I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the extraordinary way in which you have handled the role that you hold. You have upheld the highest of standards. You have been remarkably courteous and very fair in your rulings. The next Dáil will miss you. I have been around for a good while and have seen many cinn chomhairle. You have been exceptional in the way you have handled the office. I have represented an urban community for 44 years now. In my last contribution, I will go back to and talk about my rural roots. I believe r…

I would not have matched Bernard Durkan.

I add my voice to Deputy O'Reilly's point. In my experience, there are many trip points for social enterprises in getting access, such as the definition of whether an enterprise is commercial. If an organisation has a charitable status, it can be excluded from Office of Public Procurement contracts because of this status. Much like Deputy O'Reilly, I believe there will be a lot of opportunity in the circular economy for semi-commercial activities. They will not be fully commercial in the early term but we need them…

The Minister has extended the remit of the remit of local enterprise offices, LEOs. I come across a lot of enterprises which do not feel they have access to the specialist advice in each of the 31 LEOs. There needs to be regional centres of excellence. There is scope, in particular in areas like adaptation to green demands, for collaborative approaches in sectors.

I thank the Minister of State for her comprehensive reply. One of the concerns I have is that there has been an extraordinarily low level of take-up of initiatives to promote a move to sustainable processes through the supply chain, in particular among LEO and Enterprise Ireland clients. Group initiatives are the way to go. I am sceptical that drawing in a contractor essentially to move from one enterprise to the next is the best model. It would be better if the sector gateways to which the Minister of State referr…

I agree simplification is a help, but we need people to act in concert. We have seen the success of group schemes in all sorts of different walks of life, such as group water schemes, sustainable energy communities and so on. We need to have a similar momentum within the enterprise sector. That is not happening at the moment. There are huge opportunities in the food sector for eliminating waste and improving packaging. There are huge areas in the construction sector for managing materials better and thinking differ…

I was delighted to see the Tánaiste’s backing for multidisciplinary teams supporting our schools. I agree it should be a programme for Government commitment. A pilot of 75 schools and 75 preschools was undertaken when I was Minister, which is quite some time ago, and that has never been extended. I admit Covid might have delayed it but it should have been. The capacity to engage with resource teachers and SNAs to extend therapeutic programmes is a missed opportunity. We have a legal right to an assessment but no le…

The Fine Gael policy lab is looking at the issue of how we will have vibrant rural communities in a changing world. One of the things that has come from it very strongly is the value of the connected hubs the Minister established. There is a belief they have greater potential. Will the Minister examine how they could open for longer hours, become virtual platforms for local produce, support voluntary mobility initiatives, support connections for people who have retired and want to join them, look at fostering socia…

Today, the Department of Education celebrates its 100th birthday. In 100 years, Ireland has moved from being a country with the poorest educational progression in Europe, with fewer than one in eight getting beyond primary level, to a country with the highest level of education participation. Thirty years ago this year, a national convention on education was held. Given the watershed moment now in education, with massive changes in terms of digital, social media and the failure to reform adequately our leaving cert…

Like my good colleague and fellow Meath man, I read the climate advisory report this morning. It shows that residential building is the only area where we are on target to meet out climate budget. It commended the Government on the 80% take up in the retrofitting loan scheme and one-stop shop. However, the report recommends targeted interventions. I would like the Tánaiste to look at these. There are 250,000 homes built post 2007 that are still using oil. These could switch to using heat pumps. I also ask him to co…

The Cathaoirleach Gníomhach was moving too quickly for me. I was just coming in the door.

This question may provide a response to Deputy Smith's question as well. I would like to hear about the plans for shared mobility. There are 3 million vehicles on our roads, representing 60 million tonnes of embedded carbon. They use 12 million tonnes of carbon every year. Shared mobility is the greatest opportunity for carbon emission abatement at a very low cost.

I suggest the Minister needs to put a bomb under that unit. It has far too narrow a conception of what shared mobility might offer, by confining itself to these commercial operators. The truth is that 95% of our vehicles lie idle, 95% of the time they are idle, 90% of journeys are single occupant and in a world of modern app technology, surely we can start to exploit that opportunity. I also put it to the Minister that, in a modern multi-storey residential block it costs €50,000 to put in a car parking space. It wo…

I listened to the debate with Deputy Smith. If we had a mobility hub in rural Cavan where drivers, not linked to the ownership of a particular car but availing of the facilities in the hub, could offer such services to those who wanted them, would we not have a very cheap and effective win-win for Deputy Smith suggestion? Is it not the case that the mobility hub in Finglas has been a disaster? It is in the wrong place, it is not attracting the use it could and it needs to be located somewhere there is a genuine nub…

Last week, the Department of Finance published a report that showed forward funding arrangements by the approved housing bodies and the Land Development Agency are now central to the construction of multi-unit developments in Dublin. There are strong funding streams for social housing and cost-rental housing but no funding streams for affordable purchase. This is borne out by the statistics for building in Dublin, with 80% being apartments but only 6% going for purchase by owner-occupiers. That is not the tenancy m…

The bravery of the victims who have come out in recent days is not just to be praised. The message must sink home into every family and particularly every man and boy in the country. Much of this violence has been covered up for years and it has been in a dark corner. The Minister's decision to declare that her goal was zero tolerance was a game changer in many ways. It is not that this can be delivered within a finite number of weeks or months or years or that the instruments she has will certainly lead to it. It …

More than 8 million people are displaced in Sudan, which is the same number as have been displaced from Ukraine. The country is on the brink of famine. There are widespread allegations of war crimes. The siege of Al-Fashir is now looking very like what we are seeing in Rafah. I am interested to hear what Ireland and the international community are doing in this sphere.

I thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive reply. Everything he sets out there is on the direction we need to travel but a concern is that there is not the urgency or the momentum to make it really stick. There is still a supply of weapons to the warring parties. Humanitarian aid is not getting through on the scale needed to prevent famine. I wonder to what extent the gathering of evidence of war crimes is to the standard we need to actually cause people to pause for thought. Obviously, the sanctions are s…

I will just make one comment on the wider situation. Is it not the case that migration is now disrupting European politics in a way that is extremely worrying? I welcome the EU migration pact, which we agreed in the House last night, but the truth is that war, displacement and climate change are building up massive problems for us in Africa. The seriousness with which this must be taken at international level has to be elevated in some way. I commend the Tánaiste and the Minister of State on their efforts. I do not…

It is well known that sectors such as food, construction and transport can greatly reduce their negative impact on the environment - not just emissions but biodiversity-impacting pollution waste. I know that the Minister has ambitions to do this. Have we already started getting the sectors together to make the changes that are needed?