Simon Harris

I will read my note to give the Deputy the up-to-date figures. I am told that in 2024, 577 recruits were inducted, consisting of 451 Army, 46 Air Corps and 80 Naval Service recruits into the Permanent Defence Forces. As of 28 February, which is the last date I have for figures, 34 recruits were inducted so far this year. On 19 March 2025, Gormanston welcomed its largest recruit class at 72 recruit…

I am smiling because this is one of the questions I get asked most frequently when I go around the country. The Deputy is right that our barracks often have good facilities and communities ask if they can get in too. Obviously, there are requirements from a security point of view, but there is also the issue of wanting our communities to be familiar with them. There have been good examples. This c…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 163 and 164 together. It is a fair point. It is a matter of lies, damned lies and statistics. It depends on when one measures the point. I am going to say progress has been made in the last year and the Deputy is going to say, "Actually, if you look back over a number of years", and both could be true. The reality is that there are some encouraging signs of a stab…

I am always conscious when speaking to this that people who are not friends of Ireland look in on these proceedings, so as regards national cybersecurity, let all of those who look in be aware that we have cybersecurity structures in place. We have an excellent National Cyber Security Centre. As Deputy Heneghan reminded us earlier, however, there is so much we need to do in this space. The Governm…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 167, 182 and 203 together. Let me first, as we always do when we speak about this, extend our deepest sympathies to the family of the late Private Seán Rooney and thank him for his service. None of us can fathom the unimaginable pain and grief of his family. I want them to know that we think of them and are motivated every day by getting them truth and justice in …

I will engage on that.

I thank the Deputy for her own service and the unique insight she brings to debates in this House having served in Lebanon with our Defence Forces. I very much welcome the opportunity to update the House on my recent visit to Lebanon. A central focus of that visit on 26 March was on my meetings with the Lebanese Ministers for foreign affairs and defence. At those meetings, my first with both indiv…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. We all agree that housing is the most important issue. There is a housing emergency in this country. There is an onus on all of us to come forward with ideas and policies to try to make real and meaningful progress for people in the country. I hope we are at least united on this. This Government has taken a number of steps on housing since comi…

There is no housing tsar for us either.

I love the way Sinn Féin loves to laugh and joke about the issue of housing. It proposed in the general election that if it was elected to government, and thank God we were spared that, it would establish a new office to bring forward all of the different structures to break down silos. That is what Sinn Féin proposed. The Housing Commission proposed that, and so did the Government. When we got to…

That is the only decision that we have made. We have not made any decisions about personnel or pay. Process matters with all of these issues. We will continue to engage as a Government, now that we have made the decision on establishing the new office, on how best to staff that office. The overriding objective will not be personality but will be getting the job done and making sure that people who…

I am very on board with setting up a housing activation office and I thought Deputy Doherty was too. It is in page 98 of Sinn Féin's own plan, about breaking down the silos, bringing in expertise, and-----

I am not sure whether its Deputies read the policies but that is what they all ran on in the election. They ran in the election and said that he wanted to establish an office to bring together people to break down silos relating to housing.

That is what we are doing. It was not Sinn Féín's idea or ours; it was a good idea that came from the Housing Commission and we are trying to act on that. The Minister was quite right this week to bring forward a proposal to Cabinet to move that forward. The only decision the Government of Ireland took this week was in that regard.

Now that the Government of Ireland has done that, we will decide how best to populate the office, process matters - I want to understand the processes followed regarding key personnel - and we will then address all those matters and put this together.

That is the appropriate way. Of course, people who do a job will be paid a salary but this not about personalities.

In the first instance, this is about getting things right. Speculation in the media is not how we do things in government. We will bring forward proposals, we will tease them through-----

-----and we will consider them. That is exactly what we will do in the hours and days ahead and we will get this right-----

-----with a housing activation office to break down silos. Getting the right people in place is also important.

I thank Deputy Bacik for that. I also wish everyone a happy International Workers' Day. I would like to acknowledge the incredible work done by workers right across our country in the public service and in the private sector, as well as the many people who work here in Leinster House to help our democracy function on a daily basis. Objectively, it is fair to say a lot of positive measures have bee…

I assure Deputy Bacik the Government is unified in wanting to support our workers and economy and wanting to protect their jobs too. I agree low paid workers and workers in this country are certainly not responsible for the many turbulent challenges the global economy faces and the impact that may have on Ireland. We are very lucky to live in a country where our union movement was very constructi…

I thank Deputy Murphy. I do not believe anybody can credibly suggest that this Government is anti-worker. In fact, there are many more workers in this country as a result of this Government's and successive governments' efforts to create jobs in every town, village and city throughout our island. To have workers, you need to have jobs. There are many more people in employment. Many of us remember …

It is not that anybody is breaching the minimum wage; it is that we have a tiered system of minimum wage in this country. The Deputy and I have different views on that but people are following the minimum wage. It is just tiered and applies differently to different people in different age brackets. That is the system that we have had in place. After the Deputy goes into that café and outlines his …

We support young people in so many ways. I found myself having to shout at the radio the other day about broken promises in relation to statutory sick pay. Read the Fine Gael manifesto. We were very clear during the general election in relation to five days of statutory sick pay. It is there; it is in black and white. We made it clear to people. There was no statutory sick pay scheme two years ago…

I thank the Deputy. I was taking in a lot of figures there; I appreciate that the Deputy has done a lot of work on this. The purpose of the Deputy's question is largely around the issue of carbon tax. On the issue of speed limits, it is about trying to get it right. It is about recognising - we all share this view - that far too many people die on Irish roads. Being very honest, the progress we ha…