I have raised the Dursey Island crisis, off Castletownbere, on numerous occasions, mainly because the world-famous Dursey cable car has been suspended for months due to repair works. I fought for funding and we were told by the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, that funding would be provided for a ferry service while the cable car was being repaired. The devil is in the detail. The ferry service that the Minister provided funding for only runs on three days a week. On top of this, it only runs for two hours a day, leavin…

The North of Ireland is being held hostage to turbulence in the British political structure. The recent Stormont assembly election has, unfortunately, returned Brexit to the political agenda through a row in respect of the Northern Ireland protocol. This comes against a backdrop of the protocol being critical to post-Brexit continuity, stability and security of business on the island of Ireland. It is the mechanism agreed between the EU and the UK to protect the all-Ireland economy, the Good Friday Agreement and th…

The extraordinary courage of journalists and media workers reporting from conflict areas in Ukraine and other parts of the world reminds us once again how crucial their work is in providing timely, trusted and fact-based information to the public. This debate should serve as an opportunity to celebrate their vital contribution and draw attention to the increasing pressures, threats and attacks they face while also calling for the protection of all journalists by ensuring they are supported to ensure freedom, indepe…

West Cork Connect is a commercial bus company. It operates in and out of west Cork 16 times daily, carrying approximately 800 customers daily on its buses. It receives no Government subsidy as it takes people every hour on the hour from Skibbereen and Bantry to Cork and back daily. The recent 20% to 50% reductions in travel prices, mainly for youths in Dublin, have been of no benefit to any of the 800 people who travel with this company daily. Fuel prices have gone through the roof, as the Tánaiste can imagine, for…

I thank the Social Democrats for tabling this motion. Members of the public got €200 from the Government to help with the soaring cost of living but wealthy developers, the vast majority of which are multinational development companies, will get a handout of up to €144,000 each. The proposed scheme will be available only for apartment developments in the five major cities: Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford. This policy is reckless and will do nothing to support the delivery of affordable houses. The sche…

I thank Deputy Connolly and her group for giving us this time to speak on such an important issue. Changes to the Garda compensation scheme have been proposed for a number of years and therefore this Bill is long overdue and welcome. For instance, the current scheme has a requirement to go to the High Court, which is leading to many instances where the legal costs incurred in the proceedings regularly exceed the amount awarded in damages. Therefore, we welcome this Bill and it is imperative that it be brought into …

The National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street is overcrowded. We need a new hospital built to modern specifications. Let us get on with it and stop blaming the nuns for everything. The nuns are easy targets for populist left politicians to attack because they know the nuns do not have expensive public relations teams and are not in the business of doing media. It is important to point out the Religious Sisters of Charity are giving away land worth more than €50 million for free to build a hospital. They will hav…

I am speaking on behalf of Deputy Mattie McGrath, who sends his apologies. He cannot be here today because he is having a surgical procedure carried out. The plan to move the National Maternity Hospital from Holles Street in central Dublin to the St. Vincent's campus has been in train since 2013, but the project has been mired in controversy for many years. The Religious Sisters of Charity have even transferred the ownership of the lands at St. Vincent's to an independent entity which is to lease the new maternity …

We are delighted to have this debate. Deputy Mattie McGrath has been fighting for the holding of such a debate in the Business Committee for ten weeks. It has taken ten weeks for us to have a debate on fishing. That says it all. The debate has been scheduled for a Thursday evening, when most rural Deputies have to get back to their constituencies. Anyhow, we will take what we can get, even if we have to wait for ten weeks. Many farmers will be forced out of business if nothing changes soon for farmers who are facin…

I am glad to get a chance to speak on the Living Wage Bill. I am delighted to see the Labour Party worry so much about workers, the same party that hurt so many workers and women's pensions while in government. The Irish economy is at risk of being dragged into a "wage-price spiral" if workers begin demanding higher wages to match the current cost-of-living increases, according to a new warning from the Government funded Economic and Social Research Institute. There is the already high cost of doing business in Ire…

In early 2021, I raised with the Tánaiste the effect of the proposed ban on the granting of new exploration licences and how it would leave us not only without any energy independence but also undermine investment in all existing exploration licences off the Irish coast, in particular the south-west coast of Ireland and Cork. Sadly, despite a new awareness in the system that we will struggle to keep the lights on this winter, little has changed to provide long-term solutions for our energy needs. The cost of living…

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply but, in fairness, the Barryroe field has massive potential. I do not think he has researched it properly. Is he aware that the Minister, Deputy Ryan, has refused point blank to meet with those from the Corrib and Barryroe fields? Does the Taoiseach agree with that? If the Minister will not meet with the industry because of his own beliefs, will the Taoiseach meet with them or consider appointing a Minister for energy who will listen to the alternatives that lie off the Irish coas…

It will give our country energy security and create a significant number of jobs in rural areas in west Cork. It is indeed time to exit this fool's paradise.

The Taoiseach did not answer my question.

A new chapter of recovery and prosperity was expected after Covid in Europe. The inflationary pressure caused by the European Central Bank’s money-printing over the past two years, the policy move towards eliminating fossil fuels without first having alternatives in place and Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine have put paid to that. Spain recently approved an emergency package to mitigate the economic and social consequences of the Ukraine war, mobilising €16 billion in public funds, including €6 billion i…

I am back again this week, repeating the same thing over and over here in the Dáil. Last week, I spoke about a family in Clonakilty whose rent had gone up 25%, as did their neighbours’. I spoke about the man who was sleeping in his car in west Cork. I spoke about the number of constituents who are constantly calling into my clinics, trying to find houses and trying to make a home for themselves. We have the young married couples, both with fairly good jobs, who cannot get a mortgage. There is something wrong. They …

We have a very serious situation in this country in regard to accessing passport services. I want to put forward a number of solutions and I hope the Minister will work with us to try to achieve them. The first must involve addressing the issue of staffing. I note that he said earlier that more staff have been taken on. In addition, passport offices must be fully reopened to the public. People could solve many of their issues at the desk. We also must look at post offices, where there is capacity to increase foot f…

We need more foot flow into post offices.

I thank the Minister for his reply. I do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, as they say, and I must compliment his Department. The staff have been very helpful to me in dealing with very difficult times for families in the past number of years. What is being done to ensure first-time passports are issued within a reasonable timeframe? There are families who are given an estimated issue date and who book a holiday, perhaps for a week later, only to be told after the estimated issue date that there is…

I appreciate that. As I said, it is very difficult to spend 45 minutes on the telephone. I would not like to be the member of staff doing it and pulling the hair out of his or her head. There is also an issue in that Members are only allowed five queries per day. That is a difficulty because we might have ten queries on a given day and we must pick which five to raise. There could be ten queries the day after and it always seems, at the end of the week, that there are a number of people whose issues cannot be dealt…