This is an issue across the entire State. I am sure every one of us who is out canvassing or anywhere else will have seen the situation in local authority houses and other houses. There are many HAP tenants in privately-owned houses that are in very damp and very poor condition. The tenants have serious respiratory and other problems as a consequence. I recently visited a HAP tenant in a house in my constituency and brought with me a builder who knew the job and knew the situation. He told me the issue there was in…

I thank the Social Democrats for bringing forward the motion. This is an issue in every constituency in the country, and it is certainly an issue in my constituency in regard to the school dental service. Parents contact me regularly where their children have gone into sixth class and have never seen a dentist and go on to secondary school without seeing a dentist. This is happening throughout the country. The Minister of State gave a history lesson rather than the facts of the reality. It was the situation that ch…

I wish to raise two issues. The Abbey Manor Hotel in Dromahair in County Leitrim received some international protection applicants in recent months. More have come in the past week. The families have been accepted by everyone and I have every confidence that they will be integrated into the community, but the problem that arises wherever people arrive is one of ensuring we have adequate medical, transport and education services. Wherever applicants arrive, these are the services that are placed under pressure, so w…

I am sure the Taoiseach remembers the early instalments of Harry Potter when he lived under the stairs in a little alcove. This particular topic, the well-being framework, reminded me of that because of something I was made aware of yesterday in Ballinamore and Drumshambo in County Leitrim, where I was with the Minister for housing opening some new houses. One of the houses I visited was that of a family there that have a little boy with autism. When he has particularly bad meltdowns, they need a place for him to g…

It is a local authority.

Seventy-nine people have died on our roads so far this year. It is a heartbreaking and frightening number. A third of those people were under the age of 25. That is a figure that strikes fear, particularly for parents, throughout the country. The two main contributors to this terrible statistic are driving under the influence and speed. We have seen the advertisements and the campaigns and we know there are an additional 30 minutes of Garda checkpoints. However, we cannot hope to tackle this issue without a multi-a…

I wish to raise two issues in respect of this matter with the Minister. I welcomed the Minister to County Leitrim yesterday. We had a good morning there and several housing projects were opened in Drumshanbo and Ballinamore. It was welcome and excellent to see it happen. We need to see more of it throughout the country. That is the real problem. I want to make a point that is often made in here about people objecting to houses. We opened those houses in Ballinamore. At the municipal district meeting two of the coun…

I want to get an update on the Department's work on road safety and the continued tragedy we have on our roads, with so many fatalities. Another man passed away last night after an incident in County Donegal. Too many families around the country are losing their loved ones and suffering the tragedies of road collisions and accidents. People are dealing with terrible injuries. We have been speaking in this House for a long time about issues regarding enforcement, technology and trying to get a grip of this but we se…

I thank the Minister of State. I am aware of that legislation and its passage. I would like clarity regarding the regulations for local authorities. I understand that local authorities will have a major role here, particularly in working out what speed limits are appropriate for particular stretches of road. Many of them are too high and need to come down but many of them may be quite appropriate. It is a sort of a one-size-fits-all Act. That is understandable in one sense but it is not understandable when we get t…

That is okay, but I did not hear from the Minister of State as to when the legislation will be implemented to ensure that the capabilities of these cameras can actually be used for something that will make a big difference. We hope to tease that out further in the future. The Minister recently informed the media that red light cameras, for motorists who run red lights, will be up and going but now we understand they will be only be deployed in two locations in Dublin. They were piloted in 2015. Again, this is due t…

Again, it is wait and see. We really need to see progress being made on all these issues and we have not.

Go raibh maith agat.

Will the Minister outline his plans for upgrading the transport infrastructure around Dublin Airport and its environs? We see a situation there, unfortunately, where we are entering the summer period when the airport will get busier and there are very few options for people to come and go from there. There is no rail infrastructure linking to it. There are buses, which are very often congested and crowded. There is also a parking issue at the airport due to the Dublin Airport Authority, DAA, being unable to purchas…

The Minister referred to increased capabilities and capacities and that these will be in place by September. The summer will be the busiest period. We all acknowledge and understand this fact. Last year, there were extensive delays and many problems for people coming and going from the airport, and I think the Minister will acknowledge this himself. The issue with car parking needs to be dealt with. As I said, a car park has been sitting idle for several years. I think it closed before the Covid-19 pandemic. The DA…

I appreciate that and we all understand that is the intention and where we need to be going. The Minister, though, spoke of snapping fingers or having a magic wand. Clearly, the Minister cannot snap his fingers, wave a magic wand and improve public transport overnight. I understand this point. In the meantime, though, a car park with capacity for 5,000 cars has been sitting there empty for four years. It needs to be recognised that in the absence of alternatives, car parking spaces need to be provided to allow peop…

I thank Deputy Ó Cuív for tabling the question. My interest is also in the western rail corridor. The Minister mentioned freight being part of it and that the analysis around all of that may bring that economic argument across the line. I feel another problem we have with it is that when an analysis is done of passenger numbers, it is done in much too narrow a scope. For instance, when I lived not far from the Sligo-Dublin rail line, people got on and off the train from Dublin in Dromod in County Leitrim. Many of t…

I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward this motion. We have discussed the issue of road safety many times in this House over the past number of months. To date this year, there have been 72 funerals of people who have died on our roads. People who have been seriously injured are probably a multiple of that, and the impact that has on communities is something that is very distressful and a really serious issue we need to get to grips with. The reality is that we have always had a certain level of road deaths.…

They say that peace is more than the absence of war. Some 50 years ago this country was in terrible turmoil and there was terrible death across the entire island. All the lives that were lost in that conflict are a terrible loss and a terrible tragedy to all of those families. Thankfully, we had the Good Friday Agreement 25 years ago. The promise of that agreement was that we would look at the causes of war. The cause of war is the absence of justice. Now, here we are 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement and we…

For most people, having a child with a disability is a major cause of stress. The struggle they go through to try to find a class for them, education facilities and all of that adds to the stress. The experience for these people is that they have to fight all the way for what they need. That should not be the case in a wealthy and well-designed democratic system. We should have an education system that deals with people and ensures that everyone can get fairness and access to education for all of their children reg…

When we are all out at people's doors these days canvassing, as I am sure the Minister is as well, we meet an awful lot of people. That is where we get our information. That is when we find out what is really happening across the length and breadth of the country. I was in south Sligo at the weekend. I met a woman who moved home from abroad in the past couple of years. She lived in Dublin for a while. They are now renting a house there and paying quite high rent from their perspective. They are paying almost €1,500…