Gabhaim buíochas le Deputies Butterly, Brennan and Callaghan. It is really good that we tease through and discuss this issue. We have various views on this and different parties have different commitments in their manifestos in relation to this. We have a programme for Government now. We need to work our way through all of this. I have to be honest with the House. Every year over the next four budgets there will be a…
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 168 and 175 together.
I thank Deputies Ó Muirí and Neville for their questions. The starting point for this conversation has to be that we live in a country where we have a high level of savings on deposits and we need to support people who are seeking greater returns on their hard-earned savings. Work is continuing on the development of a roadmap for the taxation of retail investmen…
First, as we are not talking about this weather situation, we are not looking back; we are talking about here and now. I am conscious as we discuss this in the House today that a status orange weather warning is currently in place for counties Dublin, Wicklow, Waterford and now also County Louth. Yellow warnings are in place for nine other counties as well. On top of that, the Road Safety Authority has issued advice …
That is a disgraceful comment.
That is a disgraceful comment.
I hope I will get the same latitude. Deputy Doherty just cannot help himself. Flood warnings are in place in Northern Ireland. If, God forbid, anywhere floods in Northern Ireland, I am not going to blame Michelle O'Neill, because this is not about party politics or partisan politics. This is about acting. If the Deputy wants to say that me doing my job, coming into this House and amplifying, as we have been asked----…
Leave the bully boy antics out of the Chamber today and just for once take off the party jersey. If you are suggesting that amplifying, as we have been asked to do by the RSA, the fact that people should be careful on the roads today and avoid driving-----
If you are suggesting that the glib weather forecast-----
People are watching this today and it is extremely important to get the facts out.
I do not care about engaging with Deputy Doherty but the people who are-----
Please, Deputy. Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Cheann Comhairle. A bit of decorum would be great. People are looking at this today and want to know what is going to happen, and I want to tell them. There will be an increased focus on allowing local authorities to fast-track more works that can be done in the here and now. There are already examples, with 900 that have been delivered. Flood relief schemes have been cla…
-----the party that are climate deniers will come back and have a discussion.
Today is not a day for party politics but, unfortunately for Deputy Doherty, he just cannot reach deeper, even on a day like today. Shame on you, Pearse.
It is what-----
I thank Deputy O'Callaghan for raising this important issue. I thank Tony for his advocacy in relation to his daughter, Aoife, and for speaking up for all the other mums and dads. This is an issue I have come across in my own constituency when I knock on a hall door and meet somebody behind it who, not to age people, is perhaps in his or her 70s or 80s. Deputy Whitmore meets these people in Wicklow too. They have bee…
It is a fair question. I understand why the Deputy says what he says and why parents can feel like that. Certainly the State is not waiting for that to happen but we need to avoid that emergency and cliff-edge moment where the conversation the State has with the person with a disability only happens at a moment of crisis, personal trauma and loss. That is what we need to get much better at. The Deputy asked about wha…
I get blamed for everything sometimes but I am certainly not behind that proposal nor is there one. I thank the Deputy for raising the issue because road safety is an extraordinarily important issue. Our road safety statistics in this country are going in the wrong direction. We all think of Grace Lynch. We are pleased and proud in this House that the new regulation on scramblers will be named in her name, in her hon…
I certainly will. I know Ciarán Cannon well from his past posting in the House. I know him to be a very good and reasonable person and a good, evidence-based advocate. He was in this House and he is in his new role. If there was ever an issue that we should not be partisan on, and it is not in our discussion, it is road safety. We all want to see a reduction in deaths and injuries. I think we are all alarmed - I am c…
I acknowledge that this is an issue that the Deputy has raised a lot in this House. It relates to Uisce Éireann, how it functions and, perhaps almost as importantly, how it answers to and engages with the Government, the Oireachtas and communities as well.
To be honest, I expect a bit better in relation to this too. I can assure the Deputy that it is not just an issue on his side of the House. On this side of the Ho…
The only reason I am smiling is I thought it was a very good way of sticking in the name of the Deputy's by-election candidate. We will select our by-election candidate on 22 February for Galway West.
The point the Deputy made is a very serious one. I take his support for the developer-led infrastructure. It is important. It is particularly important in rural communities where even forgetting developers, local autho…
I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue with me in relation to Skerries and Rush. It is not the first time she has raised it with me and I acknowledge that she represents and is from a community that is in the fastest growing area of the country with one of the youngest populations. She makes this point as we make progress on housing, and I am pleased to see we are making progress on housing. There has be…
Of that I have absolutely no doubt, knowing the Deputy well. Please do because this is what we need to do. We have to invest in housing but also in communities like hers. My own is not that dissimilar, where there is an increased volume of development and a growing young population. We need to make sure that we put that social and educational infrastructure in place as well. I get the acuity of this and the pressure …
I thank Deputy Doherty for raising this issue. I am acutely aware of the deep concern felt by people who live in Donegal and particularly, as the Deputy rightly pointed out, patients and their families who depend on this air service to access specialist medical care, including cancer treatment. He has given us a sense of the depth of feeling with so many people having signed a petition in such a short time. I am clea…
I thank Deputy Bacik for raising this. Of course I am aware of it. I would appreciate further engagement with her on it. It will probably require longer engagement than we have here today. As she said, it arises from the Supreme Court judgment of October 2023 in the case of Revenue Commissioners v. Karshan (Midlands) t/a Domino’s Pizza Limited. There has been a period of time since then. It goes without saying that R…
The Deputy mentioned the "bridge to nowhere". I remember Sarah Palin using that phrase. When Barack Obama rang Sarah Palin when she was chosen as a vice presidential candidate, he wished her luck but not too much. I wish the Deputy good luck with his party's conference this weekend in Cork. I would push back on the idea that we have not invested in Cork. There has been €400 million in URDF funding for Cork alone.