I have just left the audiovisual room were the Irish-US driver licence campaign gave a presentation. That campaign is led by Mr. Ciarán Staunton and Ms Karen McHugh. They presented a report by Mr. Damian Green and Mr. Laurence Donnelly. There was much conversation in relation to the lack of public transport in an awful lot of rural Ireland and the necessity of the car. They spoke about the huge issue that we have all dealt with as constituency TDs, namely the fact that a lot of the diaspora want to come home to where they are from and a lot of the time, that is rural Ireland but we have not made it easy for them. This State and this Government has not delivered a licence exchange agreement. Even worse, and what was probably more disconcerting for the Government TDs in the room, was the fact that the campaign has requested meetings with the Minister, the RSA and the Taoiseach but have not received a response. That is absolutely necessary. I accept the Government will talk about this policy it is following in relation to an agreement with New York but the campaign refutes the argument that this is the correct way. The Minister should put some pressure on his colleagues, a meeting should happen and we should come up with a policy that actually delivers this. Recently we had fuel protests involving farm contractors, hauliers, bus and coach operators, farmers as well as fishermen, taxi drivers and many other workers. I never saw so much support for something that was absolutely discommoding. That was based on an acceptance of the cost-of-living and cost-of-fuel disaster we are going through. It goes without saying that many are not happy with what the Government was forced to do through these protests. If we are talking about rural Ireland and farming, this is not the only issue. Farmers are obviously in fear in relation to Mercosur and its provisional application. We do not know what is going to happen as regards the cost and supply of fertiliser or what will happen with the CAP. We keep talking about streamlining the system in relation to how farmers deal with the Department and other agencies but they are not necessarily facilitated. Rural Ireland in particular is suffering from the fact that home heating oil is something that the Government has failed to address. We know the issues in relation to poverty. I would need a lot more time to be able to deal with the wastewater inadequacies, the failure to deliver on housing, particularly in Gaeltacht areas, and the rural planning guidelines. We have been hearing about a report that was checked by the Attorney General. There is talk about hearing about this later in 2026 but we need to see it now. We know the issue for young people, which is that they cannot build houses where they are from and in the Gaeltacht there are particular issues for Irish speakers.

Sentiment score: -0.17