I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. I apologise that the Minister is not here and that I do not have a copy of the speech for the Deputy. I will get it to her as soon as possible. Like her, I deal with parents and children every day and every week and she is right that there is frustration. We all need to work collaboratively to ensure access to services is improved and that parents and children who deserve to receive them do so. The Government is fully committed to addressing the challenge of the growing demand for assessments of needs. It is important to know that children do not require an assessment of needs to access health services, including those provided by primary care, children's disability network teams, CDNTs, or mental health services. However, demand for assessments of needs continues to grow beyond the current capacity of the system to meet it. It is a stated priority of the Government to ensure a sustainable solution is put in place to address waiting times and waiting lists for assessments of needs. Officials in the Department of Children, Disability and Equality are working to identify the delays and blockages that are resulting in children waiting too long for an assessment of need and to find the most effective means of addressing them. This is likely to involve operational changes, increased staffing resources, better IT systems or outsourcing to the private sector where appropriate. In addition, officials are working with HSE senior management and experienced clinicians to identify legislative changes to improve effectiveness and efficiency within the assessment of needs process. It is important to note that any proposed changes will not affect the statutory right of any person to access an assessment of needs. Work is under way to deliver existing actions and address new ones to address the backlog. One such important action is the targeted waiting list initiative, which funds the procurement of capacity from private providers to deliver assessments of need, targeting those families waiting longest. HSE data show that more than 3,600 assessments were commissioned from private providers between June 2024 and the end of March this year under this initiative, which will continue to run for the rest of the year. However, we cannot rely on the private sector indefinitely and we need to support the public system to meet demand. Efforts are continuing to improve staffing in the public system through recruitment and retention actions. Looking at the CDNTs in particular, there has been clear progress with recent HSE data showing a decrease in CDNT vacancy rates from 29% in October 2023 to 18% in April of this year. The positive impact of these initiatives is becoming visible as regards the number of assessments of need completed. There was a 30% increase in the number of completed assessments last year compared with 2023, and in the first three months of this year, more than 1,400 assessments were completed nationally. That is a 65% increase compared with the same period last year. We recognise there have been improvements, but there is more to be done. I accept the points the Deputy made. If she would like to give me the case studies she spoke about this morning, I will gladly bring them back to the Department for her. There is still a significant backlog with almost 15,300 assessment of need applications overdue for completion nationwide at the end of March. This is an 8% increase on the number overdue at the end of 2024 and clearly shows the scale of the challenge. However, looking at the figures for HSE Mid West in particular, some progress can be seen. Although 434 applications were overdue at the end of March of this year, this is a decrease of 1.8% compared with the number overdue at the end of December. Although it is a small change, it is as step in the right direction. It does not meet the needs of the parents the Deputy mentioned this morning. I accept that. Addressing the delays in accessing assessments of need and the growing backlog of applications is a challenging and complex issue. The Government is absolutely committed to addressing this to ensure that children who require an assessments of need receive it as soon as is practically possible.

Sentiment score: 0.35

I thank the Deputy again for raising this very important matter, which is a priority for the Minister and the Government. This is reflected in the current programme for Government, which includes a clear commitment to support families who are waiting for assessments of need and to ensure children and their families can access the supports they need. The Minister understands the scale of the challenge but is encouraged by the activity under way. This is delivering results in the increased number of completed assessments and ongoing efforts to enhance the capacity in the public system to deliver assessments of need. The Minister also knows that there is a lot more to be done, as the Deputy outlined. She has tasked officials within her Department to delve deeper and identify issues within the assessment of need system that are causing delays. She has also asked them to consider those large system-wide factors where parents feel their only option is to seek an assessment of need for their child. In addition, officials in her Department are working with HSE senior management and experienced clinicians to identify legislative changes to improve the effectiveness and efficiency within the assessment of need process. It is important to note that any proposed changes will not affect the statutory right of any person to access an assessment of need. The Minister can assure the Deputy that the matter will continue to receive the most urgent attention and Government will continue to work intensively and collaboratively to put in place an effective and efficient assessment of need system to deliver the service that children and their families need.

