Is he not going to answer my question?

Is he not going to answer my question?

He does not have any interest in construction. This is scandalous.

Not agreed.

My office has received several queries from schools regarding the ICT grant. I asked a parliamentary question and the response I received was: It is hoped to issue the next tranche of funding in the 2023-2024 school year. As with all such funding, the issuing of the grant is subject to the availability of Exchequer funding and the wider capital needs of the Department. Many people and schools expected this grant to be continued. It is a badly needed and necessary grant. Was the grant initially meant to be yearly or…

On this charade of scoping reviews and probes, external reviews and senior forensic accountants, some of these same accountants were involved and advised us that the banking system was in pristine condition hours before the banks collapsed. I have no faith whatsoever in this charade. What we should be talking about are the evictions, the horror of homelessness and all the other savage attacks on our people. RTÉ set the tone for presidential elections. It chose what candidates were elected and what questions were as…

And the truth.

What about cattle culling?

The Deputy was starving.

Is mór an trua an rud seo ar maidin. I wonder if we in the right Parliament or in the right place or if the Ministers have read the motion. I see they did not oppose it but the Minister of State waited until the last two minutes of his reply to address the questions.

Our motion called, once and for all, on the Government to declare it will not pursue a compulsory or voluntary cull of the national herd, with no introduction of caps on Irish dairy cows or beef numbers. Furthermore, it calls for a review of the process of calculating methane emissions, considering the cycle effect, and calls on the Government to provide funding to farmers for implementing greater efficiencies, embracing new technologies, and any other measures as an alternative plan to reducing the national herd. …

Yes. You can run, Minister, but you cannot hide. Your hiding days are over because you have abandoned the people of rural Ireland. There is the subterfuge and deceit the Minister and the Government goes on with, the blackguarding it does of farmers and the ineptitude of the Department. You are in bed with Mr. Goodman and the big beef barons. You are in bed with the big supermarkets and everything else. I am in this Chamber almost 16 years this month, thanks to the people of Tipperary.

Excuse me, Acting Chair, but they are obvious to a blind man.

You did not stop anybody else who mentioned names and all.

"In bed" is a metaphor. We have not got a bed here. If we had, the Government would be asleep in it all day and would not get up to see the farmers. The farmers get up early in the morning and get up late at night to tend to their animals when they are young, sick or being attacked by marauding gangs of foxes and deer. We cannot have a cull of the deer population which is running riot around the country. It is causing havoc in every rural area and in urban areas as well. There is danger to life and limb due to car …

Laugh away. You have something if you have the last laugh.

I have a point of clarification. We hate to break this charade. The Minister will not deal with the motion and will not accept it, so it is not agreed.

It is not agreed.

It is not agreed.

Yes.