The Select Committee on Transport and Communications has completed its consideration of the following Supplementary Estimate for Public Services for the service of the year ending on 31 December 2022: Vote 31. The Select Committee on Justice has completed its consideration of the following Supplementary Estimates for Public Services for the service of the year ending on 31 December 2022: Votes 20, 21, 22 and 24.

I totally agree that the role of the community welfare office is a vital one, so let us all put that to bed. I want to see more of them, and more of them within our communities meeting people face to face. There are 50 Intreo offices but if there are only 50 Intreo offices they can only cover a narrow geographical area. The impediment is that there are not enough community welfare officers interfacing with people on the ground. Is the Minister satisfied that every resident of the State has access, as needs be, to a…

I appreciate the Minister's commitment to service. I welcome the fact that the discretionary nature of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which is set out in statute, covers everything from household bills to child-related payments, clothing, funeral expenses and other general expenses, housing expenses, illness expenses and a multitude of other urgent needs payments. I welcome the assurances by the Minister - if I interpret her correctly - that she is going to protect those, and that no element of those t…

This is now a service where people are being forced into the Parnell Street office. It takes the service further away from the people. Will the Minister give an undertaking to conduct an analysis of the community welfare service as it relates to every part of the country? This will tell us whether the service is being delivered equally to all citizens.

I welcome that additional staff are being deployed. As someone who represents both an urban and rural constituency, I want to see the traditional, old-style, face-to-face interaction, and I believe that many others share this view. I take the point made by the Minister around the right of people to have access to a person where they can make an appointment. If, however, the caseload is 75,000 applications, give or take, per annum, if I interpret the Minister correctly, and if the staff quotient is about 412, the ca…

I know that.

How will the scheme announced under the Social Welfare Act 2020 in respect of uilleannn pipe makers work in practical terms? The Minister will recall that I very much welcomed this in the context of the Social Welfare Bill, which is before the House, and I tried to make a play for the hurley makers in a similar vein on the basis that the two are connected by dint of their status under UNESCO tangible heritage status. My question relating to hurley makers was disallowed so I am chancing my arm in asking this questio…

Gabh mo leithscéal. I did not hear the Chair.

I am aware that the Minister for Social Protection is very influential at the Cabinet so I implore her, following this discussion, to raise the issue with her colleague the Minister for Finance. With regard to hurling, there is a crisis with ash dieback at present and we seriously want to preserve the craft of hurley making. My own thinking on UNESCO intangible heritage status was influenced by no less a Clareman than Mr. Daniel McCarthy, who did a lot of work in the background in seeking such status. There have be…

I welcome the Minister's response to this and the Government's proactive approach to encouraging the craft of uilleann pipe making and its making of provisions in the tax code to ensure the survival of the craft. If the Government were of a mind to consider other crafts such as hurley making, it would be very much welcomed. If the Minister wishes to take up the cudgel or the hurl on that, she would have the support of all of us here.

The union SIPTU has brought to our attention a notice of strike action at Zenith Energy Bantry Bay Terminal Limited. That strike is to take place on Tuesday, 13 December. The Whiddy Island terminal has 17 oil storage tanks with a capacity of almost 9 million barrels and stores a significant portion of the State's oil reserves. It is a key reference site nationally. The National Oil Reserve Agency, NORA, is the State body with responsibility for maintaining our strategic supplies of oil and is one of the Whiddy term…

I am disappointed with the answer. The Whiddy Island terminal is fixed firmly in the consciousness of every citizen's mind as key in the security of energy supply. There would have been a time when somebody like me would have gotten up as a member of the Opposition to call on the Government to use its influence specifically in relation to a site like this. Zenith has a contract and owns the site. If they were driving a coach and four through the industrial relations architecture, an Opposition Deputy would have at …

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I wish her well with the new forestry programme that has been devised. We appreciate that it is a draft programme. One certainly perceives there has been a tremendous amount of energy put into forestry, certainly in recent months. The premiums for the proposed forestry programme, across the forestry types the Minister of State has outlined, indicate a significant increase, on the face of it, for those who will plant and grow trees. That is to be welcomed. I took possess…

Amendments Nos. 7, 8 and 11 are related and will be discussed together.

I thank the Deputy.

I thank the Deputy.

The Deputy will have an opportunity-----

The Deputy will have an opportunity to contribute again.

There will be ample opportunity for Deputies to come back in. Proposers of amendments may speak three times. There is plenty of time to make points. Please allow the Minister to continue without interruption.

On the grouping of amendments, it is my understanding that as we are discussing amendment No. 7, Deputy Boyd Barrett has the right to come back in for a third time. Other speakers have had their opportunity and the offer is to Deputy Boyd Barrett alone. That is the guidance I have received.