I wish to raise with the Minister the issue of the special rate of SUSI. There have been adjustments in the social welfare payments and cost-of-living measures. We have not seen a corresponding increase in the threshold for the special rate, however. Can the Minister assure anxious parents and students that no one will lose out on the special rate of SUSI as a result of any social welfare payment increases or the cost-of-living supports? That would go a long way towards reassuring people. People are really struggli…

Can the parents claim it for the student?

The Minister knows the associate membership fee of CERN is a minimum of €1.52 million annually, based on 10% of the full membership cost, which is estimated at €15.2 million annually. This is very important. Could the Minister provide an update? I know discussions have been happening on membership of CERN. As the Minister is aware, it is vitally important in so many ways. I ask for an update on that.

That is welcome news. I acknowledge the work done by PhD researcher Michael Mitchell from Trinity College Dublin in pushing this. He is a young Castlebar man who recognises the importance of it. The Minister has met with him, as I have. In the case of associate membership, the return to Ireland would be capped at the same level as the amount invested. To become a full member, a country must go through an obligatory associate membership phase, prior to full membership, for a minimum of two and a maximum of five year…

Concurrent with that, we need to re-energise and renew interest in physics in schools. We need to start looking at how we get more young people interested in this at national school level because it is the future, solves so many problems for us and will do so into the future.

I cannot speak as fast as my colleague. The Minister knows the Government cannot stand by. I listened to him from my office when he spoke about the interaction he has with the banks and the Central Bank and what is being done. The Government cannot stand by as people are being hit with increase after increase in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis. The Minister has received the same emails as we have. He can see how this is impacting on people who are just coming out of the financial crisis. They were severely hit…

I too want to thank Senator Carrigy for his work and indeed Deputy Buckley. Senator Carrigy is welcome to the House. It is fitting that he is here on such an important subject. I have gone through the report. There is some really good stuff in it and I commend the work of the committee. I thank all the parents from Mayo who contacted me to say how important it was that I be here this evening and that the report be implemented. There are massive expectations around what it is going to mean for them and their childre…

At the European Council meeting the Tánaiste discussed economic resilience. That requires investing in infrastructure. Why has the Government not included the western rail corridor project in the EU TEN-T? Only projects included in the TEN-T list of projects have access to the Connecting Europe Facility, known as the CEF fund. It is up to each country to lay out its priorities for rail, road, ports and so forth and submit them to the EU. There are two lists on this issue, the core list of projects to be completed b…

Question No. 158 is on retrospectiveness. I very much welcomed the Minister when he said retrospectiveness would be considered in the building defects redress scheme, as did the people in Mayo and Donegal. I want to tease that out further with the Minister. He said earlier that it was provided the work was certified. Will he better explain what we need to do? We need to give homeowners, with whom I spoke this morning, guidance as to how they can prepare in terms of the audit trail that might be needed. We are only …

I thank the Minister for his clarifications around retrospectiveness. We will work with him to get that right. One thing I want to flag is that it would be grossly unjust if there were to be a time limit or an arbitrary cut-off point on that. Once the work can be certified and assessed in advance, testing has occurred and you have the engineer's report, there should be no time limit on it.

My question relates to the sodium valproate inquiry. The Minister knows it is more than two years since that was promised by the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, in the House. The officials from the Department have told Organisation Anticonvulsant Syndromes Ireland, or OACS Ireland, and Epilepsy Ireland that the draft terms of reference for this inquiry were to go to Cabinet before Christmas. Families have been ignored by their own Government for more than 50 years and it is absolutely beyond time that this was b…

I thank the Rural Independent Group for bringing forward this important motion. That is not surprising, seeing as I come from County Mayo, where we have many coastal communities. Those communities are in places such as Erris, Achill, Clare Island, Ballycastle, Porturlin and right along the coast. One of the major concerns they have had for years is that they have had to stand and watch as massive trawlers raid their fish. Those trawlers show complete disregard for their own workers. I have just come from a presenta…

I am sharing time with Deputies Tully and Carthy. The farmers will make the assessment as to whether the Minister is listening to them or what he is doing for them. I thank my colleague, Deputy Carthy, for bringing this motion to the floor of the House. The Minister is not listening. People in rural Ireland, including Mayo, are completely perplexed and alarmed by what he is trying to do in facilitating this disastrous anti-rural initiative. I am alarmed when he says there is nothing we can do about this, that the d…

I wish both of the Deputies well in the future and congratulate them on their new roles. I wish to bring to the Minister's attention, under the section of small businesses, that agriculture and farming probably make up most of the small businesses in rural Ireland. I wish to bring to the Minister's attention the transfer of bank accounts from Ulster Bank and from banks that are closing, to Permanent TSB and other banks where overdraft facilities are not being acknowledged. Farmers are running into real difficulties…

Yes. Will the Minister intervene with the banks and make them aware that they were supposed to do everything possible to make that transition as smooth as possible, but farmers are now finding that they do not have the overdraft facilities they had before. They are in real difficultly around that issue.

Will the Minister outline the assessments that have and will be undertaken with regard to the code of conduct on mortgage arrears, including the suite of alternative repayment arrangements? What are the Minister's plans to give the code full legal effect?

I thank the Minister. There are serious problems in how what the Minister's spoke about is being adhered to and how it is being enforced. The issues are well-documented in the Free Legal Advice Centres, FLAC, From Pillar to Post series published in the last number of years. As the Minister said, it is crucial to ensure that the CCMA is fit for purpose, especially in the context of the rising interest rates, which we are seeing more of today. For those who are having repayment difficulties, this is becoming more and…

We need this to work for homeowners. There is clear evidence, as the Central Bank has warned on many occasions, that the waterfall of alternative repayment arrangements has not been sufficiently worked through by lenders. The easy reflex option of sale to third parties and vulture funds has been used, rather than finding sustainable solutions for borrowers. There is a cohort of borrowers whose loans were sold and are now owned by the vulture funds, with interest rates suddenly rising sharply. They are refusing to e…

The Government has made a big mistake by not including LPG in the TBESS, which is designed to help viable businesses to survive in the current spike in energy prices. This has excluded many rural businesses unfairly from the support scheme. The Minister of State must appreciate the fear and anger caused in rural Ireland when businesses were informed by Revenue that the TBESS will only apply to those metered in the supply of gas and electricity. As people in Mayo are all too aware, mains natural gas is simply not av…

The crux of matter seems to be the auditing, showing the exact usage and the measurement issue. If we can prove to the Minister of State or Revenue, which I believe we can beyond any doubt whatsoever, the exact usage, the number of units and the exact costs and do absolute comparisons in the same way that is done elsewhere, can this scheme be applied retrospectively to those who have missed out on this scheme in recent months? That is where we need to home in. I can 100% provide that evidence to the Minister of Sta…