Will the Minister and her Department provide additional and multi-annual funding for therapeutic and counselling supports, such as play therapy? Will the Minister make a statement on it?

I thank the Minister for her reply. We can all agree, as we have done previously, that great work is being done by all the family resource centres. The Minister has, in fairness, expanded and created a number of new centres. The problem I am hearing is that the references and referrals coming from many organisations, such as Tusla, the HSE, CAMHS and local authorities, are overloading family resource centres and they are having great difficulty in meeting the demand that is there. We all know the benefits of play t…

I appreciate that. I am highlighting this today because I have been speaking to a number of family resource centres. The number of referrals they are getting is causing complications for the services they are offering. I am highlighting this today to make the Minister, Deputy Foley, and the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, aware of the need for additional resources in our family resource centres. They have now come to a situation where there is an overload on what they can provide. The other point is the multiannu…

I wish to raise with the Taoiseach conditions at Curragh Community College, which is based on Department of Defence lands on the Curragh, County Kildare. The school is crumbling around staff and students, presenting immediate and serious safety concerns. Classroom conditions are dire. Radiators are not working and children are learning in extremely cold environments where there are even broken windows. There is no safe pedestrian crossing for children and there was a recent accident involving a car and a child. Sta…

I want to talk the Minister of State about Scoil Bhríde, Lackagh, south Kildare. This is a beautiful rural school that currently has 101 students enrolled. The school, I am told, has 30 new children applying to the school in September 2026. Parents in Scoil Bhríde are currently fighting for an autism spectrum disorder, ASD, unit. There are a number of children who are struggling in mainstream classes in the school and who would benefit greatly from this new unit. Another child is also due to start in September of n…

I thank the Minister of State for her comprehensive reply. We can both agree about the importance of allowing children to attend their local national school where possible. This is why I raised the needs of Scoil Bhríde in Lackagh tonight. This is a rural school that, unfortunately, has seen something of a decline in numbers but has a need for a special unit. All of us in this Chamber have spoken for a long period of time about the importance of keeping rural schools open. If we can publish that Scoil Bhríde has th…

Before I call on Deputy Connolly, I welcome to the Public Gallery the pupils from Kilberry National School in Athy. They are from our great county of Kildare. They are very welcome and I hope they enjoy their day.

I raise with the Taoiseach DART+ South West, which is now facing a four-year delay until 2030. I have been raising in this House the car parks that the M7, N7 and M50 have become. My concern is that the shelving of this project will have a knock-on effect on providing additional public transport, which we all support, on the Waterford-Heuston line, and to other towns in south Kildare, like Athy and Monasterevin, and, as a knock-on effect of that, to towns like Portlaoise and Carlow. Can the Taoiseach confirm that t…

This is a very important moment for this House. It is not every day we see all Opposition parties co-sign a motion and I thank Sinn Féin for using its time tonight to bring this forward. It is such an important conversation we will have here tonight. I am pleased to speak to this motion on behalf of the Labour Party. It is a motion which calls out Government failure to get to grips with the assessment of need process and puts forward a number of solutions. I hope the Government will listen tonight and work with the…

Given the importance of the seniors alert scheme to so many people, will the Minister of State confirm whether budget 2026 has allocated any additional funding to it, and if so, whether that includes an expanded list of equipment, such as assistive technology?

I thank the Minister of State very much for his reply. We are all aware of the importance of the seniors alert scheme. It has been a life-saving scheme for many people, not just in rural communities but also in urban areas. I am glad to hear that so many people have taken it up since it was launched in 2015, and that the Department is launching a new scheme in 2026. In launching the new scheme in 2026, has the Department looked at those technologies we were asking about? The Minister of State mentioned weather aler…

I totally agree. This has been a great scheme. I thank the Government for the allocations to date. When I was a councillor in Kildare, we looked at other schemes. One of those was a public light or a light outside the door for people in rural areas, and we gave some funding from the LPT towards that. It was very beneficial. That is the type of scheme I would like to see included under the seniors alert scheme to ensure that older people, particularly in rural but also in urban areas, have that bit of security, whet…

The Deputy should keep his comments relevant to what we are talking about today.

I start by thanking my colleague, Deputy Sherlock, for bringing forward this important motion on transgender healthcare. Over the last number of months, I have met with a number of transgender groups that are focused on highlighting the issues they are facing in the community regarding access to safe and effective healthcare in Ireland. I thank these groups for their input into the Labour Party motion today. This is about respect. This is about helping people. When I speak with these groups, their basic ask is for …

We now have statements on Sudan. I call on the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy McEntee, to make her statement under Standing Order 56.

I want to talk about the village of Allenwood, which is in my constituency in County Kildare. It is a beautiful village, not far from Naas, Clane and Rathangan. It is right in the middle of the county. It is a country village, or perhaps I should say that it was a village in 1991, when 303 people were living in it. The latest census, taken in 2022, showed 1,685 people living in the village of Allenwood. The reason I have raised this Topical Issue is to talk to the Minister of State about Scoil Mhuire Allenwood, an …

I thank the Minister of State for the reply, with which I do not agree and with which the school management will not agree. I have talked in the Chamber previously about schools in south Kildare. As we know, it is one of the fastest growing areas in the whole country. Sometimes, I wonder what statistics and census the Department is looking at. I have just told the Minister of State what has happened in Allenwood over the past four to five years. There have been 40 applications for school places each of the past fou…

I thank the Minister of State.

I thank Deputy Stanley for bringing forward this Bill and giving us the chance and opportunity tonight to discuss the wind turbine regulations. There is obviously an urgent need to update these regulations. At present, as has been said numerous times tonight, we are operating off guidelines set in 2006, and things have definitely moved on considerably since then. There have been significant advances in technology and so on, but also in the urgency with which we need to decarbonise and transition towards clean renew…

Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle agus go raibh maith agaibh go léir.