Households continue to subsidise data centres' electricity bills through the PSO levy. The burden is due to get bigger because the Government refuses to change its unfair approach. This budget is a missed opportunity to end our over-reliance on fossil fuels. Renewable sources such as offshore wind provide cheaper, more reliable and sustainable energy that will protect us in a volatile global market, but this needs to be done collaboratively with local communities and to the benefit of those communities. The idea th…

Social enterprise policy is incredibly important. It is something that we all see in our constituencies. The crucial aspect here is it includes many people and communities that are often very much excluded. If we are serious about it, I ask the Minister of State to look at how we do procurement and how we use social clauses in the context of procurement. The biggest spender in the State is the State. We need to use the resources of the State in our communities in order that there is a knock-on effect in terms of th…

Sometimes we need to be really honest with ourselves. At this moment in time, we know one in five children is living in poverty, 300,000 households are in debt on their electricity bills and nearly 200,000 others are in debt on their gas bills. We need to look at that and make decisions that impact people's lives and help them. We are bringing forward this constructive motion to try to assist in that sense. The Government countermotion mentions retrofitting. The Minister of State will know well that retrofitting is…

Is dócha gurb é seo an uair dheireanach a bheimid ag suí roimh an samhradh. An cheist is mó atá i mbéal an phobail faoi láthair ná céard go díreach a bheidh ag tarlú leis an gcáinaisnéis. I ask the Minister for an update on general budgetary expenditure measures. There had been an expectation that the summer economic statement was due to be released this week, but it now looks like it will be next week.

I thank the Minister for that initial overview. It will not surprise him that I raise this, but one of the big things is the capital spend on infrastructure. Storm Éowyn put into sharp focus the creaking infrastructure we have across the west of Ireland, in particular. That is obviously an area I would like to see huge progress in. I am aware the Minister knows the west of Ireland quite well. I know he cannot give me specific figures on what exactly will be spent on budget day. However, will he identify some genera…

I look forward to seeing how that unfolds. It is incredibly important. It is interesting that on both the budgetary oversight and finance committees we have been dealing with the issue of tariffs. One of the big things is how we can protect ourselves. What may or may not happen nobody can predict. One of the longer term things is the investment in capital infrastructure, so we can build housing and our own economic structures. It is about being targeted and putting in place the kind of infrastructure that will help…

Go raibh maith agat. Sometimes you are waiting a few minutes in between questions.

The Minister might be aware that I have a particular interest in the issue of protected disclosures and protecting whistleblowers. I worked well with the previous Minister, Michael McGrath, in regard to the EU directive. I put forward my own legislation on this. There is obviously now going to be the review of that. There is the EU review of the protected disclosures regime, and I am interested in an update on that.

When the Government was transposing the EU directive on protected disclosures, I was clear at the time and I voiced significant concerns. I felt it was perhaps deliberately going to weaken the transposition. I said I felt the setting up of the protected disclosures office was a retrograde step and that it removed a protected disclosure as a political issue. Previously, an Opposition TD could deliver a protected disclosure to the relevant Minister and then seek to know what progress had been made. Now, the Minister …

One thing I absolutely encourage and urge the Minister to do is listen to the voices of whistleblowers. That is essential. We have had an issue for far too long whereby whistleblowers highlight wrongdoing and feel that they are persecuted after doing so. Unfortunately, from listening to the real-life experiences of whistleblowers, I do not think the position in that regard has changed. We need to do everything we can to protect these people because when it comes to revealing wrongdoing in the State, more often than…

When we are talking about investment within Uisce Éireann and we know investment is desperately needed in terms of delivery of housing and so on across the State, we also need to look at the investment we are making in water infrastructure on the offshore islands. On Inis Oirr, for example, there are night-time restrictions every summer. We need to have a plan and we need to invest in the offshore islands when it comes to water. We have previously had, as the Minister will remember, issues with water on Inisbofin a…

Apologies. I did not realise.

My question relates to the scoping exercise the Minister and his Department are undertaking on the overpayment of pensions to civil servants and Ministers. What is the status of that, what has been identified to date and what can he tell us about it?

People are quite worried about this. We are seeing reports that one civil servant was apparently overpaid by €280,000. The 19 former and existing senior civil servants received overpayments worth €1.4 million. I hope measures are being put in place to make sure this does not happen again. The fact that it happened in the first place is shocking. When I raised it with the Minister at a committee he said he had no concerns about recouping the money. However, when his Department was in front of the Committee of Public…

It is deeply concerning for most people that this is where it is. When does the Minister expect to have an outcome? Has he been able to identity exactly how this occurred? I do not mean any one person should be blamed for something like this but there must have been some system failures as well. Has the Minister got to the bottom of that? Does he expect that to come out of the report? When does he expect the report to be in the public domain? The Minister will be acutely aware, as he prepares for the budget, that m…

This is an issue we have been discussing for many years. In my home county, Galway, not a single dental practice is taking on new patients with medical cards. This is an issue I have been raising for some time. Consistently over recent years, people in dire straits have come to me, whether for themselves or their children, to try to gain access to medical care. A child in absolute agony might be told there is no dentist who can take him or her but that he or she can be put on a list with a waiting period of several…

I am sure the Minister would agree that for too long women's health was not discussed and was seen as something secretive or embarrassing. As a result, for decades, women's healthcare has been utterly neglected. This is not exclusive to women with endometriosis; it concerns a whole range of things. This needs to end. Especially as the Minister is a woman, I appeal to her to see what this motion says and what these women have told us needs to be done. It comes from the expertise of the women around us today. I am co…

We know the application system for driving tests can be a disaster. An issue not raised as much is motorcyclists applying for tests. There is a major waiting list and people are told to monitor the site for a cancellation. There is a new practice where third-party sites and apps, for a fee, use bots and book up the cancellations. This places normal applicants at a disadvantage. It means some people fork out more money just to be in with a chance. This may not have been raised with the Tánaiste before. If it has not…

Ursula von der Leyen has been one of the staunchest defenders of the current Israeli regime. She has consistently provided cover for them, going for photo opportunities at every possible moment. She talks about human rights and international law but it is clear for all to see how unequally she applies this. She will talk about Russian war crimes but she will not talk about Israeli war crimes. She will talk about the need to defend Ukrainian lives but she is silent on the need to protect Palestinian lives. She is pr…

The Minister clearly does not know how budgets work. I have only two minutes of speaking time so I will not be able to go through it now but I have no problem sitting down with him at some other time to go through exactly how budgets work. Budgets are about political choices. The Minister says it is a policy decision. It is a policy decision the Government said it was going to take.