Sentiment score: 0.41

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. It gives me the opportunity to remind the House on behalf of the Minister for Education and Youth of the significant challenges facing us in meeting increasing demand for pupil places throughout the country. As the Deputy raised the issue of Portmarnock in the coming years, I am grateful for the opportunity to clarify the position on the provision of primary school places in Portmarnock, Co. Dublin. I assure him that the provision of both mainstream and special education school places to meet the needs of children and young people at primary and post-primary level is an absolute priority for the Department of Education and Youth. The annual enrolment process for new junior infants at primary and new first years at post-primary is a very large-scale operation that is transacted at close to 4,000 schools across the country, involving 140,000 pupils. The Department divides the country into 314 school planning areas and utilises a geographical information system to anticipate school place demand to plan for school place needs. Information from a range of sources, including child benefit data, school enrolment data and information on residential development activity is used for this purpose. Additionally, Project Ireland 2040 population and housing targets inform the Department's projections of school place requirements. Portmarnock school planning area, SPA, has five primary schools. The SPA enrolments are projected to peak in 2027 with enrolments decreasing thereafter. While the Department is aware of enrolment pressures and demand for additional school places in some areas, including Portmarnock, it is important to note that enrolment pressures can be driven by duplication of applications, applications from outside an area, and school of choice factors. Notwithstanding the above, in some areas, demographic pressures and other factors are driving a requirement for additional school places. I have heard the Deputy regarding the matter he has raised here in terms of a deficit of places. Since 2020, the Department has invested over €6 billion in our schools throughout the country under the national development plan, involving the completion of over 1,375 school building projects. Government support for this investment, including by way of supplementary capital funding, has delivered real benefits for school communities. A recent Government decision approved €210 million supplementary capital funding for the Department, which brings the total capital allocation for 2025 for the Department to €1.6 billion. The Department currently has a school building project for Malahide Portmarnock ETNS, which is at stage 2b or planning stage of the architectural process. This project is for a new 16 mainstream classroom primary school, with four special educational needs classrooms to accommodate pupils with special educational needs. The Department also has two additional school accommodation projects to provide additional capacity in the area, namely for St. Nicholas of Myra national school, and St. Helen’s senior national school, which are both at stage 1 or initial design. As part of the national development plan review process, all Departments, including the Department of education, are engaging with the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation with respect to NDP allocations for the period from 2026 to 2030. It is expected that there will be clarity on these allocations over the course of the summer period, and this will allow the Department to plan its capital investment programme for the 2026 to 2030 period, in line with prioritised needs and reflecting, as appropriate, wider Government priorities. Maximising existing capacity in schools to meet needs is very important. The progression of prioritised individual projects to meet the most urgent needs in the four-year window between 2026 and 2030 period, which cannot be met through existing capacity across schools in the local area, will be considered on a rolling basis from autumn onwards, after the NDP allocations are finalised. The Department's main responsibility is to ensure that schools in an area can, between them, cater for all pupils seeking school places in the area. In relation to school admissions, it is the responsibility of the managerial authorities of all schools to implement an enrolment policy in accordance with the Education Act 1998. I will bring back the Deputy's remarks on the figures he has raised. If he wants to give them to me I will happily give them to the Minister again. The Department will continue to keep school place requirements in the Portmarnock school planning area, as with all other areas, under review.

Sentiment score: 0.21

I thank Deputy Smith for raising the issue and I hear his remarks and concerns regarding the provision of school places at primary level in Portmarnock. The Department uses data from a range of sources, including child benefit data, enrolments and information on new residential developments to plan for school placement needs. I will take the points Deputy Smith has made back, and I ask him to provide the information to me so that I can give it to the Minister and the Department. There has been significant investment in school infrastructure since 2020. The Department is continually planning for, and investing in, existing and new schools throughout the country. The nature of the admission process is considerable and quite complex as offers and acceptance continue to transact. There can be significant overlap and duplicate applications throughout areas and schools. While some applications may not yet have received an offer for a school place for 2025 to 2026, families can be assured that all children who require a school place will be provided with one. I will take the Deputy's remarks back and I hear his concerns most definitely.

Sentiment score: 0.28

I apologise because I was not given copies of the script.

