It is factually incorrect to say that there are none. There is a community engagement team in the Department of children and integration.

The Deputy knows the name of its head. That person is contactable by him, as an Oireachtas Member. I am sure the Deputy has their email address, as do I.

They should be in a position to come back to the Deputy. There should always be a good flow of information. I am happy to engage with the Deputy on the matter.

I thank Deputy Pringle for raising this issue. I will speak directly to the Minister for agriculture on this specific agreement and ask him to revert to the Deputy on the matter.

I very much remember from my time in the Departments of Health and Justice the excellent work that is done to seize these issues. We are continuing to beef up the resources to An Garda Síochána. As we increase the recruitment of gardaí, this will enable the Garda Commissioner to allocate more resources to those areas. I take very seriously the point the Deputy makes in terms of health, well-being and the dangers this presents to our population. I will certainly ask the Ministers for Justice and Health to send the D…

Deputy Andrews makes a very fair point. As he has said, investment in football creates a football industry and has a wider benefit for young people. I am very proud of some of the decisions we have made around serious investment in sports facilities. We will have the largest ever sports capital grants, €250 million, in September or October. There is also some large-scale capital funding coming. I am very happy to take from Deputy Andrews the information that was given at that briefing. I can ask the Minister of Sta…

I thank Deputy Durkan for raising this important matter. The best way forward on this is through the Judicial Council, which has now been established and provides a structure for issues such as sentencing guidelines. Some analysis and research will be carried out. The Deputy is quite right that the administration of justice in Ireland will greatly benefit from it.

Sure.

The Government has not made a decision yet on the timing of that referendum. I know the issues of patents and joining a unified patent court are important. The Government will give consideration to that in due course.

I thank Deputy Nash for raising this important issue. We have tried to put a focus on dereliction and vacancy through a range of grants to help local authorities and individuals to put properties back into use. I will seek an urgent update from the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, on the timeline for the Derelict Sites Act review. I look forward to having that meeting with Deputy Nash shortly on Drogheda.

The Deputy raised an important point. I will ask the Minister about it and speak directly to the LDA about it. We have developed a new model from scratch in relation to cost-rental and a new structure from scratch in relation to the LDA. Like Deputy Rabbitte, as the Minister of State with responsibility for disabilities, I am eager that all these schemes are inclusive in a real and meaningful way.

I will come back to the Deputy directly about it. It had not been brought to my attention.

Let me say, without commenting on any specific case for a variety of reasons, that anybody with a criminal conviction should not be a member of the Defence Forces, plain and simple. Its own rules refer to the fact that the dismissal process should begin for anyone who has been given a custodial sentence or a suspended sentence. The question I want answered is if that loop has been closed. How many people still in the Defence Forces today are concerned by that issue? We need that answer. The Tánaiste and I are progr…

We have a lot of work to do when it comes to getting to where we need to be in relation to refuge spaces and safe houses. The Minister has, as the Deputy said, established Cuan, the new statutory agency. It will, which is quite important, publish regular - I think monthly - progress reports in terms of how we get from where we are now to where we need to be. In relation to the specific issue the Deputy raised and the geographic issue, I will ask the Minister to come back to her directly.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 6, inclusive, together. Climate change is among the most pressing global challenges of our time and addressing it is a central ambition of the Government. As a committed partner in global efforts to combat this shared threat, Ireland has adopted challenging emissions reduction targets at both EU and national levels. We also face our own domestic challenge of adapting to the climate changes we are already experiencing and the more severe changes that we know are coming. The Cabi…

I thank the Deputies for raising these issues. Starting with Deputy Ó Murchú and the issue of Carlinn Hall in Dundalk, this is a matter he has raised before in the context of how we need to have a better support scheme for renewable energy and district heating and, ideally, for the optimal use of waste heat. I will speak directly to the Ministers involved in this regard and ask them to consider what the Deputy said. Turning to the issue raised by Deputy Barry, truthfully, I raised it as recently as this morning wit…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 7 to 18, inclusive, together. The Cabinet committee on housing last met on Thursday, 30 May. The committee is scheduled to meet again on Thursday, 11 July. The committee works to ensure a co-ordinated approach to the implementation of Housing for All and the programme for Government commitments regarding housing. At almost the midway point of the year, we are confident that the significant increase in the delivery of new homes in recent years will continue throughout this year. Over…

There are a lot of issues there. In direct answer to Deputy Durkan's question, and to a number of others, in terms of what we are doing and what we can do, we are building housing again at a level that we have not seen in a very long period. I know that cannot come fast enough for people looking for a roof over their head, people wondering if they can move out of the box room and people worried about insecure tenure, but there are real encouraging signs now. In the first five months of this year construction commen…

I had written that down. My apologies, I am trying to read my own handwriting. Deputy Ó Murchú said the affordable scheme needs to be looked at and reviewed. I will raise this specifically with the Minister, Deputy O'Brien.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 19 and 20 together. I was very pleased to have had the honour to meet with the Ambassador of the State of Palestine to Ireland on 6 June. The ambassador told me it was the first time a Palestinian representative had been welcomed to the office of the Taoiseach. The ambassador was very gracious in acknowledging the work of the Government and Ireland in the context of recognising the State of Palestine, describing the step we took jointly with Spain and Norway as a source of strength,…