Micheál Martin

Absolutely, and I repeat and endorse everything I said. As I said at the time, the review has not been brought to Cabinet but it is complete. I would not hold my breath and have some disappointment with the review in terms of its lack of focus on urban councils. There is a focus on municipal area districts. We will examine it and bring it to the House for debate. I believe we need to look at some …

We will examine it. Again, obviously, the market has to operate as well. I am just making a general point. We will certainly examine the legislation, constructively and in an engaging way, and we will see if we can-----

Yes, I know. All right. I cannot arbitrate here in one minute.

First, we need to continue to work with Tusla. It is all great calling for independent reviews, inquiries and everything. That just paralyses organisations. That is the other side of that coin. We have to deal with children now who need care today, tomorrow or the day after. A balance needs to be struck in terms of how we deal with this. There are very serious issues here and all is not well in ce…

The easiest thing we can do is call for reviews and have everybody investigating everybody else with everyone too afraid of their shadow to get things done.

That is the other side of this.

Yes, we can. My understanding is that it is done by regulation but we can. There will be some legislative changes needed. I agree 100% with what the Deputy said. In fact you can now subdivide a house as well under this planning statement. Equally, you can do what the Deputy said in terms of people creating a unit for themselves and renting out the house. There is no question that in many of the ol…

Yes, it is open to families.

I thank Deputy Carrigy for raising what is a very important issue and for sharing his personal experience with us about the impact of dementia on family and on individuals. I commend the runners for their initiative to create awareness. The Deputy correctly credited the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, who does fantastic work, particularly in the area of day care centres. There are 60 such centre…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 13, inclusive, together. I attended the 2026 World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos on 21 and 22 January. My attendance at the forum is a useful opportunity to exchange views on key economic matters at a platform that brings together people from enterprise, politics, academia and media. During my visit, I met with international and political leaders, i…

I thank all the Deputies who have raised issues on this basic question, the first of whom was Deputy Boyd Barrett. Overall, it is interesting that Deputies Boyd Barrett and Murphy look at Davos through a certain prism. In terms of taxing the wealthy, the reality is that one third of tax revenue now is corporate tax. A lot of the companies I met in Davos pay huge amounts in corporate tax to the Iri…

As corporate tax-----

It is one third and it underpins a lot of spending on public services. Deputy Boyd Barrett's view is to attack them. That is his view. He does not really think they have value in the Irish economy even though some of them have been here for 50 years in terms of pharmaceuticals and life sciences. Many of them have been here. Microsoft came in in 1985. I go to Davos, as do the Irish Government and t…

I have never seen it.

It is a very anti-worker perspective in terms of the Deputies' attitude to the companies I am talking about more generally-----

-----and the industry and the sector.

If I could, through the Chair, say that Deputy Boyd Barrett raised the issue of equality. Ireland is more equal than most, actually, because of our progressive taxation system. In fact, there are a lot of people railing against that now on various platforms and media saying that we are overtaxing but Ireland is a much more equal society than others because of a progressive income tax system. On D…

The humble TD has been as proactive about the back garden as the Collison brothers have. I will put it that way to him.

It is not a new idea.

Deputy Ó Cearúil raised an issue. I was thinking of Mourinho when the Ceann Comhairle said that.

Deputy Ó Cearúil described himself to me as the Maradona of Kildare hurling one time but anyway. I should not be betraying private conversations but there you are. Apparently, he was. On the more serious issue of AI, we have the national AI strategy. The Minister, Deputy Lawless, as Deputy Byrne has raised, is on the skills side. The IMF said we are well positioned from a skills perspective, but …

Okay. I was dealing with Deputy Ó Cearúil and Deputy Byrne there as well. In response to Deputy Byrne, the National Economic and Social Council came through Cabinet today. It has a very good report on AI, which we will be publishing imminently and is well worth a read. In response to Deputy McCormack, I am absolutely clear that EU membership is critical to Ireland, as is the EU Single Market. Par…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 14 to 28, inclusive, together. For compelling reasons relating to energy security, energy costs and climate change, the Government is committed to quickly reducing Ireland's reliance on fossil fuels. We are taking the necessary steps now to ensure Ireland's long-term energy security and unlocking opportunities for further economic growth. The development of a vibr…

We did not say that.

There is also Cork.