Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies. As I have explained to the House in the past, I engage with Ministers and officials in all sorts of different ways, including through Cabinet meetings, which the Attorney General and Secretary General to the Government attend, Cabinet subcommittee meetings, at which a greater number of officials are present, and meetings with Ministers and officials.

With regard to the Project Ireland 2040 website, I will ask the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, once again to ensure that it is updated. I apologise to Deputy Micheál Martin for the fact that it was not updated as it should have been. We do not need a website, however, to know what is going on. I am happy to fill the House in on what has been achieved in the year or so since Project Ireland 2040 was launched. Projects which were promised by Opposition parties for a very long time when they were in government and projects which have been demanded by Opposition parties that have never served in government are now being delivered. There are three hospitals under construction. The campus for the National Forensic Mental Health Service to replace its facility in Dundrum is almost finished in north County Dublin. The national children's hospital, which was promised for decades, is being built. The first element of that, which is in Blanchardstown in my constituency, is ready to be handed over and will be opened in a few months. The new National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire in Deputy Boyd Barrett's constituency is, at long last, under construction.

Projects that were promised by other governments for years and which have been demanded by people who have never been in government are being delivered by this Government. Eleven primary care centres will be opened this year and 26 more are in development. Quite soon approximately 130 will be operational. In education, as I mentioned, by the end of the year, 410 school projects will be completed or under construction, which will include 200 modern science laboratories and 48 upgraded PE halls. These projects will replace the 600 prefabs which were mentioned earlier in the debate. With regard to transport, works in Enniscorthy and New Ross will be finished by the end of the year and the N4 in Sligo is under construction. We expect the projects at the Dunkettle interchange, Ballyvourney and Macroom, and a few others to go to construction later in the year. The long-promised new runway at Dublin Airport is under construction. The vast majority of these projects are happening on budget, including the schools programme, the roads programme and the Irish Water investment programme.

I was asked about electric vehicles and the need to provide a much better network of charging points throughout the country if we are going to decarbonise our fleet. That needs to be done. We have tasked the ESB with leading on this, using its own resources rather than Exchequer resources. We have also tasked the ESB with increasing the proportion of our electricity generated from renewable sources from 30% to 70% by 2030. This is ambitious but achievable. That is two pretty big asks of the ESB, asking it to deliver the electric vehicle charging points we need and to double our capacity to produce renewable energy over the next ten or 11 years. Those who suggest that the ESB should take on additional tasks need to consider whether it would have the capacity to do more than we are already asking it do to, which is quite a lot.

On social housing standards, I expect any social housing being constructed by the public or private sector to meet current building standards with regard to fire safety, energy standards, soundproofing and everything else. If it does not, there should be consequences.

On climate action more broadly, I have only seen one draft of the document. I am not sure which draft ended up in The Irish Times.

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