Paul Nicholas Gogarty

I have contributed to many of these debates because, like many others, I appreciate the hardship that people are going through and because Fingal is situated in my constituency. On the one hand, I welcome that there is a scheme proposed for Fingal, Wexford and other counties in terms of remediation for defective concrete blocks. Piecemeal as it is, as many others have said, I will not be opposing …

I would like to visit the issue of people being able to build modular homes in their gardens and subdivide them because it is a hugely important issue. It is definitely not a panacea for the housing crisis but it will help in certain situations. For example, yesterday I had a gentleman on to me worried that the legislation will not cover an area where the person who has a big enough house and want…

Yes, for families but not investor-landlords.

The Government seriously needs to reassess and reconfirm its commitment to imminently provide the full extension and refurbishment project promised to Lucan Community College going back to 2010. We are talking about dedicated classrooms for children with special educational needs, physical education space and refurbishment. The current piecemeal solution of a reduced phase 1 and temporary repurpos…

The school has had to take the decision to subdivide rooms and to move students in order to have special educational needs classes in a setting that is not going to disturb students. I will give a few quotes from parents. Parents have said that every month that passes is actively harming children, that the school is not fit for purpose, that children with additional needs have been failed despite …

As Deputy Cummins said, Ireland declared a climate and biodiversity emergency back in 2019. This motion aims to renew that because absolutely nothing has happened. It is a bit like St. Augustine when he said, "Grant me chastity and continence, Lord, but not yet". We talk the talk, but we never walk the climate action walk, and that is a depressing fact. I do not have time in two minutes to talk a…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I note that in Brussels in March, the key areas were again Ukraine and the €195 billion or so in support. Since then, we have had the Hungarian election, which, as others have noted, will hopefully free things up. I hope that at the informal meeting in Cyprus tomorrow and the day after, we will receive some signs of positive engagement from the Hungarian side, i…

I missed that because I was at a committee meeting. It is fantastic to hear. The Middle East is going to come up again, I am sure, just as it did before. You never know from one day to the next what is going to happen. The last thing I heard related to the status of the blockade. I know matters are complex because of the historical and neighbourly relations some member states have with Israel, b…

I welcome this Bill. I have been critical of the Government in lots of areas but I have to say that this legislation is a positive further step in protecting the health of all our citizens but especially our children. It would be remiss of me not to be a bit critical and say that I am not sure if it is enough in itself because we are dealing with what I would call a subversive and well-resourced i…

I want to spend some time addressing an issue I have referenced before, namely the growing crisis of so-called parking wars and the service charge-related instability that is turning home ownership into a nightmare in many of our new communities. I give the examples of the Clonburris and Adamstown strategic development zones, SDZs, in my constituency, with which my independent colleague Councillor…

The council is only implementing the legislation it is told to implement. When I tried to get a major department store into the Adamstown SDZ, council officials refused and said it would upset the retail hierarchy because Tallaght and Liffey Valley are the two main retail centres. Therefore, anyone living in Adamstown has to go to Liffey Valley. Buses on the L51 and L52 routes do not turn up half …

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Air Pollution (Amendment) Bill 2025. This is legislation we have been promised for a fair couple of years and attempts to respond to a very real public health challenge that often does not get as much attention as it should. It also updates a framework that we have not kept pace with in terms of the scale of the problem across the country. The EPA air qual…

We are moving the focus in the debate towards solutions for people to reduce their energy bills. I welcome this motion. As I said before, we need to be moving towards giving better grants for solar in households, including in the very short term plug-in solar. You can now go into Lidl in the UK and get some of these, which would cut your bills straight away. The focus of much of the debate has be…

I am a great sports fan. I play GAA. I play five-a-side, six-a-side and eight-a-side in Celbridge and Leixlip. Some might have seen me with a crutch in here which I lent to another Deputy. Of course, some rag put it all over social media. The reason I had the crutch in the first place is because my knee is damaged from playing eight-a-side last Friday when I went in full belt in a tackle and someo…

Just to interrupt for a second, can I say it was great to play against the Minister of State in Boyle?

With the malevolent Trump Administration, we need to closer links with Canada through the EU and this legislation is clearly facilitating what is essentially a trade-off with pluses and minuses. The question is not about whether we are losing sovereignty but whether sovereignty is worth giving up in certain situations, and I believe it is. We have agreed to pool sovereignty at EU level in multiple…

The nub of the issue is that the Bill is before the House because of a Supreme Court decision and the Costello judgment. We are going to have differences of opinion on it. There was a 4:3 split in the judgment but a 6:1 majority said that while it is unconstitutional, it does not require a referendum because the State can change Irish law to put in place strict safeguards to make sure Irish sovere…

It is no surprise to hear me say that I will not be voting confidence in this Government. As I said just after the election, the Government's the programme for Government and the groups it did deals with to keep it in power did not inspire any confidence or show any vision. It's choices during the last budget favoured wealthy developers, left vulnerable people in the lurch and the Government's lac…

Let her speak.

Lads, everyone has a right to speak, even if you do not like them.

I will be supporting these resolutions. It is constructive to do so. I said in a contribution a few weeks ago that the Government was not acting fast enough, which was fair comment. It has responded this time, although some will say it has not responded sufficiently, and that is also fair comment. The Government might disagree. I agree with the Government about the overall picture. There is only …

I want to follow up on what Deputy Healy said. Our Government obviously has to maintain diplomatic relations with the Trump Administration, but we need to be a good bit stronger in highlighting this illegal war. In this Chamber in January, I asked the Government to do more in terms of the vile, oppressive theocracy in Iran and how it has stamped on its own people and executed so many. What Trump a…

I welcome this brief opportunity to talk about Garda resourcing. I spoke very recently about how the actual number of gardaí per head of population is lower now than it was in 2008, which is a shocking indictment of the system. The Minister needs to get more gardaí into the system and obviously that means paying them, along with other public sector workers, a fair and decent wage and getting rid o…

We have had a discussion about the immediate measures needed to help with the fuel crisis. We have also talked about the longer term investment in the grid network. I am talking about a couple of quick wins. Yesterday the issue of plug-in solar, which would put it into the household, was referenced. I would like to add to that by talking about the solar panels that you can put on your balcony and …

It is good to have a few extra minutes to talk about this. Obviously, this legislation is about the National Oil Reserves Agency 2 cent levy suspension. That makes it 22 cent in total on diesel, 17 cent in total on petrol and another 2 cent reduction on home heating oil. As I have said and others have said, it is simply not enough in the current crisis. I know it is a geopolitical issue, but geopo…