We have the increments as well.

Perhaps it falls to those of us who are departing to raise without fear a concern regarding the inequities of the social welfare code as they apply to Members of the Oireachtas. Deputy Sherlock has done so quite eloquently and I agree with him. I heard the Minister's response and her requirement for the cover of all parties coming together to say this is not a tenable situation. It is one thing for the Minister to say she will change it if we all say it should be changed collectively and unanimously. However, it is…

Has the Minister received legal advice on the matter? We do not need to know what that advice is.

Retrospectively.

It is not my duty to reply, but I can imagine the headlines if it did not receive all-party support. Will the Minister confirm whether self-employed people will have access to carer’s benefit as a result of this budget?

To be welcomed.

The next topical issue is in the names of Deputies Hourigan and Andrews who will have two minutes each.

What about the help-to-buy scheme that Sinn Féin will abolish?

You will not help the situation.

Sinn Féin will make it worse.

I rise to offer my sympathies and those of the Fine Gael organisation in Cork North-West to Finola, her children, our colleague Richard and his sister Mary on the passing of John Bruton. I was privileged to be elected to this House in the late 1980s. For those Members who are familiar with GAA lore, it was a time of great competitiveness between Cork and Meath. This had nothing to do with the fact Cork jersey was sponsored by Barry's Tea. The pitch was dominated by colossuses like Joe Cassells, Mick Lyons, Gerry Mc…

Very often in the context of the debate we are having nationally at the moment about migration, we sometimes conveniently ignore the critical contribution to the economy of migrants in the workplace. In the context of this Bill I want to focus in particular on the people internationally whom we seek to come to work here because of their critical skill sets. I refer in particular to people who work in our health service, public and private, the IT sector and people with a range of other skills without whom the Irish…

Like previous speakers, I am very familiar with this stretch of road. It is 24 km long but a lot of it is not as wide as the Minister suggests and there is no hard shoulder on about a third of it. There are 25 significant right-turning junctions on a route that has more traffic on it than sections of the M8 between junctions 3 and 4. I heard the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers, make the point earlier that we are an island economy, but we are also a regional economy. This is a critical interconnector between the …

I have a few observations to make on the general issue of mineral oil tax. There is much confusion about the component elements of it. It is probably appropriate in the context of the forthcoming Finance Bill that consideration be given to what is liable for mineral oil tax, the carbon tax element of it, and what should be reclassified. It is not often that the Minister is accused of lacking in ambition in the context of the climate area but in the context of mineral oil tax, the classification of some fuels as bei…

The Bill is substantially uncontroversial in its content. One could argue that the Bill is overdue and necessary housekeeping in terms of public infrastructure. Like most Deputies I have heard, I have no difficulty with the Bill and would be surprised if there were any real opposition to its content. That said, this is an opportunity to have a wider debate on wider related issues. The discussion so far has predominantly been about them. In the few minutes available to me, I wish to raise a concern with the Minister…

In two minutes, it is very difficult to do justice to the climate action plan but because I am distinctly underwhelmed by its content, it is probably best that I only have two minutes. In that time, I want to contribute briefly on both the home heating issue and agriculture. It is a hugely important document but it strikes me as a debate where all of the oxygen in the room was taken up with the debate about the sectoral targets and very little was left in terms of putting detail in the plan on what needs to be done…

I understand that the Taoiseach will visit Macroom on the Friday after next to mark the opening of the Macroom town bypass element of the €285 million contract to build a new motorway from the county bounds to east of Macroom at Coolcower. This project is a game changer for the region and one for which I was delighted to get Government approval in 2019, when I had the honour to serve in Cabinet. As the Taoiseach will no doubt be aware, in order to facilitate the early opening by him, a temporary roundabout at Carri…

I had the privilege in 2018 of attending COP24 in Katowice, Poland. It is difficult to imagine a construct less conducive to effective decision-making than the structure the Minister dealt with at COP27. In that context, I congratulate him for snatching victory, in certain terms, particularly on the issue of compensation for poorer countries for the damage inflicted on them by the developed world. That is a significant development but it is possible to argue there was some regression from progress made in COP26. Th…

Riversdale.

It will not make the diesel whitening as attractive any more.