I will cover some of the comments those on my right made. They talked about Donald Trump coming to the country and said that some people went to meet him. I have no problem meeting Donald Trump. As a public representative, I would meet him because of 300,000 jobs in this country. If you multiple that by two or three, up to 1 million people are employed in this country as a result of American investment. That is why I would meet him. Do I agree with what is happening in the Middle East? I 100% do not. I am sitting h…

The Deputy has had his time. The Cathaoirleach Gníomhach's party had a good old swing at us as well, so I will comment on it and its support of carbon tax. His colleague spoke a while ago. When the Labour Party was in government, it introduced water charges and property tax. It then cut child benefit, rent allowance and fuel grants and supported the USC. These are the same people who are trying to lecture me here today. We will go back to the motion at hand. The Minister of State and the Department might just liste…

All they are good at is taxation. They talked about electric vehicles and that we need to change to them. They never mention that electric vehicles are twice as heavy on tyres as normal cars and twice as heavy on road surfaces. If you replace a battery in an electric vehicle, it will cost you €20,000 to do so when it has been driven for 200,000 km. They never mentioned about the cobalt that goes into these batteries. They mentioned that this year one in four cars sold were EVs, so that is 25% this year. They forgot…

We can pass whatever legislation we like in this Dáil but first we need to have the people to carry out the assessments to support the legislation we are putting through. We are able to bring in all this different legislation but we are not able to follow through on it, which is disappointing. We have the housing crisis. Students are qualifying in different fields within medicine and then have to leave the country because they see no future here. It is down to supply and demand. We have fantastic skilled workers he…

The reason we are here today is that the Government, backed up by a couple of Independent Members who keep voting with it, is taking a euro in tax on every litre of fuel. What does that do? It is a circular economy. Many depend on fossil fuel vehicles, which make up about 80% of the vehicles in this country. These taxes put up the price of food, materials and transport for everyone. The only realistic thing to do is to cap the taxation on fuel. If fuel costs increase, we will pay that increase, but we should not be…

Today, I am raising the issue of wind farms and their health implications. A number of weeks ago, I was copied into a serious letter from the Communities and Environmental Protection Alliance, CEPA, to the Minister of Health. I am informed that there has been no response, not even an acknowledgement. Representatives from five counties are in the Public Gallery today. They are from Limerick, Mayo, Kilkenny, Wicklow and Offaly, including members of the Stonestown community in County Offaly who live beside the Cloghan…

I thank the Tánaiste. The issue here is the inconsistency. In the Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown area, all noise complaints received by the local authority are investigated by the HSE. Residents in Offaly and Limerick are wondering why this other approach is being taken in their case and why it depends on what county one lives in whether one gets investigations. It is inconsistency that is going on here. Why should access to a health investigation depend on the county where somebody lives? We can see that it is different i…

Will the Tánaiste meet us?

I am the Chairperson of the budgetary oversight committee. We have had many witnesses in over the past number of months. Yesterday, we had witnesses in who agreed with exactly what I and Independent Ireland have been saying. The Department of Finance does not talk to the Department of enterprise. The Department of Finance is responsible for divvying out the moneys but they all work separately. When it hands out bits and pieces, which it says is targeted, it does not cover everyone. The conclusion in our meeting yes…

At present, there are 14,621 gardaí. There are 621 in training at the moment. The problem is that 180 are resigning outside of retirements. Why does the Taoiseach think this is a problem? It is recurring. We have that amount in training but 180 are resigning every year. That trend has been there over the last two years. Why does the Taoiseach think that is?

Yes.

Young gardaí-----

I thank Deputy Charles Ward for all the work he has done on this. What is the Government guilty of? I sat on the housing committee last term. It is on the record of that committee that I highlighted to the Minister, and all the various witnesses and so-called professionals brought in by the Department, the issues with blocks, foundations and the weight loads on foundations under the new regulations that you try to meet when rebuilding a house. How much has it cost to bring in all the people who have given the Minis…

In the base of the redress scheme and the different grades that people get in redress, there is an issue turning up at the moment-----

The scheme for pyrite. There are different grades. People might get grade 1 or grade 4 or 5. One of the grades is where people are told their roof is okay but their block walls have to come out. What people are being asked to do is prop up the house and take out the walls down to the foundation level, which means the footpaths and floors collapse. It is specialised work. When we work out the economics of it, we do not have enough specialist contractors in this country to do this. There are not enough of them here a…

It is common sense.

We have experience.

We have 35 years' experience. Come on.

LGBT and Pride. Pride stands for "respect". I listen in this House daily and people say "far left" and "far right" and brand everything. What is wrong with just being yourself? Why do you have to be branded? Respect means that if somebody is gay, lesbian or trans, you give them respect and let them give you respect. I do not believe in all of this branding. They are people, human beings. That is what they are. I have been attacked here and called far right and a homophobe and then people found out I have a son who …

AI in some instances scares me and in some instances it is good for different parts if it is used correctly. How many people go on their phone and then no longer know what is actually factual or not? My concern about AI is that we need to get on top of it fairly quickly. I was in the Central Bank on Tuesday for a visit with the budgetary oversight committee. There are concerns about AI in this country. Now we do not know if the Strait of Hormuz is open or not because we do not know what to believe on this or not. W…