Does the Tánaiste remember saying, "So long as I am Taoiseach Waterford will not be neglected or forgotten"? He said he considered Waterford to be "a litmus test for the Republic of Opportunity ... one in which every part of the country has an equal chance to share in our country's prosperity". These words were not said in the Sturm und Drang of an election campaign, rather they were said a few weeks after he became Taoiseach in the summer of 2017 in what was probably his first visit outside Dublin. What was really…

I thank the Tánaiste for his response but I have to say I do not accept it. It would be very helpful to see proper granular data on capital spending. To that purpose, after our last engagement on this subject, I asked the Oireachtas Library and Research Service, which does really excellent work, to look at this and to prepare a report to see where public money goes. Believe it or not, they could not provide me with the analysis because they do not have access to the data. It is very hard not to reach the conclusion…

The climate action plan is a monstrous piece of legislation for a monstrous problem. It includes certain key goals which are well known at this stage. These include reducing our net carbon emissions by half by 2030 and trying to get to a net zero carbon economy by 2050. The plan outlines Ireland's current greenhouse gas emissions and targets across a range of all our major sectors, including electricity, enterprise, the built environment, transport and agriculture. The list goes on. Some 183 recommendations have be…

The Housing for All strategy has outlined four main aims: "[to] support home ownership and increase affordability; [to] eradicate homelessness, increase social housing delivery and support social inclusion; [to] increase new housing supply; [and to] address vacancy and make efficient use of existing stock." The aspirations within the plan include "over 90,000 social homes by the end of 2030, including an average new-build component of over 9,500 social homes" during that time; some "54,000 affordable homes between …

I note the Minister's announcement that he is proposing a task force to deal with waiting lists and that he has put in a funding request for a budget allocation of hundreds of millions of euro to pay for this multi-year plan. That is wonderful news. Again, we can find emergency money to outsource waiting lists, yet we cannot find the money to support expansion within our own hospital settings. I will speak about the regional hospital of the south east, University Hospital Waterford, UHW, a model 4 hospital that is …

I am sure everyone in the House supports the climate action target to reduce emissions by 51% by 2030. A large component of meeting this target is the development of significant onshore renewable energy and even more capital intensive offshore renewables. We are at present facing a perfect storm in terms of our energy security. In the last decade, we had 11 amber alerts on the national grid whereas we have had eight in the last 12 months, even as we phase out fossil fuels. Even so, the Government is availing of ong…

I am happy to attend and contribute to the debate on this Bill, which intends to facilitate the implementation of the new Garda Síochána operating model. It proposes certain amendments to legislation to facilitate the introduction of specific changes to the structure of An Garda Síochána. As the Minister knows, the new model is structured around Garda divisions. Under the divisional policing model being introduced, all services, it appears, will be managed and co-ordinated at divisional level. This will hopefully a…

No, I am not. The Maritime Area Planning Bill is a component of the national marine planning framework designed to manage marine development. The Minister synopsised this Bill yesterday as setting out to develop and integrate the management plan for 500,000 sq. km. of our ocean and foreshore. The magnitude of the responsibility this Bill seeks to address was highlighted in the Minister's opening statement when he said that we have not inherited the earth from our parents but have borrowed it from our children. The …

On the day this vote was announced, the Irish Examiner led with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform's insistence that the Cork-Limerick motorway would be in the revised national development plan. I thought this an unsubtle wink to the people of Cork that this Government and the Minister, Deputy Coveney, had the motorway baby safely in their arms. Unfortunately, I have no babe in arms to signal to the south east. No baby steps have been taken to advance or upgrade our regional N24 and N25 transport links.…

I welcome the Bill, as I am sure most Deputies will. It is about giving full transparency to costs in terms of credit agreements and licensed credit intermediaries. We have heard a lot in the last year and more about economic challenges and the level of indebtedness. Credit agreements and different ways of buying goods and products, including hire purchase agreements and private contract agreements, are ubiquitous now. People do not always understand the terms of contracts they enter into. There has been, for many …

The Minister knows I am a former member of the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response, as he is, and although his tenure was shorter than mine, he saw a large number of matters covered dealing with Covid-19 response. I am a current member of the committee dealing with enterprise and in that role I hear the pleas of business and the very great difficulties businesses are having, particularly small businesses and sole traders. They want to see a pathway to get back to being operational as soon as possible. On a numbe…

On behalf of the Regional Group, I welcome Deputy Bacik. I am sure she will make a fine contribution to this Dáil. I have a strange request to make of the Taoiseach. I ask him to please consider pausing the development of the national maternity hospital at St. Vincent's University Hospital and of the Cork elective hospital until we have appropriate project management budgeting and oversight. I make this remarkable request because, as a Deputy, I am notionally charged with providing parliamentary oversight on public…

I do not think anybody would argue that there is a need for a children's hospital but I doubt anybody would agree that we need to spend close to €2 billion providing it. Our country has paid a high price for repeatedly stuffing up its finances. Our methods of oversight are not up to the task and the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, as good as it is, is no match for the scale and ambition of and responsibilities relating to public expenditure. We will be back in the ha'penny place very shortly if we fr…

The Regional Group noted its disquiet this morning at the Business Committee, in particular on the guillotining of the Health (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill. I echo what other Deputies have said. I know we are in the run-in to the recess, but this is extremely important legislation and the Regional Group has done a lot to try to promote screening using antigen testing. We will not have any time to look at that in detail or to table amendments. The lack of debate on the local property tax must also be re-examined.

My question relates to a universal serial bus, USB, data device that was lost by an official in the Department of Justice. It relates to the Kenneally abuse case in Waterford. Was there video imagery on that device? Does the Minister of State know what personal data was on it? What efforts have been made to recover it? Is the original information still safely stored within the Department?

The country is still grappling with the effects of a cyberattack and, therefore, I do not know how it can be said that encryption on a stick is adequate. It is also regrettable that the Department did not liaise with the victims in the Kenneally case, who had to read about this loss of data in the national press without having been consulted. That is an oversight that should not happen again. What engagement is going on? I understand that the work of the commission of investigation is possibly outside of the Minist…

I want to remind the House about the scale of this investigation. The Kenneally case will turn out to be one of the most prolific paedophile cases in the country. The convictions were secured on sample charges. Five individuals have come forward but I am sure many people who have been impacted have decided not to come forward. The State has a duty of care with respect to ensuring that as wide an investigation as can happen will happen. There are significant components to this investigation, not least the influence …

The last time I spoke on this issue during a Private Members' motion I pointed out that too often the State, through its policymakers, can tell us the cost of everything but the value of nothing. The retention and resourcing of the regional and rural post office network is more than just a commercial consideration in terms of Government policy. It is a demonstration of actions being louder than words in terms of supporting regional and rural Ireland. Other Deputies have outlined the challenges facing the network an…

The Taoiseach referred a number of times this morning to the success of the joint procurement agreement, JPA, for vaccines in Europe whereby Ireland receives 1.12% of European supplies. Could I ask him about the proposed purchase of 1 million doses of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine to be sourced directly from Romania? The purchase of this vaccine will be outside of the JPA. What oversight or allocation of resources is he considering to secure the integrity of the cold chain supply? This vaccine has to be kept at between -…

The small company administrative rescue process, SCARP, has been proposed. I am a member of the Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment and was glad to waive the pre-legislative scrutiny of this Bill because it is important that it be enacted. It applies to small and micro companies, which represent 98% of all companies in Ireland. These companies support almost 800,000 employees in the State. As other Deputies have alluded to, recent Central Bank and ESRI reports have shown the significant pressure that the …