I welcome the Minister of State and I acknowledge her commitment to this area. She has been a fantastic ambassador and has worked really well on some really tough cases that I have personally brought forward to her. We have a different scenario down in my part of the world where we have agencies involved in respite. The Minister of State knows exactly what I am talking about. I am talking about places like CoAction, Cope and Brothers of Charity. They provide the respite services rather than the HSE directly, which …

My Commencement matter asks the Minister for Education to make a statement on whether she has plans to introduce an awareness campaign for post-primary schools to highlight the dangers of vaping and e-cigarettes. This is a very significant issue that has emerged in recent years as to where we are with e-cigarettes and vaping. While I was at the young scientist exhibition, which is a wonderful affair, and we have all had the opportunity to be there, I met wonderful students from a school in Dunmanway. They had a fan…

I thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive response. It is very important that we make submissions on this and engage. By 2025, we will hopefully have an appropriate framework in place in order that teachers can engage with students and are empowered to deliver this programme. It is a changing world. Vaping was not an issue four or five years ago but it is a significant issue now. I compliment the students in Dunmanway on their work and engaging with the pupils in their school to come up with these results…

I wish Tom Hickey the very best of luck in his retirement. I did not realise he was moving on. He has been a fantastic civil servant and he will be a deep loss to the House. I raise the issue of the ACRES payment in the agriculture sector. The ACRES payment is really important for small farmers and they need to make sure they get money for this scheme. They were supposed to get paid last October but they know they will not get paid until February and it has been indicated today that they may not get paid until Marc…

This Commencement matter relates to affordable housing in Kinsale. It is a wonderful part of the world that has been blessed in many ways by history and geography. It is the second biggest town in Cork South-West. Its population increased by 13.6% between the two most recent censuses, compared with an average of 8.1% nationally. The population is now almost 6,000 people. It is a significant town, particularly in the context of the size of west Cork. An affordable housing scheme is very much required in the town. Un…

Indeed.

I thank the Minister of State for a comprehensive response on the housing scheme in Kinsale. The information I was looking was outlined towards the end of her contribution, whereby the affordable housing scheme is going to be advertised by quarter 4 of 2024. In a year's time, therefore, we will have the first phase of that scheme, which is really positive news for the people of Kinsale. We have been talking, debating and trying to get this scheme over the line for many years. The site was originally bought in 2001,…

Maybe she will respond.

I thank the Chair. It is wonderful to have the opportunity to have three minutes to speak in the Chamber. I want to raise the issue of the knackeries and where matters stand at the moment. We have a significant issue in Ireland whereby there is a dispute between the people who collect fallen animals and the people who render the animals. All knackeries in Ireland are effectively closed. We have a build-up of fallen animals in rural Ireland. I spoke to individuals in west Cork earlier about the fact that more than 3…

That is a rarity.

If I could get the three minutes, it would be great. The second issue is in regard to a briefing we will be having in the audiovisual room this afternoon. This is about trying to ensure that we can get money for new medicines. We are having a significant briefing as we have patient advocates and the industry coming in and they will inform us on what is out there on the market, and what is available in the private insurance companies and is not available in the public system. We have a two-tier health system. We hav…

I thank the House for changing this Commencement debate around. It is hard to believe it takes five hours to travel here from my part of the world to this House. I raise the issue of school places in Clonakilty. I raised this issue with the Minister of State nearly 12 months ago. The population in Clonakilty has grown quite significantly since 2016. The census shows an 11.3% increase in the population. We need to see major investment in school places. I speak mainly about what is happening at Clonakilty Community C…

I welcome the acknowledgement of what is happening in Clonakilty. This is not rocket science. If 120 kids are coming in and 100 are going out, there is a deficit of places. There is an increase of 20 in the number of kids going to the school. We need a short-term measure to be put in place to ensure these kids will be catered for. That is the first and basic thing. The census and county development plan show there will be another 1,800 people living in Clonakilty by 2028. What does that mean? It means there will be…

That last debate needs to be looked at, Chair.

If I can. It is more of a minor issue than our serious debate of the past few minutes. I concur with my colleague from Clare and the Cathaoirleach’s good self on what is happening at the GAA. I fundamentally oppose the proposal concerning GAAGO. It makes no logical sense that three of Cork’s four games, or potentially all four, will now be pay-per-view. The GAA has lost its core principles. I attended the AGM of my local club last Thursday. There were 32 or 33 people in the room. That community is the GAA. They are…

I welcome the Minister of State. I acknowledge that the budget has been a very popular one. It has gone down well with the general public and I want to acknowledge the package that has been put in place. I will mention a few things within the budget. In particular, I want to talk about the residential zone tax. We realise the residential zone tax was put in place because there was an issue out there with land hoarding in some locations. However, the farming community who have been actively farming this land for gen…

I believe there should be a debate on local government and where we are going with this issue. Nine and a half years ago, we had really significant reforms and we moved away from the town council model. I spent most of yesterday meeting constituents in west Cork. Those reforms had a huge impact on west Cork because either town councils or urban district councils, UDCs, were in Kinsale, Bandon, Clonakilty, Skibbereen or Bantry. We had a network of town councils and UDCs and it was a mistake to move away from this mo…

I welcome our visitors to the Gallery. I welcome this important legislation. It is something I have been watching very closely in particular over the past three or four years. There are many aspects to it. The organ donor aspect has been debated and spoken about quite clearly in the Chamber. I wish to focus my attention on the coroners element of it. Unfortunately, as the Minister is very aware, we had an incident in my part of Ireland where 18 families found out that the organs of their babies were kept and dispos…

The Minister of State is more than welcome. I am raising the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, and the issue we have with time-sensitive applications and delays in the system. TAMS is a very important scheme for the agricultural community. It provides grant aid and helps to ensure we modify our systems to become more appropriate. We have schemes for solar farms, low emissions, slurry spreading and tillage, which is also a very important scheme. There is also the dairy scheme. We need to make sure th…

I welcome what the Minister of State said about the applications that have been moved forward regarding the slurry storage, which prove it can be done. The dairy equipment scheme element of that is the key issue here. It is a time-sensitive module of the scheme. It is sensitive because 95% of our cows are spring calving. We have the opportunity in the last few days of November and the month of December to do the work in the milking parlour. As the Minister has done it with one scheme, I implore him to do it for the…