I thank the Minister. This is a point I made to the Secretary General of the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment at the public accounts committee. There is money there and we absolutely need to invest in ensuring that we have retrofitting, and do everything we can to meet our climate targets, not just because of the financial consequences that might arise but because it is the right thing to do. We want people and families to be living in warm and fully insulated buildings. I would like to see the Min…

Before we move to the next question, I welcome the service users from St. Aidan's Services in Gorey and in particular Nicole, Ian, Donnchadh and Caroline, who are here with Deputy Brian Brennan. They are all very welcome.

Dublin is buzzing with headline gigs, from Katy Perry and Calvin Harris to CMAT and many more, as well as many sporting events. However, what we do not have is a national major event transport planning framework. We really need this. It is impacting on people's decisions on where to go. People from Skerries and Balbriggan simply will not go to Marlay Park any more because getting home is too difficult. Will the Tánasite please talk to the Minister for Transport and instruct him to require the NTA to pull together a…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this debate and to mark Pride. Pride is at the heart about people. It is about recognising the dignity, worth and equality of every person in our society. It is about ensuring that people can live their lives openly, safely and authentically without fear of discrimination, intimidation or abuse. Ireland has come a long way. Many people in this House will remember a very different Ireland. We have made enormous progress thanks to the courage of those who spoke up, shared their s…

As trains have been mentioned, I might take the opportunity to ask the Minister to engage with Irish Rail to make sure the 5.48 p.m. train from Drogheda Pearse to Malahide on Saturday evenings is a full eight-carriage train as the last two Saturdays with the gigs on-----

-----in Malahide Castle have been half trains. They have left people behind in Donabate. I am sure the Minister will be concerned about that. I welcome the steps being taken to remove the passenger cap at Dublin Airport. We are an island nation. We depend on connectivity. A cap on our capital city's airport, as the Minister said himself, is a cap on our growth. Dublin Airport is not only an employer of approximately 130,000 people; it is also a gateway through which Ireland does business, attracts foreign direct in…

As the Minister of State knows, the Fingal area is one of the youngest areas in the country and Balbriggan is the youngest large town. However, our CDNTs are creaking. Will she give an update on whether the vacancies that have been persistent for the past couple of years have been addressed and where we are in terms of staffing levels for the CDNTs in both Balbriggan and Swords?

I very much welcome the investment in disability services, funding for additional posts and the allocation for behavioural supports and speech and language therapy. However, when I look at the raw figures, I see that every single post for Balbriggan is underfunded. We are supposed to have six occupational therapists but there are only five; instead of five speech and language therapists, we only have 3.6; there are two physiotherapists rather than four; and we have two psychologists instead of four. It is a similar…

I welcome the reductions. I really do not profess to know the science behind this but there is movement of children from CDNT lists to primary care and there is movement of children on CDNT lists from Balbriggan to Swords. I am not really sure why all of that happens, but I want to make sure that the children and families who need the therapies are getting them. While numbers look like they are reducing, I am not sure that the children have actually got the therapies they have sought. The other thing I would like t…

I welcome the new autism assessment and intervention pathway protocol. It is an effort to bring greater consistency as to how autism is assessed across services. The success of this reform will depend on whether autistic people and their families feel that it reflects their lived experience. The Minister of State might please advise us as to what engagement took place with the autism community in developing the protocol.

I thank the Minister of State. In regard to going forward and making sure that the lived experience of autistic people and their families included and that we learn from the experience they go through in this new process, can she confirm that there will be that ongoing structured engagement around any reforms, changes or tweaks made to the protocol, as may be required from the process?

I know the Minister of State touched on it earlier but my area has one of the longest waiting lists for assessments of need. What parents at home want to know is whether this protocol will help them get assessments and therapies? Will it make a difference to them? She might please help me give some comfort to families at home.

The public accounts committee has, after protracted correspondence, finally got to the bottom of where we might be in terms of the cost of storage of 384 buses over the last four years, with 98 electric buses still in storage. These are much-needed buses that should be servicing our community. Will the Minister of State specifically tell us the cost of those electric buses, and also the projected cost, given that we are still counting for the 98 buses still in storage?

If hundreds of electric, zero-emission buses sitting in storage represents value for money, I would like the Department to publish a full cost-benefit analysis, the opportunity cost and the opportunity lost. Will the Minister of State please confirm that the Department will do that?

The summer provision has worked well for many years now. It has supported families and in particular children with disabilities but this year has not gone to plan. Schools have no certainty about summer provision - July provision - in particular in relation to the home-based school provision. Parents are supposed to source teachers and SNAs to provide this. We are seven days out from schools closing and parents have no certainty as to whether their children have been accepted. Can the Taoiseach confirm urgently tha…

While I welcome the progress that is being made, the EPA, as it stands, is telling us that, at best, we are only going to meet half of the targets that we need to meet for 2030. What urgent additional measures is the Minister and his Department considering to try to bring us further forward in reaching our 2030 goals?

At a recent meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts, the Minister's Secretary General and I discussed retrofitting and delivering energy efficient homes. She acknowledged that is a real issue and there is a workforce gap. Has the Minister's Department made an assessment of that gap? What measures is he taking to address it? The Minister mentioned an extra 1 million EVs on the road. What we really need is better public transport. In Fingal, as the Minister knows, we need better public transport. We need local bu…

This Bill represents progress in a number of important areas. It reflects an effort to respond to the pressures on working people through a number of targeted tax measures, including an increase in the USC threshold; the extension of supports, such as rent tax credits and mortgage interest relief, alongside continued investment in our infrastructure and public services; measures backing innovation, research and quality jobs; regenerating towns and city centres; and measures to intensify the supply of housing. No mo…

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. This is an issue that evokes deeply held and personal views across Irish society and it is important that we approach it with sensitivity, compassion and respect for differing opinions. There will be strongly held views expressed in this debate, and I respect that. However, I believe as legislators that we have a responsibility to carefully consider the evidence presented in the comprehensive and evidence-based O'Shea report, the improvements made since the re…

North County Dublin is one of the youngest and fastest growing areas in the country yet access to public swimming pools is extremely limited, particularly in north Fingal. Waiting lists for the limited swimming pools that are available are at 100%. Fingal County Council is planning to develop a swimming pool in Balbriggan. Will the Minister of State update us on whether any money will be made available from central government to fund that swimming pool?