We have a small number of people who are recklessly carrying out delinquent attacks on buildings through pure racism, and we all know that. They are a tiny number of people. The system which has evolved is one Governments have stood over for a couple of decades since Senator Michael McDowell was Minister and direct provision was first brought in as a temporary measure. The problem is that the temporary measure has grown into a mess and has continued. Successive Governments have set out a playbook that the far right…

I thank the Rural Independents for bringing forward this motion. Rural healthcare, and particularly GP services, is in crisis across every constituency. Certainly across my constituency, we continually have people contacting our office. These are people who have moved into the area or who have moved from Dublin or abroad but they cannot get a GP. All of the GPs are full. That is the message we hear everywhere. It is really at crisis point and needs to be dealt with, with great urgency. Dentistry was also mentioned …

The commission of investigation process has huge merit and can deliver. Everyone hoped it would deliver. From previous forms of investigations and tribunals that cost a lot of money, ran on for years and so on, we know that this was an alternative way of doing it that would be more succinct, that would hopefully get to the point more quickly and that would cost less. It held all that promise. Now, after the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, many people have lost confidence that this can happen…

I raise the issue of damage to power lines, particularly in recent storms. In County Leitrim, there are large areas of afforestation. Where there is afforestation, power lines go through it. As part of licence conditions, forestry is supposed to be kept 10 m back from the power lines. Often, that does not happen and it is not being enforced. There are cases of trees coming down on top of power lines. People were out of power sometimes for the best part of a week in the recent storm. This has been a continuous probl…

Long awaited comes at last, and this has certainly been the case with the Executive in the North. We all extend our congratulations and our best wishes to the success of that Executive. It comes as one of the key factors of the Good Friday Agreement in the hope that it offered of a co-operative Government that would work together for the benefit of everyone and to build a society that would recognise it had a bright and new future. This is certainly what we all want to see come from that. Of course, the work ahead …

No, not a chance.

The difficulties that lay ahead were spoken about. While there is great hope and a great sense of opportunity in all of this, there are real difficulties. Reference was made to the public servants who had been out on strike. The difficulty in the health service in the North is one of the really terrible issues and particularly at the Fermanagh and Enniskillen hospitals. The A3 road project was also spoken of. I am aware there is a legal requirement from the St. Andrew's Agreement to come together North and South to…

I thank the Minister of State for outlining the Bill. It is something we have all been keen to look at. First and foremost, I am glad he withdrew the part of it relating to time-dependent penalty points. I hope he now accepts that the notion of having penalty points for weekends as opposed to weekdays is not a good idea and is simply inappropriate, in our system or indeed anywhere. The difficulty we have with this legislation is that the basics are not right. At the end of the day, we all want to see the tragedies …

We welcome many of the provisions in this Bill, and it goes some way to dealing with the difficulties people have. As Deputy Doherty has outlined, there are many people who are in serious difficulty and who are finding it hard to manage because their loans have been sold to vulture funds, which do not fall under this and do not have access to any recourse when they have a complaint or difficulty. Some of these funds are extremely rude and obnoxious in the way they deal with people. They ring up, make demands, put p…

The Bill is welcome. Sinn Féin will not oppose its passage. We hope to see it speedily go through the various Stages. On the Bill itself, we all recognise there have been serious issues with the Coroner Service, particularly with regard to delays. Dublin has been the victim of many of these problems. This legislation will deal with Dublin specifically or almost entirely. The issue the Minister of State mentioned regarding the Stardust inquest is a key issue that needs to be resolved. I am sure we can have a sense o…

This is quite a difficult morning for people in Carlow. Three people were killed on the road last night. Last year we had record numbers of deaths on our roads. In January we saw so many families unfortunately being ravaged by the tragedy of road deaths. We have spoken on this on many occasions. I know some proposals have come forward for measures in regard to road safety but clearly they are not working. We need a redoubling of efforts to ensure we make our roads safer for everyone to use.

The difficulty here is that we do not believe that the projects you are putting forward are actually working and delivering. In The Irish Times this week we have seen a report that the Department of Transport wrote to the RSA in 2023 and asked for a plan in regard to enhanced road safety. It came back with that plan and the RSA looked for funding of €6 million to roll it out. The Department of Transport said no, we are not going to do that. Unless we back these things up with actual funding to deliver them, there i…

I did not dismiss it.

The roads policing unit the Minister of State is talking about has had its numbers cut consecutively every year for the past ten years. Bringing in new laws to reduce speed is welcome and appropriate on many roads. There is no problem with that; nobody is saying otherwise. Nobody is disagreeing with the Minister of State there. The problem is that on most roads there are no gardaí to enforce the limits. That is the reality around most parts of the country. The Minister of State knows that as well as I do. People se…

BusConnects is about expanding the network, about putting in new lanes and about delivering a better service, in particular, across the city of Dublin and in other cities. To look at the Dublin situation, I understand there are also issues here in regard to funding. There are difficulties in respect of that. The NTA is also looking to partner with some other group, and it has a list of five firms that, I understand, it is short-listing in respect of that at a cost of €350 million over the next ten years. I would li…

We all want bus services throughout the State, especially in Dublin and other urban areas. In Dublin, where the network has been rolled out and BusConnects has happened to a certain degree, we still have a lot of difficulties, with ghost buses, buses that are full and timetables saying a bus will arrive in three minutes, whereas 20 minutes later, there is still no sign of it. There is great frustration among the public and that is regrettable because I want this to work, as everybody does. In regard to the funding …

One of the main frustrations is that the system very often does not connect. Part of the issue is that people were used to the old system and they knew which buses would bring them to a certain place at a certain time, and they find that is not working any more and that there is not the same connection between other modes of transport, whether trains, buses and so on, as there was in the past. There is possibly work to be done in that regard to get information to people in a clearer and more coherent manner than ha…

I support Deputy Ward in respect of this. The issues of antisocial behaviour and vicious attacks on both commuters and the drivers of our public bus, train and rail services have been ongoing. It is something we need to deal with. The reality is that if we are to have more people using public transport, there will be centres of community movement. We would want to understand that community policing is about where people are, and people will be at bus stops, on trains and using public transport more and more. That i…

I welcome this Bill. Research and innovation constitute one of the key aspects of developing a prosperous economy and future. The new agency bringing together two existing agencies and, hopefully, funding them properly and ensuring they have the correct focus is vital. Many people across the country in third-level education are finding it very difficult, particularly those in PhD courses, who find it very hard to manage. The level of funding available is a significant issue, particularly in research. That was menti…

The reality for an awful lot of communities throughout the country is that the first time they hear an asylum centre will open is very soon before it happens. There is no preparation from the point of view of providing services. That is the big issue I come across everywhere I go. People are concerned. All three Ministers mentioned in their contributions how much work is going into integration and I acknowledge that. There is work going into integration to try to assist people to get language classes and so on. Tha…