Sentiment score: 0.38

I thank Deputy Burke for raising this very important matter. He is right to highlight the relationship between data centres and electricity demand, which is a global challenge. There is the additional demand for energy by data centres and the need to ensure we are competitive. I am taking this matter on behalf of the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment. I will first set out the work this Government is doing on private wires, which is the policy area that will allow for demand users to connect directly to generators, and I will then set out the work we are undertaking in respect of data centres. The current legal position in Ireland is that, other than in limited circumstances, only the ESB can own an electricity distribution or transmission system and, as such, the supply of electricity from generation site to demand user takes place on the ESB-owned national electricity grid. Deputy Burke may be interested to know that this position has its roots back to the early years of the State and the establishment of the ESB in 1927. Following its establishment, the ESB set about creating a standardised national electricity network and have owned what we now know as our national electricity grid ever since. The current electricity market and environment is very different now, with a liberalised and interconnected market in operation. As the Irish energy sector evolves further with a move towards renewables and a zero-carbon economy, there are opportunities to alter the environment in which electricity supply takes place. Private wires provide one such opportunity and, on a basic level, refer to private individuals or undertakings running their own electricity cables in order to transfer electricity from one site to another. Having received Government approval on 4 July, the Department published a set of guiding principles for the development of a policy on private wires. The principles, while not making immediate changes, are to guide any changes which are to come and provide guidance to the public and industry as to the direction of travel in respect of this key area while reiterating the central role the national electricity grid will continue to play in our electricity system. Developing a private wires policy is of importance to this Government and an action was included in the programme for Government to expedite the delivery of this policy. It is the Minister's intention to bring a policy document on private wires to Cabinet next month. The private wires policy will, among other things, aim to unlock private sector resources to build new electricity infrastructure by expanding the rights of private undertakings to connect supply directly with demand. The intention is that private wires will accelerate investment in new electricity infrastructure, including renewable generation and storage, in a manner consistent with the guiding principles of the private wires policy, thereby increasing the availability of power within the wider electricity system. An example of a private wire which may be seen in the future is where a manufacturing plant builds a private connection directly to a new renewable generator. Once introduced, this policy will require primary legislation, along with increased powers and staffing for the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, which this Government will move to implement as a priority. While the Deputy has asked about data centres, it is worth noting that the private wires policy will be broader than just data centres. Data centres, while playing an important role in our economic prosperity, are just an aspect of many businesses, both indigenous and foreign, based in Ireland. As part of developing a private wires policy, the Department undertook a detailed public consultation during 2023, the results of which were published along with the wider policy principles in 2024. As part of the public consultation, the views of numerous stakeholders representing various parts of the economy, including data centres, were sought and considered by officials.

Sentiment score: 0.26

I thank Deputy Burke for his contribution and comments, and I will take his remarks back to the Minister. As I said earlier, next month the Minister will bring a policy document on private wires to Cabinet. However, private wires alone will not solve the issues currently facing the data centre sector in Ireland. To date, Ireland has attracted the best data centre and tech companies in the world, which is an important relationship, and Government continues to work with the sector towards a secure and decarbonised energy future. Data centre electricity demand is a global challenge for companies and governments. In Ireland, there are current and real network constraints in facilitating new data centre connections, particularly in Dublin. The Commission for Regulation of Utilities is currently reviewing the results of the recent public consultation on a new proposed data centre connection policy. While in the near term already-contracted data centres will be accommodated in the grid, for the medium term, the Government is committed to developing a plan that will, inter alia, guide the development of plan-led data centre infrastructure to provide a certainty to the sector over the medium term. The programme for Government commits to scale up investment in critical infrastructure, including electricity, and this is key to facilitating the delivery of future demand growth. I expect the Commission for Regulation of Utilities to shortly publish its minded-to decision on price review 6. PR6 will see the CRU approve by year end the investment in the grid spanning the four-year period 2026 to 2030. ESB Networks, as part of the PR6 process, has requested a baseline investment in the onshore grid of €10.1 billion, with the potential to grow to €13.4 billion. This is an increase from the €4.4 billion approved under PR5. In conclusion, PR6 will assist in Ireland maintaining a reliable and resilient electricity network to meet the needs of customers and society, delivering additional network capacity at all voltage levels.

