Has the Minister ever heard the saying "You could confuse the nation"? I am afraid the Government has passed with honours. Old sayings are coming back to bite it because it still has not learned. We spoke about the European Parliament and legislation that was passed by the EU in January prohibiting political pressure from being used to get people to get a vaccine, but the Government is now doing that in an inverted way even though it is always talking about European laws. We are discussing the reopening of small to…

I have been in building all my life. I support this amendment. To get down to brass tacks, what the Minister has done shows complete disregard for people in rural areas. I have lived in a rural area all my life and I hope to live there for the rest of my life. If we take the price of a serviced site in a city and apply that to a serviced site in a county, to make it profitable for construction last year, a serviced site in Limerick cost €17,000. That is what it worked out at to make sites profitable for building ho…

I support the Sinn Féin amendment. I am a qualified blocklayer by trade and I have helped to build many houses. As previous speakers stated, the block is the main part of a house, along with a foundation and the roof. There are many people in County Limerick who have issues arising from pyrite. I have seen a couple of houses that have it and I will be calling to more next week. These are mainly from the 1980s and 1990s. People did not realise what was wrong with the houses but reporting of the problem has escalated…

I too sympathise with the families who have lost loved ones throughout the pandemic. What were the problems and what can we learn from the situation? I have seen nursing homes that lost 37 staff during the pandemic in a two-month timeframe because they were poached by the HSE. When the HSE offered positions, including through agencies, it almost crippled nursing homes that had been providing good care. It took 37 staff from one nursing home. The nursing home then had an issue down the line with providing adequate s…

The Government has rushed this legislation for consideration before the Dáil. The Oireachtas Library and Research Service was unable to provide a full Bill digest for it due to the short timeframe between publication of the Bill and Second Stage. The Bill was not publicly available on the Oireachtas website until Friday, 9 July 2021 but it is down for a debate today. It is a pity Deputy O'Connor has left. He said he was the youngest Deputy in the Chamber. He probably should have stayed to listen to the bit of knowl…

We have heard people ask how to get rent to decrease and meet demand. How do you meet demand? The Minister of State's own party leader spoke about meeting demand. Deputy Michael Collins spoke of how Deputy Varadkar wants to build 40,000 houses a year. There is a lack of materials now, and it is a worldwide problem, but he will still build 40,000 houses a year. I think it may be out of Lego he will build those houses. The Government looks like a comedy show, the way it comes out with these facts and figures, which o…

On my second day in the Dáil, I told the Tánaiste that it was as if the Taoiseach was driving a bus but the Tánaiste was trying to push it off the road and the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications was asleep in the back. Everything seems to have been the same since then. Every time the Government makes a decision, it has to change it because it does not talk to sectors such as hospitality. I spoke to people aged between 18 and 20 last week who told me that they are serving people who are dining …

I understand the predicament the Ceann Comhairle is in. When he called the Minister of State, I believe the Minister of State was baffled and was looking for his paperwork. He had got to his feet but had his head down looking at his paperwork because he was not expecting to be called. A representative from the Rural Independent Group was here and I was on my way up trying to get in to the building. I left Leinster House when the previous speaker was called. That gave me 22 minutes of speaking time to get from Leins…

On a point of fairness, I am here on time for my slot. The Minister of State was not ready to react either.

While I welcome any funds that have been given to the hospitality sector to date, the support does not go far enough. I say that as a self-employed person and in light of the fiasco during the week relating to inside dining in restaurants and pubs. As I stated yesterday, we are the only European country that does not have indoor dining. Even fully vaccinated people cannot dine inside in a pub or restaurant. Publicans and restaurateurs who have no outside areas have no alternative. They are in a predicament. Many of…

Deputy Connolly has sold herself short. I, personally, and many of my colleagues would sit and listen to her all day. I call on the Minister to conclude. Before he does, I thank the Ceann Comhairle for giving me the opportunity to speak earlier, despite all the confusion.

When the funding was being made available for Covid-19 supports, the Government announced the five pillar banks through which it would send out the funding. It never mentioned the credit unions. I mentioned this to Ministers when the five pillar banks were mentioned. Like other speakers, I am a credit union member. The credit union and the post office are the last two banking systems in Ireland that have people behind the counter who know you by name. You are not known by number there. You walk into your local cred…

First, I thank Deputy Pringle for bringing the Bill to the House. I also thank the Minister for stating that the Government will support the Bill. I was born and grew up in rural society in a place called Banogue in County Limerick. My father was 98 years of age when died. He was born in 1911 and grew up in the early 1900s. I recall my father telling me that members of the Travelling community of that time, a man and his wife, called to the house twice a year. According to their tradition, the man would not enter t…

In 2007, when Fianna Fáil and the Green Party were in government they wanted to raise the retirement age to 67 in 2021 and to 68 by 2028. The Fine Gael-Labour Party Government wanted to introduce this in 2011. There are people throughout this country of pensionable age who were not eligible for the €350 Covid-19 payment because they were self-employed. The Rural Independent Group asked for the pension payment to the self-employed to be set at the same level as the Covid-19 payment everyone else was getting but the …

I do not think there is one person in this House who does not want social and affordable houses to be built for people of different generations so they can begin their lives. What I have against the way the LDA is set up is it caters for population centres of 30,000 or more. I was elected in Limerick county and there is not one town in Limerick county with 30,000 people living there. While I welcome any houses coming to Limerick city, Limerick should be treated as a whole. The Land Development Agency is only delive…

I welcome the two-year extension for existing planning permissions. However, I have concerns about other parts of the Bill because many people were unable to build houses during the pandemic. There is now a lack of materials and the prices of them are excessive. Everything is on the rise. There is also an issue relating to people who were employed before the pandemic and had mortgage approval. Some of those people are unemployed at the moment and are now going back to the banks and asking for mortgages. They are no…

Has the Minister been in contact with the new US Administration under President Joe Biden with regard to the continued use of Shannon Airport for the facilitation of the carriage of ammunition? I believe that in 2020, arms were transferred through the airport on 285 occasions. Is this set to continue?

"Munitions of war" is a fancy term thought up by civil servants. It is, basically, another term for military weapons or munitions. Why is neutral Ireland facilitating weapons of war going through Shannon Airport from the United States of America? The Minister has just clarified that the exemptions must go through the Minister for Transport, if they go through. Nearly 300 such missions were facilitated by Shannon Airport in 2020. The Minister has said it was light arms. How many are being facilitated in 2021? Must t…

Flights with military personnel on board would also have their own military weapons on board, so a full flight of military personnel involves a large volume of military weapons coming through an airport. Has there been any recent review of any possible international threat to Shannon Airport by those who may be enemies of the United States of America? We currently have Defence Forces troops in the Sahel region of Africa where there is a serious ongoing conflict. Will the Minister offer sincere guarantees on the saf…

We all know there is a housing crisis and I am disappointed the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, was afraid to stay here with me to hear some truths. That is no disrespect to the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan. It is amazing when the truth is heard from a rural Independent and a person who is self-employed. I have been self-employed all my life. I understand what a knock-on effect is for housing because I build houses. I have always built one-off houses. I am a small-time builder and a local builder. I tried to …