I too thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing us back in. On a side note, I congratulate Deputy McGuinness on taking the time to come to the Chamber today. The problem every week is that Government Deputies or spokespersons do not turn up. That is where all the confusion arises and where the time is lost.

I congratulated Deputy McGuinness on taking the time to contribute to the debate. It is a pity that more of his colleagues do not do likewise. Sinn Féin welcomes any measures that will help businesses through the pandemic. It is unfortunate that the ability of the Government to plan for changes in circumstances in the course of the pandemic is so lacking. Although the extension of supports we are here to discuss is welcome, the manner in which the Government has led so many businesses to the edge of reopening just …

Rents are bleeding people dry. My colleague, Deputy Ó Broin, has introduced a Bill which seeks to prohibit rent increases for all existing and new tenancies for three years.

Before the Government decides to sit back and think it has done everyone a favour by extending the schemes, I remind it that families and businesses are feeling the pressure-----

-----from every angle. The Minister is responsible and he has no reason to be proud of that.

This has been a bad year for Irish banking. When we speak of a bad time for banking, we are speaking about a bad time for our citizens. Banks have been allowed to continue with the tradition of making their customers pick up the bill for whatever impacts the institutions cause. We saw this on a grand scale during the financial crisis, when the Government of the day stood with the banking sector and ensured that each man, woman and child would have to foot the bill for its failings and bad practices and the fallout …

It is vital for communities throughout the country that the uncertainty around the lawful sale and consumption of alcohol in outdoor seating areas is addressed and clarified so this part of our hospitality sector can restart doing as much business as the rules allow. It is also important that the obligations of the licensees of these premises are upheld and the contents of the Bill also deal with this. It is also important that outdoor seating, whether for pubs, restaurants or cafes, is facilitated as much as possi…

We are all aware Covid has had an impact on every part of our lives and the issue of planning is no exception. Throughout the pandemic we have seen a delay in construction. At a time when our housing crisis is reaching peak levels, this delay has made an already terrible situation as far as housing availability is concerned even worse. Covid has definitely shone a light on the shortcomings of our housing system. Lessons must be learned from this. This Government must learn fine words are not enough. Making grand pr…

As the Minister of State is aware, I come from a constituency that has a particular strategic location in the context of transport routes. We have the N24 that, despite being in very poor condition, links the east coast with Limerick and has a link to the M8. We have a rail line with a similar route, that also links with Cork, Limerick and the capital. Unfortunately, the potential offered by these routes has been abandoned and ignored. The Minister of State will be only too aware that the impact of this abandonment…

I understand there will be concerns among some who would favour the M20 route but many would not. The M20 plans as they are would create a bottleneck in Blackpool for example. There is also the fact the M24 route would adhere to the route now known as the N24 whereas the M20 would not, and would have to run off-line into greenfield sites. Surely the Government would recognise this is the least attractive option in terms of the ecological impact. There are towns that will need their own bypasses but I know the Minis…

I would like to be associated with Deputy Carthy's remarks about Deputy Cahill. He has been a very fair Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, of which I am also a member. I also welcome the Minister of State to the House. The network of Irish family farms has a unique and personal relationship with the country's vets. Our vets know the farms that they deal with. They know the history of the livestock, the kind of land they are dealing with and the farmers' needs and demands…

As much as the Government might want to ignore the message sent in the 2020 general election, Sinn Féin is here to remind it that the pension age was one of the biggest issues in the course of that campaign. Voters sent a clear message that they wanted to restore the right to retire at 65 on the full pension rate, and Sinn Féin is making good on its promise to continue to campaign for that very right. However, despite the message that was sent loud and clear, the Government has failed to act. Instead, it has opted …

We are in a situation in which a debate is ongoing over how a diminished pot of supports is to be distributed among the country's farmers who are being asked to do much more in return for far less. It seems as though our farmers are being utilised instead of being supported. The nature of the Common Agricultural Policy has changed from one that was supposed to assist farmers to engage in good practice with the benefits of high-quality produce being affordable for the consumer. Instead, what we have seen is a Common…

I am sharing time with Deputy Martin Kenny. When Covid struck, the country went into firefighting mode because we were battling a threat about which very little was known. Decisions were made and restrictions imposed that have affected every man, woman and child, with impacts on emotional, mental and physical health. While it is understandable that very difficult choices had to be made, it is regrettable that so few measures to address the impacts of the restrictions were put in place. With a reduction in services,…

I am raising this matter because, after all that our schoolchildren and their families have been through over the past 12 to 18 months, they can do without the seemingly endless bureaucracy and battles they face in securing school transport. Every year, parents in Tipperary are left struggling to get spaces on school buses under the school transport scheme. In some instances, people have been told that, due to distance limits, they cannot get tickets despite buses for the schools they have chosen passing their hous…

The Minister can read from a script like that all she likes, but the rules of the scheme are not reflective of the reality of rural schools and their large catchment areas. In a letter about the school transport scheme for children with special educational needs, the Minister told me that "children are eligible for transport where they have special educational needs arising from a diagnosed disability and are attending the nearest recognised mainstream school, special class/special school or unit, that is or can be…

It would help a lot of people.

I want to raise with the Minister how administrators and managers of the family resource centres spend a massive amount of time making applications for funding. I also want to raise the fact that the existing funding streams are too short.

I appreciate the Minister recently met representatives of the Family Resource Centre National Forum but so have I, and I have been involved in the resource centre in Cashel since we built it. An amount of time is wasted and taken up by managers and administrators looking for funding. Let it be said that at times it is minuscule funding. The amount of work these managers and administrators put into running the centres is unbelievable. When all of the paperwork goes back to it, the Department does not realise that th…

We all agree the family resource centres are a model for providing therapeutic and drop-in services but in some cases the funding is so scarce that these centres find themselves unable to provide assurances to service users that the service they require will continue to be provided. In a recent discussion on mental health with the centres, they spoke of dealing with people who are ready to take the next step but they cannot get assurances on this from the resource centres. This is not only because the funding amoun…