The Bruff Local Electoral Area Committee has no statutory authority, and it had none at the time, to dispose of a property. That is the first fact and so there was no pecuniary or beneficial interest in the land on behalf of Deputy Niall Collins or his wife at that time.

None at that time.

I have said that it would have been better if at the time Deputy Niall Collins had left the meeting and not participated but it is clear that officials brought that proposal to the local electoral area committee. I am trying to be fair and balanced and I will not pre-judge it like the Deputy does. It was at the 2008 meeting, well over a year and a half later, that the land was formally disposed of by the full council when Deputy Niall Collins was not even a member. It was an open sales process that was totally tran…

I am very clear about this and I have a clear view that this has been going on for quite some time. There have been attempted character assassinations of many politicians in this House and of many political parties if they are not of the same political orientation of those who back The Ditch , who are good friends of the Deputy in terms of their political philosophy and political ideology.

There is no question about that. The selective and distorted way that stories originate and are presented leaves an awful lot to be desired. This is a political organisation - that is my point - and the whole agenda is to create a campaign, get to the paid adds, get it trending, attack media if they do not cover it and then get it into the Dáil for questions and answers. We will make our judgment call on this as to the balance of how we approach it with Dáil questions and so on. I am very clear now on what is going…

The Deputy made a comment about the planning application that Deputy Niall Collins made. That point was never made in the original story and I said that my impression when I first read the story in The Ditch was that it was quite shocking. However, when I read the documentation it transpired that it was in his name, that he fulfilled all the criteria for the planning and that the advertisement was in his name and was bona fide on the file, but-----

-----you would never have thought that from the article that was first published by The Ditch .

I did not say that.

It is all out there. The documentation is published.

It is all transparent. The Deputy will always raise issues, through the Chair, about who is backing what or who is behind a particular organisation. It is very clear to me that Chay Bowes is a political opponent of the Government, as is Paddy Cosgrave. I would love to know who is funding The Ditch in its entirety. They partly fund it but who else is funding it? The site has no advertising and does not offer subscriptions. Did the Deputy ever question who is funding all of this? What really alarms me is that the Rus…

I ask for reflection on that.

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue of the regional competitiveness index report from the European Commission, which confirms that the northern and western region is a lagging region when compared with other regions across the country. Unprecedented investment is now going into the northern and western region. The Deputy mentioned the national broadband plan but there are 42 separate public capital projects in the northern and western region listed in the national development plan. These include, in the area o…

The Deputy raised a fair issue with regard to the ports and offshore wind that I did not address in my original response. However, there are plans on that which involve the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Ryan, working with the various port authorities on the submission of business plans for the offshore wind industry. The west coast in particular will have to develop offshore wind capacity in the ports themselves. It does not affect the Deputy's area or region but approximately €23…

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. Some of the costs have come down but I take his point overall on the broader need. Once we make the reforms, reductions should follow given that the industry pushed hard for some of these reforms and that a group of Ministers, which was convened at the start of this Government to work on this, brought forward a range of reforms. Government will always be anxious to work in a constructive fashion with the Deputy in respect of legislation. He knows that well.

I respect the Deputy's perspective on this and people are entitled to have different positions. I support the initiative to facilitate facial recognition, in respect of certain areas such as child sexual abuse, for example, where its use could mean getting to a perpetrator early to intervene or in a murder case or for the prevention a crime, but not to be used wholesale. There is no proposal to use it on a broad basis or to take a wholesale approach. There is always a balance in trusting our gardaí too. They are de…

We can certainly facilitate a debate or statements on the report. The entire report has been referred to the health committee. Obviously, I anticipate that the health committee will focus on the legislative options or recommendations but there are also a number of operational recommendations. The Government has agreed that the HSE will establish an implementation group to progress those particular recommendations. The proposals around legislative change are then being referred to the Joint Committee on Health. It w…

I appreciate the Deputy's concerns as to the high electricity costs in Ireland, particularly arising from the impact of the war in Ukraine. We did bring in significant intervention measures over the last 12 months to try to cushion somewhat the blow on households and consumers. The windfall tax is progressing in respect of the levies on the excess profits made by companies during this crisis. This revenue would then be channelled back to consumers and households, in particular. The measures we took are applicable r…

-----with a broad range of measures.

I will speak to the Minister of State, Deputy James Browne, regarding engagement with the organisation referred to by the Deputy. Obviously, the overall agenda is the safety-----

-----and protection of people. This is all that informs any legislative or regulatory proposals that come forward. I will talk to the Minister of State regarding the issues raised by the Deputy.