Roderic O'Gorman

I congratulate the Leas-Cheann Comhairle on his election, and I congratulate the Minister on his appointment. Last October, the Green Party and I championed the idea of a baby boost payment of an additional €280 when a new child is born. I was happy to see it included to see it included in budget 2025 and it was implemented in late 2024. Will the Minister give an update on its uptake around the co…

Getting this idea over the line was surprisingly pretty hard. It was a long negotiation to get full agreement to get this into budget 2025. That surprised me considering that it is quite a small overall cost of €15 million compared with €180 million to do the double payment on child benefit. In light of that fight to get it over the line, I want the Minister's assurance that he sees the baby boost…

I appreciate the Minister's clarification that the baby boost payment is here to stay. It is an initiative that the Green Party and I are proud to have led in introducing. A universal payment that is targeted at a particular time in a family's life where almost every single family is under pressure financially when a new baby arrives is a meaningful step the Government and the State can take to he…

I will use my time to focus on a few of the recommendations of the Housing Commission’s report. I note there have been some important policy changes in recent years - the introduction of cost rental housing, the vacant property refurbishment grant and the new land hoarding tax – but we still have a dysfunctional housing market. People are still struggling significantly to access home ownership and…

I support the motion and I thank Deputy Coppinger for using her first opportunity in Private Members' time to raise this absolutely critical issue. There can be no equivocation when it comes to assessing our efforts to end violence towards women and girls in this country. We are simply not doing enough. I say that as a former Minister for equality, I say it as a politician with a long-standing int…

The last decade has seen a big shift in public policy towards childcare in this country. The State now recognises that the first five years are a critical developmental time for young children and has built a range of supports for parents and children so they can give their children the best start in life. As part of those supports, the State now seeks to make early learning and care accessible an…

I thank the Taoiseach. From my experience over the past four years, I am well aware of those complexities but I am also of the strong belief that if we just continue to pump money into the existing system and continue our reliance on the existing system, we are not going to be able to deliver the sea change we need to ensure every child has access to the quality early learning and care he or she n…

We are now in the last week of February and, as yet, the climate action plan for 2025 has not been published. Under the climate action Act, the Minister has to present the climate action plan annually. The draft action plan for 2025 was ready for publication in December last year but Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael took a political decision not to publish it until the new Government was formed. The sec…

I notice the Taoiseach is not answering the question.

It is ready to go. Why can it not be published?

This week, we mark a grim milestone for Ukraine, which has withstood three brutal years of invasion, occupation and displacement. Millions of lives have been turned upside down. We speak today during another dark chapter in this story, namely, the faltering support of the United States and President Trump's shameful capitulation to Putin's agenda. I remember this week three years ago. I remember …

83. Deputy Roderic O'Gorman asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications if he will provide an update on the implementation of the national biomethane strategy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6797/25]

Could the Minister give an update on his Department's progress on the implementation of the national biomethane strategy that was published in May of last year? In particular, could he give an outline of when producers will get some certainty regarding the renewable heat obligation, RHO?

Ireland has a real opportunity to grow an industry that will help us to cut our carbon emissions and also provide new income streams for farmers and across rural areas. Biomethane can replace diesel and other fossil fuels in transport and industry, allowing us to cut those emissions. As we know, we have a significant supply of agricultural waste and silage which can be converted into biomethane, b…

Undoubtedly every Department will be looking to get their hands on that money. That is why I want to hear that the Minister will fight for at least €300 million. That is why we thought it would have been better to state that this money will be there for an industry that is in its infancy and that needs clarity and certainty. As that certainty is not there, the sooner the Minister gets in there to …

I wish the Minister of State a good afternoon. I am not sure how familiar he is with drones, but in Dublin 15 in my constituency they are something we are very familiar with at the moment. For over a year now, a commercial company called Manna Drone Delivery has been using airborne drones to deliver takeaway food to homes around Blanchardstown and Castleknock. The drone flies over and the food com…

I thank the Minister of State. He is right that this is new. It is a service that could have real potential. I am thinking of a medicine delivery to a constituent in the Minister of State's constituency from a pharmacy that might be a significant distance away. There is real potential here. I am a bit concerned, however, about the Minister of State's response. One of the lines in it is that commer…

I congratulate the Minister of State on her appointment and wish her well in the new role. I welcome this opportunity for us to have an informed debate on the positive implications of AI across our society, as well as the new risks it brings. As with any evolution in technological capability that has a widespread application, the public debate on this has been intense. In this environment the publ…

That image is so crude that it can be easily spotted, but we have to be ready for the time when that content is absolutely indistinguishable from reality. We must also be upfront about the huge energy use that AI technology necessitates. As a country that already expends a disproportionate percentage of our energy generation on data centres, we need to acknowledge that the growth in AI use has hug…

I welcome the opportunity to discuss mental health and how our State responds. We all know the historic position that mental health services had in this country during the last century. There was little investment and a damaging institutional approach, all reflective of attitudes at the time. Thankfully, today attitudes are different and the State's response is different. We now have a problem of …

Some Members of the Opposition have remarked that the programme for Government represents more of the same. Having had some experience of how a programme for Government is put together and implemented I disagree with this point. I see a real difference and a real step backwards in terms of the absence of ambition, the vagueness of timelines and targets and the lack of clear funding commitments in …

What is the Government's policy on the use of reading schools and reading classes in our education system? Reading schools are special schools with low pupil-teacher ratios that are designed to meet the needs of children with severe dyslexia. Due to their success, a number of reading classes have been set up. These are attached to mainstream primary schools and perform the same function. Countless…

Ireland has shown strong and compassionate leadership over the last year by pledging €20 million extra to UNRWA at a time when other key donors were withdrawing their support. I recognise the role that the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach played in swiftly pledging support for UNRWA last year. This funding has allowed the organisation to meet the urgent need of Palestinian refugees in Gaza for healthcar…

I would like to begin by recognising the dramatic impact on people's lives, the destruction of homes and property, the impact on businesses and indeed the loss of life that Storm Éowyn has caused. Storm Éowyn was an exceptional weather event, breaking all-time wind-speed records and causing unprecedented damage to our critical infrastructure and disruption for the second time in two months. I comm…

We must use this debate to burst the myth being peddled by the Government that we have to start the occupied territories Bill from scratch. This is a tactic being used by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Independents to avoid doing something that, before the recent general election, they all indicated they would do. Senator Frances Black's occupied territories Bill needs some amendment. Nobody disputes …