I am delighted to speak on this Bill. It is a good and timely debate that is badly needed in our country. We think back to the pioneering days of Seán Lemass and T. K. Whitaker, what they could do and what they did, and the vision, passion and integrity they had. To some extent, we have evolved from that. Of course, we joined the EU and we had loads of money, but we crashed the economy, not once, but twice, and we had the International Monetary Fund, IMF, here. There are soundings again this week that are terrifying people. It is said that property taxes should be increased, and that we have to rein in our spending and stop the reliance on data centres and those kinds of companies and outlets. There is a social contract with the people, but it has been utterly shattered. We saw this recently with the protests about the cost of living and fuel. Ordinary people, hard-working mná agus fir na hÉireann, agus na buachaillí agus cailíní freisin, all came out because enough was enough and they could not cope. They see the waste. I will not even mention the items already mentioned that were news headlines here in the last year. Every day of the week, I mention spending, but there is no accountability whatsoever. Take the Ukrainian housing, where one company, Sisk, had 11 contracts on 11 sites. Modular units worth a maximum of €80,000 have now cost €450,000 nationally. It is daylight robbery. In Clonmel, when I sat down with the company and the Office of Public Works, OPW, integration team, I was guaranteed that they would not cost a penny more than €200,000, with everything included, and I knew the site involved. We now find out that they cost €496,000, and that is not yet the final bill. It is an abomination, and that is only one area. This is widespread. With the children's hospital, my group and I argued that it should be put out on the M50. We knew the contract was written to rob the State. We have the Critical Infrastructure Bill but, unfortunately, the same people are writing that legislation, the people who have lost their way, who cannot seem to see outside the box and who are blinkered. Then we have the legions and battalions of NGOs running around Government Buildings in front of Ministers and behind Ministers. They have their ear, and they are dictating policy and legislation. It is a simple outrage that this is happening. We have completely lost our way. With regard to education and skills, we have great, educated people here, but we need to reskill to have more trades and more practical work. With regard to wind energy and solar, why is it always big companies that are coming into communities to do these projects? CRH is trying to build a big biodigester near Thurles in Tipperary at the site of the old lime plant in Killough. It is antagonising people because it has money, and it sees nothing except the money and greed. It does not want to respect communities, and it will not engage with communities or try to work with them. There is a lot of work to be done here. The sun is shining and the hay is to be made, but I do not know what hay is being made.

Sentiment score: -0.11

Clare still has the hurling, at least.

Sentiment score: 0.00