If Housing for All was a leaving certificate subject, the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, would fail. The aim of Housing for All, according to the executive summary, is "access to a quality home to purchase or rent at an affordable price, built to a high standard ... offering a high quality of life." This was to be achieved in four ways, namely, supporting home ownership and increasing affordability, on which the Minister has failed; eradicating homelessness, increasing social housing delivery and supporting soci…

As all leaders' speeches have now concluded, we will now suspend the sitting for one hour.

I hope that when the hectic budget period is over, the Government will use all its diplomatic power to begin lobbying the International Olympic Committee to have kite-flying included as an Olympic sport. On the basis of what we have seen and heard from the Government in recent weeks via the media, we would be in with a great shout of winning a few gold medals. The whole budget has been in the public domain for weeks. It has been spun out of existence as being a great budget. The reality is that it is a budget of co…

I thank the Rural Independent Group for submitting this motion. It allows us the opportunity once again to debate our energy crisis and security. Many of the comments I made last week on my group's motion are also relevant to this motion, but I will try to avoid too much repetition of what I said then. It is on the record and I hope it will be taken on board by those making the decisions. There are striking parallels between our approach to the housing crisis and the approach to the energy crisis. They are fundamen…

The standing charge.

Electricity standing charges have increased for most people by upwards of €300, regardless of energy usage. The standing charge is supposed to reflect the fixed costs associated with providing electricity and gas. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, mentioned this morning putting in place a moratorium rather than bringing forward emergency legislation, as is his duty, to protect the people of this country. We brought emergency legislation through this House to deal with the Covid pandemic. People are in perilous condi…

People are being put in jeopardy.

Deputy Canney will not make it, so I will take his time if that is all right. I am sharing time with Deputy Tóibín. I normally begin my contributions by welcoming the opportunity to speak on the topic in question. I must say, however, that on this occasion I am pretty dissatisfied with the behaviour of the Government in scheduling this debate. The Government has allocated three and a half hours today for Deputies to make statements on An Bord Pleanála. The reason for my displeasure with this is that earlier this ye…

The issue I am raising is that we cannot have the regulator investigating people with whom he worked. It makes no sense and it is not transparent. He has worked with these people. He was the head of planning policy. That is the issue, if I had not made that clear. Is that okay?

The planning regulator has a defined role outside of which he acts.

I am talking about the Office of the Planning Regulator investigating his colleagues, which is clearly what it is. That is what I am outlining. It is not appropriate. The fact we have this investigation ongoing is not appropriate. I ask the Leas-Cheann Comhairle to take our exchange into account if I take longer to explain what I am trying to say. The Minister of State is well aware that we could have a situation arise again as to the transparency of that investigation. We heard what Deputy Paul Murphy said in the …

You are. However, is Deputy Collins here?

We are ahead of time.

I am glad the Deputy knows his music.

I am sharing time with Deputy Tóibín. I welcome the opportunity to speak about the very worrying energy situation. I thank my colleagues and, Cáit Nic Amhlaoibh, our co-ordinator, for organising this debate. Unfortunately, there were signs of this energy crisis emerging before any blame could be given to Putin for his invasion of Ukraine. We must look closer to home, at some of the failings of the Government, which have left us ever more exposed to the impact of the international energy disruption. In October 2007,…

Deputy O'Rourke is sharing time with Deputies Buckley, Mairéad Farrell, Martin Browne and Patricia Ryan.

Will you open Derrybrien?

In the national interest. We are going to ignore the wind farm and turn the lights out.

For years we have been doing that.

I thank the Minister of State for coming in. I have plenty of time so I want to focus on an area he will be familiar with, namely, Duncannon and the water and sewage treatment issues there. There are two villages in the running to be chosen for a new treatment plant in County Wexford. One of them is my home village of Ramsgrange. On all available evidence it appears to be a no-brainer that the plant be located there. Ramsgrange is an unusually large village with a secondary school of over 500 pupils, a primary scho…