I congratulate the Minister of State on her new role. I hope to work closely with her going forward. The closure of banks and lack of access to traditional banking services in remote areas has left many people without proper access to banking services. In fact, rural banking services in Ireland have been completely hollowed out since the financial crash. In many cases, only for credit unions, many rural residents would have no access to a banking account at all. The banks in Schull, Bantry and Dunmanway closed in m…

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the EU has adopted a series of sanctions against Russian and Belarusian individuals and companies. The implementation of restrictive EU measures has shown the complexity of identifying assets owned by those subject to sanctions who hide their assets across different jurisdictions through complex legal and financial structures. Those who wish to conceal their assets are helped by existing legal loopholes as the criminal law provisions on breaches of EU sanctions vary across mem…

I thank all the ambulance personnel who work all over this country, including Cork South-West, for their tireless work. The level of ambulance cover available for west Cork has deteriorated to such an extent that it is now actively endangering the lives and health of residents and causing severe levels of burnout and exhaustion among ambulance and paramedical staff. That view does not come from me but from the staff themselves. When I raised this matter recently with the Taoiseach during Leaders' Questions he said …

Rural regeneration funding has been with us for the past number of years. The question is how much has been allocated from the rural regeneration fund to the constituency of Cork South-West and where that money has been allocated since the fund was set up.

I thank the Minister for her reply. Obviously, funding to any community is important, and I would certainly welcome any moneys that have gone to the Kinsale library project, Bandon town centre or Sherkin Island. The Minister said, however, that there are 215 projects in total, and I think this scheme has been up and running for about five years. It is incredible, to say the least, that Cork South-West has ended up with only three projects across the line in that much time. There is a project on Dursey Island that h…

The Minister may be aware of the All-Island Research Observatory, AIRO, report. I hope Cork County Council made her aware of it when she was in west Cork recently. It is an independent report drawn up by the council, which has proved that County Cork has seen the lowest amount of funding over the past 30 to 40 years. County Cork is 40 to 50 years behind on funding in respect of roads, rural regeneration, the town and village scheme and the local improvement scheme, LIS. I accept that a lot of this is before the Min…

As the Tánaiste will know, the fishing industry is going through a huge crisis, as quota losses have led to many taking the dreaded decision to decommission, which will have further devastating consequences for west Cork's rural towns and villages. Small inshore fishermen are also in deep trouble as the shrimp and velvet crab market has collapsed, leaving them without an income in recent months. A call for an aid package, similar to the one for the pig industry given last year, for the inshore sector was refused in…

The National Archives holds testamentary records from the Probate Office up to 1991. The Public Records (Ireland) Act 1867 established the Public Record Office of Ireland as the official place of deposit for the records of the higher courts once they were 20 years old. This practice continued until recently, with many court offices, particularly the Probate Office, transferring their records to the National Archives once they were 20 years old. The National Archives has advised publicly that due to the lack of stor…

In the aftermath of the financial crash, as part of the Government's attempt to balance the books through wide-ranging austerity measures, a staggering 139 Garda stations were closed between 2012 and 2013. It was a Fine Gael-Labour Party Government that closed these stations. Five of those properties were sold between 2021 and 2022, which raised more than €1 million for the Exchequer. This averages out to more than €200,000 per property. Most likely, they were sold off at below value given the prices that propertie…

We welcome the changes to the TBESS. However, it is difficult for businesses to go through the whole process of applying for it. That is what many business owners are telling me. My colleague, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, spoke about the energy costs for businesses. It is shocking and it has to be tackled by the Government. Wherever I go, whether to a café or a local shop, I am told by business owners that their bills have gone from €1,000, €2,000 or €3,000 last year to €10,000, €11,000, €12,000, €13,000 or €14,000 th…

I support Sinn Féin's amendment. It is all fine for the Minister to say he is going to extend the excise reductions until 1 June. I see petrol has gone up six cent, diesel five cent and green diesel one cent. In September, it will go up seven cent, five cent, and one cent, respectively. In October, it will go up 8 cent, 6 cent and 3.4 cent, respectively. That is an astonishing rise in fuel. People have suffered quite a lot in the last 12 months. This mainly affects rural Ireland. People in Dublin and surrounding ar…

Have a look at where some of those funds are going. Perhaps the Minister will sit down with me and I will go through where some of the funds are going. It is the carbon tax.

You can talk when your time comes. Is that fair enough? I will not interfere when Deputy McAuliffe is speaking unless he wants to thank me and perhaps I might.

Order from that side. I am trying to talk and that gentleman is interfering with my opportunity to talk.

We know that. They are worn from doing that. Most of the Fianna Fáil Deputies are green today anyway. We all know that and everybody knows that in my constituency. The bottom line is the carbon tax. The Government will hit people with an increase on 1 June and in September and October. Where will it stop? Will the Minister answer me where it will stop? Can he tell me whether I am wrong in saying this will mainly affect the people in rural Ireland? I am not wrong. He knows I am not wrong. He has no answer to this qu…

Tonight we debate the homelessness crisis plaguing Ireland. It is a crisis that has been growing for more than a decade with no real solution in sight. It is a crisis that is being ignored by politicians and policymakers in government, who have failed to provide any meaningful action to tackle it. It is a crisis that is destroying the lives of thousands of people across the country. I notice it every weekend in my clinics. The rising trend is homelessness and the scary part is some of these cases could be a marriag…

I am disappointed that the senior Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, is not present for this important motion tabled by the Social Democrats. The motion calls, as ours did last November, for a windfall tax, or what we termed: "an excess profit "solidarity tax", as provided for in EU regulation 2022/1854 upon all/any companies and permanent establishments operating within the oil, gas, coal and refinery sectors in Ireland, which include the Corrib gas field, and give these funds back to consumers to help pay for energy bi…

We in the Rural Independent Group would like to use this opportunity to commend the Civil Defence volunteers on their selflessness and dedication during the pandemic and other challenging times or emergency situations. The former Minister for Defence, Deputy Simon Coveney, correctly recognised the immense and enormous role played by these volunteers in Ireland's response to the spread of Covid-19 at an event honouring their work in Dublin's Croke Park last November. We understand that over 300 volunteers received a…

I fully agree with Deputy Cullinane's amendment. We have been discussing a lot of issues since we started this debate to do with nursing homes and community hospitals. Patient advocacy services are a channel for people who witness or encounter difficult situations, not in every nursing home, but in some and in some community hospitals. Families came to me to say the standards in community hospitals were not up to HIQA standards and a lot of questions need to be answered. Those families are not sure where those ques…

Up to December 2022, two driver testers were based in and working out of Skibbereen. Those two testers were relocated from Skibbereen. A full-time tester was appointed once again at the end of December. However, there is an urgent need for a second full-time tester in Skibbereen to cater for the huge area of west Cork. We have a shocking transport service in west Cork, and everybody depends on a car. Many of our younger people are trying to get a driving test and now the waiting list is seven months for them as the…