Can the 51% reduction in carbon emissions from our public transport be delivered within the period to 2030? Is there a path with distinctive milestones between now and then?

I thank the Minister. I could not sum together the numbers, but it sounded that 0.4 mega tonnes would be less than one third of the impact of public transport. It sounds like we have some way to go given the decisions already taken. Can we quickly move to a path? For example, we could move fairly rapidly to achieve an electric taxi fleet in our key cities. It would need minimal roll-out of EV charging networks to support them. Are we now dependent on new technologies like hydrogen to achieve 51% within the fleet? C…

I welcome the Minister's commitment to make a move on the taxi fleet. It would justify a significant initiative by the Department to pull together all the interests in that area - the providers, drivers and various agencies that support them - to make a concerted effort in that area. It may need more public money to prime the pump. I also agree that high utilisation of our bus fleet and the wider public transport fleet is crucial. Is there any innovative thinking on how we can get higher utilisation from our fleets…

I agree with the Minister. In as far as possible, we should not kill off those who are entrepreneurial enough to get the systems up and running. I would like to hear from the Minister about what sorts of incentives he is thinking of in terms of the strategy that is being developed. This can be the big game-changer if employers adopt it, priority is given in terms of road space, parking space and other assets and we can spread the schemes to wider geographical ranges. I am interested to know what policy tools the Mi…

I do not think this is a new story for Deputies in this House. They are aware of the serious problem we have with parents who get a diagnosis, wait a long period for an assessment of needs, AON, wait further for a statement of service and for the appointment of key workers, and then face a substantial wait for any therapeutic care. A constituent who is one example among many was diagnosed at the age of four in 2019. A service statement was received four months later. A key worker was appointed over two years later …

I thank the Minister of State for her reply. The root of the problem is that the demarcation between education and health is far too rigid. I question whether that is the reality of the experience of parents. As the HSE is not able to provide the one-to-one therapy, it is moving to group therapy and is encouraging and supporting parents to do drills, supports and activities. We have 19,000 SNAs and we increase that number by 1,000 each year. We have been successful in developing that service. There is not a high ex…

I ask the Minister to think about communities that fall between two stools, namely those in rapidly-growing fringes of our cities. They may nominally have access to developed urban facilities but the reality is very different. For years they are often without any sports facilities, are relying just on takeaways and schools are built very slowly. These communities need a leg up. Will the Minister take a leadership role in that area?

I thank the Minister for her reply. I ask that she ask her officials to provide her with data on the proportion of those moneys that goes to the high-growth communities on the edges or our cities in Waterford, Galway and Dublin, including in my and the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach's constituency. These communities do not have the sports clubs that can draw down sports grants. They do not have the community facilities that can be refurbished. They do not have schools because the Department of Education has a policy of wa…

While the Minister is right that her title refers to rural development, it also refers to community development. Who is looking out for these urban communities if not her Department? It is a gap in Government thinking. If those urban communities do not grow well the hope of compact development with low emissions, and all those things we believe are the future, will struggle. We need to frontload investment into those areas and not do as most Departments do and wait far too long to make that investment. I plead with…

I welcome today's housing completion numbers that show completions are up by more than 7,000 to 28,000, which is the highest in more than 15 years. The total of 45,000 planning permissions is also the highest of the past 15 years. What is clear is that while 80% of housing permissions are being completed, only 40% of apartment permissions are being built and completed. How have the two Land Development Agency initiatives to activate these delayed permissions done? Can more be done to drive the commencement of apart…

I welcome this debate and the publication of the report. It is an incontrovertible fact that our ambition in respect of climate transformation creates risks that we must plan for. This certainly helps us to do that. It is equally incontrovertible, however, that the more successful our climate strategy is, the less dependent we will become on imported fossil fuels and all the unsavoury sources that some of those fuels must come from. One of the difficulties in the present debate, fuelled by the failure of the last r…

I would be interested in learning of the Minister's priorities. What I hear from ordinary members of the public is frustration in respect of appropriate and consistent sentencing, support for the position of victims in the system and the need to embed the multi-agency approach she has been successfully rolling out in a number of particularly difficult communities. I would like that enshrined more strongly in law.

I am heartened by the Minister's response. The speed of implementation will be the issue. I will ask her about other issues I am concerned about. There is still a sense among the public that appropriate and consistent sentencing is not a feature. It causes immense upset to feel that some serious cases are not treated seriously enough by the courts while the opposite occurs in other cases. There is a need to strengthen the victim's position, in which I know the Minister has taken a keen interest. Is she considering …

I am happy with the Minister's reply. Consistency of sentencing remains a problem but I realise there are limits to what a Minister can do in respect of decisions taken by courts.

Since Covid, many people feel antisocial behaviour has rapidly deteriorated, has shifted its pattern and is perhaps even worse than it was pre-Covid. What are the trends in what is being reported to the Minister? What innovative approaches is the Minister considering in this regard? She has outlined some of them already.

I am very heartened by the approach the Minister and the Garda have taken on O'Connell Street with the new Garda station, the extra presence and the role of wardens. New York adopted a broken windows strategy when there was a problem there that was quite deep-seated. It involved real-time information and everyone working together and being accountable close to daily. Is that a realistic approach? How accessible are those sorts of data in order to have that more hands-on accountability? On the community partnerships…

The key to using real-time information is that people are accountable. As I understand it, the key to the success of the strategy in New York was that when dereliction appeared or when things were broken, they were quickly repaired. There was a commitment by other bodies to respond, not just a policing commitment, although that is of course welcome. That has a bearing on a lot of our problems with dereliction. Where crime develops, it is because of these things not being attended to in a timely way. These places be…

I will be interested to hear from the Minister what reporting on sentencing policy is provided to the Judiciary, the Minister and the wider public and her intentions in relation to changes in sentencing policy in particular areas.

I welcome those changes. Among the most damaging impacts on people are the root of hate crime and the sorts of things that happen through social media, on which we are probably not up to speed. On a more general point, in policy spheres that I know quite a bit about, sunlight is the best disinfectant. It is disappointing to hear that we are not getting accountability for the consistency of sentencing we need. I urge the Minister to get to grips with that. There is a separation of powers and judges have to be treate…

I welcome that. It is wrong to try to make decisions on appropriate sentencing entirely in the dark in relation to what is happening already in the courts. It is important that we inject urgency into achieving consistency by judges and in the guidelines issued to them, as well as the report back on that. Until we have made the transition from paper to digital, we should introduce an interim measure to get greater access to that information in the intervening period.