I wish to inquire about rural regeneration and development funding for towns in Tipperary, namely, Carrick-on-Suir, Cathair Dúin Iascaigh - Cahir - and Roscrea. We have had funding from the urban regeneration and development fund for many of our towns but these are rural towns. Since they lost many services they need this funding from the regeneration schemes and I want an update on the matter.

I thank the Minister for her reply. I thank her also for visiting Tipperary. She visited Carrick-on-Suir, Clonmel, Tipperary town and went on to some towns in the north of the county. Towns like Nenagh have got major funding and we do not begrudge them that but Carrick-on-Suir has been devastated by lack of industry for decades. Cahir has good employment. It is a beautiful town and indeed the new King visited there in spring of this year. It is a big tourist town and the county council has put huge work into car pa…

I thank the Minister. She is welcome any time in Tiobraid Árann. I acknowledge we have been successful in funding in the major urban centres of Nenagh and Clonmel but this scheme is tailor-made to try to bring vitality back to rural towns. The Minister will not be disparaging the fact we got the fourth-highest funding allocation in the country. As she knows, "Where Tipperary leads, Ireland follows" was the old adage. The Minister would be welcome any time to come back, and please God she will come back and make the…

Question No. 87 in the name of Deputy Cathal Crowe is being taken by Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív.

I believe the Minister will find that all of the rural Deputies will support that call. Next is Question No. 88 in the name of Deputy Ó Cathasaigh ó Chontae Phort Láirge.

We are just under two weeks away from the budget and we are in the middle of the worst environment of spiralling inflation and interest rates, which is piling huge, savage pressures on every man, woman and child in this country and every business sector also. Despite these challenges, we have a Government that is on the ropes and completely out of ideas. It is now clear that the Government lacks the required energy, pardon the pun, to decisively help the public and to do what is right. Instead what we witness is a …

Not so.

I accept certainly that there were efforts made and some support given but if the Tánaiste calls this a dynamic response from the Government, you can call me Davy or some other name from Mars or some place. It is shocking. Why is the Government so staunchly opposed to bringing in oil from Barryroe and to gas exploration off our coasts? Will the Tánaiste accept the fact that the data centres are guzzling electricity and will continue to do so? Will he accept that the fastest way to help our citizens is to cut the en…

Is the Tánaiste's memory gone? He blocked the licences.

Yes, you are. You voted it down recently.

Of course they have.

And tuppence on green diesel.

Ask the people; they will tell you.

God help us.

I rise to plead with the Government to do something meaningful to help family carers. I am wearing their badge. It is a small token of what I can do. In successive budgets they have not received the recognition they deserve, especially when it comes to getting payments such as fuel allowance. There are strict criteria. Carers play an important role in keeping people in their homes where they are happier and live longer and where they do not block up badly overcrowded emergency departments or hospital beds. Family a…

This debate is timely. It is interesting that yesterday, we had the debate on the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, IBRC, report and today on this report on An Bord Pleanála. The public has lost faith in An Bord Pleanála. Villages, communities and ordinary people have no faith in An Bord Pleanála. This has been going on for a long time, where people were making objections. I am not someone who supports serial objectors and these were genuine objections. There might have been quite a number of them. A planning insp…

I compliment the Regional Group for bringing forward this motion. I was a bit surprised to see the Government has not opposed it. What is going on here? Parts of this motion, which I agree 100% with, is all for things the Minister, Deputy Ryan, is totally opposed to. He is just accepting the motion and he will have it raced and passed through here and do nothing about it. This is the greatest lazy and laissez-faire way of dealing with this parliamentary system. This is probably the tenth time in the past year the G…

Why?

I thought we were a sovereign Government.

I thought we were a sovereign Government.