The Minister of State is very welcome to the Chamber today. The Government's Housing for All plan was published on 2 September 2021. It is a proposed roadmap for housing in the State up to the year 2030 and it sets out to make renting and purchasing affordable, eradicate homelessness, increase housing supply and ensure efficient use of existing housing stock. It is the most recent instalment in a series of plans, strategies and roadmaps since 2011 which have sought to fix the Irish housing market in the wake of the…

Senator-----

I thank Senator Kyne. The Senator is lucky that the Cathaoirleach, Senator Mark Daly, is not here today.

I thank Senator Buttimer. The Minister of State may be aware of this and I want to let Senator Buttimer know there is an rural development fund, RDF, of €50 million that local authorities can apply for through Europe. It is called innovative actions and local authorities can apply for that in respect of urban spaces within large cities and large towns. I call the Minister of State.

Go ahead.

I thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive statement. Is it agreed that the House be suspended until 7 p.m.? Agreed.

I thank the Chairman. "Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is forcing Ireland to rethink its long tradition of military neutrality." This is not the conjecture of some online theorist, or the fear-mongering of a political radical, but it is a quote from our Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs. Speaking last week he said that public opinion may not be ready but he thought that a citizens’ assembly might take a look at the question with a view to amending the national stance of non-membership of milit…

I have just come from a sobering EU affairs meeting on the energy crisis. We all thought that we had been heading into just one winter of challenges, but it seems that we can expect those challenges to last for a number of winters to come. I want to raise the visit of the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, to Washington DC, in his role as president of the Eurogroup, to oversee a meeting of the International Monetary Fund, IMF, which happened alongside meetings of the World Bank and multiple G7 meetings. At this …

I thank the Minister for coming in. I know how busy he is. It is always good to have the Minister for Finance here. I always say that governments do not create employment, but that they create the environment for employment. Taking away the 9% VAT rate will not be a good environment for continuing employment. This Government published the tourism recovery plan for 2020 to 2023 in October 2020. A total of 75% of spending on Irish tourism relies on foreign investors. A total of 100,000 people in accommodation and foo…

In the past few days, two pieces of news have caught my attention. They are two linked items that give rise to some discrepancies. The first is the seizing of a mansion in Saggart by the Criminal Assets Bureau from the Mansfields on account of it effectively being owned by Daniel Kinahan. Second is the announcement yesterday by the Minister, Deputy McEntee, that €2 million sourced from the proceeds of crime is to be invested into community projects. The use of cash criminal proceeds in this way is to be lauded inde…

I thank Minister Gavan. I should say Senator Gavan; I nearly gave him a promotion.

I call Senator Pauline O'Reilly of the Green Party.

I thank the Senator for his contribution. He is a wonderful advocate in the House for the disability sector. I call on Senator Murphy and I am sorry to have kept him waiting.

It is very nice to see Senator Gallagher in the Leader's chair today. I certainly hope he is elevated to it one day very soon.

I unfortunately missed the speeches of Senators Doherty and Seery Kearney earlier but I will definitely support the Bill they spoke about. I wish to raise the recent clusters of meningitis and septicaemia in Limerick, Dublin and Galway, which are very concerning. We have had a number of deaths with cases appearing in young adults as opposed to children under the age of five, where these infections are usually found. Those with knowledge of meningitis know just how vital it is to catch it in the early stages before …

The Minister of State is welcome. I am glad the Bill, which I welcome, is before the House. It allows for money to be put back into households around the country and it will be received gladly. This is a technical Bill to establish the new electricity credit scheme. The big question in the minds of many leading up to the Bill and when the scheme was announced in the budget is whether households that are on pay-as-you-go arrangements with their energy supplier will be included in the scheme and benefit from it. It w…

I support the motion and commend the Senators from the Green Party for bringing it forward. The benefits of breastfeeding to both babies and mothers are well documented internationally. I was surprised by the figure in the motion that we only have 62.3% of babies in Ireland being breast-fed at birth. This is far behind most of the western hemisphere. I appreciate that the motion recognises the medical necessity of formula-based milk for some babies and infants but it is true that the industry has got out of hand an…

I thank the Minister of State for coming into the House. The issue on the table is the exclusion of those aged 18 to 20 from participating in the community employment, CE, scheme. It is generally accepted that the Government should reward the behaviour we want to encourage in our citizens, and being an active citizen in our economy is one such behaviour we should champion. While this has been the case for years, the events of budget 2023 led me to think about what message the Government is trying to achieve through…

I thank the Minister of State. Why are almost 20,000 people under the age of 25 unemployed? Can they not avail of the Tús, JobPath and work placement programmes?

Of course they can but if that is what the Minister is proposing, why are we encouraging them by giving them more money – an extra €12 – through the budget? They are not being encouraged to work. They are being given an extra €12 per week to stay in unemployment, to remain as a jobseeker, when we should be encouraging them to get on the programmes. In fact, the longer they are on jobseeker’s allowance, the more we should decrease their payments. I would like to live in a society in which everyone who is able partic…