My answer concentrated on energy security because that is what my Department is responsible for. The person who is best placed to answer questions about foreign affairs policy is the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs. I am sure he would be happy to answer the Senator's question. My understanding, however, is that there has been no change of policy. On the question of agreements between the EU and Israel, all those agreements should include a clause that explicitly excludes the territory that was occupied by…

It is the local childcare committee that should be liaising directly with these childcare facilities. I will mention it directly to the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman. He was in Cork at the time the flooding happened, or immediately afterwards, and he has taken an interest in it. There is a fund for continuity of service. I ask the Deputies to ensure any affected childcare services have applied for a continuation of service funding under the force majeure rules and that they apply for the emergency business flooding sch…

I thank the Senator for raising the issue. I am answering on behalf of my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Harris, who of course has gone to great lengths to reduce the cost of further and higher education for students. The Senator will be aware that budget 2024 contains a package of measures to support households with the cost of living. These cost-of-living measures include a €1,000 reduction in the student contribution fee for those higher education students who are eligible for the free fees initiative. Under th…

I thank Deputy Stanley for raising this important issue. It gives me an opportunity to outline to the House the current position on the large-scale, major devolved project under delivery at Coláiste Dhún Másc, Portlaoise. I am providing this response on behalf of the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, who, as the Deputy says, is out of the country. Coláiste Dhún Másc is a co-educational, mainstream, second-level school under the patronage of Laois and Offaly Education and Training Board. It currently has an enro…

I thank the Senator. I understand the feeling that the students must have that this is something they were counting on, and that some courses are funded and some are not. It is open to Marino Institute of Education, as a private, independent institution, to reduce the fees in line with the Government decision, but the budget decision agreed by all parties was for the €1,000 fee to be applied only to courses where the State has a relationship through the free fees initiative. However, I understand that the Minister,…

I thank the Deputy. He has made his case very clearly and very well. As he said, I am a Deputy as well and I face requests from parents for school places for their child coming up to the next school year. As the Deputy knows from the census results, every county has a growing population, so there are demands all around the country for new schools and 300 school projects are happening at the moment. It is important and I can see this is a critical project in a very fast-growing town. The school is moving from 555 en…

I thank Senator Boyhan for raising this matter. Print media and radio play an essential role in sharing reliable and relevant news and bringing communities together. The wider media sector in Ireland, which is a vital element of our democracy and society as a whole, is undergoing fundamental change. This is in part due to the increased digitalisation of news and media content generally and the associated decline in advertising revenue as a consequence. The report of the Future of Media Commission examined the chall…

I thank the Deputy very much for raising this matter. I am responding on behalf of the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and the Minister of State, Deputy Browne. Youth diversion projects, or YDPs, are community-based multi-agency youth crime prevention initiatives. They primarily seek to divert young people who have been, or are at risk of becoming, involved in antisocial or criminal behaviour. Youth diversion is not about young people avoiding punishment or consequences. It is about recognising that many young people who…

The principle is that justice should be seen to be done. Sometimes judges refer to the media as the eyes and ears of the court. It is important that what happens in a court is reported. If it is a local issue, it may not be reported nationally, so we may have no visibility of what is going on in our justice system. It is a part of our justice system and, equally, it is important that what happens in a democracy is reported. Again, local democracy may not receive an airing in the national media, so we may have a sit…

I agree with everything the Deputy has said. I want to underline the Government's strong commitment to youth justice services. That is shown by the fact that the budget for youth justice services has increased by 10% for next year, with an extra €3 million in the budget for same. This funding will be deployed with the assistance of the best available research and expert evidence to help keep young people away from crime. The intention is to further expand and develop the youth justice services to try to find who wi…

I am taking this question on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, who is out of the country. I thank the Senator for raising the matter as it provides me with an opportunity to outline the position on school capacity reviews in County Galway, including Ballinasloe, and the use of the ArcGIS system to assist the REALTs in their work of sourcing school places. As the Senator will be aware, regional educational and language teams, REALTs, were established as part of the Department of Educa…

I welcome the young people who are in the Gallery and hope they are able to follow what is going on. The Senator is asking me about making sure the Government is providing enough school places for students in Ballinasloe; whether there will be enough places for the students who are coming; and why we cannot build schools faster. I think that is roughly the Senator's question. The Minister, Deputy Foley, cannot be in the Chamber because she is travelling abroad and so I am answering on her behalf. The Senator's spec…

I sincerely thank the Deputies for tabling what is a constructive Bill. This is not something they are moving for effect. The legislation actually contains some good proposals. I am happy to discuss the Bill; it is worthy of debate. To Deputy Shanahan, I must say that I love County Waterford. This is partly because it was the location of my childhood holidays in Dunmore East. When I go down there, I can see that Waterford city is flourishing with capital investment. I go down to the North Quays project and I see th…

I thank the Deputy for this question. By way of context, it is important to acknowledge the changes that have been brought about during 2023 to date. Since the renaming of my Department as the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, there has been an enhanced focus and mandate for the delivery of the NDP. In light of this new role, a review of the support structures and levers available across Government to maximise delivery of projects was undertaken earlier this year. As a result of that review…

The quantum of our capital investment in this country is unprecedented. Our capital investment is approaching 5% of GNI*. I do not know of any other EU country that is providing that level of investment. At the same time, we are running a surplus, and are right to do so, and some money is being put aside to protect the economy in the event that our corporate taxes turn out to be a windfall. I dispute the assertion that we are not investing enough in capital projects. The ESRI report is about examining how far we ca…

The risk is that we increase capital expenditure beyond where we are now and get nothing in return. If we are in a position of full employment, where there is nobody available to do the work, and we increase the investment into a sector, we may receive back the same quantity of output - in other words, the same number of houses and hospitals are built - but prices, wages or costs are pushed up and, therefore, add to inflation. That is why the ESRI report is being done. It is why the review is being carried out. The…

I thank the Deputy for the question. The Government has overseen unprecedented levels of additional investment into our health services in recent years. Funding on a like-for-like basis, excluding disabilities, has risen by €7.4 billion from 2019 to 2024. This is equivalent to an average annual increase of 9% in spending. This investment has facilitated considerable expansion of the health service workforce and it is expected that moe than 23,000 additional staff will, by the end of this year, have been added since…

Negotiations happen between the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery, and Reform and the Department of Health, or any other relevant Department. The Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery, and Reform is not going to engage directly with agencies that are under the remit of another Minister. I understand the chief executive of the HSE sent an email outlining his concerns on the morning of the budget speech. What I witness is that representatives of all Dep…

I agree that investing money in the healthcare system has a positive return on investment. I know the Ministers for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform and Health are carefully reading the words of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council on that. To give an example of the words following that, the Department of Heath agreed to regrade public health doctors to consultant level so that this service would become consultant-led. Public health doctors sought that for a long time. That decision wa…

National strategic objective, NSO, 8 relates to the transition to a low carbon and climate-resilient society. The next decade is critical in order to address the climate crisis and we have significantly stepped up our climate ambition by committing to reduce our overall greenhouse gas emissions. The Climate Action Plan 2023, which was published in December 2022, sets out the actions, measures, policies and plans to meet the emission reduction targets required by our carbon budgets and sectoral emission ceilings. Th…