I have a very simple question for the Minister of State. What are her views on how farmers should dispose of cuttings from hedge trimming on their lands. There have been some alterations to the rules. Perhaps she would enlighten me as to what farmers can do because there is a lot of confusion out there.

I seek clarification in light of the fact that farmers are reading various things and there is much confusion. How long more will the regulations allow for the burning of the trimmings? The Minister of State referred to alternatives. I was at a meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight yesterday evening. One of the IFA representatives told us about a farmer in the south who was doing a good job with his cuttings. He was mulching them and creating fertiliser for the ground. He sold the surplus to his neighbour…

I thank the Minister of State for the clarity regarding the derogation. Do we have sight of what the proposals are and how they will be implemented? Will there be a cost implication for farmers arising from these methods? If so, how will farmers be supported in carrying out the disposal under the green measures the Minister of State is proposing?

I also tabled a question on this matter. Galway Wool was set up by Ms Blatnaid Gallagher. That is an example of where there is huge potential in wool. As Deputy McNamara said, it is not so much that wool is almost useless at the moment, it is worse than useless because it costs more to shear a sheep than the price one gets for the wool. Back in the day, wool was a big source of income for a small family farm in the west of Ireland. I applaud the fact that wool council is there but we need to create a sense of urgen…

A very large number of applications are being made for onshore wind turbine projects but the planning guidelines were produced in 2006 and need to be updated. Will applications for these planning permissions be suspended until the guidelines are updated?

I thank the Minister of State. There are two projects in my constituency at the moment where the size of the turbines is far beyond anything that was contemplated back in 2006. Further information has come from research on the noise. It is called sonic noise, which is a silent noise that affects people. There is also the question of the proximity to residents. All of this information is coming out in the vacuum. Where there are hundreds of houses within 1 km of one of these projects, the Minister of State can just …

I can assure the Minister of State that, on the two projects I am dealing with at the moment, it is a box-ticking exercise. The first that people knew about it was when a letter came in the door. There was a public meeting coming up, and the day before the public meeting, another drop was put into letter boxes. Any engagement with the agent has consisted of comments such as “I do not know” or “I will come back to you”. I rang the agent for one of the projects about six months ago. I posed six questions and still aw…

The Croí Cónaithe scheme is very good, and I congratulate the Government on bringing it in. It is helping and beginning to take off. There is a lot of interest in my office about it and many are inquiring about it. There are a few anomalies in the scheme, as is the case for all schemes. The first relates to the fact that a house has to have been vacant for two years. There are cases where an older person has passed away and the house has been handed over to a child, grandchild or whoever, and they want to renovate …

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. There is one other anomaly in that a house must have been built before 1993. There are lots of houses built since then that are vacant because they were never completed. People emigrated because they ran out of work or whatever when the economy went bust. The houses are there, and there is potential to create more living accommodation. I return to the point I made about the exemption from planning. I saw an example yesterday whereby permission was refused for the convers…

I want to raise the issue of the residential zoned land tax. It has created a huge amount of confusion for many farmers who have land which is adjacent to or inside the boundaries of these local area plans. In Galway, the Tuam local area plan is now being done for the next five years. We have the same thing in Ballinasloe, Gort and a few other places. The people who own these lands are farming the lands, or they at least have farmers who are farming them. Their concern is these lands are now being put on public dis…

Just for clarity, phase 2 land cannot be developed, full stop, until all of phase 1 land has been used up. There should be no liability to any owner of that land while it remains in phase 2. That needs to be set out clearly because a tax cannot be put on something when somebody is not making it available because it is not going to be used. My other concern about all of this, going back to the discussion we had about housing, is that we are trying to zone more land to make sure the price of land for development come…

That is the key.

I refer to housing and the Croí Cónaithe scheme. That scheme is fantastic and is beginning to take off and bring houses back into use. There are a number of issues around the scheme. First, the rule that a house has to be vacant for two years is causing a problem, especially in cases where people have passed away and the house is being passed to a family member. Some of these houses are in disrepair and need to be done up. That is something which must be looked at. The other problem relates to the 30-year rule, nam…

Picking up where Deputy Naughten left off, regarding the warmer homes scheme, this is a fantastic one for people in fuel poverty. There is no doubt about it. The problem with it is the timeframe in which an application is processed and a building energy regulation, BER, assessment done. By the time the work gets done on a house, it will probably have taken about 18 months or longer.

We are talking about a length of time that is unacceptable. It would be good if we were going to be as quick with these types of schemes as we were to shut down Lanesborough and Shannonbridge power stations. To give the House another bit of history in this regard, this situation reflects what we did with the sugar beet industry. We made a decision, based on some desktop survey that was done, that closing down the sugar beet industry was the right thing for this country, for Europe and for people in general. What we…

This energy crisis is impacting everyone. I am fearful of the future. I refer to how we are driving people in every which way to use electricity, be it to heat their homes, using heat pumps, using electric vehicles and other transport. The question is how we are going to manage the supply of this energy in the future. We must plan for an increase in population. I know young couples who built houses and who went down the route of putting in heat pumps. They did everything right and in accordance with the regulations…

I acknowledge the Minister's appraisal of our motion as balanced. We acknowledge that progress is being made and the work that is being done by everyone involved. I could make a number of comments to the Minister at this juncture, and not all negative. We have great potential to develop pre-hospital services rapidly. One area is the paramedics themselves. Their career path needs to be developed so that they are trained to do more medical work in the communities. They are not just ambulance drivers any more. We have…

This is the first time I have had an opportunity to speak to the Minister of State since she assumed her role. I wish her all the best with it. She is taking on a very important portfolio. It is important that we work together within the House. The legislation she is introducing is to be welcomed. I concur with the remarks about her predecessor as Minister of State responsible for this area, Deputy Fleming, who did a lot of the spadework. We all know about the credit union movement. We know how it was founded and h…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. At the outset, I declare my own interest in that I am a landlord. We talk about evictions and we demonise landlords because we are trying to portray landlords as the cause of all our housing problems. The opposite is borne out by the fact that landlords are actually selling any properties they have because they cannot continue to work in a system where they are being accused of everything and not being supported in anything. I have seen cases where tenants have been i…

I support the amendments Deputy Boyd Barrett tabled. In any scheme we are doing, it is important that decisions are made by the chief deciding officer. The Bill says it will be done as quickly as possible, but we have all seen in the past where that gets diluted because, as quickly as possible, it is left open ended. It is important we put a timeframe on that. It would be reasonable to do so, especially in view of the fact that what we are trying to do here is to give redress to people who are at an age where they …