I hope the Deputy had the good sense to tell that gentleman, her constituent, that she did not think he deserved a lump sum fuel allowance payment of €400 before Christmas. I hope she passed that on to him and if not, if he is watching, he might know that now.

There are people really struggling in this country and unfortunately, the Deputy's party got this one badly wrong. It criticised Ministers for doing dossiers recently. It would be no harm if Sinn Féin did a bit of preparation before it came up with its policies.

I thank Deputy Higgins for raising this very important issue and for engaging with me on an ongoing basis on it. The short answer is "Yes". We can expect that. The pilot has gone very well. We do not want to end up as one of those countries that has more pilots than an airline. When something actually works we should embed it and roll it out. We now provide these free period products across higher education. We have started a pilot in further education and it is my intention for that to be rolled out, subject to th…

The Deputy will certainly have it. I ask him to arrange for some people from that community to come to see me and we can talk about this. In both Cherry Orchard and Drogheda, we have really good models that are working. The challenge for the Government is to embed those models across the country. We intend to do that as part of the community safety partnership. I would be very happy to engage on this.

I fully agree that the Garda Reserve has an important role to play in supplementing Garda visibility in our communities. We want to get to at least 15,000 gardaí and we want to grow those numbers even further. The benefit of having another layer of people who can support communities is clear for all to see. The first priority was to open the new garda recruitment campaign. Almost 5,000 people said they would like to be a garda. We are going through that process now and it is my intention that later this year, proba…

I know this is an area Deputy Brady has an active interest in. I would say, as he said, that Mr. Ultan Courtney was engaged by the Local Government Management Agency, LGMA, at, I think, the behest of SIPTU. There were many facilitation discussions and I am told good progress was made, including progress on the provision of a revised model of retained fire service delivery that would provide for both effective service delivery and a suitable work-life balance, including structured time off. Mr. Courtney was not able…

I encourage all parties to get back into a room and to continue to engage constructively on resolving the outstanding industrial relations issues.

I thank Deputy MacSharry for his passionate contribution. I know he is a passionate advocate for the west. We have worked together to try to deliver real projects for Sligo and the north west, particularly regarding education. I will have to seek clarity for the Deputy about the N17. I will ask the Minister, Deputy Ryan, to revert directly to Deputy MacSharry.

I will revert directly to Deputy MacSharry. I would be delighted to.

I thank Deputy Cahill for raising this. I know he raised it in recent weeks. I will ask the line Minister to directly respond to him, or perhaps both the Minister for Finance and the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications. At a broad level, of course it is important that there is a level playing field and that any business activity in our country is tax compliant and complies with the laws of the land and policies of Government regarding climate. I will ask for a more detailed note from the releva…

I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh. I will pass her views on to the Minister for Health. We have provided an additional €15 million to oral health care services this year. I take the point about needing people in place to deliver the service. On workforce capacity, I am informed that we live in a country with more registered dentists than ever before, at 3,472 as of March 2023, which is an increase of 153 from the previous year. In my Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, we are loo…

I thank Deputy Violet-Anne Wynne for raising this important issue. Homelessness is a major issue that we are all working to challenge. Child homelessness is an issue that we all want to see real progress on. I will ask the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, to respond directly to the Deputy on that legislation but I assure her that every resource that is required to help ensure that we address child homelessness will be forthcoming.

I very much welcome the opportunity to be here today to discuss the publication of the Central Statistics Office, CSO, survey providing national prevalence figures on sexual violence in Ireland. I thank the House for facilitating this discussion. The Sexual Violence Survey 2022 focused on respondents' experiences of a broad spectrum of sexual violence and harassment experienced in their lifetime It is entirely appropriate that the Dáil has an opportunity to consider this important research. There is no doubt but th…

I think so, yes.

I might begin on refuge spaces, as they were an issue that came up throughout the debate. Deputies Murnane O'Connor, Funchion and many others across the House raised them. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle raised the issue with me on oral questions and I have an update to send to her trying to provide this detail. There are quite a few issues here, but two important ones. One is to map out where we are going with refuge spaces. All that has been done now and we know the priority locations. There has been work done by the D…

I thank my colleague and friend, Senator Ahearn, for raising this matter again. He has raised it on many occasions on behalf of the people of Clonmel. It is a huge issue for people and members of An Garda Síochána in the town. We need to provide the people of Clonmel and County Tipperary with this new Garda station in Kickham Barracks. It has been on the priority list for quite a while and has been identified as a key Garda project. As the Senator knows more than most, it has been included in a PPP with Macroom Gar…

Tipperary has such a proud tradition of supporting An Garda Síochána, with the Garda College based in Templemore. We saw another class of Garda recruits enter this week. This is a year when we will begin to see Garda numbers grow again after the Covid pandemic, with more people becoming members of An Garda Síochána than leaving it. That is happening in Templemore. It is so important that we provide the Garda with the right facilities. That is why we are going to roll out body cameras, have stronger sentences for pe…

I thank Senator Gallagher for raising this matter and, more important, for his ongoing work, leadership and advocacy on this. I thank him for meeting with me and my officials and the team in the Department of Justice on a number of dates and for constantly keeping this issue on the agenda. I share his view. I know, as Minister for Justice and as a former Minister for Health, that every day thousands upon thousands of people get up in the morning and put on a uniform, put themselves on the front line and, often, put…

I commend Senator Gallagher on his work, for using the Seanad to really try to bring forward good change, and using in a proper way the office he holds to try to bring forward positive legislative change which I believe will help keep our front-line workers, including members of An Garda Síochána, more safe as they go about their duty. It is also something which they, and their representative bodies, have sought. We can never accept living in a country where the ramming of a Garda vehicle, an ambulance or any other…

It is a great day for Clonmel. I can confirm, and I have confirmed by way of a statement, that we have made the decision to decouple both Clonmel and Macroom Garda stations from the PPP bundle. This means they will both be able to go direct to Exchequer-funded build and I expect Clonmel Garda station to go to construction next year.