In that specific case, the Deputy acknowledged the person should be getting the ticket.

If Bus Éireann said it was going to give the person a ticket, it should give them the ticket. I do not dispute that. It is a matter at a local level in terms of operations. The more fundamental point, to be fair, is that the company needs more buses, and it is securing more places on buses, because of the exponential growth. The easier thing would have been to do nothing and everybody would have gone along normally with the normal places.

These are decisions that will be long-lasting and will leave a legacy in terms of how we deal with climate change and getting people out of cars and into buses. The decision was taken to do it and we did it. It has caused challenges; I do not dispute that. We will sort those challenges out in the coming short while.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. It is, in my view, a serious development that needs review. The citizens information service was one of the more outstanding services provided. I said last week in the House that when I was Lord Mayor of Cork, I gave the freedom of the city to the late Maureen Curtis Black, who was a pioneer of the citizens information service and a volunteer in it. Civic engagement is always very important in society and where we have volunteers, we should cherish them. I will go back and…

I take the Deputy's points and I will talk to the Minister regarding this issue. A priority waitlist for test appointments has been established to allow vehicle owners to avail of any test cancellations. The average waiting period for a test appointment is now just under 24 days. The Deputy referred to an appointment in March, so I will need to follow up on this. The average waiting time now compares with 12 days pre-Covid-19. The pandemic was responsible for much of this situation, as the Deputy is aware. I will, …

No, that-----

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 3, inclusive, together. I attended a meeting over dinner in Madrid on Wednesday, 29 June 2022, hosted by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, which brought together leaders of EU member states and those of NATO member countries. While the event took place alongside a NATO summit, it was a separate event and not a part of the summit. The discussion covered current political and security challenges in Europe, not least the need for a strong common response to Russia's illegal an…

Deputy Durkan was the first to raise this matter. It was interesting that after the immoral invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which was an unprovoked and savage attack on the people of Ukraine with missiles hitting civilian targets and killing innocent people, including children, Finland and Sweden, which had a different position prior to this war, decided to join NATO. It was their decision. They are closer to Russia than we are and felt vulnerable. Around that time, I visited Finland. I had my visit organised before…

I said that over the past 40 years we have not militarised as a country. We should stop pretending that we have because we have not.

That is not what we are trying to do now. I would point out that the defence commission has made recommendations. The Government has accepted those recommendations, not in their entirety but in terms of the middle tier of ambition which by any yardstick is not militarisation, but getting the bare essentials in place that we can protect vital assets, protect our seas and protect ourselves from a cybersecurity perspective, and also be conscious that we do things at a more reasonable level than we have been doing. Fra…

What is extremely insightful in the contributions that I have heard today is that it is all about NATO. NATO did not start this war on Ukraine. The reason for the EuroAtlantic EU-NATO dinner and engagement was because of the war on Ukraine. NATO did not start that war. Most of the leaders of NATO who I know did everything they possibly could to stop the war from ever starting. They spoke to President Putin. They asked him not to commence the war. They invited him to talks around the security architecture of Europe …

It is all about NATO. It is all about NATO's aggression, allegedly, and NATO's militarisation when actually it is Russian aggression that has created this world crisis that we are in. No one wants to be in this. The members of NATO want their economies to work.

We favour nuclear non-proliferation and we work at the United Nations to try to achieve that. We have been one of the most consistent member states of the UN to advocate for nuclear non-proliferation and are perceived as such.

Deputy Paul Murphy-----

I will come back to the Deputy on the specifics.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 4 to 8, inclusive, together. I made an official visit to Ukraine on 6 July at the invitation of President Zelenskyy. I was honoured to be the first Taoiseach to do so. During my visit I visited the towns of Borodyanka, Bucha and Irpin, north of Kyiv, where I heard about and saw at first hand the abuses and destruction inflicted by Russian troops. As the Ukrainian army has recently liberated parts of eastern Ukraine that have been under Russian occupation, we are, unfortunately, lear…

Deputy Durkan raised the first question. What was interesting about the three towns just outside Kyiv that I visited was that none was a military town and, therefore, there was no militarism there. There was no need to undertake the atrocities carried out by Russian forces on the people of those towns. I went to the town of Bucha and to the church there. I met with the priest and the people there. They had a photographic exhibition of young men, hands tied behind their backs who were murdered. It was quite horrific…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 9 to 14, inclusive, together. The Cabinet committee on housing has met six times to date in 2022. The last meeting took place on Thursday, 15 September, with the next meeting planned for Monday, 10 October. The committee works to ensure a co-ordinated approach to the implementation of Housing for All and the delivery of programme for Government commitments regarding housing and related matters. Housing for All is the most ambitious housing plan in the history of our State and contai…

To respond to Members generally, the State is the biggest actor in housing now. One would not think that from the contributions made regularly in the House and some public commentary and analysis. The State is the biggest actor in housing, be it social housing, affordable housing, cost rental, Croí Cónaithe, the town centre first policy and trying to bridge the gap in viability on brownfield sites. The State is the biggest player now in house building. We need to build far more houses than we are currently as a cou…

I have been in discussions with the Minister on this. On the defects in housing, the Minister established the working group in 2021 under Mr. Seamus Neely, former chief executive of Donegal County Council. He received the report and published it. As Deputies will be aware, the working group estimates the average cost of undertaking the remediation of defects is likely to be approximately €25,000 per apartment duplex. This would be an overall potential cost of between €1.56 billion and €2.5 billion. It is estimated …