As Deputy Ellis has said, this is an incredible school. It is incredibly popular and it does an amazing job. Unfortunately, the principal of that school recently met Deputy Hearne, Deputy Ellis and me to ask the question, "To be, or not to be". The school is at stage 2B and the question is whether it will progress. What is proposed is fantastic. We are talking about 15 classrooms and 15 other rooms, including science labs, construction rooms, technology rooms and special education facilities. It is disappointing th…

I echo what Deputy Ellis has said. To reinforce the point, this is a very constrained site. It is quite compact. There is a portion of it that is owned by the religious order where housing is actually being developed. In the wider Santry area, it is very positive that we have more housing supply but there is an increasing population. Around the corner on the Swords Road, the Department of education has planned two 1,000-pupil secondary schools. This morning at the Committee of Public Accounts, the Secretary General…

I thank the Minister of State with responsibility for sport for being with us today. Earlier I heard Ministers being criticised for turning up at high-profile events. In the past I have also heard Ministers being criticised for not turning up at high-profile events. It is the work that happens at local level that I am most pleased with. I thank the Minister of State for coming to my constituency where he visited McKelvey Celtic and Tolka Rovers. There was no press or hoo-ha; it was about informing the clubs of what…

Through the Chair, the Deputy was told-----

There is no doubt we are at a moment of grave international instability so let me begin by acknowledging a number of things. The Iranian regime is a deeply repressive one. Its sponsorship of proxy terrorist groups, its terrorism in parts of the region, destabilising activities in the region and its well-documented oppression of its people cannot be ignored. The brutality of those networks and the fear Iranians have of their government is well-documented. We also need to state clearly that no state, however powerful…

My question relates to the punctuality of buses in my area. The recent roll-out of BusConnects on the F spine routes 23 and 24 has had a profound impact. Punctuality is not something one would have associated with the early phases or even the continuing phases. Will the Minister provide an update in respect of the obligations on providers in this regard?

I appreciate the Minister's interest in this matter. I have engaged with him regarding the core bus corridors, which are incredibly welcome and which will facilitate speedier journeys into the city centre. Together with the tenders going out for the metro project, we are seeing substantial investment in future infrastructure. Before Christmas, at a meeting with public representatives, NTA representatives spoke about October being a difficult time to implement a new service, with increasing congestion heading into t…

Like my colleagues, I know first-hand the benefit that SNAs have had in my own family, and there are many others in my family who have worked as SNAs. That is why we, as Government TDs, when we voted for a programme for Government and for budgets, were pleased and proud to see increases in the number of SNAs. I can say clearly that we would not have voted either for a programme for Government or for budgets that saw a reduction in SNAs. Yet, last week, Government TDs and, it would appear, Ministers and the Taoiseac…

I want to raise the issue of the national development plan and, in particular, health infrastructure and the delivery of it under the national development plan. For many of the Members in this House who support the Government each week, we want to know that our colleagues in Cabinet are making the national development plan a priority and that those projects within it are a priority. However, more importantly, we want to know that the mechanisms are put in place to ensure the timely delivery of critical infrastructu…

The Tánaiste identified a particular matter there. For a long time when we had no money in the country, we had multistage processes to show that projects were progressing but they were not actually getting anywhere. We are now in a situation where we have plenty of money and where the multistage processes are delaying projects. That does not happen often. It is important to have public scrutiny of public money, but we need to see delivery. I do not doubt commitment of the Minister for Health on this. However, peopl…

The national development plan is an important investment in the future in terms of infrastructure. Last week’s sectoral announcement on education was welcomed in parts of my constituency. A new nine-classroom school extension has been approved for St. Canice’s Girls National School. However, I must say there is a lot of confusion on the ground regarding the announcement. Schools that would have been regarded as being at very advanced stages are wondering if they are still on the list. Are they still being funded? W…

I thank my colleagues for giving me a little extra time on this issue. Last Friday, Father Séamus Aherne reminded the people of Finglas that 25 January was Burns night, celebrating the famous poet Robbie Burns, who spoke about old acquaintance not being forgot. I suppose for our community, as Father Aherne said, 25 January will be remembered as the day when our community was shaken by the tragic death of Grace Lynch, a 16-year-old girl with her whole life ahead of her who was killed crossing a pedestrian crossing. …

Last night in Finglas, hundreds of people came out to support the Lynch family and to tell the Garda, Government and particularly those who recklessly and dangerously drive e-scooters and scramblers illegally that enough is enough. Grace Lynch was a beautiful young girl with her whole life ahead of her and that was robbed from her on Sunday afternoon. Our community is sad but we are not surprised because we have been talking about it for years. In 2023, community leaders came here to the Public Gallery to welcome e…

This week, I and many of my Government colleagues welcomed the over €12 million allocated in local sports partnership grants. What was not welcomed was the method of the county breakdown in which it was allocated. It is not just about this round of grants; it is across many grants that are distributed through local authorities and local community development committees. There is a narrative in here that Dublin gets everything, but that is not borne out in the facts of those community-type grants. If we look at Dubl…

I did not mention Wicklow, Tánaiste.

Absolutely. It is very welcome.

I welcome each of the provisions of the Bill because behind many of those provisions are either victims or groups who have campaigned for the Government to act. The Minister has hit the ground running in the past number of months. The breadth of the Bill demonstrates his good faith in having worked with many of the people who sought these provisions. I spent all of Christmas listening to the Opposition telling us this is a do-nothing Government that has introduced no legislation. Now, apparently, there is too much …

The rest of it is working.

I think this is the second set of statements we have had on artificial intelligence. A bit like the previous speaker, I do not think anybody in this House is an expert in AI in the same way as there are in industry. That is part of the challenge for us as representatives of the people. That is why we are here. It is for us to understand, articulate and predict an industry that is rapidly changing. Its applications are rapidly changing. What we saw this week was a fairly grotesque application of a tool. We would be …

I want to raise the issue of a victim's rights when the perpetrator of a crime is leaving prison or other institution. Prior to being a TD I was not aware of the very significant rights that exist under the victim's charter, including the right to know where a person is imprisoned, changes to his or her custody or location, and so on. That applies to those in prison but also to those people who are in the forensic mental health services. Difficult cases are described thus for a reason. A constituent of mine, Ms Fio…