Can the Minister of State repeat that? Did he just say we are meeting our climate change targets?

Can the Minister of State repeat it on the record? We are meeting our climate change targets.

That is not meeting our climate change targets. Our legally binding climate change targets are set out. They state that we have to reduce emissions in this sector or that sector by certain amounts. The Climate Change Advisory Council review states, "The sector has likely exceeded its first sectoral emissions ceiling (2021–2025) and is projected to exceed its second (2026–2030)." The Government is not meeting its climate targets. It is not coming anywhere close to meeting its climate targets. It is trying to lull pe…

The fundamental point the Minister of State is missing is that the Government is choosing to delay investment in public transport against the advice of Climate Change Advisory Council. That is a fact.

I will ask again. Is the reason the Government is not proceeding with the project down to the fact that all of the power is going to the data centres?

I refer to the briefing note prepared for the Government's major project governance oversight group, which warned that there is insufficient power in the ESB network to support DART+. The target is 100%, and we need ten times more power. Where will that come from?

I would like some good news.

I have.

We are not charging the vehicles. The NTA told the Committee of Public Accounts that we are not charging them because the data centres are using all the power. We have electric buses that are sitting there not being charged.

I express solidarity with the many people and many children suffering from rare diseases in Ireland. I pay tribute to the many who have to speak out publicly about what they and their families are going through to bring pressure on the Government to approve various medicines, people like Archie Ennis and A.J. Slevin. There are far too many and we should not have to know about their stories. It speaks to something very wrong in how our society, the economy and the pharmaceutical sector are organised. I recently read…

Momentum is growing against data centres and the Government's slavish adherence to the policy on demands of big tech because more and more people are seeing the reality of the threats data centres pose to our environment, our energy supply and the cost of living. In our alternative budget last year, People Before Profit proposed a €1 billion energy levy on data centres to fund a €500 universal electricity credit. The effect would be to charge data centres roughly the same amount for electricity as households pay. A…

Has the Taoiseach had any discussion about local democracy with his European counterparts, and about the fact Ireland has the lowest levels of autonomy and local democracy in all of Europe? I will give the Taoiseach a dramatic illustration of this. I have raised before with him the attempt by South Dublin County Council to massively hike rents for 20,000 families - council tenants, housing assistance payment, HAP, tenants, homeless HAP tenants and approved housing body, AHB, tenants - at an average of €1,000. It is…

I am not asking the Taoiseach to intervene.

I am asking that councillors get a vote.

No, you should not. The council should.

Did you legally direct the council to increase rents? That is what the council issaying.

Did you legally direct the council to increase rents?

Did you?

I know you did not. That is what the council is claiming.

No, I do not want you to.