The Minister hinted at electric vehicles. The EPA report emphasised not only that the plan is not working but also its unfairness. It is not being done in an inclusive way. Many people are locked out of the Government's schemes. As the Minister mentioned, we need to have hundreds of thousands more EVs to keep within the carbon budget but the grant scheme that the Government has does very little to help ordinary workers and families who cannot afford the huge price. According to the latest research, the Government s…

Regarding officials in his Department expressing concerns that policy choices will have to be made between data centre expansion for AI and housing delivery and the priorities relating to same, will the Minister make a statement?

Anybody who was in the House for any period earlier today will realise the priority and urgency afforded to the housing crisis. There are 15,580 people homeless. Then there is the rest, which the Minister would have heard about, such as the average cost of rent being above €2,000. There is a housing emergency but instead of prioritising homes, this Government and those that preceded it have been reckless when it comes data centres. Instead of an approach that balances the energy demand from centres alongside that o…

Does the Minister have a view on what the CRU said about mandating data centres to have a supply of electricity for themselves? Access to public infrastructure and our natural resources has been prioritised for data centres. However, the energy regulator in the Netherlands has the power to prioritise projects that identify social goals which can be prioritised for connection to the energy grid. That does not seem to be the case here. Does the Minister have an opinion on that? He must examine these measures and thei…

I ask the Minister to outline the progress made towards meeting the 2030 retrofitting and heat pump targets. Similarly to the EU targets, these measures seem to be out of reach for many people who are of limited means. What measures are his Department taking to accelerate this?

As the Minister knows, households are paying a staggering €350, or 30%, more than the European average on their energy bills. During the election last November, the Government claimed it was going to cut energy costs to bring relief to households in a cost-of-living crisis. Instead, it is going to rip away supports. The Minister himself said that energy payments could not become the norm. Does he believe that Ireland's extortionate energy costs are normal? That is my first question to him.

During the winter in particular, I am contacted in the constituency office by people who feel that the situation is out of control. These are people who are paying their children's allowance against their rent and are forced to choose between heating, eating and paying their mortgage. The transition to renewables, which the Government is pushing, should not mean people are paying extortionate energy bills. The Government's approach, which the Minister has referred to as accelerating decarbonisation, places a dispro…

Of course we should be pushing towards renewable energy but it is the way that the PSO levy is disproportionately put on low- and middle-income earners that is the problem. It is unfair and unlikely to accelerate decarbonisation in the households we go to where they have solid fuel at the front of their houses and are reliant on it. Regarding electricity, the additional costs on household bills should instead be placed on the larger emitters. I do not see how the Minister can possibly disagree with that. Regarding …

Can they afford to change to renewables?

We believe there should not be any more carbon taxes on the people. The Minister is naive if he thinks those people-----

They cannot afford to push to renewable energy.

Does the Minister think the larger users are paying their fair share?

I do not have any difficulty with most of the technical amendments, but I will make a few points about the wider issue. This is the Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill 2024 and it has the word "support" in its title, but it includes little in the way of practical support for former residents in its contents. It is more virtue signalling and promising something while delivering nothing on the part of the State. In fact, the State is washing its hands of some vulnerable citizens. The Bill c…

I want to make another point regarding supports available to survivors who are not living in this jurisdiction. I recently visited the Coventry Irish centre, which provides all the supports for survivors in the English west midlands. Unfortunately, the Government only commits to funding schemes. The centre has difficulty in that it funded its own premises, which is on Eton Square near the railway station in Coventry. The London Irish centre and the centres in Leeds and Liverpool have better premises which allow for…

The boat operators who bring visitors to land at Sceilg Mhichíl usually have a short season of about 100 days once the season opens, which this year happened on 10 May. These local people from Portmagee, Valencia and Baile an Sceilg have now lost 10% of these days in the best May weather in years. This is affecting their livelihoods and those of local businesses and is disappointing tourists from all over the world. It relates to a High Court case, but the people there are in limbo. They say there has been a lack o…

This is not a time for equivocation. It is not a time for saying "on the one hand and on the other hand". We have had 19 months of genocide, land-grabbing, breaches of human rights and breaches of other international laws in Gaza. We have had two months of a blockade of basic human life-sustaining and life-giving aid for children. Last night, we were warned that unless this aid reaches people, 14,000 babies are likely to die within 48 hours. It is collective punishment of defenceless children on a grand scale. If t…

We face a biodiversity crisis. The green of our landscape masks the loss of so many key elements of our natural environment. Our life support system is on the brink of collapse and the picture is stark. Over the past 40 or 50 years every single indicator has been on a downward trend. Natural habitats are being degraded or homogenised, forest cover is being eroded and species are becoming extinct. We, as a country, share a deep connection with nature and this is a devastating loss for Ireland. As a result of the dee…

Any parent will say that if they discover or suspect their child has developmental difficulties, the first thing they will want to do is find out what the problem is. Second, they will want to fix it. Here again, we have another crisis, which is on a long list of crises under the current Government. As Members will have heard earlier, the number of children languishing on a waiting list is now more than 15,000, and it is anticipated, according to the speaking note received from the Minister, that it will be 25,000 …

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." The Title to the Bill states that it is: "An Act to provide that information relating to the repairability of certain products be made available and to provide for related matters." Ba mhaith liom ar dtús mo bhuíochas a ghabháil le hOifig na gComhairleoirí Dlí Parlaiminte as an obair a rinne siad ag ullmhú an Bhille seo, go mór mór d'Orla Ryan, Aoife Kavanagh agus Laura McCormack. They gave us great help. These supports from the Office of Parliamentary Legal Adviso…

I thank the Minister of State for his comments. I thank Deputies Ahern and Donnelly for their support in this matter. I have listened to what the Minister of State said. I note what he said about the Private Members' Bill creating unnecessary duplication of effort and potential discrepancies. He said these matters were best progressed at the EU level. I disagree with him. I do not think that what is included in the directive goes far enough. That is why we are bringing this legislation. Just because the EU says som…