Daft's latest report says the average rent in County Kerry is up between 13.2% and 31.7% depending on the type of property compared with this time last year. The Government should be hanging its head in shame when it comes to its handling of the housing crisis. We can go back to 2011 when the Government, in effect, stopped building social housing, through to the abolition of the town councils, which certainly did not help, and then on to the present day, when all of the various Government schemes seem to be making …

D’aontaigh Oifig na nOibreacha Poiblí suíomh a thabhairt don phobal i nDún Chaoin chun clós súgartha a chruthú ag Ionad an Bhlascaoid sa bhliain 2021. Tá €40,000 faighte acu. Tá cead pleanála ann. Tá deontas ó NEWKD ach níl an léas sínithe fós. The OPW agreed to give a playground to the community in west Kerry in 2021. There is still no lease signed by its officials. Tá an t-am ag sleamhnú agus gan aon rian den chlós súgartha le feiscint. They have no answer. It is frustrating to deal with the OPW. Even in Ballyduf…

Is the Minister aware that the CCAC's recently published annual review of the transport sector is clear that the Government is failing when it comes to a just transition? There are serious problems in the transport sector because it is Ireland's biggest source of energy demand. Last year, transport emissions reduced by only a tiny 1.3%.

I do not agree with the Minister's claim about all the progress being made. In fact, progress is stalling and any gains that have been made are quickly being overtaken because the plan is not delivering. We definitely will miss the target of having 1 million EVs on Irish roads by the end of the decade. The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, has said we will probably miss it by up to 300,000. Sales of new EVs have fallen by 24% and there was an 8.1% decline in used imports. We are also falling way behind in the r…

Does the Minister accept there is a problem with accessibility and affordability in rural areas and less well-off areas? Will he make any provision in the next budget to broaden the grant scheme to make it more accessible and affordable and, perhaps, as the CCAC suggested, extend it to second-hand EVs in order that people who have less money can afford to purchase one? The EPA's assessment of ports indicates our ports are way behind and that much more must be done to deal with more frequent storms, floods and coast…

On bus routes in west Kerry, there is a shortage of bus stop signage, poles and paper schedules. In Baile na nGall, there is a parking exclusion zone, so buses cannot turn properly. In Lios Póil, there is no dedicated bus stop, so many people have been caught out because they did not know where to stand when the bus was going past. This is symptomatic of the lack of infrastructure for Local Link services. The International Institute for Management Development has said Ireland's infrastructure is the area in which o…

Of course, the Minister of State is more than welcome any time. Perhaps we could take a bus trip around west Kerry during the recess. That applies to the Minister as well. There is a feeling that there is a regional imbalance and that the infrastructure is much better in the cities than it is in, for example, west Kerry. Cars are the dominant mode of transport in rural Ireland. They are used for 82% of all trips. The National Transport Authority's latest household travel survey demonstrates that a significant porti…

Another type of rural transport which does not get much of a mention and which has been suggested to me by Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh and people working in her office is the door-to-door services. In many counties, no new door-to-door services have been funded for a number of years. Connecting Ireland funding has generally gone towards high-frequency services, which, of course, are beneficial and have been used a lot but are not the only type of service that is desperately needed. In rural areas of Mayo and other wes…

As the Minister probably knows, under the Air Navigation (Carriage of Munitions of War, Weapons and Dangerous Goods) Orders 1974 and 1989, it is prohibited for civil aircraft to carry munitions of war in Irish sovereign territory without being granted an exemption to do so by the Minister for Transport. Is the Minister aware of this? I presume he is. Complaints have been made that Israeli munitions are being carried. Will the Minister make a statement on the matter?

While it is true to say there are media reports, there has been more than that. Complaints have been made to the Department about this. While the Minister says the Department is scrutinising information, a freedom of information request revealed that, on 13 March, a draft report was furnished to the Department. This was denied by the Department in the committee last week, when it said it was an ongoing document. It says in the freedom of information document it is a draft report. For ten months, the Government has …

The Tánaiste said recently it is a real challenge to know what is going through our skies, despite all the notifications. There is clearly a draft report. Will the Minister share it with the House before the recess and let us know what is contained in it? I think most would agree we should do everything to have no part in the slaughter of medical attendants, children and others in Gaza by Israel. We cannot be complacent. We need the facts. We know there are complaints and that the Department is aware. It is not acc…

I thank the proposers of the motion and acknowledge the fact that the Government is supporting it. We in Sinn Féin also support the proposals in this motion. It is clear that successive Governments have repeatedly failed to build a modern public transport system that is fit for the 21st century. We only have to look at Dublin's MetroLink, which has been stuck in the pipeline for decades, to see why Ireland regularly ranks as having one of the worst public transport systems in the EU. As a result, public confidence …

Murhur National School in Moyvane, in north Kerry, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week. I wish the principal, Finola Fogarty, and all the school community, staff and past pupils all the best. I am sure the Taoiseach would agree that children with additional needs in rural areas are just as entitled to a full education as those in urban areas. In Murhur there are five children in the local community who require and would benefit from an ASD unit there. They cannot access an appropriate class in Moyvane vil…

The fundamental difference between the Government's attitude towards housing and the Opposition's attitude is that the Government thinks - the Taoiseach said it again today - that the answer to all the problems is just to provide more units. He believes that providing houses that have rents of €3,000 per month is okay so long as there is more supply in the market. He thinks that is going to fix everything. It is a market-based policy which has been failing for years and it will continue to fail in the future. A hou…

When speaking to people in Kerry and dealing with the housing officers in Kerry County Council who are swamped with a deluge of people who are suffering from notices to quit, long waiting lists, rents they cannot afford and being denied access to some of the various schemes, it is obvious that the answer is more social and affordable housing. However, in Kerry, there was no affordable housing scheme. Under the tenant in situ scheme there were three sales agreed but they have all been pulled from the most vulnerable…

It is interesting that the Minister mentioned the independent surveys and the recovery model because as he knows, Irish households are crippled by the most expensive electricity prices in Europe. Average electricity costs here are almost €1,800 per year, €350 more than the European average. The Government parties all promised they would introduce measures to help with the cost-of-living crisis when they were campaigning last November. Despite this, energy prices are 61% higher than they were in 2022. The Government…

There is an awful lot the Minister can do to bring down household electricity prices. The additional costs on household bills make up around 50% of the final electricity price to consumers. The programme for Government omitted any mention of network charges. It gave a vague commitment to explore funding models for the PSO to reduce bills. Is the Minister going to do that? He can tackle the regressive PSO levy on network charges now because network charges could be four times what they are now following the conclusi…

There will be plenty more announcements this week.

The Minister is probably aware of the latest emissions figures as reported by the Environmental Protection Agency last week. It is a stark warning. Ireland seems to have gone backwards in its climate ambition because the latest greenhouse gas emissions projections form the EPA said emissions would fall by up to 23% if every climate policy currently planned is implemented on time, down from the projection of 29% during the previous year. The gap is widening between what is achievable and what are legally binding emi…

The thrust of the question is why the slowdown and what measures exactly is the Minister taking to accelerate or redress the apparent slowdown, according to the statistics from the EPA. On the ramifications, we all know about the ecological collapse and energy independence. We know that there is a need for clean energy and to reduce the bills of consumers but the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and the Climate Change Advisory Council have said that it could cost us up €26 billion in effective fines from the European …