Vótáil.

Cuirim fáilte roimh an deis seo. I apologise to the Minister for missing some of his speech and also apologise to the House that I have to leave immediately after my own because this debate is clashing with a meeting of the Oireachtas justice committee. That affects a number of Members. I ask the Minister to engage with his officials to try to ensure that justice debates in future will not clash with meetings of the committee because a number of members of the committee would like to be here for the duration of the…

For all the rhetoric, there has actually been very little progress made in tackling the Garda recruitment and retention crisis. There continues to be a severe over-dependence on overtime for routine Garda work. Considering the significant challenges gardaí will face this year, will the Minister inform the House of precisely how many gardaí attested in 2025?

The Minister stated he wants to reach 5,000 attestations over the lifetime of the Government. It does not take much deduction to realise that 619 gardaí attesting in the calendar year of 2025 remains way below what is needed in order meet that goal. That number will come as a surprise to many people, especially when they have heard so much about the fact that over 11,000 people applied to join An Garda last year. That points to a crisis. It certainly points to a failure. Despite the welcome increase in the intakes …

Of course we want to see more gardaí across all the regions, but we also need to address the failure in terms of numbers. In that context, I am sure the Minister will accept that there is far to much reliance on overtime for routine police work. We have far too few community and roads policing gardaí. We are in what is probably an unprecedented year, with the EU Presidency and the upcoming Ireland-Israel UEFA Nations League game, which, unfortunately, is still going ahead. We still have the potential of a visit by …

I was watching in for parts of the Seanad debate on the International Protection Bill. I was interested in, but not a bit surprised about, the failure, either in the Bill or in the EU migration and asylum pact, to have due consideration for the common travel area. The latter was a dominant part of the debate. What discussions has the Minister had with the British authorities regarding the pact's implementation and its impact on the common travel area?

We can have our opinions on Brexit. In fact, I am sure we would agree on many points. However, we would also need to agree on the fact that Brexit is a fact of life and that we find ourselves in a unique position. It is a fact that no other state which has signed up to the EU migration and asylum pact is also part of a common travel area with a state outside of the Union. The Minister has repeatedly made the claim, as have other Ministers, that the majority of international protection applicants enter the State via…

You can try, Minister. That is what I am asking. What efforts have been made? I will touch on the designation of Britain as a safe third country. Let us assume the figures the Minister has given are accurate, although a lot of work needs to be done on the collection of data as to where IP applicants are coming from. Section 220 of the International Protection Bill 2026 requires the Minister to be satisfied that any proposed safe third country fully meets EU standards, particularly in relation to non-refoulement and…

I am sure the Minister's office is even more inundated than mine in respect of this matter. Anybody who has ever been a member of the justice committee will have dealt with a huge number of outstanding legacy issues relating to the ongoing legacy of the Garda heavy gang, unresolved cases relating to the conflict and other historical investigative failures. How we have dealt with those matters has been a matter of much debate. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the Committee for the Administration of Justice …

Of course, there are a range of historical cases. I am talking about cases in this State in respect of which justice and accountability have not been delivered. There are well-known cases of collusion and cases relating to the legacy of the conflict. The actions of the Garda heavy gang need to be addressed, particularly as those involved were central to a number of miscarriages of justice. The 50th anniversary of the Sallins case is approaching. There was no accountability for the actions of the gardaí involved in …

That answer speaks volumes. Let me be clear: every family that lost a loved one deserves truth and justice. I say that without equivocating or engaging in whataboutery. Let us deal with the Sallins case. Anyone looking at the detail of that matter can see that the investigation was rotten from start to finish. People's confessions were coerced, and that undermined the justice system. The problem is that, under the current framework, the Minister can just say that he does not think there should be a public inquiry. …

A couple of weeks ago, I raised with the Tánaiste the disgraceful allocations for local road restoration in counties like Monaghan and Cavan, to which he responded that he would engage with the Minister for Transport on the matter. Has he had that engagement with the Minister, as committed to, and can he now assure the House that there will be a substantive increase in funding for local and regional roads? Since our last interaction, local Oireachtas Members have met with officials and councillors from both Monagha…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an deis labhairt ar an rún seo. Tá saincheisteanna maidir le Tusla ardaithe agam sa Dáil arís agus arís eile. Níl sé sin ceart go leor. I commend Independent Ireland on bringing this motion to the Dáil. I welcome this opportunity as I have raised issues with regard to Tusla on numerous occasions both here in the Dáil and in the justice committee. It is clear that there are major problems. Children who need the care and protection of the State deserve the highest standards from the State but thos…

It is fair to say that families across the State are in absolute shock at the rising costs they are facing, especially for petrol, diesel and home heating oil. The truth that is lost on the Government is that many of these families were already struggling long before these latest price hikes arrived. They were struggling because Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael removed vital cost-of-living supports in the most recent budget and actually left working people and families worse off this year than they were last year even bef…

Well said.

That will not even cover the increase in the past two days.

At a time when petrol and diesel costs are rising again and when the Tánaiste's Government has indicated that it intends to raise carbon tax even further, does he understand the anger of people who cannot drive on their local roads because of the conditions? People in rural areas, as well as paying for huge fuel costs, are forking out for motor tax, local property tax, which the Government has increased, and soaring insurance prices, yet many local roads are in the worst condition in decades. In that context, it is…

Have the Tánaiste's representatives not been telling him?

The Government cut the funding for local roads by €800,000.

But the Tánaiste is not answering it.