You did.

I had them around the table. The Secretary General of my Department chairs it. I attend it and I chair for the hour and go through it. We have brought in industry and every single Government Department. We have talked to all the various agencies involved as well to look at any generic obstacles that we can remove, or any barriers to accelerate offshore wind. We have carried out an onshore wind revolution in this country over many decades now. Every party that was in government over the last 30 years, and the county…

The Deputy keeps articulating his false narrative, but that does not make the narrative true. It is a dishonest portrayal of the Government's commitment in this area. We are a bit more pragmatic than the Green Party was, I would respectfully suggest. I have great respect for the Deputy and his party in many areas-----

-----but we are far more pragmatic in how we are going to deliver this and get it done faster than would have been the case.

Last year the RESS 5 and the ORESS Tonn Nua auctions were delivered and at a very competitive price for consumers with both auctions clearing. I will not go through the specific prices. RESS 5 involves 1 GW of new renewable electricity capacity. The Deputy knows this. A lot of good groundwork was done by the last Government but the Deputy's predecessor knew exactly the timelines as well as everybody else. I would argue that what we are doing now in offshore wind is accelerating it to a greater extent than would hav…

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. I appreciate there are concerns but I would say to all public representatives of all parties that we need to imbue in our nation a sense of strategic direction. Historically, we got it right in terms of utilities. That underpinned inward investment into this country and economic development without question. We are at a tipping point now in respect of whether we are prepared to make the big leaps forward and to underpin, for future generations, basic utilities for economic …

I could not agree more. It is something that has annoyed me a bit. I have been talking to various Ministers. We have to incentivise rain harvesting for non-drinking purposes and there are a lot of easy ways of doing that. We are all waiting for the summer. Hopefully, we will get a bit of sun. If we get the inevitable banning of utilisation of water for the garden or whatever, we will all eat our hat, given the amount of rain that has fallen over the past number of months. The Deputy is absolutely correct on that. I…

The Deputy make things up as she goes along. I was not in government in 2017 and neither was my party but that is not the point. There was good rationale for colocation. The Deputy knows that.

Everybody agrees with colocation.

The essentials of colocation are there. We did not starve the Rotunda of funding. How dare the Deputy say that? I just opened facilities. There has been investment in the Rotunda. This is an important development.

In our view, the expansion that is required is important for the protection of women and newborn babies. We would have preferred if planning was given. In our view, it was still justified, notwithstanding whatever happened in 2017 in terms of the colocation declaration. All of the medical world believes in colocation.

Not physically.

We are working flat out. We have allocated €15 million to support the post office network. We had allocated funding last year and the year before to maintain the post office network. I cannot get into every specific post office, obviously, but generally speaking we are very supportive of the postmasters. We understand the role that post offices play in communities the length and breadth of the country. An Post is fully conscious of Government's desire in this respect.

There is no question that people under pressure. We introduced targeted measures in the budget. I do not know whether the Deputy agrees with a targeted approach.

We did that in the budget and one of the manifestations of that is the fact that 50,000 people this Thursday will get the fuel allowance who otherwise would not have got it in previous years - those on the working family payment. They will get back pay of about €380 next week but they are getting notification this week on Thursday. We keep everything under review and it is important that we do that. We understand the potential pressures on people. Agreements have already been reached with the company in terms of ha…

I thank the Deputy for raising what is a really important issue for the community of Gaelscoil Coláiste Mhuire. I will certainly speak to Minister for education on this. I do not have a clear timeline yet on the issue. Obviously, there was a contractual conflict that resulted in us ending up where we are now. The suspension of works notice issued in May last year and the termination of the contract in July. I will seek clarity from the from the departmental officials and I will ask them to communicate to the Deputy…

Did the Deputy say it was starting in April?

I will engage with Irish Water on this. If it is April well and good. The Deputy is saying it could go back to May. We are now in March so we are not too far away from getting this work done.

There are two points there. First, an extra 20% has been allocated for services, some of which is for respite and residential. I have asked for this item to be put on the next agenda for Cabinet subcommittee in respect of accommodation. We need to create a proper sustainable structure linking the providers, the section 39 bodies, the HSE and the local authorities in terms of proper structures and options for families particularly those with adult disabled persons who require accommodation with varying degrees of su…

It is opening in the next two weeks. There are no restrictions on where it can be applied or on who can apply, and there never has been, other than the population threshold. Some new developing areas have received it as well as areas where people wanted the rejuvenation of older parts of a city or a town. The Deputy has named so many towns that I would say he would nearly take the budget himself. Under the old URDF if funding was allocated, the local authorities needed to get the work done faster. The Minister is g…