I thank the Minister of State. It is not often that I, or any Opposition TD, comes in here and gets the answer they want from a Minister of State. I welcome the fact he has confirmed there will be additional special education classes for Wicklow and that they will be announced shortly. In relation to letters of eligibility, I understand the Department is working hard on this issue but what can I tell parents? As I said, one child has a place and the school is happy to take the child but the family does not have the…

I thank the Labour Party and Deputy Wall for bringing this motion forward. We are very happy to support it. A constituent of mine once told me that they did not live in Wicklow town; they merely slept there. That has stuck with me because it is reflective of the lived experience of so many people in a commuter county like Wicklow where people buy their homes, want to start families and be a part of the community but spend three or four hours a day trying to simply get in and out to work. Anyone who has travelled on…

In 2023, the CSO reported that 52% of women had experienced sexual violence in their lifetime and this figure was increasing year on year. I recently met a fantastic group of women from Wexford who were in visiting the Ceann Comhairle in the Dáil. This group established the Wexford Rape Crisis Centre. I had really good conversations with them but they made it clear to me that there were quite a number of women from Wicklow who were going to Wexford to avail of the services of the rape crisis centre because we did n…

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to provide for enhanced powers for the Agri-food Regulator to access data from businesses within the agricultural and food supply chain, including prices, margins, and related financial information, in order to promote transparency and protect consumer interests; and to provide for related matters. I welcome the opportunity to introduce this Bill. It will provide for enhanced powers for the Agri-Food Regulator to access data from businesses within th…

I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

I am looking for an update on the Glendalough to Bray Local Link service. This is a hugely important route. In May 2025, the NTA said it was a priority and the funding had been allocated. The contract has been awarded to a bus company and a driver is ready to go. The bus company is ready to go with this but we still have no detail on the actual start date. If the Minister of State could provide an update on that, I would be very appreciative.

I was hoping that, when I came in today, the Minister of State would give me a start date for this service. It was meant to start in September of last year. As I have said, the NTA told me in May that this was a priority route and that funding had been allocated. Everyone is ready to go with this. Along with other public representatives, I have been trying to get information about this route and to find out exactly when it is going to start. There are many communities - the people in Glendalough, Laragh, Roundwood …

When will that service plan be complete? We need to give people some idea. This is obviously about connectivity and it is really important that these services are put in place but we are really starting to see a lack of trust in the Government's ability to provide public transport. The NTA said nearly a year ago that the funding was available, that the route had been awarded and that it was a priority but we still do not have a start date. This is not only impacting people's lives because they cannot get a bus, but…

I welcome the opportunity to have this debate. As others have said, this is a technical Bill, one that has been in the pipeline, to excuse the pun, for quite a while. When I did research on this, I looked at the Oireachtas page where Bills are listed. I was aware I was familiar with the Bill but I could not remember seeing any previous debates. It is not listed on the website. There are no debates, but I know we had pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill in 2024. It is something the Department may be able to look at.…

Even the pre-legislative scrutiny has not been mentioned. I read the pre-legislative scrutiny. The Bill is quite important. It is limited in scope but important in terms of what it does. When we carried out pre-legislative scrutiny on the Bill, the CRU and Jim Gannon came to discuss it with us. At the time, he made the point that about 100 LPG distribution networks were currently being operated by unlicensed parties. I understand about 1,000 residential properties were impacted by that. It is not a large number but…

This related to the LNG facility. It is more about the importance of pre-legislative scrutiny, in particular when we are discussing energy. In that instance, I would be very concerned and would not agree with waiving any pre-legislative scrutiny for any aspect of LNG legislation. There is such concern about this publicly that the process needs to be transparent and there needs to be a debate in the Dáil. As legislators, we need to be given the opportunity to do our job in that regard. I wanted to mention that to th…

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion. This is a very important and timely debate. A huge number of people are very worried about the Mercosur deal. I am sure the Minister of State is well aware of the large number of people who attended the meeting at the weekend to express their concern about what could potentially happen to them and their families in the future. They are also extremely disappointed with the Government and how it has handled this issue from the get-go. It has been said a number of ti…

I thank Deputy Coppinger for this really important Bill. It is very timely, so I thank her for her work on it. The Social Democrats will 100% support her in the Bill and her efforts to ban fox hunting. I will be very clear. Fox hunting is wrong, fox hunting is cruel and fox hunting has no place in the Ireland of today. I was really disappointed to hear what the Minister, Deputy Heydon, said in his speech. I expect the arguments put forward by the Government to be more rational. There was an incredible amount of mis…

On a point of order, I am just wondering when we are discussing this, can we just ask the Deputies to state whether they have any financial involvement in hunts or the provision of services for hunting?

That is all I am asking.

It is hardly scurrilous to ask for transparency, Minister.

If that is what the Minister of State is worried about, I would be concerned about that. It is transparency and it is Members' responsibility in this Chamber to be clear about any financial benefit.

I welcome the Bill but it is too slow in what it proposes to implement. The tobacco industry is very quick at coming up with new and innovative ways of delivering nicotine to individuals, getting them addicted to its products and keeping its bottom line very healthy while everyone else suffers from those products. Rather than waiting years to deal with these issues, we need to be much more proactive. While my colleague has spoken specifically about vapes, I will focus on nicotine pouches, which should be incorporat…

Irish seas have been sold and our coastal communities are paying the price. Our seas are among our most valuable natural resources, yet they are being exploited under a system that fails to protect coastal communities, marine biodiversity and the long-term sustainability of our fisheries. The presence of Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroe Islands vessels in Irish waters is a stark reminder of how weak our current controls are and how urgently they need reform. Foreign fleets now catch approximately 85% of all fish land…

Some 300,000 people are in arrears on their electricity bill with 187,000 of them in long-term arrears. In October, the Taoiseach spoke about price-gouging by energy companies and since then, all we have seen is price hike after price hike. Staff of the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, was on "Morning Ireland" today and advised people to shop around for their bills or to put their electricity on at cheaper times of the day. That is completely tone deaf when we are in a situation where people do not have…