Sentiment score: 0.14

I thank Deputy McGrath for raising this very important issue. I am taking the matter on behalf of the Minister. As Deputy McGrath will know, the formulation and implementation of monetary policy is an independent matter for the European Central Bank, ECB. As it sought to combat excessive inflation, the ECB increased official interest rates on ten occasions, to 4.5%, in the period 2022 to 2023. However, since last summer, the ECB has reduced its official rates on eight occasions and, together with a change to the way it implements its monetary policy, this has had the effect of reducing its main official lending rate by 2.35 percentage points, to 2.15%. Official interest rates influence the level of interest rates in the wider economy. However, other economic and business specific factors, such as the cost of funding, market conditions and contractual frameworks, will also influence the retail rates charged by individual lenders. Therefore, in a market economy, the determination of retail and business lending rates are commercial decisions for individual creditors. The Minister for Finance has no specific function or role in such decision-making matters by credit institutions or other mortgage entities, except in the case of most tracker mortgages, where the contractual terms of the mortgage provide that the interest rate will adjust in line with changes in the main ECB lending rate. The contractual provisions of other types of mortgages usually afford a greater degree of flexibility to the mortgage provider in the adjustment of interest rates. Accordingly, the determination of the initial interest rate and the contractual positions for the subsequent adjustment of the interest rate in non-tracker mortgages is a business and contractual matter for the individual lender. In the case of a fixed-rate mortgage, the contractual terms will provide that the interest rate will not adjust during the period the interest rate is fixed. The latest publicly available data on retail mortgage interest rates, published last week by the Central Bank of Ireland, is for April 2025 and indicates that, overall, the average interest rate on new mortgages in Ireland was 3.72%. This represents a reduction of five basis points, from 3.77% in March, and is 52 basis points lower in annual terms and demonstrates a sustained reduction. The equivalent euro area average increased slightly last month to 3.34%. While acknowledging that the euro area average rate is somewhat lower than in Ireland, it is worth pointing out that the vast majority of new Irish mortgages, some 81%, are now at a fixed rate, up from 70% in April 2024. This will protect borrowers in the event of a rise in official and market interest rates, at least for the period the interest rate is fixed. In addition, the weighted average interest rate on a new fixed-rate mortgage agreement was 3.55% in April 2025, three basis points lower than in March this year and 58 basis points than in April 2024, which also makes for encouraging news for borrowers. Regarding interest rates on an outstanding mortgage, Deputy McGrath may wish to note that at the end of March 2025 the average mortgage interest rate with banks was 3.5%. However, the national interest rate on mortgages with non-banks was higher, at 4%. In relation to variable mortgage rates, options are also available for some borrowers, in particular creditworthy variable rate mortgage borrowers who have now built up equity in their home, to look at alternative mortgage options to reduce their mortgage costs. In this context, new lenders have entered the market. This is providing more competition and, in turn, may provide better value to consumers. Other lenders are also enhancing their presence in the market, including one particular entity that is now moving to provide a fuller range of banking services to Irish financial consumers. Furthermore, established and relatively new mortgage lenders are increasing the range of their mortgage offerings and a wide range of mortgage types, with different types of interest rate product, LTV products and green mortgages now available. While interest rates increased in the period 2022 to 2023 and were challenging for the mortgage market, the most recent reduction in mortgage rates in the past 12 months will help many borrowers. Despite the inflation rate fluctuations, the mortgage market has remained resilient over this period. New residential mortgage lending amounted to almost €12.6 billion in 2024, compared with €8.4 billion in 2020. I have a substantial further contribution to provide to Deputy McGrath and I am happy to give it to him later. I thank him for raising this matter. He is right that it is a very important issue we need to keep on top of.

Sentiment score: 0.40

The Deputy is right to raise the matter. It is an issue vexing many of our neighbours and friends. The Government is acutely aware of the impact of the rising interest rate environment and the strain it has caused for some borrowers, and has responded with various initiatives to assist those affected. Following engagement with the then Minister for Finance in 2023, the mortgage industry put in place several measures to assist their customers experiencing difficulties to provide enhanced clarity on eligibility criteria for switching mortgages. I emphasise that all regulated entities, including banks, other regulated mortgage lenders and loan owners and services, are required as a matter of law to follow the statutory Central Bank code of conduct, including the code of conduct on mortgage arrears and the consumer protection code. These codes are not voluntary and there can be no question of regulated loan owners not following them. The failure to do so can result in the Central Bank of Ireland using its range of powers to ensure adherence to codes, including its administrative sanctions, procedures or legal actions where appropriate. In addition to the protections available to consumers under the financial legislation and regulatory framework, a consumer also has recourse to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman, FSPO. If consumers are not satisfied with how a regulated firm is dealing with them in relation to the handling of their mortgage or believe a regulated firm is not following the requirements of the Central Bank codes and regulations under financial services law, they should make a complaint directly to the regulated firm. If consumers are still not satisfied with the response, then there is an option to go to the independent financial services office provided for in law to adjudicate on complaints consumers have with regulated financial services providers. Again, recent Central Bank data indicates that the average interest rate on outstanding mortgages held by bank and non-bank regulated entities has declined over recent years. Deputy McGrath is right to raise this matter. We cannot be complacent. We have an obligation to ensure we advocate on behalf of and work for our constituents and people we know well. The decline in this regard is a welcome one and, from a general perspective, the ECB is reducing official interest rates and the Government expects all mortgage creditors to keep their lending rates under review. Where mortgage rates had in the past increased in line with ECB increases, they should now in the new interest rate environment also appropriately adjust downwards. The Central Bank will continue to liaise with regulated entities on this matter.

Sentiment score: 0.13