I thank Deputy Stanton for raising this important issue on behalf of his constituents. I apologise for the absence of the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, who is unavailable this evening. As the Deputy may be aware, for school planning purposes, the Department of Education divides the country into 314 school planning areas and uses a geographical information system to anticipate school place demand. Information from a range of sources, including child benefit data, school enrolment data and information on resi…

I thank Deputy Stanton for his very well-put argument. From the briefing documentation here I am aware that the Department is at one with the Deputy's concern about capacity of the area. The Department will work closely to resolve it. A number of projects are in the offing, as we have spoken about previously. From the documentation here I know that the letter of acceptance for Carrigtwohill will be imminent. There is confidence that those documents are now coming in or are near completion. The Deputy also raised ve…

In the first instance, I send the apologies of the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley. Like Deputy Lahart, I have experienced some of those same issues, unfortunately, in my own constituency. I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. It provides an opportunity for the Department to outline the current position regarding provision for children with special educational needs, including autism. Enabling children with special educational needs to receive an education appropriate to their needs is a priority for this…

I absolutely empathise and understand the stress a grandmother would be under trying to secure a school place. It is not something that should be happening in society. As the Deputy alluded to, there is significant funding behind the provision of education in the State. I think the Deputy may have put his finger on the pulse in terms of the two postcodes he referenced, however. I will raise this with both the Minister and Minister of State. Obviously, I do not have the data in front of me to give the Deputy exactly…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter and allowing me the opportunity to provide an update on behalf of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Like him, I come from a large rural constituency that is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, so I very much understand the need to have an alternative in place before certain public policy measures are pursued. If that is not the case, we will lose people along the way and we will not reach our targets in the long run. The Department launched…

I again thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. To be clear, between 2013 and 2021, a retrofit was completed in respect of 75,000 local authority homes. Moreover, there is a scheme in place specifically to deal with local authority housing and to give them a deep retrofit, and that scheme was revised last year. It will aim to bring 100,000 houses up to a building energy rating, BER, of B2 or a cost-optimal equivalent rating. That will give people who are reliant on fossil fuels an alternative in the fut…

I assure Deputy Buckley that we will have an honest answer for him. I thank him for raising this very important matter. This is an issue of both national and local importance and I fully appreciate the concerns of the 10,000 people in the Deputy's community whom he referenced. The Deputy will appreciate that the operation of the Whitegate regional public water supply is a matter for Irish Water which, since 1 January 2014, has had statutory responsibility for all aspects of water services planning, delivery and ope…

I thank Deputy Buckley for again raising this issue on behalf of the community. It is a very frustrating thing, especially on Christmas Day, when you run into trouble or you are being advised of a boil water notice. I think of the four Topical Issue matters tonight, Deputy Buckley is definitely in front because he has an interim solution, which hopefully will be ready by latest at June, as I have in my briefing document. Second, the Deputy has a permanent solution, which is in the Irish Water capital budget. Upon r…

I want to apologise on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, who unfortunately cannot be here today. I thank Senator Conway for raising this very important matter. At the outset, I want to acknowledge the strong contribution he made at the weekend in promoting diversity in public life. It is important that our council chambers, Seanad and Dáil reflect the society they serve. It was a timely intervention at the weekend and something that we will robustly support in our Department in trying to get diversit…

I again thank the Senator. It is a very important issue. The Senator has outlined the media discourse in the past week with regard to the effect it had on a student in terms of their interaction with the SEC and the oral Irish paper. When there are issues like that, they need to be responded to. I will bring them to the attention of the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, specifically the two concrete points the Senator raised in regard to what people are experiencing on the ground.

I thank the Senator for raising this important issue on behalf of his community and Summercove National School in Kinsale. I first want to offer the apologies of the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley. The project for Summercove National School, Kinsale, is included in the Department's construction programme, which is being delivered under the national development plan. The brief for this project is the development of a single-storey, eight-classroom primary school with two classrooms for pupils with special educ…

Obviously, this is not my area of responsibility, but I will raise this matter with the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, and her Department. What the Senator is saying is key. We are experiencing very unusual increases and inflation. One can see in competition across public procurement projects that this will become very difficult. We therefore have to be able to deliver these projects on a timely basis. In Holy Family Primary School, Mullingar, there was an awfully stressful period, again trying to deliver a …

I thank Senator Byrne for raising these important matters on the implementation of the Moorhead report and the issues of the devolving of local powers down to local government. On 1 July 2021, new regulations came into effect to reform the framework of financial supports for councillors to allow them to continue to carry out their statutory functions and community representational role in an effective and sustainable manner. This gave effect to an important commitment in the programme for Government to implement th…

I thank Senator Malcolm Byrne for his kind comments. Regarding appointments, I note the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform oversees the Public Appointments Service and all appointments. I will liaise with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, regarding this matter. I fully understand the valid point being made by the Senator. As someone who served for a good length of time on a local council, I know local authority members have so much to give in respect of valuable contri…

I thank Senator Gallagher for his important intervention in this area. I also agree with the sentiments expressed about the tours of the Houses. It is great to see people back in the Gallery. It is important that the Oireachtas is open to students and for people to be able to see the great work that goes on here. The duration of planning permission is generally set at five years, but planning authorities may grant shorter or longer durations. The maximum duration for residential development planning permission to r…

I thank the Senator for his intervention. This decision was taken during the Covid period. The Minister took the decision to allow five-year planning permissions to take their course and not extend them as has been done heretofore. I will raise it. I understand the issue for many one-off planning applicants in my constituency. Many of them were not fully aware of this when it came upon them. I have raised it in the Department because I was concerned about it. Unfortunately, at the moment I do not see an openness to…

I thank Deputy Ellis for raising this very important matter. The Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act 1998 provides that local authorities have statutory responsibility for the assessment of the accommodation needs of Travellers and the preparation, adoption and implementation of multi-annual Traveller accommodation programmes in their areas in order to meet the identified accommodation need. The role of my Department is to ensure that there are adequate structures and supports in place to assist the authorities i…

I thank Deputy Ellis for his comments. I was very clear in my answer in that the responsibility for Traveller accommodation lies solely with the local authority. That is why, when the Deputy raised this issue today, I immediately got on to the local authority. It is now aware that this great concern has been raised in this Parliament and I will follow up with it. I want to be very clear in terms of the work we have done in the past two years. For the first time in decades, each year for the past two years the Depar…

I congratulate our new Member, Senator Tom Clonan. I wish him the very best of luck as he takes his seat. It is a great achievement for him and his family. I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce the Planning and Development (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2022. I thank Senators for facilitating the passage of this important substitute consent legislation through the House. The purpose of this Bill is to amend the Planning and Development Act 2000 at Part XA relating to substitute consent procedures. Substitute con…

They are all welcome.