What about tillage?

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this. I agree with the agreement. It is a step forward. Pharmacists are highly qualified people. Doctors around the country are under pressure. An awful lot of people, especially those who do not have medical cards, cannot get an appointment for weeks. If a person has a chest infection or something simple that can be diagnosed quickly, they still have to go to a doctor first, get the prescription and go to the pharmacy. We need to eliminate a lot of that where possible. I am no…

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. When we were growing up, long before we were in politics, we looked at the news at night and saw the United Nations and said to ourselves, God they are powerful men in suits. We looked at the G7 or the G8 - whatever you want to call it - and said, my God, they are going to solve the problems of the world. To look at the atrocities going on in Gaza at the moment, the UN and the G7 or G8 are standing idly by and letting all this happen. We saw all those guys on telev…

Sports capital grants have done great things in small communities right around the country. I remember playing football and togging out in places they would not tog out in nowadays. It is incredible what it has done. With the population increasing and different sports coming into play, more money should be put in to attract young people to get more of them involved in sport. The budgets must be available to help small clubs. The Government should put aside a budget for a loan scheme. Some clubs struggle to match th…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this matter. First, I wish the Minister the best of luck.

I do not think I was in front of you before this so the best of luck. The reality of immigration is that, at the moment in Ireland, we are building 30,000 houses. There is a huge shortage of houses. Look at the numbers of people who are coming in both through legal and illegal immigration. We are scratching our heads when people want to come to work. Let us bear in mind, we need people working. We need them in hospitals, hospitality and in all the different sectors. When employers go through that process, it is so …

We need to make sure that we tighten this. The court system needs to be sped up to make decisions-----

-----and not hold things up for four or five years on people who are coming here about whom we know nothing.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion and commend Deputy Gogarty and his staff on putting it together. It often baffles me that when we had 9,000 and 10,000 gardaí on the streets or in the total force, there were local Garda stations. If anyone said they were not doing much, they knew everything that was going on in the area. They did not have to be taking out the book doing this one, that one and the other one. They were able to keep manners on the area in their own way. Sadly, it is gone now with the …

I welcome this opportunity. I remember doing the Leixlip–Ballycoolin water main in 2004 or 2005. An area from Clonee to Navan was supposed to be left for rail. The rail was nearly to come the following day but the position is still the same. Although the posts are up and will soon be rotten, no rail ever came. In the west, the Claremorris–Athenry line is ferociously important. The Minister of State will remember that, in 2016, the time he went into government, he and I were talking about including the western rail …

I move: That Dáil Éireann: acknowledges that: — the persistent shortfall in the delivery of housing, particularly social, affordable, and cost-rental units, constitutes a structural failure of public policy; — successive Governments have fallen short of their own housing delivery targets, and a significant proportion of zoned, developable land remains idle due to systemic delays in planning, infrastructure alignment and institutional coordination; and — local authorities, statutory agencies, and utility providers a…

I thank Mark Nolan and John Campbell for helping us out. I thank each of the speakers, whether they spoke for or against the motion. I thank them for spending the time. I will address a few of the issues raised by the Minister. Three years ago I came into the Dáil and today RTÉ is reporting that we are now in trouble. To build a house, a site has to be dug out. Stone and concrete are needed. It is damning that three years after I raised it in the Dáil, we now face this. It was raised with the then Minister of State…

The Minister spoke about different reports and bodies being set up and whatever. The bottom line is that if people do their job and are given the utilities, instruments and simplifications, everyone could do their jobs without putting layers upon layers. All we are doing, if we get a housing tsar or whatever, is getting another person to blame. We will say they should have done their job. At the end of the day, if everyone who is appointed, whether in councils, in planning and up the ladder to Secretary General, do…

The clock is going.

The Tánaiste is well aware that a few months ago, at the end of January, there was a devastating storm in the west midlands and the north west. In fairness, the Minister, Deputy Calleary, and the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, are well familiar with the devastation that has been caused. I know the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, has had meetings with the different communications outfits. Four months later, however, we see parts of Roscommon and east Galway such as Creggs - I sent the Tánaiste a photo of C…

I thank the Tánaiste for his reply. I know a small bit about civil engineering work, and it will be a miracle. The photo I sent was taken this morning. If all the infrastructure will be in place by 3 June, with Monday a bank holiday, I would be amazed. I hope the Tánaiste is right and that what Eir told the Government is correct but I do not think it will come true. I ask the Government to keep the pressure on. For a lot of the people waiting on these phone lines, it is their only contact with the outside world and…

The fire burned a heap of forestry. The Government knows as well as I do that, after 20 years, it is not insured and these people are left high and dry. All that can be done is to woodchip it. That is all that is left.

They need help to replant. The Minister of State, Deputy Healy-Rae, spoke about the reconstitution grant for wind-blown timber. I ask for those people to be included to give them a small token of help.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion. I appreciate that the Minister is supporting it. The means test for carers is mentioned in the programme for Government. I have seen many cases where people's sons or daughters went from the west to Dublin or wherever else and when they came home to mind their parents they were not allowed to get the carer's grant because they had a house in Dublin, for example. They were told they could not live in two houses. That is wrong, because they were saving the State mone…

If I could have just one second. They might lease the land, and if they do, they are in trouble.