Mark Wall (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome our guests from the Republic of Kenya. They are very welcome to the House. I also join with the Cathaoirleach in sending condolences to the D'Arcy family on the passing of Michael senior.I thank him for his service over many years.

I also join Senator Craughwell in asking that the Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, come before the House to discuss pensions for uniformed service personnel. It is an issue that is raised with me regularly and something the Cathaoirleach has spoken about previously It is an issue we need to discuss in this House. I will be heading across the road to Buswells Hotel shortly to listen to what they have to say but it is a serious issue.

I want to raise other two issues. One is an issue I was contacted about over the weekend relating to an urgent protocol to allow residents to be able to contact Uisce Éireann, particularly in this case, which relates to a sewage spill that, unfortunately, forced young children, older people and indeed all of the residents of the Abbeylands estate in Barnhill, Castledermot to spend the weekend indoors. It was totally and utterly unacceptable. The biggest problem there was that the estate was not taken in charge and when I rang the local authority officials, they were all worried about what the consequences would be if they went in. Uisce Éireann came back to me today to say it could not get involved because the estate has not been taken in charge. These people pay their property tax like everybody else, yet they could not allow their children to go outside. We need the Minister for Housing, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, to come up with a protocol. We need an emergency number. The local representatives area's own emergency number does not allow contact after Friday evenings and these people had to suffer over the weekend. It is simply not acceptable when they are paying property tax. Will the Leader ask the Minister to come in to discuss a protocol with Irish Water? I would ask Irish Water officials to come in but I am not sure that would happen. If they could come in, we would need to discuss this issue as it has been raised with me an awful lot of times and it was a specific issue in Castledermot over the weekend.

The second issue I would like to raise with the Leader is school transport. The Minister for Education indicated there will be changes in school transport. Do I have three minutes, Cathaoirleach?