On 25 February, the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Senator Hackett, announced Project Woodland, a new strategy to address the licence crisis in the forestry sector. Despite the fanfare to date, Project Woodland has not delivered one additional licence. Farmers in the industry cannot wait any longer, nor can the construction sector or people who want to build homes. There are approximately 5,000 applications for afforestation, forest road and felling licences in the system. …

A two-year delay.

I do not agree with this. This Bill emanated from the Seanad on Monday, as we know, with a vote taken at the time. I understand there is no pre-legislative scrutiny when a Bill is initiated by the Government or anybody in the Seanad. It is shocking. There are to be three different legislative measures on top of what we had in the Health (Amendment) Acts. The lockdown has been the longest in Europe and instead of coming in with a vote on a sunset clause for the restrictions as promised for June, we will pile three l…

On a point of clarification, that is the first I have heard of a briefing. Representatives in the Rural Independent Group were not invited to any briefing. The first I heard of that was just this minute, which is scandalous. The people in rural Ireland elected us and we are meant to be acknowledged as a group. The Ceann Comhairle has always done that but this is not good enough. Not only will the Minister not answer questions but he is now ignoring our group when calling people to a health briefing. It is the first…

I begin by wishing my sincere sympathy, and that of my group, to any family which has lost a loved one to Covid and to anyone who has been seriously debilitated as a result of it. I also wish to praise An Garda Síochána and condemn last night's incident. I thank the Garda, front-line staff, hospital staff, nursing home staff and all the people. The meitheal spirit came back in when this plague hit us. However, the reaction of the Government has tried to destroy that meitheal spirit. Much has been said here. I objec…

Anois, an chéad slot eile is the Independent Group. Tá fiche nóiméad ag na Teachtaí Connolly agus McNamara.

Yes, I have that covered.

Deputy McNamara has the floor.

Please Minister. You have made your point.

In circumstances in which all four legislative measures that make up the Health and Criminal Justice (Covid-19) (Amendment) Bill 2021 could have been extended individually, why has the Government lumped all these legislative measures into the issue to be debated in a new Bill commencing in the Dáil tomorrow? The Bill was passed by the Seanad yesterday. The Government is trying to create confusion, as far as I can see. A simple vote by Members of the House on whether to extend the restrictions to November or perhaps…

I believe in the old adage, Tús maith leath na hoibre. What is going on with the Road Safety Authority, RSA? It is under the aegis of the Department of the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton. Some 100,000 people are waiting for driving theory tests and cannot get started on the road. The Minister of State came into the Chamber to reply to a Topical Issue matter, which the Ceann Comhairle kindly allowed us some weeks ago, and told us that driver theory tests were not an essential service. It is a mo…

Give them the other test.

It is not happening.

Christmas is coming.

I do not know what kind of a death wish the Minister of State and the Government have on rural Ireland especially. During a Zoom meeting last Friday I listened to the heartfelt pleas of wonderful and long-serving staff from Shannon Airport. It was heartfelt fear at the sheer abandonment of the airlines by the Government and both Ministers responsible. This is at a time we should be trying to expand them. We have two wonderful airlines in Aer Lingus and Ryanair, with wonderful staff. We know what they do. It is time…

I, too, issue my comhghairdeas to the Sinn Féin Party and, indeed, to Deputy Martin Kenny for bringing forward this motion. I know the Deputy has worked tirelessly behind the scenes to try to get as much support and achieve as much unanimity as possible. We had that, or as near as possible to it, in a debate here last week. As I said then, since independence, Ireland has had a proud record of being neutral country. We were recognised worldwide and our diaspora abroad was very proud of that. I salute and thank our p…

I am raising the issue of the bypass of Tipperary town again. People there need to be able to live and breathe. Given the traffic to and from Rosslare because of Brexit it will be vital. I know it is the desire of the Minister, and again today in the House he stated he prefers smaller bypasses of towns, and we are on the one page. I thank him for his engagement with the people of Tipperary town and the various groups. I beg him to insist the inner relief road on the footprint of the N24 Pallasgreen to Cahir road be…

On behalf of the Rural Independent Group, I want to add my voice to the unanimity of the House in pleading with the Government and the Minister for Foreign Affairs to act. We had great respect all over the world as a neutral and peaceful country. We now seem to be beholden to greater powers in Europe and the United States. We need to send an unequivocal message to the world, and especially Israel, that we will not stand idly by, to use a 1969 phrase from a former Taoiseach. It is probably the wrong phrase to use. I…

I also thank the Regional Group for bringing forward this very important motion. It is time we got our act together on this, as we need to do with housing. I have been involved with this a long time and have seen schemes like Skeheenarinky, where delivery took 50 years. It was so slow the county sent a report to the relevant Department and it had to wait six months for a reply. The process of going up and down continued, taking six months each time. It is tomfoolery and now Irish Water has been introduced into the …

I am very concerned by the leaks from the Cabinet yesterday regarding the extension of the emergency powers for another six months. I honestly believe that the Taoiseach and his Government have become an existential threat to our democracy. That the Government is trying to push this in here to control people, deny them their rights and freedoms and literally destroy their will to live is shocking. It is being done without any debate in this House. The Taoiseach has not met Opposition party leaders or group leaders …