This Government is spearheading a substantial shift in how the State delivers building projects in third level education. Essentially, PPP is a misleading name for an agreement where a developer delivers a project and the Government agrees to pay every year for 25 years for the right to use the building. It is essentially build to rent for the Government. It is good for the developer, but bad for the public. We have not seen their use in third level education since the last time Fianna Fáil was in government. Now a…

The Minister will remember that we discussed in the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach the Carillion example and what it cost people. This has major implications for finances for the State for the next 25 years. One contract signed in 2020 was valued at almost €600 million. These contracts typically mean that the public pays a lot for very little control. We cannot even have a real debate due to the complete lack of transparency and accountability. I cannot access the estimate …

Yes, I have ten minutes and Deputy Ó Laoghaire has five minutes. I would like to thank the Minister and everyone involved in making Science Week happen. It is a wonderful initiative that provides a great chance to recognise and celebrate the role of science in our everyday lives. One of the key themes of this year’s Science Week was the initiative Creating our Future being run by Science Foundation Ireland. Creating our Future will ask people and communities across Ireland to submit ideas on what researchers can do…

I move: That Dáil Éireann: notes that: — State-led strategic infrastructural investment is essential for the social and economic growth of our villages, towns, and cities and to ensure balanced regional development and increase connectivity; — the network of 94,000 kilometres of regional and local roads across the State provide vital connectivity to rural Ireland; — the State’s regional airports carried 5.45 million passengers in 2019 and reports from 2016 and 2019 demonstrate that Cork, Shannon and Ireland West Ai…

I thank all my colleagues, including Deputy O'Rourke and others from rural constituencies, who have worked on bringing this motion forward. As others, across parties, have said, it was a shock to read the national development plan and realise that the map Deputy Mac Lochlainn talked about was not going to change. I thank all the other speakers. I have listened intently to everybody's contribution and rarely has there been such consensus across the House on what we need to do. We have to examine who is in the Govern…

I support the contribution of my Sinn Féin colleague, Deputy Mac Lochlainn, on the fishing industry and the treatment of our fishing families. It is absolutely scandalous. As he said, we are the laughing stock of the EU. Fishing communities all around this country are being destroyed. Fishing communities in my own county of Mayo are being decimated and the Government is standing by and watching this happen. It has to stop. Yesterday, an electricity provider announced its fifth price increase of the year. Every hous…

The Finance Bill sets out the tax measures that accompany the budget. Taking up the point raised by the previous speaker, the Bill has been neither future-proofed, gender-proofed nor rural-proofed. For most ordinary people, this is all just an abstract exercise. It certainly does not help to build us back better after the pandemic. The Finance Bill reflects a Government that is out of touch with hard-working people who are crippled by the cost of living. That is the main message I am getting back from people. Deput…

Why would someone who is not working be asked to do a 12-hour shift, unless they really are working? The fact is that students plug the gaps left by a failure to invest in staffing levels. Political pressure played a key role at the beginning of the summer in securing just €100 a week to pay student nurses for the work they did during the pandemic. I wish to commend all of the students who have tirelessly campaigned, and the INMO and the Union of Students in Ireland, USI, for the work they have done on this issue. …

What are the Minister's plans for the future of the beef task force and what consideration has been given to extending its remit in order to secure a fair price for beef farmers? Is the Minister satisfied it has achieved the transparency and equity it set out to achieve?

One of the key tasks that needs to be undertaken is a comprehensive analysis of the impact of factory-owned feedlots in the market, including their impact on the prices and effect on the environment. Figures released by the Department indicate the numbers originating from feedlots has increased drastically. The number of cattle originating from units with feedlot status during the first eight months of 2021 was 224,000, and that puts this year's potential overall kill for animals originating from controlled finishi…

I thank the Minister. Despite the achievements to date, there is still a clear trend for an ever-increasing share of intensive farming driving out the family farms. That is what we are concerned about in the west of Ireland. The other clear trend over the past number of years is for beef prices to get ever lower. The Minister might say for a moment in time, they have increased, but the continued growth of the factory feedlot presents an existential threat to the Irish beef product. Consumers from all over the world…

I thank the Regional Group for initiating this legislation. It dates from 2017 and it is now 2021. That speaks for itself. Many elements in this Bill must be implemented and it is urgent that it passes quickly. I note what this legislation states about the need for joined-up services. I refer to a communication the HSE sent to a young man with autism who is aged 22. It stated that he had been selected for a review of his eligibility for a medical card or a GP card. How must that feel for a 22-year-old man with auti…

First, I want to warmly congratulate the Minister and his wife, Caoimhe, on the birth of your son, Cillian. As the mother of two boys, I know the great joy that can bring and I wish you all well. The student accommodation emergency is now at crisis point. I am being contacted by students and families with real-life stories of travelling up to seven hours a day to attend college because they cannot afford accommodation near the place where they study. Students are couch-surfing and staying in hotels and in overcrowd…

I thank the Minister. I think Owen Keegan’s comments were more than a lack of understanding. I think it was absolute contempt for the students and for the situation they are in. I hope the Minister will join with me in asking for his resignation. I am going to join students today when they are demonstrating at 1 p.m. outside Dublin City Council to make their feelings known on this. I was absolutely shocked, in all honesty. When Seán in my office contacted me about it, I said: “You can’t re-tweet that” and “You can’…

We are in the middle of an emergency and a crisis. I appreciate that the Minister says those things will be done. However, we had a chance to stop the conversion of student accommodation in 2016 and the Government did not do that. Those in the Government need to have a bit of humility, hold up their hands and say, “We did not act although we could have seen this coming as we knew we were going to be in this situation this year”. For the students who are now travelling for hours, couch-surfing, living in overcrowded…

Why is there such wide variation in the amount of on-campus time that students get in different colleges and universities? Students are coming back to me who say they are paying full fees, have paid for their accommodation up-front and were promised an experience by the Minister, and now find that they have as little as one to three hours on campus in a week, even for study time. This has to be sorted.

I think we have a problem and I am not sure the Minister recognises it. I ask him to re-examine this matter on the basis of the correspondence I am getting from students and parents. I have been contacted by a mother in Ballybunion who has one student in first year instrument engineering and another in third year biomedical engineering. Both are paying full fees of €6,000, and €12,000 for accommodation. One of them is getting one afternoon a week on a Tuesday as in-person face-to-face learning at Munster Technologi…

I am very concerned about students' mental health and well-being. What is coming back to me is that many of them feel they have been misled and are disappointed, as are their parents and families. I ask the Minister to send a communication to all the third level institutions to ask them to do more and to have another look at this because it is an issue. I would not bring it to him before the House if it was not an issue that was ending up on my desk. I ask him to use October as an opportunity for the institutions t…

I am glad we are discussing this topic, about which the Minister has heard me contribute many times previously, because one of the greatest tragedies is what we lose out on when we do not invest properly in young people with disabilities. I am glad the Minister referred to the Minister of State with responsibility for special education, Deputy Madigan. I welcome this initiative and others that will follow but we must address the issues at second level. I know of a 15-year-old boy with autism who has not been at sch…

There are aspects of this budget I welcome. The Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, has just outlined some of them in respect of apprenticeships and other elements of further education. The litmus test for the apprenticeships will be if the backlog is cleared. We will be monitoring it very closely to ensure it is done. This is the second time a budget has failed utterly to address the chronic underfunding of higher education. It is one, if not the key, issue most of us thought the Department of Further and Hig…