Nothing.

Will this be the same as retail companies?

There are no extra payments for-----

Waterways Ireland was established in the late 1990s as a cross-Border authority responsible for the management of the inland navigable waterways. Its corporate and business plans are approved by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage here. In February 2022, Waterways Ireland stated to the then Oireachtas Committee on Public Petitions that it was only in 2021 that it had established a group to focus exclusively on first registration. At that time, only 52% of its property portfolio was registered o…

Last June, a report by the Ombudsman for Children's office stated that it was his view that any failure to include children with special educational needs, SEN, within the mainstream school system for any reason other than to facilitate their effect education constitutes discrimination. What engagement has the Department had with relevant stakeholders and what additional steps will be taken this year to ensure that all children with special educational needs have an appropriate school place for the coming September…

I think we can all agree that the scenes last year of desperate parents begging and pleading for their child to have access to what is a very basic right, namely, a school place, was utterly disgraceful. In my constituency, parents whose children had autism took to the streets with placards in desperation. Athlone Community College then had an additional class opened to accommodate six children. That does not mean we are not going to have a situation again this year where children are forced to travel outside of th…

I am well aware of what exists in my constituency. I am also well aware of the experiences parents are continuing to have. I referenced the Ombudsman for Children's report last year. Today we read that of the 1,812 complaints to that office in 2022, education accounted for 30%. The report specifically references the many barriers children are facing in education, and special education in particular. The Minister of State mentioned SENOs and the NCSE. There is not a parent of a child with additional needs that I kno…

Every year, parents are asked and sometimes demands are made of them for voluntary contributions, as schools try to bridge the gap between education grants and outgoings. Given the cost-of-living crisis that has gripped this State, what engagement has the Minister's Department had with schools regarding the payment of voluntary contributions by parents?

Where is a school meant to go when there is a shortfall between funding from the Department and its outgoings? There are two givens every year when it comes to back-to-school conversations among parents. One is the ironic statement that we have free education and the other is the equally ironic so-called voluntary contributions. It is ironic because in reality we know that they are neither voluntary nor a contribution. Sinn Féin introduced the Education (Voluntary Contributions) Bill 2021 to place a statutory oblig…

Is the Minister aware that the Society of St. Vincent de Paul has commissioned Grant Thornton to conduct a survey to identify the current gaps in funding for all categories of post-primary schools? Last August, the organisation received 30 calls per hour from desperate parents. Fast forward to this year and schools and those in charge of their administration are finding it increasingly difficult to plug the gap in simply running a school. Whatever little reserves they had are being whittled down to nothing. The pre…

At the end of March, the Minister announced the primary and special schools schoolbooks grant. Can she give us details on the processes that her Department engaged in to determine the decided-upon level of the schoolbook grant for 2023 at a rate per capita of €96?

The Minister had two minutes to answer, but she only spent about 15 seconds addressing the question, which was about the process. What was the basis of assessment, what benchmarking was done, what market research was carried out and what costings were done? I hear what the Minister said regarding the three-year pilot and a range of data, but what I am looking for is the actual range of data. If the Minister is expecting €96 to cover schoolbooks, workbooks, copybooks, pencils, pens, erasers, sharpeners, colouring pe…

The Minister spoke about the three-year pilot programme and the information on same is available on the Department's website. That information makes clear reference to classroom resources, which goes beyond schoolbooks, workbooks and copybooks. It specifically mentions that the money is not for swimming lessons, for example. Of the range of data compiled and correlated over the three years, what was done to take into account the rapidly rising costs associated with school utilities? As I stated earlier, ring binder…

Unfortunately, this was a situation where housing was delivered first and the transport has lagged behind. Since this train station closed in the 1960s, the area has seen a massive rise in population of approximately 300%. About 8,000 people live within 5 km of this station. If you extrapolate from those figures, the population numbers get higher and higher. The line is there. It already exists. What is lacking to provide a reliable and sustainable mode of public transport for people in that area is for the trains …

Given its location, it would service more than the town of Killucan.

It is a simple question. Where are people going to go?

What I have heard in the Minister of State's speech is essentially what the local authorities are saying on the ground. It is not his responsibility; it is the local authority's responsibility. In the case of the local authorities they tell people they are not refusing homeless support because they have told them to go to Midlands Simon Community. That is not tangible support. People cannot live in guidance documents. They cannot live in workshops, worthy as they may be. It does not take a mathematician to work out…

Last year, the Government promised to deliver 4,000 affordable homes. It failed and failed miserably. Instead, just over 1,700 homes were delivered across all affordable housing delivery streams. This is a shocking indictment and again shows that the Government is failing to ensure that people can access affordable homes to rent and to buy. Coming up to its third year in office, what my constituents hear very clearly coming from the Government parties is that they are simply incapable of responding to this crisis w…

I commend all of those who engaged in this process, those who supported them and those who showed persistence, bravery and determination to see the Defence Forces reform and be better. They have been vindicated in this stark and harrowing report. Some of them are in the Public Gallery. I acknowledge the level of detail the independent review group delved into while conducting its work to produce this report. I thank the group. There must be a starting point in this process, not only in terms of the Permanent Defenc…

Following the ceremonial handover of two inshore patrol vessels from New Zealand, will the Minister update the House on the estimated additional crew, by rank, required to put these vessels to sea and the duration and location of any familiarisation and training for crew before they can enter service?