I thank the Deputy. Help is on the way for businesses struggling with high energy costs. It is in the Finance Bill. It is the temporary business energy support scheme, which will cover 40% of the increase in energy costs up to €10,000 per month per business, backdated to September. There are European rules and regulations around how far we can go in this regard and it is taxpayers' money, but we are doing as much as we can.

We will certainly look at that. I appreciate the need to improve safety on that road. I have travelled it many times. I will make the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, aware that it was raised in the Chamber.

I acknowledge that Deputy Durkan has raised this matter before in the Chamber and corresponded with me recently. I read the letter he sent me the other day. I am not sure if this is an area in which we can intervene as a Government. I undertake to speak to the Deputy about it, perhaps properly next week, and engage with the Minister for Justice.

I thank the Deputy for raising the matter. I take his point. I have a constituency service too and sometimes I find means tests are very mean. No matter where the line is drawn, there will always be somebody €1 or €2 above it. I know the Deputy appreciates that. In the current budget we have relaxed the means test for the SUSI grant, carer's allowance and fuel allowance but not for medical cards. I take the criticism that there is some inconsistency when you index means tests in some areas and not others. I will ta…

I thank the Deputy. I will ask my people to look into that. I do not want to make any promises here, but it may be an anomaly. We will look into that and see if a change is warranted. Next week, a number of lump sum payments will be made: fuel allowance, €400; living alone allowance, €200; to carers, €500; working families, €500; people in receipt of disability payments, €500. Significant help is on the way to put money back in people's pockets to help with the cost of living, all coming into effect next week. The …

I acknowledge this is a very serious issue. We have helped people with pyrite in their homes to have those homes repaired, are trying to help people with mica in their homes to have them repaired and need to help people living in defective apartment buildings with the cost of those repairs. I agree with the Deputy that it is not their fault. We can argue about whose fault it was, but it is definitely not their fault. That is why we need a scheme to help them and the Government intends to have that scheme in place i…

I thank the Deputy for raising this. It is something I have heard about and am concerned about. The service public health nurses provide is essential. Calling to those homes and checking those babies can bring to light issues that need to be brought to light and make sure help is provided at an early stage. There may be a particular issue with staffing in one or two parts of the country. There is a difficulty recruiting public health nurses at the moment. We are definitely working on that. I will inform the Ministe…

I certainly will. The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, spoke about this issue at a meeting only yesterday evening. She is very keen to get the application process under way as soon as possible because there will be a lot of applications and the sooner we can open the applications, the sooner we can make the payments. The Minister does not want to wait until the new year to do that. She is working on this with her officials with a view to opening applications as soon as possible.

I absolutely agree. The situation in Northern Ireland is always at its best when the Irish Government and the British Government work together with a common agenda and common objectives. Unfortunately, those have been absent for quite some time. The fact that Prime Minister Sunak is attending the British-Irish Council in person, the first time a Prime Minister has done so in a very long time, is very welcome and a very significant gesture. It is to be hoped it is a sign of a better relationship to come.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. It is an issue I am not familiar with so it is new to me. If the Deputy wants to pass on more details to my office, the Taoiseach's office or the office of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, we will make sure the matter is raised with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland as a matter of urgency.

Collective bargaining is an important element of ensuring good industrial relations in Ireland. Industrial relations stability comes from a voluntarist system where the State does not seek to impose a solution on the parties to a dispute but will assist them at arriving at one. This approach has served us well in resolving many complex and protracted disputes. However, our laws are very weak when parties refuse to engage. As the Deputy knows, I appointed a high-level working group under the auspices of the Labour E…

I join with the Deputy in thanking Patricia King for her service on the group and her general service in the past couple of decades. I interacted with her in many ways and on many levels in the past ten years or so. She is a very impressive person and I wish her the best in her future. As the Deputy is aware, Ms King will continue to be a member of the commission on housing and to bring her expertise to the table in that regard. In addition, I congratulate Owen Reidy on his recent appointment to his new role in ICT…

I thank the Deputy. I know she will agree, however, that it is important that we get this right. That is why it will require further engagement with unions and employers. We also need to have particular regard to small business and how this would operate at the level of a company that might only have one or two employees. There is a lot to be worked out at this stage. It is not intended to make Labour Court recommendations legally binding. The Deputy will be aware of unions that have not respected Labour Court reco…

Understandably, many businesses are very worried heading into the winter period. The cost of energy, and the cost of doing business generally, is rising, interest rates are going up and consumer confidence is waning, so businesses need help with their energy bills. The Government has introduced a significant package in the budget to help them in the coming months. This morning, along with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, I launched the €200 million Ukraine enterprise crisis sc…

I thank the Deputy. The scheme announced this morning is now open for applications through the agencies. I will have to double check to be certain, but I think food processing should be covered under the scheme because it is the manufacture of food products and most of our food is exported, so I anticipate that the companies to which the Deputy refers could apply under the scheme. They would have to demonstrate that their energy bills constitute a significant amount of their turnover and that their profits are down…

To clarify, the Ukraine enterprise crisis scheme announced this morning is now open for applications. The temporary business energy support scheme requires legislation. The Finance Bill has to get through this House and the Seanad before that scheme can be up and running. It will be administered by the Revenue Commissioners. Presuming we get the Finance Bill through the Houses, and I believe we will, we would expect it to be up and running by the end of November or early December. Any payments will be backdated to …

I propose to take Questions Nos. 6, 12 and 19 together. I thank the Deputies for their questions. Understandably, a lot of businesses are very worried heading into the winter. The cost of energy and the cost of doing business more broadly is rising. Interest rates are going up and consumer confidence is waning. Businesses need help with their energy bills so the Government has introduced a significant package in the budget to help them over the coming months. As the Deputies will be aware, the temporary business en…

It is fair to say that when we were in the teeth of the pandemic, we intervened and intervened at scale to save as many businesses and jobs as possible because it was not just about businesses, it was also about saving the jobs of the people who worked in them. However, there are constraints - much more so than would have been the case during the pandemic. Now that the cost of Government borrowing is rising, we are in a different place compared with where we were two or three years ago. There are budget limits and …

I thank the Deputies for their contributions. There is room for bio-renewables as part of the new energy mix. One company in Cork, whose representatives I met recently makes boilers. It was explained to me how you could move away from using oil for those boilers to a blend or bio-renewables. I do not know enough about the matter to comment too much, but I take the Deputy's point that we need to give confidence to people around price and policy before they invest. I will take the matter up with the Minister for Envi…

I thank Deputy O'Dowd for raising this matter again. He has a keen interest in ensuring that we get more employment and investment into Drogheda. The new IDA Ireland land bank at the Mell in Drogheda forms part of IDA Ireland's long-term strategic plans to position Drogheda and the wider mid-east region to compete for FDI. I have been advised that since acquiring this land bank last year, IDA Ireland has undertaken an infrastructural review on servicing and how best to position the land bank for a potential major i…