I am grateful to the Acting Chairperson and all of the Senators for facilitating debates under this very urgent legislation in Seanad Éireann before the Easter recess. I also record my thanks to the Chief Whip and to members of both the Business Committee and the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage for enabling the Residential Tenancies Bill 2021 to be read a Second Time here today. The Bill is a timely and proportionate response to the continued elevated threat and impact of the pa…

It is not.

I thank the Senators for contributing on this very important Bill and acknowledge their contributions. I acknowledge the speed at which the joint committee allowed us to go forward with the Bill and apologise as I know it is not ideal. However, the threat of Covid-19 and the trajectory of the pandemic means nothing is ideal about the circumstances in which we work, unfortunately. I value all contributions made in the House. It is important when we go forward with a Bill, that it is stress tested and that we do arti…

I am sharing time with Deputy Ó Cuív and Deputy McAuliffe. I have listened carefully to the Deputies. I reiterate the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan's affirmation of sharing the sense of great importance about the 1916 Rising and its central place in the history of our State and of the importance of remembering it and preserving the traces and memories that remain of those events and everyone involved. No one party has ownership of the past, nor the right to appropriate it. The hallmarks of the approach to commem…

I move: "That Dáil Éireann approves the following Regulations in draft: Planning and Development (Exempted Development) Regulations 2021, a copy of which has been laid in draft form before Dáil Éireann on 15th February, 2021.”

I move: That Dáil Éireann approves the following Regulations in draft: Planning and Development (Exempted Development) (No. 2) Regulations 2021, a copy of which has been laid in draft form before Dáil Éireann on 15th February, 2021.”

I thank Senator Cummins for raising this matter and giving me with the opportunity to address it. I assure Members that the Government is committed to ensuring that people in rural areas are supported in accessing good quality water and waste water services, as committed to in the programme for Government. Following on from the recommendations contained in the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water Services report in April 2017, a working group was established to conduct a review of the …

Senator Cummins's point is very well made. I will give it serious consideration with the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, as it is directly under his jurisdiction. I accept the pressure that is on local authorities and their staff due to the level 5 restrictions. The Senator's case has merit. We do not want people to suffer because of the restrictions that have been imposed. We will take a serious look at the issue. We are engaging with the local authorities. I welcome his suggestion on the re-profiling of the expenditure…

I thank Senator Ward for raising this issue and giving me an opportunity to update the House. The national ports policy, as set out in 2013, provides for the transfer of certain ports to the relevant local authority and sets out the arrangements for giving effect to this. In that context, the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company transferred to the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council on 3 October 2018 in accordance with Part 3 of the Harbours Act 2015 that provides, inter alia , for the dissolution of the port company an…

As I articulated, a report is being carried out by two independent agencies at the request of the council. We will have to wait and see what comes back. This is a strategic asset and we want to see what its future direction of travel will be. I do not want to predetermine that. We need to discuss the matter with the council. No one, including my Department, wants to see any council being encumbered with a great financial risk on its balance sheet from which it cannot derive significant income. As a Department, we a…

I thank all the Senators who contributed. I acknowledge the heroic efforts made on a daily basis by the outdoor staff in our local authorities, by our litter wardens and by the Tidy Towns groups who work so hard in our communities to keep things looking so well under very difficult circumstances, as outlined by many contributors to this debate. We are very grateful to them for their efforts. They do great work and go above and beyond the call of duty every day. I thank Senator Wall and his Labour Party colleagues f…

I wish to support many families in this State who are currently locked out of the housing market. We must be realistic about the complex nature of what is required in terms of the policy to solve the housing crisis in this country. The scheme being proposed is proportionate and time bound. The aim is to try to make a key intervention to ensure we reframe the supply of housing for starter homes. We have seen the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme. The ESRI fully backed this as a targeted intervention. We have seen …

I thank Senator Kyne for raising this important matter. As a past student of NUI Galway and having lived in the city, I concur with his sentiments on what the city and county have to offer. Project Ireland 2040 is the overarching policy and planning framework for social, economic and cultural development. It includes a detailed capital investment plan for the period 2018 to 2027, the National Development Plan 2018-2027, and the 20-year national planning framework. The Government has brought forward the national dev…

I am happy to do that on behalf of the Senator. Obviously, he has spoken quite strongly on the infrastructural gap that needs to be filled. Irish Water is a key component in delivering that. If the infrastructure is not there, development will be held back and the city will be unable to unlock its potential, provide alternatives such as affordable homes to people and improve infrastructure in general. I will raise the issue with the Minister. Obviously, he has primary responsibility for Irish Water within the Depar…

I thank the Senator for raising this important matter. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is unavailable this morning and he asked me to respond on his behalf. Applications for social housing support are assessed by the relevant local authority in accordance with the eligibility and need criteria set down in section 20 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 and the associated Social Housing Assessment Regulations 2011, as amended. The 2011 regulations prescribe maximum net income levels for each loca…

I thank the Senator for giving me the opportunity to comment on this matter. The Government is providing affordable homes for people. We have a Bill on this which will give an opportunity to families to get on the property ladder. We also have rent pressure zones, which refer directly to the issue raised by the Senator. They now cover almost three quarters of all tenancies in the country and they limit the scope for rental increases. A recent report has shown how rent increases have stabilised over recent quarters.…

I thank Senator Currie for raising this important matter and all her work in the area to date, which is very valued and important. We are now more conscious than ever of balancing work and caring responsibilities and the burden this places on working families. The Covid-19 pandemic has transformed our working and home lives, enabling new ways of working that may eventually assist women to continue their careers who would otherwise have left the workforce due to family obligations. This is a particularly acute chall…

I thank Senator Currie. I will raise that with the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman. Senator Currie has articulated very strongly the merits, as well as the concerns lone parents have where they find themselves in very challenging circumstances and in need of key support, which I fully appreciate. I can see from running and living through a very busy constituency office, as the Senator also does, many of these concerns coming in from families of all types in this modern era. I will raise the point on the amendment the Sen…

I thank Senator Byrne for raising this important issue, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan. Once funding arrangements have been put in place through the Department of Transport, under the Roads Acts 1993 to 2015, the planning, design and construction of individual national roads is a matter for Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, in conjunction with the local authorities concerned. Overall, TII is responsible for the delivery of the national roads programme in accordance…

I thank Senator Byrne for raising this very important issue and I will convey his concerns to the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan. Without doubt, this is a national project. Its importance is critical to unlock infrastructure and potential, and, especially in a post-Brexit era, it is compounded in terms of its importance. I understand how important it is that this project is included in the review of the capital plan. I will bring the Senator's views to the Minister, Deputy Ryan, in connection with that and thank the S…