Conradh na Gaeilge, endorsed by a myriad of Irish language groups, today launched its plean fáis, which is an investment plan for the future of the Irish language out to 2030. Something that might be of particular interest to the Minister is an aspect of that plan that is designed to unlock and create some 9,000 jobs in Gaeltacht areas chiefly through investment in Údarás na Gaeltachta. Has the Minister's Department had an opportunity to brief him yet on the contents of the plean fáis from an enterprise, trade and …

No flies on Gino but the odd midge, apparently.

No ticks or flies around here.

I met recently with an ecologist I know who works very closely with developers as part of her role. She gave me a very simple message, and I think it is one the Minister of State will appreciate. We are just gone three years in government. We spend a lot of time up against the coalface and sometimes we do not get to see the road we have travelled. The ecologist gave me a very simple message. She said, "Keep at it - it is working." That was a good message to hear. She said it in the context of the work she does with…

This had and still has all the ingredients of a good scandal. There are public personas, a public fall from grace, and some messy payments being made, which would be a generous description of how these transactions were conducted. It has dragged out over the course of weeks as we get the continual drip-feed of information. It has been messy and, at times, acrimonious and difficult for people who had to attend the committee rooms. Sifting through the detail is important work and the Oireachtas has done a good job in…

I will be addressing more or less the same broad themes referred to by Deputy Gannon, namely, the nature restoration law and migration. I noted that the letter of invitation to the EU Council meeting sent by President Charles Michelle refers specifically to the recent tragic shipwreck in the Mediterranean and what he termed our European migratory approach. It has been difficult over the past couple of weeks not to be struck by the grotesque juxtaposition of the small but genuine tragedy of the submersible and the r…

Before I call on the Minister to open the debate, I remind Members that there are two separate motions being debated, namely, the motion regarding the Offences against the State (Amendment) Act 1998 and the motion regarding the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Act 2009. The motions will be moved separately, but will be debated together and decided by separate questions. There is an amendment tabled to both motions by Sinn Féin and the Labour Party has tabled an amendment to the first motion.

That amendment cannot be dealt with until the Sinn Féin amendment is dealt with.

Deputy Ó Ríordáin may speak to it. If the Sinn Féin amendment is unsuccessful, he will be asked to move his amendment.

We return to Sinn Féin. I call Deputy Martin Kenny.

I might take the prize for longest question of the evening. I ask the Minister to outline the position regarding the recruitment of in-house expertise at the OPW to ensure a full complement of competencies in ecological, botanical, horticultural and biodiversity-related roles; whether a gap analysis has been completed across the organisation; whether a biodiversity officer has been appointed at a level which enables significant influence across the organisation, as outlined in action 1.1 of the biodiversity action …

I thank the Minister of State. That was certainly an answer to a question, as they say, but not to this one as far as I can ascertain. I asked about gap analysis and whether the appointment of the biodiversity officer was at a sufficiently senior level that it could make a difference with the organisation. There is absolutely no doubt that the OPW, if it engages fully on this, stands to make an enormous difference not just in climate mitigation where it will have a huge role, particularly in respect of flooding, bu…

Somebody is being appointed as the assistant principal followed by two ecologists and one clerical officer. That is within an organisation which as the Minister of State pointed out, deals with 780 national monuments, 300 plus hectares of parklands and 1,700 staff. It feels a little thin on the ground to me. I refer in the brief time I have to two recommendations in particular from the Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss. Recommendation 100 relates to the Arterial Drainage Act 1945 and states that it is no long…

As I understand it, a review of the framework for setting speed limits is under way. I ask about the specific consideration of introducing a 30 km/h default speed limit in urban areas. This would improve road safety, the uptake of active travel and reduce road deaths. It also has an emissions impact. It is one of the measures outlined in the RSA Action Plan 2021-2024. Where do we stand with that?

This is an extremely important issue. As I said, there are three elements involved, namely, road safety, climate implications and the implications for active travel. I do not know whether the Minister of State took physics for the leaving certificate but I apologise if I am giving him a flashback. The equation that governs kinetic energy is E = mv². It is the v² in particular that is the kicker on this one. It refers to velocity squared. We know the figures on road deaths. If a road user, such as a pedestrian or my…

Before I continue, I will praise the great work that Mairéad Forsythe of the Love 30 campaign has done in bringing focus to this issue. This has been done elsewhere. Belfast and Edinburgh have both made a decision to reduce speed limits from 30 mph to 20 mph - the equivalent of 30 km/h - in old money. Both cities have seen major positive effects. There has been a 23% drop in the number of fatal collisions, a 33% drop in serious casualties and a 37% drop in minor casualties. This reduction has a real impact. What ha…

I believe everybody across the House, probably including the Minister of State, shares the frustration with the delay in publishing this report. Just as all roads lead to Dublin, all rail tracks lead to Dublin as well. We have come to have a rail system that is hub-and-spoke and what we need is the outside of the wheel. In that context, the mothballed connection between Rosslare and Waterford city and then from Waterford city on to Limerick Junction can be highly important strategic infrastructure. We know how this…

The climate action plan has now set out the sectoral emissions targets reductions that we want to achieve. I am aware that across different sectors, we have put in place climate delivery task forces. The decarbonisation of our transport is probably one of the most difficult areas for us to tackle. What specific areas and initiatives of climate delivery are currently under the focus of the climate delivery transport task force since its establishment?

There is no doubt that considerable headway has been made, particularly in terms of public transport. We see across Europe many countries struggling to get transport numbers back to pre-Covid levels whereas, here in Ireland, we have not only rebounded but exceeded that. Anybody who is using public transport these days can see the number of people travelling and I am always struck, particularly on the Waterford to Dublin train, by the number of young people travelling. That is directly to do with the decreased fares…

The Minister of State mentioned two key things, which are the public engagement piece and that piece around road space reallocation. Any of the representatives here know that reallocation of road space can be contentious and we can get a lot of pushback on it, so public engagement is critical. I wonder whether we are recruiting into the active travel teams across all of the local authorities in a way that answers not just that technical need. Of course, the active travel teams need engineers but we also need expert…