Drogheda. The Minister knows the incidence rates in Drogheda are again the highest in the State. One in 40 have tested positive and it is one in 20 if we take a 28-day perspective, yet there is still no testing centre in Drogheda - no permanent centre and no pop-up facility. This is unbelievable. It is Ireland's largest town. It neighbours east Meath, which has the fifth highest rate in the State. The HSE in the…

I am very pleased to speak on this very progressive Bill. I acknowledge the lead role played by our colleague, Deputy Duncan Smith, in its genesis, in addition to the work Deputy Bacik has done on it to date. As we know, climate change is the single most important challenge of our time. It is existential and beyond urgent, though one wonders if that reality has dawned on many of those who attended COP26 in Glasgow. The scale of the task facing us can often feel completely overwhelming. It is understandable that we …

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle very much. The points and all of the issues raised by Deputy Sherlock, as we know, predate the pandemic. I join with colleagues in commending the work of the ambulance service before the pandemic and the sterling work that they have done throughout the pandemic, particularly in the visits that they have made to the housebound, together with the sensitive way in which they go about their business. This gratitude must be put on the record of the House. I thank them for their activity…

We cannot legally meet the binding targets of net zero unless we radically change how we do things. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is the parent Department for the national development plan, which the Minister has stated will see us spending an additional €116 billion over the next ten years, during its lifetime, on major infrastructural projects. The legal, moral and existential demand to slow and arrest climate change should be at the heart of every project his Department promotes. How does the M…

When will that work conclude? This is critical. I am not sure the Minister and everybody in his Department, or indeed the Minister for Finance and his Department, understand the absolute centrality of their Departments in meeting our climate change ambitions. The Minister mentioned that the reference cost of carbon will have to change again if we are to align the national development plan and the Government's ambitions more generally with our climate goals. When precisely will that happen? Fiscal policy, tax spendi…

With respect, that reply is the kind of “blah, blah, blah” that Greta Thunberg has accused others of. We must be more precise in how we describe this. I am interested in establishing exactly what kind of metrics the Minister’s Department is going to apply in respect of approving those projects that will be significant in allowing us to meet our carbon reduction and emission goals more generally. One of the projects, for example, that would allow us to do that which seems to be still on the blocks is the DART+ initi…

Sadly, like the Minister of State, I am familiar with all of the terms and acronyms in the glossary of the Bill. It is complex and technical legislation but an extremely important Bill nonetheless. The Labour Party will support its passage on Second Stage on a qualified basis. We look forward to going into the legislation in more detail when it comes before the committee. The Minister of State and the Ceann Comhairle will be pleased to learn that I do not intend to use all my time. Similar to the Minister of State,…

It is very elastic.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion. The so-called rainy day fund was established in 2018 and for reasons that are fairly obvious at this point in time, only one instalment of €500 million was paid into the fund. That was in 2019. The right thing to do was to use that €500 million to help fight the pandemic and to support jobs and business through the most difficult of years. We are, again, as the House knows only too well, in very dangerous territory and it is right that no money is paid into the fund…

I welcome the Minister to the House. We are debating the Finance Bill at a very challenging and, indeed, dangerous time for our country and our citizens. Even since we debated budget 2022, a few short weeks ago, the situation regarding Covid-19 has worsened considerably. We are far from out of the woods yet and we must proceed with caution and care. The role that the institutions of the State, Government and, indeed, all sides of this House, have played to meet the unprecedented challenge presented by a pandemic, t…

Even two years ago, the notion that the Dáil would be proposing to extend any types of restrictions on the way we live our lives would have been unthinkable. The prospect of a global pandemic that has thus far taken the lives of more than 5,000 Irish citizens and millions of lives across the globe was the stuff of science fiction, thrillers and horror movies. It is through the lens of that catastrophic and ongoing loss of life, the ongoing health impact for thousands who have had Covid-19 and the moral duty on us t…

On behalf of the Labour Party, I express my sincerest condolences to the Amess family and to all of Sir David's colleagues. When I heard this chilling news last Friday, my immediate thought was that it could have been any of us. At the same time David was attacked last Friday, most of us were doing the very same thing he was, that is, representing and serving our constituents at our regular Friday clinics. The killing of David Amess reminds us all of the brutal murder of our UK Labour Party colleague, Jo Cox, just …

Hear, hear.

Booster vaccines for those aged over 60 will now be given with immediate effect. We welcome and support that initiative. Will the over-60s have to wait six months, given that there is a minimum interval of five months between shots? Will that not mean that many will not get their booster shot until early next year? The Taoiseach said that the national immunisation advisory committee, NIAC, provided advice to him and the Chief Medical Officer, CMO, that it will keep the administration of vaccine boosters to healthca…

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this motion. It is difficult to keep track of the number of motions and Bills on housing generated by Deputy Ó Broin, by my colleagues in the Labour Party and other Opposition parties over the last two to three years. The Minister mentioned that in his earlier contribution. These are not abstract motions or Bills. They are drawn up and tabled here today and on countless other occasions to fix a very real problem in our society and our economy. We take to this House the direct experienc…

It gives me great pleasure to say that I am sharing my time with my colleague, Deputy Bacik, something I could not say this time last year. This budget takes our State into the second century of its existence. In 2022, we will mark the centenary of the foundation of the State, and that in itself gives us cause for reflection. Coming out of this phase of the pandemic, the need for a deep assessment of where we are, where we have come from and where we are going to is even more acute. What should our priorities be? H…