I raise the same matter that was mentioned some moments ago. The Minister must be aware of the comprehensive report published yesterday by the All-Island Research Observatory at Maynooth University, which states that Cork County Council had the lowest levels of funding over the past number of decades, including the lowest CLÁR funding per capita despite having the highest population eligible for the programme. It had the fourth lowest level of LEADER funding, despite our population, and the lowest rate of funding f…

I am calling for a task force to deal with the matter. Will the Minister support me in requesting the establishment of a task force for Cork county and west Cork?

I thank my colleagues, Deputies Mattie McGrath, O'Donoghue and Michael Healy-Rae for giving me time to speak to this very important matter. It has been well flagged for months now that thousands of aviation workers are facing permanent unemployment if the Government keeps dragging its heels. There is a further complication with Cork Airport because there are plans to close it for a few months at the end of the year for runway works. I have nothing against this work being carried out but I am totally opposed to the …

We have all seen across our news channels and social media the images of children, women and men who are being left distraught at what has happened between Israel and Palestine. In the past nine days or so, 66 children have been killed. That is 66 children too many. Nearly 450 buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or badly damaged, including six hospitals and nine primary care health centres, since this conflict began. A United Nations humanitarian agency has said that some 48,000 of the 52,000 displaced …

I thank the Regional Group for tabling this important motion. It states that 35 towns and villages across the State continue to discharge raw sewage into nearby waters, according to a recent EPA report. That figure is far lower than I expected because many towns in my constituency of Cork South-West are suffering that sad fate. Obviously, the politicians on the ground, be they Deputies or Senators, have made a great deal of noise that something will be done, but decades later nothing has happened in some of these t…

I thank the Minister of State for bringing this Bill before us today. It has been a long time in the offing. There was a lot of discussion on this issue with the previous Government since I was elected in 2016 but it led to little or nothing. Perhaps there was some work going on behind the scenes but it was certainly not being addressed in the manner in which it should have been, so we appreciate the Minister of State bringing this Bill before the House. The nursing home support scheme, generally referred to as the…

We have been talking about housing since I got here in 2016. Unfortunately, we have gone from one housing crisis to another. I know now why there is a crisis in housing. It is because of the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil parties. They are backed up now by their buddies in the Greens. They are the cause of the problem and the nightmare. Young people in rural Ireland want to build on their own farms and in their own communities. They are being refused continuously by a planning system, regulations and the 2040 plan. Our …

I agree with this Bill. If implemented, the legislation aims to place workers at the head of the queue when it comes to payments from a liquidator and it would make an unpaid collective redundancy agreement into an unpaid debt in the eyes of the liquidation laws. The year-long struggle of the Debenhams workers has acted as an inspiration for this Bill. The Debenhams dispute highlighted the cold cruelty of the liquidation laws to workers. A spokesperson for former Debenhams workers on Patrick Street, Valerie Conlon,…

Essentially, this Bill is a move by the State to hand out the current work undertaken by county sheriffs to registered or private firms. It looks like Cromwell is back. We all remember what happened in Roscommon and the shocking scenes that were shown all over Ireland. Is that what this Bill is going to allow happen? Are we going back in time to when Irish people were evicted from their homes and forced to watch as the landlords burned down their homes and took their livelihoods away? This Bill states that an enfor…

The objective of the Bill is to provide the necessary powers to the Ministers for Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Agriculture, Food and the Marine to enter an agreement with the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland to implement loan guarantee schemes for small and medium enterprises and small mid-caps, including many primary producers. Will the Minister of State advise the House of the interest rate on the loans being promoted under the new scheme? I understand the €150 million cash flow support loan schem…

I have concerns. I am hopeful that the Government will accept the amendments in relation to the designation of land. I come from a constituency, and a parish as a matter of fact, where the designation of land is common. People can work with it as long as there is decent compensation to the landowner, because in most cases this designation can result in the land being deemed unused as such. That must be addressed. The designation of land and areas should not mean that a young family who want to start out and build a…

I fully agree with Deputy Mac Lochlainn that the Government has wasted a whole week. The inshore fishermen of this country deserve better. Indeed, the fishermen of Ireland deserve better. They are under severe pressure and the regime that we are on the verge of bringing in for the weighing of fish is an explosive issue. We need more time set aside to debate this. I fully agree with Deputy Mac Lochlainn in that regard.

Would the Taoiseach kindly resolve the issue? There is no point in just saying that there is a serious issue in terms of weighing fish.

People in Castletownbere and Unionhall are stretched to the last. The Taoiseach was asleep at the wheel during Brexit.

There is no point in "Deputy this" and "Deputy that" if the Taoiseach cannot resolve the issue for the people of west Cork-----

-----and the fishermen of west Cork. The Taoiseach has been asleep at the wheel for the past 12 months.

I am sharing time with Deputies Danny Healy-Rae and Mattie McGrath. Last Sunday, 9 May, the member states of the European Union celebrated Europe Day. This year, the day took on a special dimension with the launch of the Conference on the Future of Europe. In the context of the fatigue of the pandemic and the longing for stability and predictability, Europe has entered a crisis stage. Crisis fatigue has now become a widespread sentiment in Europe, especially in Ireland. Evidence in replies to a series of parliament…

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have blamed each other for the current housing crisis, which has seen thousands of homes end up in the hands of global investment funds. These funds are commonly referred to as either vulture funds, which tend to buy up distressed mortgages, or cuckoo funds, which are buying up new housing estates and apartments and of which every person in the country is now well aware. If this matter were not so serious, one might be forgiven for finding it rather amusing, or even childish. If Fianna Fái…

In west Cork they are two years waiting.

Is that the plan?