Some progress is being made in offshore renewables but there is no State investment in it and we are way behind with it. Even one of the Government’s own Ministers said it had been sitting on its hands and navel-gazing about offshore wind for many years.

The energy credits were supposed to be just a temporary measure while the structural failures were being sorted out. It is not just Sinn Féin or other Opposition parties saying this. The International Energy Agency, IEA, has queried and called into question the huge gap between the retail price and the wholesale energy costs here. Even the Taoiseach himself has admitted that price gouging is going on. We have the biggest gap in the world and it costs three times more to buy energy here than it does to produce it. T…

Recent reports have stated Government measures will not be sufficient to reduce emissions in order to meet our national and EU climate targets and obligations. What measures is the Minister taking to address this?

We accept, and the Minister accepts, that the small amount of money allocated for the new EV scheme, which is commencing on 1 July, is not going to address the issue. The way things are going, those funds will probably have been used up by the end of that month. Even though some money has been ring-fenced for rural areas, the scheme is not going to address the glaring need there. The EPA has made it clear that even if the current measures were to be delivered, they will only cut emissions by approximately 25%. On t…

I know the Minister has been asked to do that in respect of EV cars and it is good that he is moving towards addressing an issue for which we have been calling for a long time, which is the prioritisation of rural areas. What about second-hand cars? It is still the case that for people who will be selling or scrapping cars, it is a small amount of money. How about a scheme for second-hand purchasers if, for example, it is their first time buying an EV? We need a just transition. We need free or subsidised retrofits…

On the family law section, I want to raise one issue with the Minister. I was the beneficiary of the criminal legal aid scheme for many years. Concerns have been expressed by people who are on the scheme. As the Minister knows, a flat fee payment is coming in from 1 July and people will only be paid at the very end, when a case finishes in court. If people appear once or if they appear 20 times, they will only be paid at the very end. There are scenarios, particularly for vulnerable people, children, and people who…

If the Minister of State was the manager of an under-16 team and the manager of the other team called or made a racist comment about one of his players, what would he do? He would take his team off the pitch and he would tell the other team to get their act together before he would recommence. If someone stole the land of another and dispossessed them in their thousands, deliberately starved another nation, rained artillery upon them, shot footballers in the foot, used pitches as detention centres, shot 114 childre…

Whatever about what was said when the triple lock was introduced, it is clear that there is great concern about it and 40% of the questions tonight, including the next question, are in relation to the triple lock. I want the Minister to outline the proposals she has to remove it. When will we see the Bill? I know the Minister has abandoned the plans for a citizens' assembly but is there a timeline? I presume there is not going to be a referendum. The Minister has no plans, certainly, for a referendum. I look around…

Ballyduff National School has been serving the community since 1839 and has been in the current building for the past 60 years. There are currently 96 pupils attending. It has had an autism class for the past few years with six pupils, and that is full, but there are five other children who are currently struggling to access the curriculum because they do not have the supports that would be there from an autism class. There are five qualified children and two awaiting assessment. There will be an ongoing need into …

We will be supporting the Bill. Notwithstanding that, however, there is the issue of funding with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU. There are some concerns on a broader level. This is more, as they say, upstream. Regulation is to be in place, I understand, for 1 September for non-domestic gas, and roll-out plans, preparation and training, making sure that people who are qualified will be in place. There is a suspicion that pre-Creeslough we knew that the installation practices for third-party meters,…

The ambassador is very welcome. I welcome the opportunity to speak on this legislation but I do so with a clear warning. Expanding the remit of the NTA cannot mean exporting the same mistakes we have seen in Dublin to the rest of the country. BusConnects promised badly needed transformation, better routes, more frequent services and a modern system but in many cases, this is a far cry from what was actually delivered. Like most projects delivered by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, it was marked by delays, spiralling cos…

I want to ask the Minister about the LIS funding scheme, in particular relating to County Kerry. A significant number of roads are on the list. While I appreciate Kerry County Council is doing the best it can, it is only able to address a limited number per year.

I thank the Minister. The difficulty and the reason Kerry should be treated as more of an exception than other counties, such as the midland counties, is that there are 580 roads in the scheme for the county. I appreciate 37 were done last year but if we do the maths on that, we are talking the best part of 20 years. A lot of the people who are contacting me from places like Ballinglanna near Causeway, Tiershanaghan, Ballyheigue, Kilgulbin, Ardfert, Ballyconry near Ballyduff and Dromid in south Kerry will be drawin…

I thank the Minister for the reply. I will give some background and context on this. I am glad he mentioned local and regional roads because there were many announcements from certain Deputies in County Kerry that there was increased roads funding for the county but the local and regional roads funding was actually slashed by €2 million. Villages like Ballyduff, Fenit, Abbeydorney and Glenbeigh have no wastewater infrastructure. There is basically an Imhoff tank, or a hole in the ground, where the sewage is going i…

Every day we step out into a world of movement with cars rushing to work, cyclists weaving through traffic and pedestrians crossing streets in hope and in trust. The road connects us but too often it has become a place of tragedy, a tragedy that is preventable. In the Twenty-six Counties there were 190 deaths last year. With the proper infrastructure, enforcement and resources, we can save lives but the Government has failed on three fronts. The National Safety Camera Strategy represents an opportunity to rectify t…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." In Ireland we have huge potential for a hopeful vision and we have a natural gift of 540 GW of renewable energy in offshore wind. We can achieve energy independence if we have the requisite motivation and we can return to the days when we had the lowest electricity prices in Europe, if there is State investment and development. However, we are currently paying the highest electricity prices in the EU. Recent reports from the ESRI and Eurostat show that we are payin…

This all goes back to the fact that Ireland once had the lowest electricity prices in the EU. We now have the highest. Successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments have presided over this change, did nothing to stop it and in fact reinforced the system that caused it. I thank all of the other speakers of the Opposition, maybe bar one, who agreed with many of the merits in this Bill and who are calling for more transparency. We agree with their calls for more transparency, more public trust and more power for th…

What measures are being taken to improve road safety? Clearly, road safety and fatalities on the road are moving in the wrong direction, and quite dramatically so. An independent report said that there had been a very worrying recent increase in fatalities and serious injuries. Since 2019, road deaths have risen by 31% in Ireland while across the European Union they have fallen by 15%. What steps are being taken to address this?

The Minister mentioned that there had been progress on all actions but, unfortunately, that is not seeping down into the road death figures, which are going in the wrong direction. It is not the Minister's brief but I want to refer to the number of gardaí on the roads. It is a consequence of inaction by the Government. There are 400 fewer gardaí on the roads than there were 15 years ago. The number of gardaí in that Garda unit has halved since 2009. We received a briefing the other day from Alcohol Action Ireland. …

Unfortunately, personal responsibility is corralled or dictated by the chances of getting caught. When the number of arrests, the amount of enforcement and the number of gardaí on the road have decreased so hugely and the number of drink driving arrests is down by 75% since 2007, people are more likely to get into cars. That is just human nature. I want to ask about the flip flop on the disbanding of the RSA. An independent report was commissioned, done by Indecon. It said the dual role of the RSA in delivering ope…