I thank the Deputy. I am happy to take this matter on behalf of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy James Browne. The Deputy made a valid point, and I thank him for raising this matter. On 25 April 2023, the Government approved additional measures under the Housing for All action plan to incentivise the activation of increased housing supply and to help reduce housing construction costs, including the introduction of temporary time-limited arrangements for the waiving of local authority section 48 development contributions and the refunding of Uisce Éireann water and wastewater connection charges. The Government recognised that further measures needed to be put in place to help address cost and viability with a view to incentivising the activation of a pipeline of new housing commencements and assisting the delivery of supply as quickly as possible. The waiver scheme applied to all permitted residential development including multi-unit developments, self-build houses and one-off houses, as well as student accommodation and sheltered housing. The scheme initially applied for one year to all permitted residential development that commenced on site between 25 April 2023, which was the date of the Government decision approving the measure, and 24 April 2024, and that are completed no later than 31 December 2025. On 23 April 2024, the Government approved an extension for the waiving of local authority section 48 development contributions in respect of residential developments commenced not later than 31 December 2024 and the refunding of Uisce Éireann water and wastewater connection charges in respect of residential development commenced not later than 30 September 2024. In April 2024, the final date for the completion of development works on qualifying houses under the schemes was extended from 31 December 2025 to 31 December 2026. There are no plans to extend or reintroduce the waiver scheme. The waiver of local authority development contributions and the refund of Uisce Éireann connection charges directly reduce the upfront cost of construction. These savings, depending on location, represent a meaningful portion of soft costs in budgets. A total of 69,060 homes were commenced in 2024 as against 26,957 in 2022, representing an increase of 156% in comparison with 2022. This is the highest number of commencements on record since the compilation of data on annual residential commencements began to be recorded in 2015. It is likely that the waiver schemes contributed to the increasing level of housing starts post April 2023 in light of the timing of the introduction of those schemes. A certain proportion of planning permissions for housing development that were not being activated have now largely commenced due to this scheme. The time-limited nature of the waiver scheme provided a clear and urgent incentive for developers to act quickly. As already stated, there are no plans to extend the scheme any further.

Sentiment score: 0.25

One-off housing, particularly in rural areas like Roscommon, no more than my own area, is a really important part of housing output. It is important to the vibrancy of rural communities as well. I understand the argument the Deputy is making in respect of how you tie the contribution people are paying directly to a service that is being delivered in return. I have outlined the position of the Department and the Minister that there will not be any extension to the waiver. Obviously, that benefited one-off housing and multi-unit developments. I thank Deputy Dolan for raising this matter and for putting the argument forward strongly on behalf of his constituents, particularly those young people who are looking to build and do one-off developments, in the context of the impact that development charges have on them. I will certainly relay the argument the Deputy has made to the Department and the Minister. I will ask them to take on board what he said.

Sentiment score: 0.12

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter and allowing me to clarify the current position in relation to pay and conditions for school secretaries. As we know from our engagement with schools in our respective constituencies, the school secretary is very much at the heart of the school and is the key interface between students, parents, school leaders and other staff. Without them, our schools would be unsustainable. In supporting these vital school staff members we also support the school community as a whole. The majority of primary and voluntary secondary schools traditionally received assistance to provide for secretarial, caretaking and cleaning services under grant schemes. Where a school employed a staff member to support those functions those staff are not public servants but employees of individual schools and responsibility for terms of employment rests with the school. Since September 2023, the Department has been providing a payroll service for former grant-funded school secretaries. I am glad to be able to say that currently 85% of school secretaries have opted for the new package and are on the Department administered payroll. This happened on foot of an agreement reached in 2022 under the auspices of the Workplace Relations Commission that secretaries would move to a centralised payroll managed by the Department and receive new terms and conditions of employment. As the Deputy knows, school secretaries now benefit from an alignment with the clerical officer grade III pay scale within education and training boards on a pro rata basis. In addition, it was agreed pay increases under future national agreements will be passed on to secretaries and this has happened with each pay increase since the implementation of the agreement. My Department has also improved the conditions for school secretaries with regard to sick leave, annual leave and maternity provisions for this category of staff. For example, where only 51% of grant-funded secretaries had paid sick leave previously, all those who have onboarded to the Department's payroll now have access to paid sick leave entitlements. I acknowledge that Fórsa is looking to future improvements to terms and conditions for secretaries and recognise that for them public service status and access to a public service pension is understandably an important objective. The issue of public service status is complex and needs to have regard to the state of the public finances and the repercussive effects of any such proposals for other grant-funded groups of non-public servants. For those reasons, any proposals must be considered in detail by the Department of Education's officials and those in the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform as the granting or otherwise of public servant status is not within the scope of the Department of Education alone.

