Do the work on the amendments, Deputy. You are sitting back.

When one hears about the waste of Government money and about the people all around the State, but particularly the people to whom I listen in Kerry, who cannot access dental services, it makes one even angrier. Over the past couple of weeks, I have been speaking to people about this. One person told me her 19-year-old son has never been seen, another person said their children aged eight and 15 had never been seen while another told me of three children aged 17, 13 and ten who were never called. They speak of a cha…

First, I congratulate the Minister of State on her elevation. It is obvious that she has to take one for the team, given that no Minister or Minister of State from the relevant Department has come in to deal with this. Fair play to her. However, I am disappointed with what has been prepared as the amendment by her colleagues in government. The Government maintains that it is acutely aware of the pressure faced by people due to high energy costs and mentions the national energy affordability task force. It has been …

I am covering the questions for Deputy Conway-Walsh. I ask the Minister to provide an update on any engagement with Covalen regarding recent job losses and redundancies announced by the company and to make a statement about it.

I appreciate what the Minister of State has said about IDA but he will be aware that over 700 employees at the Meta contractor were told that they would lose their jobs which will be replaced by AI. They have written to the Minister requesting intervention. I want to know what engagement the Minister has had. What has the Department done to assist the impacted workers? As the Minister of State is probably aware, last week Covalen workers and the CWU gave a briefing in the audiovisual room outlining the situation fa…

These are vulnerable workers. Covalen had turnover of €722 million and a profit of €26.2 million and despite that is offering statutory redundancy, which is an absolute scandal. The parent company works on many other public sector accounts for the Government. An employer that treats employees like this really needs to be looked at when the public sector contracts are up for grabs. Some 20,000 jobs have been cut by the tech sector. This should be a wake-up call for Government. Government and the Department should be…

We have all seen the devastation Israel has unleashed on the Middle East since 2023. Gaza has been razed to the ground, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and 70,000 have been killed. At the same time, in 2024, at the height of this onslaught by Israel, the Minister's Department approved €20 million worth of dual-use technology to the IDF and the Israeli Ministry for Defense. Will the Minister explain to the people of Ireland, and the people of Palestine, why the Government gave approval for this?

I thank the Minister for the reply. Have there been any reviews of the position since 2024? Let us talk through the facts. As the Minister has explained, to export dual-use technology, which is technology with civilian and military capabilities such as computers, chips and software, a licence is required, as the Minister explained. At least 11 dual-use licences were granted for goods, worth €35 million, to be exported to Israel, €20 million of that in 2024 alone at the height of the attacks on Gaza. The Currency re…

I asked whether there had been any review because no dual licences for export to Israel were granted in 2025 and 2026. Was there some recognition that the technology was being used to facilitate military action across the Middle East, or did something change from 2025 onward? Why did the Government continue to permit dual-use exports in 2024 at the height of the onslaught and attacks? These are questions that need to be answered. Was there a change in tack? Did the Government review it? Did it realise that it had b…

The Minister was recently on the airwaves speaking about the huge volume of exports to Russia from the State and assuring us that the figures presented by the Central Statistics Office were, in fact, incorrect. He is on record saying that the CSO was the gold standard for statistics and that a current investigation of the plant in Aughinish would be carried out by the Department. We all want openness about this. Will the Minister update the House on the investigation and confirm whether it has been completed? Will …

I thank the Minister for the reply. Can he give an approximate time? Will it be by the end of the year, the middle of next year or the end of next year? As the Minister said, there is a question and it is valid. Legitimate questions are being asked about the plant exporting raw material to Russia to fuel the illegal attacks on Ukraine. Everybody in the House appreciates the level of employment the company provides in the Limerick and north Kerry area. At the same time, nobody is saying that its products should be u…

I will finish on this. Even if it was an error to state that 80% of the company's exports went to Russia in 2025 and the true figure is 45%, that is still unacceptable.

It is important, as I think the Minister will accept, that the Government step in, maybe with EU officials, to diversify this plant's market away from Russia because jobs are needed in the area and must be saved. That will not be an issue if the Russian exports are stopped, so it is a distraction to frame this as a risk to Limerick jobs. There is a huge global market for alumina and aluminium products outside of Russia - in Europe and other stable economies. The main reason alumina is not on the EU's Russian sancti…

I am grateful to the Ceann Comhairle's office for the opportunity to raise this issue at short notice. Most Deputies have received correspondence from the Before We Die campaign. There is a notable lack of planning for the situation of adults requiring residential care as their parents approach their later years. There is huge stress, anxiety and worry for those parents as to what will happen to their children. There seems to be a huge lack of planning. We have moved away from decongregated settings but it seems th…

I thank the Minister of State for that reply. He clearly has a fair idea as to the extra challenges there are in a county like Kerry. It is not realistic to go from the very north of the county to mid-Kerry, which is at least an hour each way and would be very tiring for adults and children. Speaking to people working within the services, there are 80 plus school leavers in Kerry who will require these services. I note the Minister of State said at the start of the response that systems should be put in place by th…

The United Nations is citing Ireland as a cautionary example of what happens when Government policy fails to keep pace with the explosive energy demand from data centres and AI. We are not leaders or an example for the rest of the world but a warning. This did not happen overnight. It is a result of political choices, the lack of a framework and the lack of a plan. What is the Minister's grip on this? Does he have any plans to deal with the mounting criticisms of our approach to data centres?

I agree that data centres are necessary in this country but it is a question of planning appropriately for what is there. The European Commission has already set out a clear pathway for a grid prioritisation framework, putting the public need, system readiness and climate obligations at the centre of decision-making. Here in Ireland we have an open season policy of first come, first served regardless of who benefits. Who is inevitably benefiting? It is the larger corporate and AI users of data centres. This is why …

I thank the Minister for the reply but one of the consequences is in relation to our energy security. This is not a theoretical difficulty any more. When the system is pushed to its limits the risk is not that abstract. What we have, and we have seen this already, are blackouts, supply disruption and emergency measures. This is what happens when a grid is under strain. EirGrid has been warning about it for years. The Secretary General warned of the dangers of the approach and said that we need to choose between hou…

The Minister knows we have the highest electricity bills in Europe. Families are struggling with increased costs year-on-year. The Government is continuing to preside over a system where costs are driven up by poor planning, over-reliance on imported gas and an energy model that prioritises the large corporate demand, particularly from data centres, over ordinary customers. Can the Minister explain why we are paying so much, what the Government has done that allows infrastructure and policy failures to push up the …

The Minister said, and we all agree, that energy bills are too high, whether we have the highest, the second highest or the fourth highest costs. We all know that energy companies are, of course, going to raise their bills year-on-year. They have an obligation to shareholders, and they want to make a profit not only this year but an increased profit next year and the year afterwards. The question is: when is the Minister is going to step in and tell them that enough is enough? I ask this because there is a lack of …