I move amendment No. 12: In page 23, between lines 31 and 32, to insert the following: “(4A) In this section, ‘exceptional circumstances’ means circumstances that— (a) arise from a unique and unforeseeable event, or a specific and demonstrable public necessity, (b) cannot reasonably be addressed by compliance with the requirements of the EIA Directive within the timeframe necessary to avert serious risk to human health, safety, the environment or essential public services, and (c) are strictly limited in scope, dur…

I move amendment No. 13: In page 24, to delete lines 4 to 7 and substitute the following: “(b) publish, prior to deciding the application to which the exemption relates, a notice of the exemption, any requirements referred to in paragraph (a), a summary of public and authority submissions, and the Agency’s reasoned conclusions on the main issues raised— (i) on a website maintained by it or on its behalf, and (ii) in a national newspaper,”.

I move amendment No. 14: In page 24, between lines 16 and 17, to insert the following: “(d) ensure that information published under this section is accessible, written in plain language, and includes non-technical summaries of likely significant effects and mitigation measures.”.

I thank the Minister of State for her reply. I remember attending a meeting in Listowel last year when the services in north Kerry were closed. It turned out that they were reopened but there were such levels of stress and anxiety among the families and the service users who were used to attending the service, which was just outside Listowel, the north Kerry service the Minister of State mentioned. Will the Minister of State guarantee to expand those services because it is a county where, for example, we have only …

The NCSE recently said it is saying it is no longer in a position to issue letters of eligibility for ASD classes in schools and special schools because it issued a deadline on 1 October and it is using that as an excuse to tell parents they are not getting places and to contact the school for any additional supports. Clearly, it is not appropriate to issue a final deadline like that. There is huge stress and anxiety among the parents. We heard earlier about the judicial review and there are legal challenges availa…

Before we start, it is no disrespect to the Ministers of State but is the senior Minister ever going to turn up? I presume there is a good reason for his absence.

Tá sé tuirseach traochta.

There seems to be a pattern but anyway. Irish households are being ripped off in their energy bills. Even the Taoiseach has acknowledged it. Last week at the joint committee, we were told that price gouging cannot be ruled out. The ESRI called for a fresh inquiry into our sky-high energy prices. We introduced legislation a few years ago to stop this, but we were ignored, and since then there are record numbers in arrears, price hikes across the board and vital supports such as energy credits withdrawn and ripped aw…

I thank the Minister of State for the reply. I agree to some extent with him that it is a commercial issue. Obviously all the energy companies have a responsibility to their shareholders not only to have the same amount of profit but to have an increased amount the following year and the year after that. I agree with the Minister of State that hedging is an issue. The Government can see that prices do not come down as quickly as they go up. He said that energy costs in Ireland are the 12th highest in Europe, but wh…

It certainly is not market failure for the energy companies because they are making huge profits. We have called since 2023 for a dedicated hedging monitoring unit so that the regulator can oversee and regulate hedging because the energy companies need to be held to account and to justify the increase in prices. The regulator must also treat energy as a public good. In the coming months, we are going to see an extra €1 tacked onto bills to invest in the grid. Price review 6 also has worrying price increases coming …

Ireland is wasting over €400 million every year on surplus energy. The programme for Government says that legislation could be enacted to divert surplus renewable energy to homes that are in fuel poverty. The amount being wasted has jumped from over €250 million in 2023. I ask the Minister of State to outline a timeline for the delivery of the diversion of wasted energy to the households that need it the most.

I thank the Minister of State for the reply. As I said earlier, the figure for wasted energy was €250 million in 2023 but it is now almost half a billion euro. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of households are in debt and energy poverty has reached record levels. Approximately €1.3 million worth of energy has gone down the drain today. This would have heated 390 million water tanks but that 1.2 GW of power was lost forever. EnergyCloud has a model to divert this waste into a public good. It has a concept an…

The reality is that there are difficulties with our grid, which is very constrained. Investment in the grid must take place, which the Minister of State mentioned in response to the previous question. However, the cost of that should not be borne by ordinary householders but by the State and by larger energy consumers. A big part of the problem is that data centres are taking up almost one third of Ireland's energy. The surge in energy demand from data centres has already led to housing not being delivered. One suc…

I want to talk in the few minutes I have about some capital projects in Kerry, which badly need to be progressed. In a county like Kerry, with 13 blue flag beaches, mountains, lakes and coastline that are the envy of many, unfortunately we have a major structural deficit. In order for people to reside in their own home areas, we need a massive injection of funding to bring us up to a level that is taken for granted in some of those other counties. Yesterday, I was in Castlegregory, where I met Pat Barry and John Bu…

-----but there is still no sign of it. Would the Minister ever get that published so that the people can have answers and be included in the scheme, and so that the children who are at risk of heavy weight gain and an awful lot of other difficulties are not further punished by having to pay for their own medical reports? If they are in the scheme, they do not have to pay for it. It is inexcusable that they have not been included in it to date.

I am glad the Minister has recognised that there has been confusion, a lack of clarity and three different types of scenarios in the way this money has been dispensed. I received an email from one constituent informing me that on her last visit to the chemist to pick up her 80-year-old mother's prescriptions, she was informed that the blister pack charge would be increasing to €7.50 per week from 1 January 2026. She was shocked at the extra €5 per week, an increase of 200%. She said that she currently pays €10 a mo…

The Bryan MacMahon hall at Scoil Réalta na Maidine in Listowel, which is named after the former principal and writer, was built around 1960. Its roof is in a bad state at the moment. There is no internal membrane in the roof and no felt inside the slates. Plaster has fallen in from the attic and there is significant mould and woodworm due to water ingress and a lack of insulation. It needs a total overhaul. The school was refused funding under the emergency works scheme two years ago and was recently unsuccessful i…

Beidh mé ag roinnt mo chuid ama leis na Teachtaí O'Hara, Ní Fhearghail, O'Rourke agus Newsome Drennan. I have come from the committee the Minister mentioned and apologise for being a couple of minutes late. Workers and families across the country are being hammered by soaring energy costs and it is happening on this Government's watch. Despite all the promises made before the election to protect workers and families from further increases in energy bills that were already eye-watering, the opposite is being done. F…

Energy is not just about power; it is about sovereignty, security, just transition, the future we leave to our children and fairness to communities. I come from the county of Kerry, which has 15% of the turbines with only 8% of the land mass. I saw the troubles over the years when what Deputy Fitzmaurice described as vultures came in and there was a lot of division in communities. In Sinn Féin, we stand for ending the rip-off and cutting household energy bills, for delivering true Irish energy independence and not …

I wish the former Minister, Deputy Donohoe, all the best. The Government is developing a new diaspora strategy. The Coventry Irish Society has been supporting Irish immigrants since 1953 and it continues to do that in welfare, health, befriending and helping people with passports. It has supported 500 survivors of residential institutions since the 1990s. However, it has no permanent home and has had to move five times since 2015. In the new strategy I ask the Tánaiste to include a provision whereby all of the grea…