First of all, I will engage with the Minister in respect of this issue. I have in the past. It was increased, I believe, two or three years ago.

I am sympathetic to an increase in the threshold because there is a cohort of people working whose income limits are not high enough to sustain a mortgage or cannot get a mortgage and who would like the opportunity to access social housing. We need to try to seek ways to accommodate people in that cohort. I will talk to the Minister about that. We have an open view on it.

We actually did do targeted measures. The fuel allowance in the first package-----

Sorry, it is not less than 10%, actually.

No. The bulk of the last measure is for the general reduction of excise on diesel and petrol, which will impact on everybody. That is far greater than the €100 million package for agriculture and €120 million for transport. By the way, transport is the lifeblood of everybody. We are not doing haulage for the sake of hauliers alone. We are doing it because we want to get goods and services across the country. We want to put stuff on supermarket shelves. We want to export goods that are produced by workers. It is a b…

We are working on the cost of disability issue in terms of the budget.

I will talk to the Minister concerned. We are looking at an additional €700 million increase in the current budget of the Department of education. It is largely around increased teacher allocation. That is over and above the budget that was passed only in October last. School transport costs will increase very substantially because the numbers are increasing all of the time but I will talk to the Minister. I will talk specifically about that issue of the distance threshold for the concessionary applicant and ask th…

I do not believe the main street of the capital should be shut down for a week. I do not believe motorways should be blockaded for a week because it is an infringement on a basic human right - the right of free movement. It is a very basic right. I have problems with that form of protest. I have articulated that from the very beginning. It is regrettable that others in the House cannot accept that the right to free movement should not be restricted by self-appointed groups. There are legitimate ways to protest - no…

There had been issues with the administration of ACRES, which is a €1.5 billion scheme. By the way, a lot of the funding from this Government for ACRES comes from the carbon tax. It is 60% funded by the Government and 40% by the European Union Common Agricultural Policy. I would take the Deputy's point. The Minister is doing everything he can to improve and enhance the administrative capacity of ACRES. The scheme that is announced is an important scheme of €100 million in value. There has to be a degree of working …

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 11, inclusive, together. I travelled to Beijing and Shanghai in early January, the first official visit by a Taoiseach since 2012. While there, I met with key political figures and Chinese leaders in a variety of fields, including business, tourism and education, with the aim of strengthening our political, economic and cultural links. Ireland’s economic and trading relationship with China is informed by our support for accelerating the market diversification agenda as a means …

I thank all the Members for their comments. With respect to Deputy Boyd Barrett and others, in terms of the human rights issues, we do raise them. China has no issue with foreign leaders raising human rights issues. Deputy Martin Daly emphasised the importance of raising them. However, one gets a robust response. They defend their position on the Jimmy Lai case. It was quite a lengthy conversation with the Premier in respect of that case and in respect of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang. They invited us to go down, w…

It is not a military base. If you want to see a military base go to Spain, go to Italy, go to Germany. We need to be accurate with our commentary. This kind of denigration of Shannon Airport will damage Shannon Airport, will damage the economy of Shannon and will damage jobs in Shannon Airport. Charter planes are used to bring soldiers home or whatever.

There is no US military base in Shannon Airport. It is wrong to characterise it as such. Go and look at what a military base is - structure, logistics and everything. That is not what Shannon Airport is.

I think we need a small bit of cop on in respect of it. That is my view on it. Deputies may disagree and they are entitled to disagree. Again, we are committed to military neutrality. We are not joining any military alliance. Deputy Murphy is wrong in endeavouring to use the triple lock amendments. I do not believe Russia should have a veto on whether we involve ourselves in a peacekeeping operation or not. I do not believe the United States should have a veto. I do not believe China should have a veto on whether o…

I am sorry, but we are not.

Look, it is so dishonest to say-----

We are not involved in any war right now.

They are not using our airport for the war. They are not using it for the war.

I just want to make one important point. Deputy Martin Daly referred to us being a small trading nation. We need to export what we produce and make. I gave the figures earlier. What was interesting was that I spoke to Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday. In the context of there being polarisation between two major powers, China and the US, there is now a growing movement from the European Union, Canada, Australia and other like-minded powers with similar values, rooted in multilateralism, to come closer together. …

I covered a lot of people. I am sorry but I did not cover Deputy Hayes’s point about renewable energy. We did actually discuss that with President Xi. They are very conscious of our offshore wind exploration and that we are putting a lot of focus into the offshore and onshore aspects. China manufactures wind turbines at an extraordinary rate. It more or less commands the global market in solar panels. If we can get good multilateral relationships, there will be a benefit. There was a time when people felt we would …