So it is a "No".

There is a range of areas that need investment.

We are not talking about the technological university. I am talking specifically about the airport.

Yes, across a range of areas. This is a key one.

All these things are necessary.

Like everyone else in the House, I welcome the public health advice. It now signals, I hope, a transition out of Covid. We will be asking questions about what we have learned. There are a couple of issues I would like to raise in that regard, one of which is the use of antigen testing. We will have to figure out how for 15 months we could not implement a public health measure which has shown its value in the past three months. Another is how we ignored vitamin D. I believe much of the science will point to that as …

I welcome this Bill and I wish to congratulate the Minister on bringing it forward, particularly given its long gestation and the many false starts. Higher education is a serious business. It is critical to our economic, social, and cultural progress. When you gather all the sources of public funding flowing into these institutions, it becomes a serious sum. Our methods of oversight and accountability are not appropriate. I said this to the Minister during previous statements. They do not keep up with the job of tr…

The Northern Ireland economy was the best performing in the UK last year because of the benefit of the market there having access to both EU and UK customers. What specific steps are the Minister and his Department taking to promote and communicate this message to the Northern community?

I am in agreement with the Minister and many others in that I think the Northern Ireland protocol agreement is delivering a significant economic benefit to the North, although I am not sure whether that message is getting through in a political sense. Unfortunately, as we know, political and cultural differences exist there, and that is the reason for that. The engagement of Liz Truss and Maroš Šefčovič has certainly helped in the present discussions, leading to the relaxation of some of the agricultural issues at …

I used to do some work with the enterprise board and INTERREG was a significant programme in terms of trying to develop cross-Border trade. It is interesting, if we look at the Northern economy, that there is a significant number of people up there who are employed by the state and productivity would not reflect the numbers we have down here, although it is improving. The case is that there is great opportunity and potential in the Northern Irish economy under the present trade agreement. That suggests a question a…

The Government subgroup on insurance reform promised a general scheme of a Bill on duty of care by September 2021. We have an ongoing unaddressed issue with occupier liability which continues to place a liability and a risk on business owners. In addition, the Government is still working on the promised reform of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board, PIAB, which is now on its "all other legislation" to-do list, which means further delays on reforms promised going back to July 2021. Will the Taoiseach give a commi…

The Covid defence and supports that the Taoiseach mentioned earlier, which were approved by the EU, have clearly shown to Ireland the benefits of EU membership. Membership has granted us access to vaccines as soon as the technology was developed. Indeed, our membership also allowed us access to EU purchasing power which we could not have achieved on our own. It has also provided us with boosters for younger age groups, along with the latest in antiviral medicine, which allows us to continue to combat this serious d…

I will return to the question of the Ukrainian crisis. We are in a unique position geographically on the western flank of Europe and we are also neutral. I wonder if we are all getting caught up in a sound bite. We have seen the problems in the UK currently for its prime minister and perhaps having something else to point to is a good deflection for him. It is possibly the same in France, with elections to be held soon. We know absolutely that Russian President Vladimir Putin is pushing back against NATO expansion.…

This legislation is long-awaited and seeks to right significant wrongs. People were let down by people in authority, by religious institutions, by caregivers and, it must be said, by their own family members in some cases. It is to be hoped that this Bill will deliver full access to birth and early life details to people who have been the responsibility of the State in any capacity in order that they can fully understand their origins. This information can be made available to any person aged 16 years or older. We …

Just before Christmas, the Department of Transport-----

Just before Christmas the Government, through the Department of Transport, published a preliminary pre-qualification questionnaire for the national air-sea rescue service. The tender suggests a reduction of the helicopter bases from four to three and that the applicant companies can propose their own base configurations. This is creating extraordinary unease in the south east in respect of capability in the maritime space and our ability to transfer cardiac patients from University Hospital Waterford during the 129…

In my contribution last night I touched on the carryover into 2022 of an unspent €800 million. I also highlighted many issues in Waterford. Although I wanted to keep the observations to a national context I am afraid the announcements overnight force me to do otherwise. The Department of Transport's support package of €108 million to regional aviation bypasses Waterford Airport yet again. Not alone do we not get any money out of the total €160 million package but the Department withdrew €350,000 in stopgap funding …

I thank the Minister for remaining in the House to listen to the debate on the Appropriation Bill. He has highlighted that the purpose of the Bill is to give statutory authority to the amounts voted by the Dáil during the year and provide for the definitive capital carryover from 2021 to 2022. In aggregate, the Estimates amount to €73.1 billion. The comparable amount in the Appropriation Act 2020 was €69.7 billion. Therefore, we must appropriate this year €3.4 billion, or just under 5% of last year's net voted expe…

I will. I would welcome better procurement and better policy and I would love to see better oversight of appropriation.

I thank the Minister of State for his comments and I thank the Government for supporting the motion, which has been crafted from a large body of work by colleagues and me in the Regional Group. It is clear that Ireland is not on track to reach our target of 5,000 MW of offshore wind by the end of 2030. We have significant planning difficulties, as the Minister of State is aware, and probably regulatory difficulties too, as was evidenced by the exit of Equinor from the Irish renewable energy market. The planning sys…