The Nuremore Hotel and Country Club in Carrickmacross has been an important part of the south Monaghan economy and its regional tourism generation for several decades. The hotel was purchased in 2018 by Mr. Kai Dai, who is one of the biggest cash for visa brokers that has benefited from the immigrant investor programme. Serious issues have arisen at the hotel. On numerous occasions employees at the company were not paid for several weeks. On 1 January last most of the staff were placed on a temporary 12-week layoff…

On 21 July 2011, the then Secretary General of the Department of Finance famously stated, "The Government of Ireland pays its debts, always has and plans to do so." Of course, he was talking about the use of billions of euro of Irish taxpayers' money being used to bail out unsecured bank bondholders, because the Government of Ireland does not always pay its debts and, certainly, not when it comes to ordinary citizens. In fact, a rule of thumb that can be ascribed to successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments …

When a strategy comes to light years later, the new Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael Minister usually throws his or her predecessors under the bus, laments the historical practices and tells us that lessons have been learned. Not in this case, though. In this case, current members of the Government are implicated: the Tánaiste; the Taoiseach; the Minister for Justice, Deputy Harris; and the Minister without Portfolio, Deputy McEntee. Right across the current Cabinet are politicians who had a responsibility to care for and …

Hear, hear.

Hear, hear.

The Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, informed the Committee on Environment and Climate Action today that electricity customers who were overcharged as a result of the large energy user rebalancing scheme will be compensated. This was a scandalous scheme that forced ordinary households to subsidise some of the biggest and wealthiest companies not only in Ireland but across the world. Last week, when I raised this with the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, he defended the scheme and refused to answer my reques…

Somebody else is paying for it: ordinary households.

I commend Deputy Ward on bringing this important issue to the floor of the Dáil for a Private Members' debate. I thank the Ministers of State, Deputies Rabbitte and Butler, for being here. I do not say the following to many Ministers or Ministers of State but I accept the sincerity of both when it comes to this issue and their bona fides that they want to address many of the issues and challenges that have been raised here tonight. However, that does not mean they can extradite themselves from the failings that hav…

Driving it into the ground, Charlie.

The Green Party said a lot of things in opposition.

Thanks to one of the Minister, Deputy Ryan's, brainwaves the last time he was in Government, for the past 12 years, without knowing it, ordinary families and households have been subsidising the electricity bills of some of the largest companies in the world. The large energy user, LEU, rebalancing subvention took charges away from big businesses and added them to the bills of domestic users in a scandalous scheme that sums up the Minister's approach to these issues, which is to protect large corporations and penal…

Will customers be repaid?

Will the customer be repaid? The Minister will not answer.

Is the Government only using half its allocated time for opening statements?

Okay.

The Government still managed not to answer any questions. Fair play.

I welcome this debate. I also welcome the Minister and the Minister of State. I have lost count of the number of discussions and debates in which I have participated in this House, and at committees and elsewhere, in respect of Ireland's forestry policy and its underlying failures. I have often said that a good forestry strategy is one that will deliver for the environment, our local communities and the economy. Unfortunately, we have had a worsening situation over the past decade or so, whereby none of those objec…

The Government is out of touch with the people we will need to deliver this programme. We need farmers, but the Government has alienated them. We need the forestry sector, but the Government has alienated it. We need local communities, but the Government has alienated them and disengaged them from the process. Unless the Government realises these failures, it will not be able to address them.

It is the truth. Answer the question.

Answer the question.