Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. This was not in the programme for Government but we are doing it anyway because it has to be done. My thanks to the Minister of State for his swift action on this. The Bill is intended to resolve issues raised by Mr. Zalewski, who took a court case. We have to thank him for highlighting this anomaly in the legislation. It is good he has brought us to this today. It is good we are open to listening to people who stand up for their rights and highlight issues. It shows the Governmen…

I thank the Minister for all his work on this. People should be clear on the importance of cost rental and how we are pioneering something new for Ireland that has been done very well elsewhere. I commend Deputies Matthews and Duffy on their work on this. It is important to see when a smaller party can make a good contribution that can be listened to and taken on board. We appreciate the Minister's work on this. Social housing is a certain type of housing. Cost rental will also be available to people who do not qua…

The Minister is not getting off too lightly, unfortunately. When local authorities take over houses from private landlords under the HAP scheme, the standard is often a C3 building energy rating, BER. If the landlord does not live in the house, it may kind of be left up to the tenant to deal with that standard. With the cost-rental model, we should look at best practice regarding BERs in order that tenants will not have significant outgoings to heat their houses. If we are building new houses, they should all have …

We need to be clear that we are not misguiding people. This is not that complicated in respect of the Land Development Agency. Currently, we have a great deal of land all over Ireland and nobody knows who owns it or what we own. This agency will finally now enable all State land to be put on paper to see what we own, where it is and the best way we can use the land to get the houses. If one looks at land, it is the key component of housing. We, not us, but previous Governments, have made mistakes in the past by all…

-----but if they are all social and affordable houses, nobody can then ever own a private house. We must stop simplifying this into some kind of an "us and them" thing. It is about finding the land and building as many houses as soon as possible that are affordable and social. That is the top priority.

Is deas an rud an tAire a fheiceáil i gcomhair an lae fhada seo, lá stairiúil freisin, le cúnamh Dé. I thank Senator Lombard for his work on the amendment. It is really important that we are very clear about the process. There was a Citizens' Assembly and a climate committee that went on for ages. I found it interesting that the people who were shouting the most about the poor farmers were the ones who turned up least at the negotiations and at the climate committees. We have to be very careful how we spin this one…

We are going to stick to the amendments today because we have a lot to get through.

Amendments Nos. 10, 35 and 36 are related and may be discussed together by agreement. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Does Senator Wall wish to speak?

I am sorry.

I welcome the Minister of State. It is not an easy task trying to deal with housing. I welcome the Bill. It is definitely progress. Housing in Ireland is a complete mess. On top of the existing crisis, the pandemic has meant it has not been possible to build houses for more than a year, while there are also now issues with accessing materials. We could spend the whole day playing the blame game but the basic point is that we must deal with housing in some way. The establishment of the Land Development Agency is pro…

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. She has pressing matters to deal with so I thank her for taking my Commencement matter. She is probably as shocked as I am at the revelations from the internal Garda investigation into the cancellation of domestic violence 999 calls. When I got wind of it, I got really upset because I sit on the joint policing committee in Clare and we have seen domestic violence figures greatly increase during the Covid pandemic. We all know that existing supports badly need e…

I thank the Minister of State for her response. It is good that action is taking place. The Garda Commissioner had to apologise on behalf of the Garda Síochána. He was not personally responsible, but he is responsible for ensuring this never happens again. I hope we can retrieve the lost data to help to show the need for increased funding for the victims of domestic violence. I look forward to hearing with clarity about the training gardaí will be getting. It is not easy for a garda to deal with those situations an…

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. It is always great to see Ministers taking the time to come to the House to answer questions directly.

I want to talk briefly about two things. I hope the Leader might allow us to have a further proper discussion for the whole House because housing comes up repeatedly. What I see in my own county is lots of empty buildings and also lots of people doing Airbnb. I want to clearly distinguish between a person letting out a room in his or her house and one letting out a whole house because a whole house is a potential home for someone to rent and live in. A room in a house is in a person's home so it is a different thin…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. Is lá iontach é. Sometimes in politics you wonder why you bother. There can be tough days. You get a lot of grief and sometimes it is hard. It is important to celebrate wins and today is a definite win. We have been fighting for this for probably 20 or 30 years. I remember being in a school 14 years ago. We were talking about fossil fuels, cars and energy savings. They have electric detectives in many schools that take part in the Green-Schools programme. They have little badges a…

Perhaps we need to have a proper debate in the House about people-centred design in our villages and towns. As I cycled to the convention centre from the Liberties, something I have done since last July, I noticed how much the city has changed from full lockdown to opening up again. I had to cycle around a couple of trucks and vans. Things have changed a lot. I noticed that the quality of the air has vastly decreased. I was struck by the difference this morning. It led me to consider how instead of people we seem t…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. Is fear gnóthach é lena lán rudaí le déanamh, go háirithe leis an by-election, agus aviation agus gach rud eile. Níl mé ag cur moille air. This Bill is something I have dreamt of for 30 years. It is a time to thank people. The people I want to thank most are the children. It is the children who inspire us. When I hold babies I say to myself that we should keep going. They give us conviction and remind us of what we must do. We know most of us will not live to see the real repercussions …

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I do not envy her role as Minister of State with responsibility for aviation. I can only imagine how stressful it must be. Covid hit the country and aviation went wallop. All of a sudden it became the new Government's fault entirely. I hope the Minister of State gets to sleep at night sometimes and that she is not getting too much grief over it because it is absolutely not her fault that we are where we are.

It is important that we have a united message from the Government, which is why I was surprised to hear the Tánaiste saying that perhaps young people can go abroad but with no definition of what young people are, when we had just been telling everybody that unless people can rationalise it they probably should not travel. I was surprised by this because we have to have a united message and have it figured out. People want to know and most people want to do what they are told and follow the best advice. We need the …