-----these arms to travel through our airspace, that is, the same arms that are systematically targeting children.

I have raised this issue before. As the Minister has said this evening and on the previous occasion, under Irish air navigation law, the carriage of munitions is prohibited on any civil aircraft and failure to comply carries up to three years' imprisonment. The operators of these flights seem to think the Government has zero intention of upholding the law, unlike the Belgian Government, which opened a criminal investigation following the reporting of it. Why is the Government not doing the same? Seven months in suc…

What does the Minister plan to do to address the critical infrastructural deficits that cripple Ireland's transport networks the length and breadth of the State? What is he doing to address the fact the national development plan includes concrete measures only for the Dublin MetroLink, a project that has been in the pipeline for decades? The feeling is that he is leaving rural Ireland behind. What efforts will he make to ensure there is balanced regional development rather than referencing only one project in the N…

As the Minister said, it is about delivery at this stage. All the projects he mentioned are projects that were previously announced. The NDP review did not bring anything new to the table. It was also scant on any real substance or detail. Most of the projects were on the books for years and some of them, like MetroLink, for decades. MetroLink, on the books for decades, is the only transport project the NDP review mentions. The Government is talking about new announcements but the people do not want announcements; …

According to reports, the Government is set to hike public transport fees in this year's budget. We have heard that there is a €250 million funding gap and, as a result, commuters who are already crippled by rising rents and the cost of living are going to face fare hikes. I want the Minister to commit to retaining the reductions in public transport fares as part of this year's budget. Earlier this year we were warned by officials in the Department of public expenditure that key infrastructure projects would not be…

The Minister mentioned he was in Heuston Station this morning. I saw him there with the Minister, Deputy Calleary, and the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell. He may have noticed the 7 a.m. train from Tralee, which came in shortly before he arrived without any catering service on it. We would think between the lot of the Ministers who were down there that they might be able to sort it out. I do not want to be flippant but after I raised this on the previous occasion someone wrote to me in verse: Will you ask the M…

I agree that we have raised this issue previously. In fact, back in February we received a reply that the tendering process had been progressed and was at an advanced stage with costings established, and that it was with the NTA for funding. Is there any need to outsource it to a company that will charge a seven-figure amount? When I was a student and after that, Iarnród Éireann directly employed people in its catering section to sell the items in question. We are speaking about trains going from Sligo and Mayo to …

On many of the trains the facilities are there. There is a counter there.

What is wrong with employing someone to sell a packet of crisps or some water? This suspension of services was only supposed to be a temporary measure during Covid. As we know, passenger numbers have increased. The service is continuing without any catering. It was not meant to be the new normal. I cannot understand how the mentality is fixed in their brains that they cannot directly employ someone and make them an employee of Iarnród Éireann. I am not even talking about providing hot food but they could provide a …

I move: That Dáil Éireann: notes that: — Irish energy prices are amongst the highest in Europe leading to an extra €500 on household bills and is a leading factor in Ireland's cost-of-living crisis; — the number of households in arrears are at their highest level since records began with 300,000 households in arrears on their electricity bills and 185,000 households in arrears on their gas bills, while many more are just about able to keep up with their bills but are under real pressure; — electricity prices are th…

The response of the Government in this amendment is vague in places and downright inaccurate in others. The amendment is an insult to the millions of ordinary workers and families who are bracing for another round of energy hikes and to the hundreds of thousands of households that are falling further behind on their energy bills with each passing month and many more who are barely scraping by. I am disappointed but not surprised that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Lowry-led regional Independents are choosing to pri…

Household bills are 70% above what they were in 2022 and the value of arrears has jumped by almost 50%, even with the electricity credits each winter. There are 300,000 people in arrears. The Government has said it does not want electricity credits to be the new normal but the rise in prices and the number of people in arrears are an emergency and not normal either. This demands an emergency response.

It is more than unfortunate the Minister is not here in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis to address the concerns of people who are really struggling in an emergency. Over the summer households have been hit with a spate of emergency hikes from Energia, Flogas, Pinergy and SSE Airtricity. They have been told they can expect at least another €200 to be whacked onto their annual energy bills. In the first week back in the Dáil the Minister does not show to tell us what he is going to do about it. All we know is t…

The Government could not have had a more targeted measure than the energy credits that we have had for the last number of years and people are facing the same if not higher energy prices now. The Government continues to blame everyone apart from itself for it. The costs are due to political choices about whose energy needs get prioritised, who pays and who is protected. However, the Government has chosen to prioritise the energy needs of data centres and the profits of energy companies rather than ordinary people w…

Officials warned that the Government’s approach to data centres is posing a threat to housing targets and driving up our energy costs. Does the Government plan to continue to bury its head in the sand or is it going to tackle this head on? I am not sure which Minister of State is going to take this question, but if it is the Minister of State, Deputy Dooley, I was listening to him on Radio Kerry last week when he was talking about marine planning. He criticised the Government, saying it needed to move away from nav…

The large energy users the Minister of State is talking about are relatively getting off the hook and they are pushing up household bills. In a confidential memo recently released to us under a freedom of information request, the Secretary General of the Department of public expenditure warned that soaring electricity demand, largely attributable to data centres, is forcing the State to spend heavily on new power generation and grid upgrades. As the grid is paid for through network charges, this is inevitably leadi…

Why then is the Secretary General of the Department saying what is being said and that housing is being threatened by the larger users of electricity? The current proposal in price review 6 is to increase network charges for households. Presumably, the Minister of State does not disagree with that. At the same time, the proposal is to decrease charges relatively for data centres. This is unjustifiable. The excuse used by a lot of the energy providers, such as Energia, is that their network charges are rising. Small…

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for the time to raise this important issue. The Equality in Education group has said that 168 children have been offered an appropriate school place but cannot take it up due to delays in essential building works. We believe there is a certain amount of waiting list manipulation going on. A place in an unbuilt school is not a place. A place in a cubby hole with no changing facilities for two children is not a place. Even when special transport is granted to a school that does not t…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I am delighted to propose that the Criminal Justice (Promotion of Restorative Justice) (Amendment) Bill 2023 move to Committee Stage. I thank Deputy Quinlivan for co-signing the Bill and Professor Ian Marder of Maynooth University, who did a lot of work in helping us to prepare the Bill. I also thank Lee Daly, who worked in my office, and the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers, OPLA, for its work in helping us along with the Bill. Many changes to criminal justi…

I will briefly wrap up. I would like to be associated with all the comments made regarding the staff, the Ceann Comhairle, the Department of justice and my own party. I have a couple of brief points to make. There should be very few limits, if any, on restorative justice. I see what the Minister of State is saying about dismissing cases but cases are commonly dismissed under the probation Act anyway. The Minister of State also mentioned that this could affect Garda vetting. There was a Garda vetting Bill that propo…