Conor Sheehan

They are not €3,000 a month.

The Minister of State referenced the size of a studio apartment in Vienna. The average rent of a studio apartment in Vienna is about €600.

If the Minister of State will allow me to make my point, the average rent of a studio apartment in Dublin is €1,850. With these revised apartment guidelines, the Minister of State has allowed developers to build entire developments of tiny studio or one-bedroom apartments. When you go to someplace like Vienna, there is an appropriate mix of one-bedroom, two-bedroom and three-bedroom apartments. In…

We support the motion. Gender-based and domestic violence is a problem across Europe and it is welcome that the EU is taking seriously its role in tackling the issue by signing the Istanbul Convention. Ireland is already a state party to the convention but opting in in full to the EU's ratification process will mean we can play a full part in the Europe-wide fight against gender-based violence. Th…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. I sincerely commend the Taoiseach and Government on the shared island initiative. It is important and cannot be understated. It involves €1 billion of capital funding and includes important projects such as the Narrow Water bridge and the new Enterprise fleet. I commend the work the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, has done over many years, what I…

The questions in this grouping are in the names of Deputies O'Gorman, Heneghan, Gould, Neville, Ó Murchu, Gibney, and O'Hara. We will start with Deputy O'Gorman and then see who turns up.

Thank you, Deputy.

Unfortunately, we are out of time. That concludes oral questions to the Minister for foreign affairs.

The Select Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment has completed its consideration of the Industrial Development (Amendment) and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2026 and has made no amendments thereto.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as a bheith anseo inniu. I thank him and his officials for the detailed briefing we received on the Bill. It is a long and technical Bill. One aspect of it is that it seeks to raise the borrowing limit of the Housing Finance Agency, which is fine. However, the other aspects are quite technical and detailed. Deputy Ó Broin alluded to a recurring theme across Depa…

We have an epidemic of male violence against women in this country. Nearly 1,900 women were turned away from domestic violence refuges in the final six months of last year. The Government is failing these women. We need the Minister to come in and take questions on this issue this week. Women fleeing domestic violence need support and they need safe refuge.

Today nurses and midwives are protesting at University Maternity Hospital Limerick. The HSE pay and numbers strategy cut approximately 30 to 35 front-line nursing and midwifery posts, imposing new staff ceilings, recruitment limits and pay spend caps. Many areas of the hospital are running rosters at 50% below safe levels. The neonatal unit is beyond safe capacity while awaiting HSE approval for s…

80. Deputy Conor Sheehan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the steps he will take to tackle dereliction in advance of the introduction of the new derelict property tax; his plans to mandate local authorities to collect the millions in outstanding derelict sites levies; when the Government will introduce its new Compulsory Purchase Order Bill 2025 with streamlined and st…

I ask the Minister about the steps he and his Department will take to tackle dereliction in advance of the new derelict property tax and how he is going to mandate local authorities to collect the millions in outstanding derelict site levies in advance of that, and when the Government will introduce the new compulsory purchase order Bill. Will he examine the concept of compulsory sale orders to br…

I thank the Minister of State for his response. There is €20.5 million in levies outstanding for derelict sites. I want to press the Government on what new measures there are and what it is going to do to make sure that local authorities collect that money, notwithstanding the new derelict property tax. I will also ask about the compulsory purchase order Bill. The Law Reform Commission gave very c…

The reason I raised the issue of compulsory sale orders is that this is something the Scottish Government had in a 2018 land reform report, although it has not been implemented yet. I am raising it not so much with the idea that the compulsory sale order would be punitive, but for it to be another framework by which engagement can be sought with the owners of problematic sites. I have two follow-…

84. Deputy Conor Sheehan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage his plans to introduce measures to reduce cost-rental rents; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47823/26]

What are the Minister’s plans to introduce measures to reduce cost-rental rents? Will he make a statement on this because cost-rental rents are too high and are locking thousands of people out of the rental market? The average rent for a three-bedroom house in Oscar Traynor Road is now €1,800. More and more applicants are being refused on affordability grounds. There are flaws in the model, which …

I thank the Minister for his response. There are a couple of questions I want to ask. Has the Minister any plans in relation to all the fragmented subsidies that exist, like those related to the secure tenancy affordable rental investment scheme, STAR, and cost-rental equity loan, CREL, and the local authority funds. Does he have any plans to merge these? I also want to ask about barriers to deli…

To push back on that a bit, while cost-rental rents are somewhat lower, being on average about 30% lower than rents in the private rental market, they are still far too high. A market rent in Dublin of €2,300 still means €1,725 a month. Will the Minister consider the length of time AHBs have to repay the CREL loan? That will answer some of the issues they have. Furthermore, will he consider decou…

St. Vincent's special school in Lisnagry, County Limerick, has been without a routine dental service for months. It has been the bones of a year. The specialist dental post is still vacant. These are students who cannot tolerate routine dental examinations. There is a student who cannot attend school at the moment because she has large cavities in her back teeth, and she has to get these teeth rem…

First of all, I thank my colleague and party leader, Deputy Bacik, for bringing this Bill forward. I also welcome the visitors to the Gallery. This Bill is timely for two reasons. It is timely because it addresses one of the most disgusting and hideous aspects of our shameful past, namely, the abuse perpetuated by religious orders and facilitated by the State. Many religious orders hold substanti…

I welcome the visitors to the Gallery. As others have said, I pay tribute to Deputy Ward on the work he has done. Last October, my colleague, Senator Nessa Cosgrove, and I went to Donegal to visit some of the people who are affected by this humanitarian disaster. I thought I knew about defective concrete and that I could quantify in my head the actual scale of the humanitarian disaster but I canno…

I welcome the visitors to the Gallery. First of all, it is a real privilege to be a gay man because you are navigating a world that was not built for you. I think most LGBT people have a heightened sense of empathy because you know, for example, that many people around the world do not have the human rights which many of us - including myself, as somebody who is privileged enough to live in Irelan…

Furthermore, I look, for example, at Belong To and the work it has done, and the 87% of teenagers who have received online harassment for being LGBT. I can even look at my own social media. Any time I talk about any of these things, I get a plethora of stuff underneath the posts and, to be honest, it is horrible but it does not particularly bother me because I know there is some young boy or young…