We have made great strides in terms of sustainable transport. However, one of the areas that still needs work is the school transport system and school buses in particular. Further to Question No. 150 of 1 February 2022, has the review of the existing school bus allocation system been completed and has the Minister's attention been drawn to the need to increase flexibility in ticket allocation?

As a member of the Green Party I may believe in recycling, but that was almost verbatim the answer that was received to the parliamentary question submitted on 1 February. I would have hoped to see some movement forward since then. For many children, the school bus is their first experience of public transport. Indeed, that was the case for me, back in the middle ages when I was taking the school bus. Perhaps we should not base policy on specific instances but parents in Butlerstown, my home parish, are paying priv…

I thank the Minister. I acknowledge the good work that is under way and the additional flexibility that is being built in. It would be churlish not to. I would like to have an idea of the actual timeline for that review being completed. We were initially given an indication of quarter 1 of 2022 and we would like to see it over the line. I will refer to a specific instance where flexibility is needed. There is school transport available that is passing quite close to the area in question. It passes from Dunhill into…

Last week, in the company of representatives from Waterford LEADER Partnership, I visited two new office buildings in the Blackwater Valley economic development zone, in Lismore and Tallow, both very fine new buildings that offer a company all it would need in the centre of these historic towns. Injecting good jobs and salaries into rural towns such as these throughout the country has the capacity to transform local economies and drive on the goals set out in both Our Rural Future and our town centre first policy. …

I recently said there is a phrase that should be written on the wall of every office in this Oireachtas. It reads: "Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a livable future." This was said by Hans-Otto Pörtner, one of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, working chairs. We are walking a climate tightrope and every single step we take from here on has to be a step in the right direction because the fall is, frankly, unthinkable. We have set …

There is a commitment in the programme for Government regarding an Irish sea way walking trail designed to boost tourism and slow tourism along the east and south coasts. There was also a commitment in that to undertake a consultation process with communities along the coast from Carlingford Lough all the way down to Cobh. Could the Minister of State make a statement on the progress of this commitment?

That is an interesting answer. What we are really looking at is an infrastructural piece and I am not sure this is the type of thing Fáilte Ireland could or should be involved in. I think there is a role for central government in it and there is clearly a role for local authorities. A good example of this is found in Waterford where Waterford City and County Council has worked with landowners to develop a coastal trail that runs from Dunmore through Portally as far as Ballymacaw with plans to bring it further to Tr…

I am sure that if Deputy Matthews was here, he would have been referencing the Bray to Greystones route, which I have walked myself and which is beautiful. I mentioned the route from Dunmore to Ballymacaw. There is also a loop trail that is the final furlong of St. Declan's Way, which takes in the Ardmore cliff walk. Again, this was developed by the local authority and was done in a very sympathetic way that respected the surroundings. It is easy to diminish something like walking tourism but in the Scottish touris…

This question is related to the previous one in many ways. It relates to sustainable and slow tourism. The Dubliners may have sung "Thank God We're Surrounded By Water" but certainly in terms of transport or tourism, being an island nation makes it more difficult for people to arrive here in a sustainable way. What steps are being taken to promote slow tourism through sail-rail-trail sustainable tourism offerings?

I am understandably biased but I will say that Waterford again leads the way in terms of sustainable travel. We know for a fact that the success of the Waterford greenway has shown how good value a proposition this type of tourism is. The marketing department of Fáilte Ireland can have the following for free. I want people to see the greenway as the green way. I want tourists to be able to arrive into Rosslare Europort, step onto a train to bring them to Waterford city, unload their bicycles and go from there. That…

Rosslare Europort has been a real success story over the last number of years in its freight response to things like Brexit, for example, and in terms of the passenger numbers that are arriving. People are increasingly choosing to travel by ferry. There might be a range of reasons for that. It might be that they get to bring their car. There are also a certain number of people who are choosing to fly less and use other modes of transport to arrive at their tourist destinations. However, not every service that is co…

My time is relatively short. There might not be consensus emerging across the House, but I think everybody in the House seems to agree with the broad thrust of where we are going in terms of the provision of housing for Ukrainians. There is increased unanimity on the view that we must tackle vacancy. Points have been made about dereliction, which we are further away from tackling, and bringing properties back into use. My colleague Deputy Matthews has some very interesting ideas around that. I know that the Ministe…

I move: Wednesday's business shall be: -Motions for Revised Estimates for Public Services 2022 [Votes 27, 28, 33, 35, 36 and 38] (to be moved together and decided without debate by one question) -Motion re Referral to Committee of the Planning and Development (Street Furniture Fees) Regulations 2022 (without debate) -Motion re Ministerial Rota for Parliamentary Questions (without debate) -Motion re Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council to enable Eurojust to collect, preserve and an…

On heating oil too.

Where are those figures from?

When?

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is working with Enterprise Ireland to establish a construction technology centre this year to bring together research, expertise and industry to look at innovation in the built environment. The urgency of this cannot be overstated. We very much need to move towards sustainable materials and construction practices. I wish to ask the Minister the position regarding the construction technology centre, the timeline for its establishment and the role it will play as par…

On the timeline for establishment, at the outset of his contribution the Minister of State used the term "very soon" and midway through it he referred to the end of this year. He might be able to give me some additional, hard and fast timelines on that. It strikes me that a suite of Government measures to do with housing hangs together on this. One is clearly Housing for All. Another is the climate Act, which is of central importance. The Circular Economy Bill 2021, which acknowledges and values the embodied carbon…

I very much welcome that additional detail. Everybody in this House acknowledges the need to begin delivering housing at speed and scale but also in a manner that is sustainable. The three have to go together. The construction technology centre should be considering things like next-generation easy assembly and, in respect of housing units, research supporting modular construction. We should be considering new materials and the evaluation of their performance. I referred to the town centre first policy to unlock to…

I am asking this question on behalf of my colleague, Deputy Matthews. The question relates to an issue affecting the constituencies of the Minister and the Ministers of State, Deputy Matthews's constituency in Wicklow, as well as Wexford, my own constituency of Waterford and around the coast into Cork. I am referring to the large-scale development of offshore wind. What steps will the Minister take to ensure citizen engagement with offshore wind energy projects and will he make a statement on the matter?