The Tánaiste gave an interview at the weekend that caused a lot of anger. He said young people considering emigrating because of the extortionate housing costs could find the grass is always greener. He said if they go to a successful busy city, they will find the same high rents as here but the rents could be lower if they went to "a very rural area or a third or fourth tier city". Does the Tánaiste know we have the highest housing costs in the EU? Housing costs here are an astonishing 88.5% higher than the EU ave…

I did not hear what the approach will be. The Tánaiste needs to tell us what that approach will be and what difference it will make. Is he aware that commencements are down by 30% in the past three months? Only yesterday there was a report about a reduction in the number of mortgage approvals, which is not a metric I want to see. What does the Tánaiste mean when he talks about the difference that a whole-of-government approach will make? A large number of planning permissions are not being activated, which only inc…

It depends on the individual’s lived experience.

Many young people will not share that lived experience.

The revelations in recent weeks about the extent of the gross sexual abuse inflicted on children in Blackrock College over decades are horrifying but we have come to the stage now that they are no longer surprising. How many times must be go through this process, order by order and diocese by diocese? We discovered the extent of the absolute destruction that paedophiles in the Catholic Church have wreaked on the lives of children. How many times must victims of these violent, powerful men be forced to sit down in f…

We are here less than a week after the end of the COP27 summit, which was held in the midst of a climate crisis that is growing worse by the minute. It was held to address the extinction-level threat to our planet. The summit will ultimately be marked by the absolute failure of ambition. There was no ramping up of climate mitigation measures, no progress on ending fossil fuel use and no agreement on greater cuts to greenhouse gas emissions. This failure of ambition cannot just be put down to being a consequence of …

The revelations about the systemic, sustained and grotesque sexual abuse that took place in Blackrock College over many years are shocking and harrowing. We now know that at least 233 men have made allegations of abuse against 77 Irish priests from the Spiritans order. Of that number, 57 have alleged they were abused on the campus of Blackrock College. Some of the abusers were serial abusers who abused with impunity over decades in that school. At night, they roamed freely through the boarding school, abusing their…

I would appreciate that consultation. It is going to be necessary in order to find the best way to move forward. This is about isolation and people feeling they are the only one. It would not be possible for this to have gone on as long as it did without that feeling of isolation. On last night's "Prime Time" programme, Mark Ryan said, "You think you're the only one who has been abused. What's needed is a true picture of what happened." We need to get to that true picture of what happened, otherwise people will fee…

I welcome the fact that the provisions of this Act are going be put on a permanent footing and that this will hopefully be done before the sunset clause lapses. There are still many issues that will have to be thrashed out in the practical application of the forthcoming legislation. It is much broader than the issue we are dealing with today, namely, the sunset clause today. The Department needs to engage with local authorities on outdoor seating areas and provide advice to them on standards. There is a lot of stuf…

There is finally some good news on energy prices. Gas prices have dropped by more than two thirds since the summer. Yesterday's benchmark futures dropped to €92 per MWh, down from an astronomical €340 per MWh in August. A number of factors are feeding into this. The EU set a target for having its gas stockpiles at 80% by 1 November. This figure has been exceeded, with storage currently at 92%. Demand has also reduced, and is down by 7% across the EU so far this year. Finally, consumption across the EU is around 20%…

It will only be good news if that is passed on. That was the key point in the questions I asked the Taoiseach. The market looks more like a cartel arrangement. There is now only a minuscule benefit to switching provider. Will the Taoiseach address the issue of standing charges? Has the regulator the power to deal with that? The Taoiseach might also address the following point. It was reported in an EU publication that 15 member states, including France, Italy, Poland and Spain, supported a price cap while other cou…

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion. It is not possible to separate land use from transport planning and we must look over a long horizon to see what the trends are. In the mid-1990s, there was scenario testing for how the greater Dublin area was going to develop. It was intended that there would be a greater concentration of development in the city centre and, further out, there would be balanced regional development. In 1996, Dublin city accounted for 13% of the national population. The combined po…

This question relates to Garda recruitment and the announced targets, for which funding has been provided. What is the Minister's role in ensuring that those targets are met? Does she engage with the Garda Commissioner about recruitment campaigns? Is she satisfied with a situation where targets are not met? What engagement is there to ensure that targets are met?

It is important that we increase the strength of the force but deployment once that happens is another matter. We are always told that is exclusively the responsibility of the Garda Commissioner. Fairness is required in that regard. Population is not the only metric that should be used but the Minister's constituency and my constituency, for example, are counties. Meath and Kildare are complete outliers. The more the population grows, the more services are stretched. A far from fair allocation is provided. That has…

It must be a huge embarrassment that the Minister's own county of Meath has slightly less than half the national average of the ratio of gardaí to population. That has an impact on the type of policing and the level of detection. The result is a reactive type of policing, as opposed to proactive policing that includes an adequate number of community gardaí. There is a need for them to engage with new communities. Visibility is another factor. It must be an embarrassment that the worst ratio of gardaí to population …

Today's Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, report about the wastewater treatment plants is really concerning. Millions of litres of raw sewage continue to be discharged into our rivers and our seas every day. Only half of our sewage was treated to EU environmental standards in 2021. That is way below the EU average of 90%. In Ringsend, which is in the Minister's constituency, sewage is regularly spewed into Dublin Bay, destroying one of the city's most treasured natural amenities. A survey last year from SOS Dub…

The water framework directive dates to 2005. We are still not meeting the target. We are only at 50% at this stage. There have been two reports this week from the EPA, one of which the Minister has cited. If this is not about a shortage of money, it is very concerning that plans have not been provided to the EPA with targets for those other 27 projects. I also have concerns about the oversight of the spend and about value for money. For example, if Irish Water was under the remit of the Committee of Public Accounts…

There are at least three elements to redress, the first of which is acknowledging what happened to those to whom it happened as it is their truth. The second is holding those responsible to account. The third is financial compensation; not that financial compensation can redress some of the things that happened to people and how it traumatised their lives. Survivors were asked to put their trust in the State to relive the most traumatic moments in their lives in the belief that their lived experiences would be hear…

I welcome the Bill, which is largely technical and which makes overdue and important changes to how certain crimes are treated under Irish law. It is particularly welcome to see stalking as a standalone offence. A generation of Irish women are familiar with the realities of stalking and harassment. For too long, these cases and the perpetrators have been protected. The threat has been dismissed and, often, the victims themselves have been blamed or it is minimised. Street harassment in particular is often completel…

The fallout from the controversy engulfing An Bord Pleanála continues to wreak havoc in the planning system. Yesterday, planning permission for 1,400 housing units was quashed in the High Court after An Bord Pleanála conceded three cases that were linked to its former deputy chairman, Paul Hyde. Those challenging the developments raised the issue of objective bias in the board's decision-making process. The board's legal advice was that it could not defend those challenges. I want to say clearly that Mr. Hyde is fa…