The Green Party has called on the Minister and his Government to publish a plan B to show how, across all sectors of the economy, they will try to get us back on track to meet the emissions reduction targets. This project could serve as a model as to how that could be done across the economy. As regards one of the key consequences of the decision set out in the Department's sectoral plan for transport in November of last year, moving that 2:1 ratio of public transport to roads back to 1:1, I think we are already se…

I wish the Taoiseach a happy new year. On the 24th of this month we mark the one-year anniversary since Storm Éowyn, the strongest storm ever experienced here, hit Ireland. Over 800,000 homes were left without power and over 100,000 without water. This had an enormous impact on families, farms and businesses. Tens of thousands of homes waited over a week before basic services were restored to them. In the wake of the storm the Department of housing and ESB Networks set out separate assessments of the State’s prepar…

Absolutely, community supports are important and need to be improved but the Taoiseach has not addressed the issue of getting power back to people as quickly as possible and making sure we are resourced to do that. Last January, the strongest critique of Government's failure after Storm Éowyn was not getting power back to people quickly enough. In Mayo, 43,000 people lost power at the height of the storm; seven days later, 17,500 were still without power. In Galway, it was even worse: 59,000 people lost power on th…

Not quickly enough.

Thirty-one thousand.

I have regularly raised with the Taoiseach the need to strengthen our social media regulation. Recently we have witnessed the proliferation online of sexualised images of children and women made using X's Grok AI tool. This has to be a wake-up call for taking action against the further debasing of the online space. No society should stand for the targeting of people - children - like this. Does the Government believe the generation of non-consensual intimate images and child sexual abuse images by the Grok's AI too…

After two decades of negotiation, the Mercosur agreement looks like it is a done deal for Europe. It is a bad deal for Irish farmers but it is a disaster for the environment in a world that needs to protect its Amazon forest green lung and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A central issue here is how increased demand for South American beef for export to the EU markets is going to create a demand for more land and more cattle, resulting in more jungle being felled and cleared to make way for poor-quality grazing lan…

I thank the Minister of State for her comments and for being here tonight to address this important matter. I recognise the work that Deputy Rice and the committee have done in bringing forward this report. It is irregular to be discussing a PLS report on legislation that does not yet exist. I recognise having tonight's debate allows us to hone in on a number of issues of key concern. It is far more difficult to do that when one does not see a list of heads of Bill, which is what pre-legislative scrutiny is about. …

I thank Deputy Coppinger for bringing forward this important legislation today, which I and the Green Party will be strongly supporting. Along with the Bill on dog breeding last week, it is a welcome opportunity for this House to focus on some of the more extreme and, frankly, indefensible practices which animals in this country are subject to. I want to speak very directly about this. There is simply no justifiable reason for this State to permit the hunting and killing of foxes, with dogs. It is not a reasonable …

It bans trail hunting. Okay, I will step back from that point because I think it is important there is at least one drag hunt in Ireland. It is not my thing but as long as a fox is not being killed I am not particularly concerned about that. It is important we keep the focus here on the central issue which is using legislation to ban the killing of foxes - the killing of animals for pleasure. We have had the opportunity on three occasions in this House over the past five weeks to discuss issues of animal welfare. T…

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the Chamber to present this important legislation. I welcome this valuable Bill although, as I will speak to in a moment, the scope of it is far too narrow. I would like to put a few questions to the Minister of State on that and she might be able to address them in her wrap-up. As a starting point, we cannot be in any doubt that when we consider the prevalence of vaping and the growth in its use, particularly among young people, greater regulation is needed from a public…

Last June, parties across this House welcomed the show of support for freedom of expression by hundreds of thousands of Hungarians when they marched in the Budapest Pride parade, which that country's government had tried to ban. Now we see the Hungarian Government initiating prosecutions against the Green mayor of Budapest and the Pride organisers in another Hungarian city. Could the Government find time this week for statements on this matter and could the Minister for foreign affairs raise it with her counterpart…

I wish to raise the long delays in a rebuild project that three schools in my constituency are facing. They are St. John Bosco Junior Boys School, St. John Bosco Senior Boys School and Mary, Help of Christians Girls National School. These schools are just off the Navan Road in Dublin 7. They serve the communities of Ashtown, Navan Road and such new communities as Pelletstown. They are great schools. I have had the opportunity to visit them. I have met the student council of St. John Bosco school and I had the chanc…

I thank the Minister of State for the update, but I am disappointed that he, or the Department of Education and Youth, is not in a position to give a clear date for when the schools' design team will meet the Department to, first, discuss the latest addendum report submitted by the schools and, second, give them permission to move past stage 2a. In the speech the Minister of State read, we see that the initial stage 1 report was submitted in April 2023 and it was followed by a stage 2a submission report in January …

It is really important that we be clear about the central question we are debating here and will vote on tonight. This is a law that seeks to reduce cruelty to dogs. It is important for the hundreds of thousands of dog owners and lovers in this country who know the innate sense of injustice and fury when they see or hear of a dog being mistreated. I have heard that sense from many of the Deputies who have contributed already today but it is important for those dog lovers to know that this Bill will be delayed tonig…

As the Australian law comes into effect today, we are at a consequential time for the right of national governments to set digital policy. Whether that law succeeds remains to be seen, but we are at a critical junction right now where states, and in Ireland's case states along with the EU, must set policy in the national interest. Protecting children from hate and exploitation is a really good place to start and I support efforts to do so. However, a blanket ban in the long term may be hard to maintain. It is a blu…

The Complex is the only multi-disciplinary arts centre in Dublin's north inner city. It combines a performance space, a gallery and 18 artists' studios. It is also about to close. Management of the Complex have been talks with the Government and the city council since 2018 to secure the long-term future of this centre but it has now been served with a notice to quit. The city council passed an emergency motion on the issue and there is due to be a public meeting on the issue on Thursday. As Minister for public expe…

Like Deputy Rice, I want to raise the situation of Seán Binder and the 23 other human rights defenders who are appearing in court in Greece today. Their crime is volunteering as rescue workers and saving the lives of those who are distressed at sea. In the seven years since he was arrested, Seán Binder has posed this question, "If you come across somebody in distress, what do you check first, their pulse or their passport?". These human rights defenders now face up to 20 years in prison but this trial is not just s…

I welcome the reintroduction of this just transition Bill. I thank Deputy Whitmore for doing so. I thank her for recognising those who worked on this legislation, including my party colleague Eamon Ryan, Dr. Sinéad Mercier and the trade unionists who have been involved in the past. Since this Bill was first proposed by the Green Party in 2018, much has changed in the legislative agenda and the policy direction of this country and indeed in the world as a whole. The just transition has been recognised as absolutely …

I thank the Labour Party for tabling this motion. I am happy to speak in support of it. I am glad the Minister is here giving her time to the debate. It is so important that we have this debate and do not shy away from addressing the issue of trans healthcare, particularly in these times of increasing hatred. Trans people are looking to politicians more than ever to see someone articulate their needs and rights. Regrettably, we know the discourse has absolutely been saturated by toxicity, lies, fallacies, misrepres…