Is soiléir go bhfuil spiorad nua sa Ghaeilge. Chonaic mé sin nuair a bhíos ar an gcomhchoiste leis an Teachta Ó Snodaigh, a raibh mar Chathaoirleach air. Bhí sé mar onóir dúinn bualadh leis na scoláirí sna Gaelcholáistí agus sna scoileanna, go háirithe iad siúd i mBaile Átha Cliath agus Béal Feirste. Gan dabht, tá an Ghaeilge beo ach tá a lán dúshlán ann chomh maith. D'fhoilsigh Sinn Féin Ár Seacht nDícheall don Ghaeilge, chun an teanga náisiúnta a spreagadh i mbéal an phobail. Is é an príomhrud a bhí ansin ná an c…

Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. Déanaim comhghairdeas leat as do phost nua.

I wanted to ask the Minister about regional and local roads investment, in particular, the local improvement schemes, and if he will make a statement in relation to it.

I thank the Minister for the reply. There are roads the length and breadth of the country that are in a serious state of disrepair. There is no city, town or village that is not impacted. Due to years of neglect by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments, road users in every corner of the State feel abandoned. It is especially true in rural Ireland where it must be remembered that 70% of road collisions occur. Instead of getting to grips with this situation, what we have heard recently is kite flying, whet…

There seems to be significant discrepancies between different county councils when it comes to road maintenance and repair. Some move at a much faster pace. What is the Minister going to do about that? If local authorities are expected to be responsible for the upkeep of our local and regional roads, they need resources. The Minister mentioned the Adare bypass. There is a strong suspicion. Local engineers spent an awful long time preparing documents for tender to improve the Ring of Kerry road near Glenbeigh school…

The Government has ambitious targets when it comes to electric vehicles. Approximately 195,000 are supposed to be on the road by the end of 2025, growing to 845,000 by 2030. There is nothing wrong with that but with only 80,000 electric vehicles currently on the road, reaching these targets at the current rate of progress is a practical impossibility. If we do not meet the 2030 targets, the taxpayer could be footing a bill of up to €26 billion, according to the report today from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council an…

I thank the Minister. As he said, the question related to making electric vehicles more accessible for rural motorists. He mentioned the 400 km figure, but that confidence is not shared by people who are selling electric vehicles in Kerry, who are not confident that motorists will be able to drive all the way to Dublin, for example, in an electric vehicle. The EV schemes seem to remain the preserve of affluent, urban households. Progress will continue to stagnate, and this is another example in a long line of regre…

I am glad the Minister accepts that the works done to date are unacceptable and inadequate. The Government has slashed the EV grant and repeatedly failed to make it available for second-hand vehicles. Will the Minister consider re-establishing that or improving the grant for the purchase of second-hand vehicles? The Government wants just under 1 million electric vehicles to be on the road by 2030, or 30% of all registered vehicles, but that is unlikely to happen given the lack of progress to date. People are gettin…

Carbon tax is unfair.

What are the service level requirements for private operators on public transport and will the Minister make a statement on the matter? Commuters the length and breadth of the country are exasperated because of the shambolic service some of them have come to expect as normal. Week in, week out, we receive complaints about ghost buses, late buses and students who are trying to get home from the University of Limerick, for example, to Kerry, whereby the second bus does not turn up and they are very late coming home f…

We all agree that if the service is there, more people will use it. The Minister mentioned performance reviews. I am sure he will agree that the service provided to date is not up to scratch. I ask him to confirm that is the case. The Minister mentioned penalties. We have heard stories about the farcical situation where some bus drivers commence a route at stage eight or nine of the bus journey, rather than starting at the beginning. They drive straight through to stop eight or nine and complete the journey in orde…

The Minister mentioned a reduction in fares. Only last week, there was an outrageous proposal that commuters would be punished for the Government's failure to deliver essential transport infrastructure. Last Friday, it was reported that commuters would be subject to increased fares to pay for public transport infrastructure and some of these projects have already been in the pipeline for decades. When we are trying to encourage more people to take public transport the last thing the Government should do is blame th…

I congratulate both the Minister for Health and the Minister of State. They are aware that the healthcare system is in crisis. That is no surprise to anyone, certainly not the 800,000 people who are anxiously awaiting treatment or the short-staffed doctors and nurses, many of whom have contacted us because they have University Hospital Kerry, the people of Kerry and the good of the area foremost in their minds. Under the helm of successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments, it has become almost impossible to ge…

I move: That Dáil Éireann: notes, with concern, the huge backlog in those waiting on a driving test, with 72,414 people now in limbo, an increase of over 60 per cent since 2022; is alarmed by the fact that this backlog grew by nearly 10,000 over the last three months; acknowledges that no test centre is meeting the statutory maximum of 10 weeks in the service level agreement (SLA), with many learner-drivers regularly having to wait over six months to sit a test and some waiting as long as eight months; is not reass…

I thank all the contributors who spoke tonight and I acknowledge the Government will not oppose the motion but it is unfortunate it is not the first time this issue has been raised. I agree, obviously, when the Government says the figures are unacceptable but it must be deeply frustrating for anybody listening in or watching tonight, including any of the 72,000 people on the waiting lists, the people waiting six to eight months for a driving test, the thousands of people in my county of Kerry, the people who are pa…

Is the Minister aware of the sale of Bord na Móna Recycling? There is a lot of concern about this. Has he met with the board to discuss the sale? What measures are being taken to ensure the protection of jobs and pensions? Will he make a statement on the matter?

I thank the Minister for his reply. Was there any consultation with the Minister prior to Bord na Móna taking the decision that it proposed to sell off the recycling business? The potential sale of the last public waste company flies in the face of all the latest expert opinion. I come from a place where all of the public waste collection companies were sold over the past 20 or 30 years. Can anybody say this has been a success? There have been recommendations from the Government's own Dublin task force, but rather …

It seems to me, from a practical point of view rather than any ideological one, that the for-profit model of waste collection is not good for society. We must also address the broader issue of rising waste costs because the side-by-side model is bad for workers, it seems to be bad for the environment with all the extra fly-tipping, and it is bad for customers because most of them must keep a certain amount of money on account and must deal with a service charge every month or every six months. The result of the pri…

I want to ask the Minister about the funding model for supporting the roll-out of renewable energy, the public service obligation, PSO, levy and the carbon tax, and whether the Minister has any plan to reform current models. Will he make a statement on this? We have great renewable potential. A group of parliamentarians from Germany were here last year and all they wanted to talk about was our renewables potential. What funding models are there?

I appreciate what the Minister has said. It is obvious that the PSO is a vital policy support, as the Minister has said. We have great potential to transform our energy system from import dependence to becoming a global leader in renewables. Significant investment will be required. At present, there is an inequity at the heart of climate change where the causes and effects are not equally shared. Recent Governments have preferred an inequitable model, where there is a disproportionate burden on ordinary households …