I thank the Minister and want to move on to the next question.

Minister, please. The time is up.

I thank the Minister. We are out of time but I will allow one minute.

First, I wish the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, well in her new role. I thank the Regional Group for bringing forward this motion, which calls on the Government to abolish the carer's allowance means test and establish a high-level working group to do the groundwork in preparing for the delivery of a non-means-tested participation income for family carers. I have lost count of the number of times I have stood up in this House to call for a fundamental reform of the carer's allowance scheme and to ensure both t…

Under the current national planning framework, the Government has committed to achieving a 50-50 split in population growth between the eastern and midlands region and the other two regions, namely the northern and western region and the southern region. However, based on the latest population statistics from the CSO, 55% of population growth has taken place in the eastern and midlands region. Much of that growth has been overly concentrated in the greater Dublin area. Consequently, population growth has been much …

I thank the Taoiseach. He spoke of people wanting to work, study and live in the regions and of winning hearts and minds. What he needs to do is build houses. Stop talking about hearts and minds or community centres here and there, although the latter are welcome and great to see. I am talking about the big-ticket items, and the Taoiseach knows that. I am talking about systemic investment in the regions and investment in big projects like roads and health infrastructure. Time and time again, different Ministers and…

Build houses.

They are not in Sligo.

Today we are discussing weather-related supports for farmers. Many farmers in the north west are paying a very heavy price, both in income lost and, indeed, in the context of their own well-being and mental health, as they grapple to keep going with the poor weather that has dogged the west and the north west since August of last year. It is not just about keeping going; it is about seeing a viable future for their farm with the weather-related challenges alongside all the other challenges they face. While it is no…

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and the Minister of State. This is perhaps the fifth or sixth occasion I have raised this issue. To build a new Garda station in Sligo is an urgent matter. Every couple of months a colleague of mine, Councillor Marie Casserly, contacts me to keep it on the agenda because this is a long saga. We need to get it sorted. I have raised it so many times with various Ministers, the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach. In fact, the last Minister for Justice to visit Sligo Garda station was the curr…

Obviously, certain things are happening because we now have the divisional change and the Garda Commissioner and the Minister are supportive of a new Garda station in Sligo. I am sorry that the Minister is not here today but to be fair, she did send me her apologies that she could not make it. One always likes, if and when possible, to hear the Minister responsible speaking on these issues. The Minister of State is quite right that the Minister has no role in the independent functions of administration and manageme…

I thank People Before Profit-Solidarity for introducing this motion. Regardless of who can claim the credit, and I know many different people have been lobbying on the matter, I am very pleased to see that the Green Paper on Disability Reform has been pulled, as it were. The Minister said it was just a consultation paper and while I accept her bona fides, I hope lessons will be learned from what has happened in the meantime and that the substantive issues and concerns that were raised will be dealt with. A very imp…

The groundbreaking EU pact on asylum and migration has five new directives. Three are already agreed. A set of recommendations is going straight to the justice committee without any opportunity to discuss its profound implications in this House. I canvassed twice in favour of the Lisbon treaty, which enshrines our opt-out on justice and home affairs, which was in the Treaty of Amsterdam, along with our colleagues from Denmark who have chosen not to opt into this legislation. When I did that canvassing, I honestly b…

I congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy Burke, on his new role. We served together in the European Parliament. Who would ever have thought we would serve in this Parliament together? Politics is a strange game. I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion because it highlights the fact that the cancer strategy has not been properly funded for three out of the past five years. When it comes to survival rates, Ireland is around mid-table in the EU 27, and when it comes to western EU member states, we have …

Why, after nearly one year into a two-year pilot programme entitled Counselling in Primary Schools, no counsellor is available to schools in the north Leitrim area, even though Leitrim is one of the counties in the pilot area? I have sent the Minister details of one of the schools. Obviously, I do not want the name of the school to be mentioned because of confidentiality but it is one of a number of schools in north Leitrim that have not been able to access this highly valuable and badly-needed scheme.

As the Minister said, this scheme came into being last May 2023. That is almost a year ago, and Leitrim is one of the seven counties in this scheme, along with Cavan, Laois, Longford, Tipperary, Mayo and Monaghan. This is a very valuable scheme. It provides counselling outside of the NEPS scheme. You do not need a full assessment from teachers, etc., in order to get access to the scheme. It is a much more agile scheme. Teachers have to make a judgment through their interactions with the students and it really is ve…

The school about which I gave the Minister details, which we are not mentioning here, contacted the Department in February, and again in March it submitted what I think is called the appendix 1 form. It has not heard back from the Department. It would be very useful if the Minister's Department could contact the school to let it know the situation. As the Minister knows, if a principal thinks a child needs this service, it is quite a difficult conversation to have with a parent, and then if they apply for the servi…

The Minister of State spoke about the importance of building houses in rural areas. It is interesting to look at the housing commencements for last year on a per capita basis. The numbers are much higher for Dublin, of course, but we can look at a county like Kildare. For every 80 people in County Kildare, one house was built. It is important to state that these numbers are on a per capita basis, which means they are fair to begin with. In Sligo, there was one house built for every 273 people. Leitrim had one house…

I congratulate the Minister of State on his appointment. I look forward to working with him. I would suggest, if Deputy Flaherty does not mind, while he is looking for a windfall in Longford, to look at his neighbours first, in Sligo, Roscommon, Leitrim and so on. I want to raise the issue that the Minister of State has raised before now, which is the need for staged payments for the Croí Cónaithe grants. I know the Minister of State supports this. As he has said himself, it is similar to the standard practice as i…

I get the impression the Minister is trying to say this is costing the Exchequer. I submitted a question a week ago and got a response about the amounts of taxes and levies on a litre of petrol and a litre of diesel. Right now he is getting 89 cent per litre on one litre of diesel. That is higher than at any time in the past five years. I am not talking about the percentage; I am talking about the actual amount, and we still have two increases to go. It will be 15% higher by 9 October than at any time since January…