I want to speak first on the investment in local regional and national secondary roads, specifically in regard to the town of Mallow, where €300,000 has been allocated to progress the northern relief road. I know the Minister of State met the mayor of County Cork and senior officials of Cork County Council recently, where they made the case for the full allocation of approximately €1 million-plus to be made to progress that plan to the planning application stage. My colleague, Councillor Eoghan Kenny, received corr…

Before I call Deputy Cathal Crowe, we are ahead of schedule because one of the speakers did not show up so there is a little bit of latitude for every speaker who goes over time.

If it is within her gift, I ask the Minister to request that the national judging committee of the Tidy Towns competition allow for judging to take place a little later than normal, given the existence of posters which might serve as a mitigating factor in the judging criteria. I am unsure whether posters are such a factor but I am asking for a little bit of headroom while the election campaign is under way.

I thank the Minister for her reply. Tidy Towns committees throughout the country will take comfort from her reply insofar as there is that communication between the Minister's officials and SuperValu Tidy Towns. It will not be lost on SuperValu and the Musgrave Group that customers are voters and voters are customers, and I am sure they will allow for that. At least there is clarity of communication around the rules governing when posters can go up and when they need to be taken down, which is welcome. At least the…

I thank the Minister. I stand before her as someone who will not be putting up any more posters on my own behalf. I wholeheartedly support the idea of postering. Perhaps it is easy for me to say this now, given that incumbency is a powerful thing, but when one is trying to get in the door of places like this, the poster is important, as is visibility, and there is a place for it. I share the Minister's sentiment in that regard.

The Minister of State has provided some clarity. I seek further clarity, and forgive me if I sound pedantic in what I am about to say. I will stand corrected if I am wrong. I again ask the Minister of State to clarify section 148(2) which states, "A licensee may not offer a person or specific group of persons an inducement". Do I take it that the practical outworkings of that, where you have vulnerable people in particular who are addicted to gambling, are that offering free bets or a free €5 bet will now be outlaw…

What the Minister of State is saying is that the primary legislation is very clear about inducements. It is worth reiterating because concerns have been expressed by people that a licensee may not offer a person or specific group of persons an inducement. The Minister of State has clarified that.

I again seek clarity about the making of the regulations. There must be some thinking or draft document, even if it is a very early draft. There must be some paper available on what the regulations would look like. As was articulated by Deputy Daly, if the Minister of State has already set out very specific asks or points in section 148, one would assume the Department would have at least draft regulations or some note on what the thinking would be on the regulations.

That is just not true. It is a false statement.

I congratulate Deputy Higgins on her appointment as Minister of State. I wish her well in the role and I hope that she will have a good, long sojourn in the Department. It is appropriate that the Minister of State is here. Although she may not be the line Minister for this issue, she is the Minister of State in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment with responsibility for business, employment and retail. The issue of demographics is writ large across the issue being discussed. It will have a massive lo…

I want to address three issues in the time afforded to me. First is the inspections regime of local authorities for private rented accommodation. I recently tabled a parliamentary question in which I asked how many inspections were carried out across all of the local authorities. The latest figures from Cork County Council, for example, show that from quarter 1 to quarter 3 of 2023, there were 1,447 inspections, from which 1,273 total improvement letters were issued. In comparison, in Dublin City Council, there wer…

Why are the cancellations happening? Something is going wrong in the system.

Tell that to the people of Limerick whose procedures have been cancelled.

Why are they being cancelled?

I share some of Deputy Naughten's concerns. The issue of a unified patent court has been sloshing around in the Minister's Department since I was a Minister of State, which is now several years ago. In my humble opinion, the proposed wording is very vague. We are in the business of politics and it is the responsibility of the political system to tease out the wording further. Why would anyone vote for the wording as it is constituted at present? It gives rise to much confusion. The other issue, which may have been …

The Minister has spoken about the composition of the board and that is what the amendment is about here. We had some deliberations about the rights of researchers. I was satisfied on Committee Stage with the Minister's response on that point. I would have liked it to have been a bit stronger, if I may, but we had amendments to that effect. However, there was always a long-standing protocol whereby the board would be comprised of people of international standing. I am hopeful the Minister will give us some comfort t…

I just want to confirm that we are speaking on amendments Nos. 2 to 6, inclusive.

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. On amendment No. 6, I have listened carefully to Deputy Boyd Barrett. I am about to do an unusual thing and ask the proposer of the amendment if he is suggesting that preserving and supporting the independence of academic and research institutions is now to be a matter for Taighde Éireann? In law, will that be its remit? If that is the case, what is the role of, for instance, the National University of Ireland, NUI? Does that become subservient in terms of the remit of any academi…

I will speak to that later. That is the question I have.

I accept the Minister's answer on this. I am just concerned that we do not create a situation where a research funding body is given a remit that supersedes long-established practice. I daresay most of us have benefited from the practice or have experience of interfacing with institutions like HEIs and we recognise that academic independence. I just do not want to see anything in law that would potentially compromise that.