I can hear you.

I thank the Deputies from all sides of the House and Ministers for their contributions today. I will reply to some of the points in order to provide clarification but from the get-go, I welcome the overwhelming, if not total sense of solidarity between this House and the people of Ukraine, particularly from opposition Members who recognise this is an utterly illegal and brutal war by the Russian Federation under the yoke of Vladimir Putin. It was initiated solely by the Russian Federation. The response to this brut…

I am just providing a clarification; I am not looking to get into a debate on it. We send members of the Defence Forces to train in de-mining activities. That is not training people for war; it is removing land mines from potentially targeting civilians. I am not taking issue with the other points the Deputy raised, but that specific one is particularly important.

Respectfully, we are not taking sides as a military neutral.

Respectfully, I answered the Deputy on one technical point, which is clear. Training people to remove land mines is not taking sides in a war. The national position is that we are not politically neutral; we are militarily neutral. If the Deputy thinks it is taking sides to remove land mines from blowing up women and children, that it is a different interpretation of what we are doing. Deputy Lawless made the point the triple lock goes back to 2011, when actually it goes back to the 1960 Defence Act. I say that del…

I only have ten minutes and referred to Deputy Healy-Rae's point five minutes ago. I am referring to Deputy Heneghan's questions. That is why we have a memorandum of understanding on defence with the United Kingdom and why we co-operate in sharing information with the tech companies and the private sector. It is to provide those cables. I acknowledge, first and foremost, that we need to do more.

Ah Jesus, Deputy Healy-Rae.

What I mean when I say we need to do more is that we need to resource our Defences Forces more and continue investing in new equipment. Respectfully, I answered one technical query Deputy Healy-Rae asked. I moved on five minutes ago. I am talking about a situation that impacts his constituents as much as it impacts mine. He was given his time; I am given my time to respond for the Government. Respectfully, I will continue without interruption, if that is all right. When we talk about solidarity with Ukraine and the…

While I will focus my remarks primarily on the international development side of my brief, it is fitting that I commence by paying tribute to our late dear friend and colleague, Senator Billy Lawless. I was lucky to be in Chicago at the weekend and I spent some time with his son, Billy Jnr. I spent something else in The Gage, but we will leave that between me and him. It was brilliant to remember in that great city a great friend and colleague who I had the pleasure of sitting beside in this House for over four yea…

I am extremely grateful to all the Senators for their thoughtful and extremely supportive contributions on a range of matters. I will go back to my opening contribution where I said that our overseas development assistance and international development programme, first and foremost, was an investment. It is a solid investment that generates a real return for Ireland and it goes exactly to the heart of where we want our place to be in the world. We can be a voice of moral credibility when we talk about gender equali…

I am grateful to the Senator for raising this really important issue once again. I am taking this matter on behalf of the Minister for education. As the Senator is aware, the State Examinations Commission has responsibility for the reasonable accommodations at certificate examinations, RACE, scheme. A central tenet of the RACE scheme is to ensure equitable treatment for all candidates. The range of accommodations provided within the scheme has been designed to ensure fairness for all when facilitating candidates in…

The point I would make is that more than one in four candidates at the 2025 certificate examinations were provided with some form of reasonable accommodation within the RACE scheme to support them in accessing the State examinations, underlining the importance of the scheme. In 2025, 36,000 candidates in 750 post-primary schools were accommodated in the scheme. I completely understand the Senator's frustration; I am not going to mince my words here. He and I had this discussion before and it was raised and replied …

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. At the House's discretion, I think the Deputy would like to join me in a note of sympathy on the death of his former colleague in Kerry County Council and former mayor of Tralee, Jim Finucane, who was a good friend of mine and I know of the Deputy as well. I am taking this Topical Issue on behalf of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Browne. The recently approved revised national planning framew…

The updated rural housing guidelines in the form of a national planning statement will set out relevant planning criteria to be applied in the local authority development plans for rural housing on a consistent basis based on the high-level policy framework set out by the national planning framework and recognising that obligations under European directives and international agreements relating to the management and protection of the environment and adapting to and mitigating climate change has become more central …

Let us call a spade a spade. I am quite constrained in what I can answer here. The Senator will understand why. I will go through the detail now. The EPA is an independent public body established under the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992. The purpose of the EPA is “to protect, improve and restore our environment through regulation, scientific knowledge and working with others”. This reflects its three core roles: as an environmental regulator; as a key source of trusted scientific evidence and knowledge; a…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister. The Deputy will appreciate that the supply of public water and the provision of water services in general are matters for Uisce Éireann in the first instance. Uisce Éireann has statutory responsibility for all aspects of water services planning, delivery and operation at national, regional and local level. The Minister has no function regarding the specific Uisce Éireann operations to which the Deputy refers. The Environmental P…

The Department of Climate, Energy and Environment, on behalf of which I am taking matter, is responsible for setting the policy and legislative framework within which the key environmental regulators discharge their functions, including the agency with regard to the environmental licensing of large industrial installations. The Minister for Climate, Energy and Environment, Deputy O’Brien, is constrained by the provisions of sections 79(3) and 86(5) of the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 to exercise any pow…

Both our water and wastewater systems require substantial and sustained investment over a number of investment cycles to bring the systems up to the quality and resilience standards required of a modern service to provide for population growth and to build resilience in the face of climate change. The preferred long-term approach for Clonmel, as set out in Uisce Éireann's national water resource plan, is the construction of a new water treatment plant with water sourced by abstraction from the reservoir. The overal…

I thank the Senator for his extremely emotive and clear advocacy in his contribution. The telephone support allowance is a weekly payment of €2.50 for people on certain social welfare payments who are getting both the living alone increase and the fuel allowance. The primary objective of the telephone support allowance is to support access to critical communications infrastructure for the most vulnerable people at risk of isolation, including older persons and those with disabilities. This critical communications i…

I am very grateful to Deputy Murphy for raising this issue. The Minister of State, Deputy Canney, would also like to thank him for raising this matter and he looks forward to continuing a very close working relationship, given the Deputy's role as Chair of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport. The Department of Transport is committed, under action 7B of the road safety strategy phase 2 action plan, to addressing the issue of learner drivers with multiple successive learner permits and, in particular, those w…