I will have to seek an update from TII on this. I do not have the details to hand. We are continuing a considerable investment in our roads. The focus, of course, is on maintaining and strengthening existing roads, on safety, on international commitments, and on bypasses of towns in particular.

I thank Deputy Durkan for raising this important issue again. I will have to speak to the Minister for Justice about it. Either a review or a report was done but not an inquiry. I will follow up on the matter with the Deputy directly.

I thank the Deputy. If she passes me the details, I will check the matter out with the Minister, Deputy McEntee. Straightforward cases should not take that long. If somebody comes to the country legally and is working, making a contribution and paying their taxes, usually that person's case can be decided within months, and certainly less than 19 months in my experience. Sometimes there can be complicating factors because it is necessary to check with the country a person has come from. There are also other checks …

Thanks, Deputy. I am going to have to ask the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, to come back to him directly on that particular query, but this is an issue that I have taken an interest in personally. I have met the fishing organisations a few times. I think we had a good outcome in relation to mackerel not too long ago. On this particular negotiation, though, I am not across the detail, so I will have to ask the Minister to come back to the Deputy and to me with further information.

I thank the Deputy. I concur with him. Regeneration is happening in Dublin city. It is, of course, a matter for Dublin City Council primarily, but it is not happening fast enough. It is not just the Oliver Bond complex. It is also Dolphin House, Donore Avenue and so many other projects that seem to take an inordinate amount of time to progress. Even the O'Devaney Gardens project, which at least is now happening, is happening much slower than anyone would have anticipated. This is something we discussed at the housi…

I thank the Deputy. I know this is a priority for the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers. From talking to my own Deputies and going around the country, I know the delays in getting a driver test are hugely frustrating, especially for young people and those who need the car to get to work or to college. We are hiring more testers and we believe this will help us to get on top of the backlog and improve the situation. I will ask the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers, to come back directly to the Deputy with some mor…

I thank the Deputy. As I think I said earlier in reply to another Deputy, the Government appreciates that a lot of businesses are under pressure from rising costs, particularly those in the hospitality sector. There is help on the way in terms of a €250 million in grants that the Government will be pumping into small businesses before the end of March to help with bills and cash flow. The debt warehousing scheme remains in place. Also, we are seeing energy prices falling for business, which is encouraging too. I do…

I propose to take Questions Nos 1 to 7, inclusive, together. The National Competitiveness and Productivity Council published its annual competitiveness challenge report in September 2023. The council's report outlined 19 priority recommendations across a broad range of areas for Government consideration. These include enabling stronger productivity growth through research, development and innovation; reducing the cost of doing business in Ireland; accelerating progress on the usage and generation of energy in line …

I thank the Deputies for their questions. Deputy Boyd Barrett is quite right to say that wealth is generated by workers, but there are different forms of workers and different forms of wealth. A lot of wealth is generated by innovation and creating new things. We need to always bear that in mind. There is a lot of research showing that 75% of all new global growth in recent decades has been driven by innovation, new inventions and entrepreneurship, that is, not by people doing the same things, but by people doing n…

-----work out what the effective amount would be and make sure we are very careful about any unintended consequences, which often happen in tax policy. Artificial intelligence is a really important topic to which we need to give a lot of consideration. It was the main topic of discussion in Davos last week. It is a powerful technology with potentially enormous benefits for society and the economy, but one that has some risks too. My only regret is that it is described as artificial intelligence. That gives people t…

I will ask the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, to revert to the Deputy on that issue.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 8 to 10, inclusive, together. A comprehensive evaluation of how the country managed Covid-19 will provide an opportunity to learn lessons from our experiences in dealing with the pandemic. It will include a review of the whole-of-government response to the pandemic and how we might do better and be in a stronger position if another pandemic or other similar event were to occur. It will include a consideration of the health service response, covering hospitals, the community and nurs…

On Deputy Tóibín's questions, look, I was there in government both as Taoiseach and Tánaiste for that very dark period which was the pandemic. These were very difficult decisions to make. Everyone can be an expert in hindsight. We can only make decisions based on the information available and the advice that was put to us by experts. I have no doubt that the lockdowns saved lives. I am absolutely certain that the vaccine programme saved a lot of lives. We see that from the most recent OECD report, which shows that …

Even for something like Garda numbers, if we had not closed Templemore there would be 1,000 more gardaí today. These things have real consequences but they were difficult decisions. It was never a case of choosing between the right option and the wrong option. It was choosing between options A, B and C, all of which had pros and cons.

Often those decisions were finely balanced. The public health advice more often than not was for deeper, longer, stricter lockdowns. That was often the view of the Opposition, too, indeed some even flirted with the bizarre zero-Covid policy which has proven to be among the worst options when we see the effects that occurred, or certainly not a sustainable option as it was abandoned by all the countries that attempted it. In respect of Deputy Ó Murchú's questions about the terms of reference of the Covid inquiry, I …

That is definitely not a model that we will be following. In the election we will be encouraging people not to vote for Sinn Féin or for left wing parties precisely because that is what they want to do in Ireland. It is not a good thing. On long Covid, early in the pandemic the HSE identified a need for a national service for long Covid and to set up a multidisciplinary team to develop a model of care under the auspices of the chief clinical officer. The model of care is now being implemented building on existing s…

I will be consulting with the Opposition parties on Thursday and am happy to go through it all then.

Like public representatives generally, I meet church leaders informally from time to time in the course of attending official or public events. The most recent formal meeting between the Office of the Taoiseach and the church leaders took place on 15 April 2021, when the now Tánaiste met the leaders of all the Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church, the Methodist Church and the Irish Council of Churches. I had the opportunity to meet the papal nuncio …

I thank the Deputies for their questions. On Deputy Tóibín's question, I put on the record that the Government is very grateful for and recognises the work done by the religious in Ireland and all over the world. Given the scandals that have affected churches and religious bodies and given the existence of religious extremism in the world, sometimes that can be forgotten, but it should not be forgotten. We will all know of people - nuns, priests and other religious people - who have made an enormous contribution to…

I thank the Deputy for her question. As this is my last time to speak in the Chamber this year, I also want to thank the Ceann Comhairle, all colleagues in the House and particularly the staff of the Oireachtas, the members of the Press Gallery and others for all of the work they have done this year. I look forward to seeing everybody in the new year after a well-earned break. I would like to confirm that Santa Claus has permission to enter Irish airspace and to cross our borders on 24 December through 25 December.…