The abuse carried out by Leo Hickey was evil, horrific and deeply harmful to many people who were children at the time that he was in Dunderrow National School in the 1960s. I do appreciate and I am fully conscious of the enormous trauma experienced by the survivors of sexual abuse in that school and abuse carried out by Leo Hickey. It is important that their voices are heard and listened to. In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights found that in respect of day schools the State failed in its obligation in speci…

To set the record straight, back in 1998 and 1999 the issue was industrial schools. I created a commission into abuse that happened in industrial schools.

I want to put that on the record. It was the first time ever any Irish Government established a commission of inquiry into abuse in schools and that was in the context of industrial schools.

I want to make that point. It was many years later when this particular case came to the Irish courts and then it went on to the European Court of Human Rights. That said, various ex gratia payment schemes were developed in respect of Dunderrow and others who were party to the case at the European court. As I said earlier, about 193 applications were made. About 128 were approved under the ex gratia payment scheme. We are going to enter into remediation at this stage in good faith. We have a wider issue which the i…

First of all, I thank the Deputy for again raising this issue. As I have said, the abuse committed by Leo Hickey was horrific and unconscionable. The suffering and trauma people went through because of him has been life lasting. The Deputy is correct that in 2019, I advocated very strongly that the original redress scheme of 2015 was far too limited. That led to the appointment of Mr. Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill to recommend an expansion of the ex gratia payment scheme. That is what I have already referenced; that o…

It is not delay, delay, delay in respect of the mediation that has been sought by the representatives of the survivors of the abuse by Leo Hickey. We will engage in that mediation. There is a wider redress issue that has to be examined in the context of schools in general across the nation over the last number of decades. That is the point I am making. This has been in a legal framework for quite some time as well. I have no issue meeting with people but the Government has to resolve this as well and come to conclu…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. If we look back over the last three decades, we have had numerous episodes or revelations pertaining to institutions both public and private in respect of child sexual abuse. It has been quite horrific. I refer to governments from about the late 1990s onwards and the 1999 period onwards when we first initiated the inquiry into industrial schools. I recall the anger when the State paid up close to €1 billion in redress. Everybody attacked the government of the day, of which…

The legal representatives of the Dunderrow survivors have written to the Government and to the Minister inviting the Government to enter mediation with their clients with a view to resolving their claim against the State. That is what I said this morning. We will respond positively to that invitation. Those are the specifics of the request. This correspondence arrived in the past week or ten days. That is the factual and specific response to that point. On the broader issue, the interdepartmental group is due to re…

What the Deputy said at the beginning is true. We are making very significant progress on renewable energy in this country. We have reached a record of circa 8 GW of renewable energy generation capacity, which is up from 4.8 GW in 2020. Onshore wind now provides very significant levels of power. Last year, we hit the important milestone of 5 GW of installed onshore wind capacity. We also reached the milestone of 2GW of installed solar capacity last November. In terms of solar generated electricity, in April we reac…

The Minister is pursuing these issues across the board. We certainly we engage in respect of a support system. When any industry comes looking for a support system, it is reasonable that the Government approaches that in terms of value for money, representing the taxpayer and to make sure that we do it properly and right. I will engage with Minister in respect of the issues the Deputy has raised now and revert to him.

The Deputy paints a picture of a scheme that is growing and growing year on year but he does not articulate that in his presentation. Funding has grown from about €12 million back in 2016 to about €62 million this year, with over 70,000 students participating across 2,000 schools. We have gone from 8,000 students participating to 70,000. That is an enormous, exponential increase in students participating in the summer scheme. The funding has increased by €42 million. I am told here that no eligible child is being p…

Actually, I would disagree with the Deputy's solution. What we did in the budget was child support payments for the lowest income, not the middle but the lowest income, We dramatically increased it and have done for the last two budgets. That is how you tackle poverty. It did reduce in the budget by any yardstick and objective. Over the last number of years, we brought in free primary school books and post-primary school books for children, which is a huge help to families. We have expanded and extended the free ho…

I have not seen the programme. I appreciate that the work that went into the making of that programme. Again, it is another story of horrific abuse as we discussed earlier in terms of the wide-scale prevalence of child sexual abuse in our society and by institutions as well. We have had a number of inquiries and a number of them are being contemplated again in respect of these issues. To a certain extent, the system is being fairly widely stretched in terms of the number of inquiries. I will ask the Minister for Ju…

As I said earlier to a series of questions on this issue, we will be responding in a positive way to correspondence from representatives of the survivors of Dunderrow National School in regard to mediation. The abuse was horrific - of that there can be no question - and the trauma experienced was equally life-enduring but there were earlier ex gratia payment schemes so mediation will be entered into in respect of the correspondence we received.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. There is a unit now within Uisce Éireann that is meant to be responding to public representatives in respect of issues. I do not have the specifics but I clearly can detect from the nature of the Deputy's contribution that he is irate at what has transpired in respect of a project in his area. I will talk to the Minister about it.

My understanding is that under the current programme, the development is on track to go to tender for the main building works this year and to appoint a main contractor in quarter 1 of 2027, subject to the necessary approvals. As the Deputy knows, there was a phase 1 back in 2017. Phase 2 is the paediatric inpatient accommodation, which will deliver 82 much-needed inpatient beds, both new and replacement. It has taken time but, in parallel with all this, a substantial package of enabling works has been under way si…

First, there was no reversal in respect of the GPO. You guys in Sinn Féin created a false controversy and made false assertions that we were turning the GPO into a retail outlet.

Then your party ran a great campaign. It is the normal kind of behaviour you go on with.

It is terribly cynical politics of the worst kind but it is a great old technique to create an issue and send a hare up the field when actually there is no issue in the first place. Of course the GPO will be an iconic building by the time we are finished with it but, as the Deputy knows, there is a huge complex behind it. We are looking at the major iconic cultural aspect. There will be a post office there and there will be other elements there as well to create footfall. We hope to have either a State agency or a …

It seems to me you want to keep the campaign going on forever.