I thank the Deputy for raising the issue and acknowledge his work and that of his colleagues in helping the community to recover from the devastation of Storm Babet. It was shocking to see the impact. I know the vast majority of businesses have reopened, which is great to see, but homes were destroyed as well and nobody wants that to happen again. The commitment I can give is that we are open to any way that accelerates the delivery of a new scheme for Midleton that minimises the risk of a future occurrence of this…

It is really heartening to see the popularity and growth of Gaelscoileanna. I think pupils who leave sixth class in those Gaelscoileanna in Dublin 2, 4, 6 and 8 should have the option of going to a Gaelcholáiste in their wider area. In my community of Carrigaline in recent years, we developed a state-of-the-art brand-new Gaelcholáiste that is really popular. Children are coming to it from a number of feeder schools, which is great to see. I encourage the Deputy to take up the issue with the Minister, Deputy Foley, …

To be fair, the Minister of State is very accessible and I have no doubt she will facilitate a meeting, so if the Deputy wants to make contact with the Minister of State directly or through me, I have no problem in assisting with that and the case for core funding can be made by the organisation. I take the opportunity to thank all of the disability service providers in the country for the work they do, be they section 38 or section 39 organisations or neither of these. We are very anxious to support them. The firs…

I thank Deputy Flaherty. I am familiar with the excellent work the staff in St. Christopher's do on an ongoing basis. I thank him for advocating for them in the House this afternoon. There are ongoing meetings between the HSE and St. Christopher's. As he has acknowledged, the HSE has assisted St. Christopher's in dealing with financial challenges through a cash acceleration process and work is continuing between the HSE and St. Christopher's to make sure there is a sustainable basis for the continued provision of s…

I thank Deputy Ellis. We are all absolutely horrified by what happened in Limerick and our hearts go out to the family of the victim. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, is awaiting a report and expects to receive it very shortly. I anticipate it will be received in the coming weeks and the Government will make a prompt decision on the back of it. In advance of that, we are looking at the legal options and what role primary or perhaps secondary legislation might play in that regard. The specific issue the Deputy has ra…

I thank Deputy Donnelly. He pre-empted my response because it is the truth. It is an operational matter for the Garda Commissioner to decide on the allocation of resources. I am not sure if a Sinn Féin Government would propose a different way, whereby the Government would decide where gardaí go. The Garda Commissioner will do so. We accept our responsibility, which is to increase Garda numbers. That is why we have a series of recruitment campaigns. This year, 6,300 people applied to join An Garda Síochána. We have …

The hope is in the amount of construction that is under way across the country in terms of public house building, at scale, once again.

I am making the point. The Deputy will have seen in his constituency, throughout Cork and around the country the amount of house building in which the State is directly involved, with a view to meeting the needs of that family. It is clear for everyone to see. The numbers are there. If the Deputy wants to provide me with the details of the individual case to which he referred, I will work with him on it. We have made huge efforts to increase the number of emergency accommodation places. The Department of housing wo…

It is not being opposed.

I thank the Senators across the House for their engagement on this Bill and for the broad support of the Bill. I know the motivation behind the various amendments is from the perspective of the individual Senators to improve the Bill further. I recognise the genuine motivation in that regard. The Bill has a number of straightforward purposes. As Senators will be aware, the future Ireland fund is designed to meet costs that are definitely coming our way in the years ahead. With an ageing population and changing demo…

Yes, I would like to respond. I thank Senator Higgins. I will undertake to follow up with regard to the ammunition production support Act and look further into that. As she said, it is not through the agency, so it is not directly relevant. However, I understand the concern she has raised. I understand it is through the EU budget, but I will go over the transcript of the exchange at the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach. Its members will engage with my officials and we will re…

I thank Senator Higgins for tabling this amendment relating to the investment policy of the infrastructure, climate and nature fund. As was discussed on Committee Stage, it is important that there is a clear investment objective for the fund. This view is based on the experience of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, and taking account of the approaches taken by other funds in other jurisdictions. The investment policy for both funds will be to hold or invest the assets of the funds on a commercial basis f…

In regard to the value of the spend from the infrastructure, climate and nature fund on climate measures, we have earmarked €3.15 billion. The balance is to underpin the public capital programme and the investment under the national development plan, NDP, which has a whole range of environmental and green tests, as would be expected. It is not the case that the remainder of the fund will not get invested in projects that have environmental benefits or which help us to achieve our decarbonisation goals. That will ha…

I thank Senator Higgins for these amendments and the work that clearly has gone into them. Several of them were discussed on Committee Stage. In response to amendments Nos. 4 to 6, I would like to make a number of points. The main point to consider is that a finite amount of resources are being deployed from the fund. Adding further objectives would dilute its impact in the existing identified areas. The infrastructure, climate and nature fund, valued at up to €3.15 billion, aims to support projects that directly o…

I acknowledge the Senator’s comments. When looking at section 20 objectively, titled “Designated environmental projects”, there are a range of areas where a project that contributes directly or indirectly, or is likely to so contribute, can be designated as a project that can be funded under this fund. For example, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the State covers a wide area of potential projects. In paragraphs (b) to (h), we list a range of further areas, in particular water and the national biodivers…

I thank the Senator for her consideration of the application of the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act to these new funds. I know this was discussed on Committee Stage. The first amendment proposes to remove the mechanism to allow the investment to proceed where the agency is satisfied that it is in line with the achievement of the national climate objectives. Section 31(3) of the Bill and the equivalent provision inserted by the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act into the National Treasury Management Agency (Amendment) Act 2014 a…

I can put some further information on the record of the House. I note that this de minimis approach has worked well in the experience of ISIF. For example, at the end of 2023, the percentage of fossil fuel exposures in pooled vehicles in which ISIF was an investor ranged from 0% to just under 10%. Further to this, many of the higher exposures relate to emerging markets, for example, India equities of close to 10%, or to emerging market debt strategies within multi-asset managers. It is much more cost and operationa…

I thank the Senator for this amendment, which also formed part of the debate on Committee Stage in the House. I appreciate that the Senator's intention is, primarily at least, to attempt to ensure that State funds are not invested by the NTMA in occupied territories, including the occupied Palestinian territories or Western Sahara and, where they are invested, that the NTMA would divest from such investments. Further to the debate on Committee Stage, I raise a number of points in response to this amendment. The Sen…

I thank the Senator. The legislative basis for all of the investments made by ISIF is the NTMA Act 2014. Those investments are provided for within the investment policy and strategy. I have no evidence to suggest that any investment ISIF has in its global portfolio is illegal or does not have a sound legal basis. I wish to be clear on that point. As the Senator has acknowledged, the NTMA has recently divested from certain investments in the occupied Palestinian territory. The ISIF director outlined that at the end …

I thank Members of the House for their consideration of the Bill in recent weeks. I thank the House for the broad support - it was not unanimous but there was broad support from the House. It would be remiss of me not to thank the officials in my Department and the Attorney General's office. This was complex legislation. It is unusual that a Bill brought forward can go through the Dáil and Seanad without the Government having to amend its own Bill in some way. No amendments were required to this Bill on the Governm…