As the Minister knows, one of the big problems in the context of shellfish and Ireland reaching its full potential has been the lengthy delays in appeals going through the Aquaculture Licensing Appeals Board. Will the Minister comment on how he is going to resource this? I have no objection at all to the amendment. We do not have enough people with experience who can stay on and lend their experience. We dealt with this at the committee. It relates to fisheries. The Minister’s officials from the Department were pre…

I am conscious the Minister of State is new to this brief, and while he will be aware there is a long history to this whole area, he may not be an expert on it, which is forgivable. Nevertheless, I want to go back over the history that got us here today. It is quite embarrassing, with episode after episode of the failure to implement expert recommendations. The Oireachtas transport and communications committee dealt with this about a year and a half ago. It published its report and made its recommendations as part …

This is not a point of order.

Are backbenchers the leaders?

He might get promoted to Minister of State again now. This is outrageous.

This should be on their budget.

Is this speech on the budget?

I have not heard anything yet on the budget.

Is the Tánaiste coming to it? I am really bored.

He is doing a speech for Sinn Féin. He needs to finish it now.

Why are you-----

On fisheries, the Minister knows that the major producer organisations united in Europe yesterday under a new umbrella called Seafood Ireland. They are very clear about their serious concern about the decline of the industry. We will have a chance next Wednesday in the Oireachtas committee to engage on that and the people will have their say in the next election. I will focus my comments today on the defective block scheme. Whenever there were 20,000 people from Donegal, Mayo, Clare, Limerick and the west, but pred…

Hear, hear.

The standard that underpins the defective concrete blocks scheme is IS 465. It is widely agreed that this standard is now not fit for purpose. Indeed, it is discredited. Despite this, engineers acting on behalf of the State through the Housing Agency have overruled more than 100 recommendations from qualified engineers representing homeowners. We now have confirmation from the National Standards Authority of Ireland that IS 465 will be amended-----

IS 465. This standard will now take account of pyrrhotite internal sulfate attack. I ask the Tánaiste and his colleague, the Minister for housing, to urgently ask the engineers in the Housing Agency to pause this overruling that has no credibility and to await the outcome of the National Standards Authority of Ireland developing a standard we can trust so we can move forward together.

So, you will pause this practice.

I support the request from Deputy Murphy. There has been report after report of the use of Irish sovereign airspace to transport munitions to be used in the genocide of the Palestinian people and all the issues that flow from that. This has caused widespread concern among the Irish people. We do not have clarification from the Ministers for Foreign Affairs or Transport about what are the actions to follow from the Irish Government or how seriously they are taking this matter. It is a grave abuse of our sovereignty.…

Outrageous.

Hear, hear.

So did the campaigners. So did you.