I welcome the Minister to the House today. I am delighted to speak about the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill. Despite the attendance here today, this is a really significant moment for us as a country. It shows that we have been able to bring economic stability and are now in a position, because of the national reserve fund and economic prudence, to take a serious step in the direction of resilience for the future. I see the creation of both of these funds as an insurance policy…

-----to invest in public lands. I do not want that to happen again.

The Minister of State is very welcome. It is a testament to the legislation that so many Senators want to contribute on Second Stage. This is flagship legislation from this Government. We have reached the point where we are getting into the nitty-gritty; we are in the final stretch. It is now about tying it all together. The construct is in place and the support is there. I hope we are now at the point of tying up loose ends. The hardest thing the Minister of State has to do right now is probably to distinguish bet…

I thank the Minister of State for being here. The Minister for Transport, Deputy Ryan, has been vocal about the cost of gridlock and the priority that needs to be given to public transport, walking and cycling to help us meet our climate targets. We are investing an eye-watering amount of money - I believe it is €100 billion - in capital transport projects in the coming decades and waiting on a glut of planning decisions from An Bord Pleanála. Examples include DART+ West and BusConnects core corridors. We know that…

I thank the Minister of State for the update. As the Minister of State will be aware from my opening remarks, I am concerned about the drift in timings and delivery. While we can say that part of this, in terms of the overall delivery of BusConnects for Dublin 15, relates to the bus corridors and planning, there are routes that could be prioritised in the meantime. The year 2026 is a long time to wait from when we first started talking about BusConnects in 2018. We need to think pragmatically. My community is being…

I thank the Cathaoirleach and Members for their contributions. If the Polish ambassador was still here I would congratulate him on his country's constitution day. I, too, want to express my sympathies to the D'Arcy family and the Fine Gael party on the death of Mr. Michael D'Arcy Snr., who made a significant contribution to Irish politics as a Minster, Deputy and Senator. Senator Fitzpatrick rightly brought our attention to the sports and culture Department's large-scale infrastructure fund. I agree that this is vi…

Senator Craughwell expressed concern over the transparency of funding that goes towards overseas aid and development, but he also mentioned NGOs. There is an audit process for any public funds to ensure they are being used correctly. We can, of course, send on the Senator's concern but I also suggest he contact the public accounts committee on this issue. Senator Sherlock made a really good point, following May Day yesterday, regarding apprenticeship pay, how it should not be a barrier to our ambitions for apprenti…

I thank the Minister for bringing forward this legislation. It is a very important day for women and for women's healthcare to know that people who are going through such a traumatic experience and a difficult decision are now free from intimidation to make those decisions for themselves. It is a momentous day. I also thank the Minister's officials and the Houses of the Oireachtas for seeing this through.

I thank the Minister for taking the time today to be with us in the Seanad. I also thank my colleague, Senator Seery Kearney, for this excellent motion and her dedication to the protection of children. I will focus on three points. The first is the ubiquity of smartphones. Smartphones have reached into everyone's life, home and pocket. How do we control something as prevalent as smartphone use? It is hard to take action on anything that overwhelms us, like smartphone use does. The second point is that it is importa…

I thank the Minister of State for bring here personally today. Four minutes does not seem long enough to summarise the four years it has taken for a local sports club, St, Oliver Plunkett Eoghan Ruadh "Plunkett's" GAA, to get to the point where a proposal for the redevelopment of Martin Savage Park, just off the Navan Road, was ready for a Part 8 planning process. We have an issue when it comes to our parks in Dublin city. With an increase in development and the concentration of that development, our parks have to …

I know I am throwing a lot at the Minister of State this morning on this specific case. It is a huge problem if we cannot deliver essential sporting facilities for local children. An all-weather pitch should be a basic for a local sports club in facilitating so many people and actively encouraging well-being and health. It is a place where friendships and communities are created. They need an all-weather pitch. We are aware of the issues around the Brent goose and being sensitive to them but this is an issue that I…

I welcome the news yesterday about the introduction of tougher sentencing for knife crime. I have raised this issue frequently, both in the Seanad and directly with the Minister for Justice. What is helpful is the differentiation between possession and intent and the added length to sentences relating to the importation and sale of knives. I hope we can continue to build on that because we need to look at the behavioural reasons for knife crime. Seizures have been around 2,200 over the past five years. Knives are u…

I agree with much of the motion from the Fianna Fáil Senators. It chimes with a lot of the issues I have been raising directly with the Minister in here. I wrote an opinion piece about it in The Irish Times yesterday. It is a huge issue in Dublin West. It is about capacity but also about having a better system for admissions and enrolment. There are parents in Dublin 15 who will apply for three schools and get letters back telling them they are on a waiting list of hundreds and they do not secure places for months …

I am here today to raise the circumstances of a school that has been incredibly patient with the Department of Education. If this was an exercise in doing everything by the book, with the expectation and trust that based on need alone the Department would deliver then I am afraid it has failed. A request for emergency works to fix a roof that now has more than 101 roof leaks and defects was submitted to the Department in September 2022. Multiple surveys have been carried out. There was a visit by the Department of …

We are going around in circles on an emergency works application that ticks all of those boxes and that is not from today or yesterday but from September 2022. Bureaucracy is contributing to the delay. We have a problem and it needs to be fixed. Regarding access for children with additional needs, the school has been proactive in outlining that it wants an additional class. It has the space for an additional autism class. It needs an additional mainstream classroom as well. It has engaged with the Department of Edu…

I concur.

I, too, welcome Senator O'Hara. I am wearing green for him today. I went to Queen's University and spent three very happy years in south Belfast. I am very much looking forward to having another north Belfast voice in the House. I recognise the contribution Senator Niall Ó Donnghaile made to this House. We miss him and his Belfast wit. Regarding Senator O'Reilly's concerns about the prioritisation of climate action, in our new Taoiseach's speech at the Árd-Fheis it was one of the priorities he outlined. He specific…

I am not a member of the transport committee. I came today because I have specific questions as a road user and someone who is concerned about the numbers we are seeing. During the Saint Patrick's Day weekend, 175 people were arrested for drink driving; 1,800 people were detected speeding; 170 people were caught on their mobile phones; and someone was caught doing 209 km per hour in a 100 km per hour zone. Those are the figures that have been captured because this has been put under the microscope, but it is the lo…

They say a week is a long time in politics. What about a morning? There will be a lot of political reflections this morning about the news about our party leader and Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, but I will add some personal reflections. He has been my friend for more than 30 years and I hope we will be friends for over 30 more. As teenagers the politics seeped out of our pores and we were both quite heavily opinionated from a very early age. It would be fair to say that I probably came from the centre-left when I was t…

I ask that the Minister for Education come to the House to discuss building projects. I have raised this matter previously, but there is a dearth of information on key strategic projects in Dublin West. This issue affects other areas as well. I wish to discuss the unnecessary stress and heartache caused by long admissions timelines and a lack of co-ordination. This year in Dublin 15, families have received letters from schools placing their children on long waiting lists. It has caused a great amount of anxiety abo…