Sentiment score: 0.26

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter on the floor of the House. I will pass on the argument and case he has made to the Minister for Education. As I said, there have been significant advancements, as I think we would all recognise. I laid them out in my earlier reply as well. The implementation of revised salary and annual leave entitlements for school secretaries in the February 2022 agreement is now fully operational and lessons learned from that process are now playing a key role in the drafting and implementation of a similar deal to be offered to grant-funded school caretakers. The Minister's officials are also continuing to engage with Fórsa and remain committed to the ongoing process. In the normal course, there are ongoing discussions with the public service unions on any and all matters relating to pay agreements. Any review of changes to the employment of school caretakers or other pay mechanisms can occur only under those processes and any such proposals would need to be considered in detail by the Department of public expenditure, as I said. The reply also refers to the work being undertaken by the Department of, and Minister for, Social Protection on the development of an auto-enrolment pension scheme, which the Deputy will be aware of. The substance of the Deputy matter relates to the request for public service status for school secretaries and access to a pension. That is not in place at the moment but there have been significant advances on other matters of importance to school secretaries. The matter on which the Deputy advocates is an outstanding ask on which the Department is engaging. It will be a matter of further engagement with the Department of Education and also across government because of its implications for other similar categories. I thank the Deputy. I will pass on his advocacy in the Dáil this evening on behalf of school secretaries to the Minister.

Sentiment score: 0.27

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. It is something he has been relentlessly pursuing to ensure it progresses. I confirm that the Department has received supplementary information from the OPW following a request made under section 7B(4) of the European Union (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Arterial Drainage) Regulations 2019. The Department is making arrangements for a public consultation to be held on the supplementary information received to date. Details of this consultation will be made available in due course on the Department's website. The Deputy will also be aware that ministerial consent for this scheme was provided in early 2021 but was subsequently overturned by a judicial review challenge taken by a local community group. The Department has since sought legal advice and taken measures to ensure the consent process complies with relevant national and EU environment law in order to account for the issues raised during the judicial review process. On foot of legal advice received by the Department and the recommendations of its retained environmental consultants, the Minister sought supplementary information from the Office of Public Works on the environmental impacts of the scheme. This request was made in February 2022, with the OPW supplying this information to the Minister in October of that year. Following an examination of the environmental reports and supplementary information provided, and acting on the advice of independent environmental experts, the Minister sought further supplementary information from the OPW in November 2023. The OPW submitted the supplementary information to him on 17 April 2025. All supplementary information received by him will be made available for public consultation and details of this consultation will be made available on the Department's website.

Sentiment score: 0.15

I thank the Deputy for raising the matter again here this evening and for his continued advocacy on progressing the scheme. While the delays in the delivery of the scheme are a source of frustration for the Deputy's constituents and all in Blackpool, as he is aware it is imperative that the consent process progresses in a manner that is compliant with the relevant regulations. In the period since the original consent decision was overturned following the judicial review challenge, the Department has undertaken a number of measures to ensure the process is in compliance with the regulatory environment. This has necessitated the requesting of supplementary information from the OPW in order to ensure that the Minister can reach a reasoned conclusion regarding the anticipated environmental impacts of the proposed scheme. This process has been informed at all stages by expert legal and environmental advice with a view to ensuring the process is sufficiently robust in the event of any future challenges that may brought. I encourage all those within the locality who have views on the environmental impacts of this scheme to participate in the public consultation process when it is opened by the Department. I will relay to the Minister and the Department Deputy Burke's call for an urgent move forward in terms of getting to that consultation and beyond. I know the stress that can be associated with past flooding experiences, the dread that comes with what might happen in the future and the sense of urgency in terms of being able to put mitigation measures in place that can protect communities against that. I understand, therefore, the importance of seeing this process expedited and moved on. I will take his views on behalf of his constituents regarding the importance of moving on with this process and having a consultation commence as quickly possible and relay them strongly to the Minister and the Department.

Sentiment score: 0.30