Results 821-840 of 1,000 for speaker:John McGahon

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Energy Poverty: Discussion (23 May 2023)

John McGahon: I thank Ms O'Connor. I may come back in again on the second round.

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó (Atógáil) - Order of Business (Resumed) (24 May 2023)

John McGahon: One of the points I want to talk about is renewable energy and some of the attached benefits that we can initialise with renewable energy to encourage more people, in particular people in the farming community, to get involved. One of the issues I want to highlight in that regard is something I have raised in the Seanad before. It is about the abolition of the 50% rule, whereby no more than...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (13 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: I would like to speak today about our great friend, the late Senator Paul Coghlan. I had the honour and privilege of working for Senator Coghlan between 2016 and 2020. I say this genuinely: I have memories, stories, advice and so many things that I will use, not just in my political career but in my life for decades to come, that I was able to learn from Paul Coghlan. Very few politicians...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (14 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: I wish to raise an issue about the vacant property scheme and the grant towards it. It is an issue that Senator Paddy Burke has previously raised and something that I have come up against this week. I will give some context. Obviously, this grant is exceptionally important. It is very good. It is a great way to give young, first-time buyers access into the property market to refurbish...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: I thank the Chair. It was around 2017 or 2018 when I was on Louth County Council and we first got word of the first retrofitting of local authority homes. Would the Minister or Ministers of State know off the top of their heads, a ballpark figure as to how many homes been retrofitted since that time, when we first began retrofitting local authority homes?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: We started about 2018 or 2019, if I am not mistaken.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: Okay, excellent.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: This year it is 2,400.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: So it is really ramping up. That is excellent. Following on from that, I want to walk back. I ask the Minister of State to excuse my ignorance-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: Wow. That is the figure I was seeking; that is excellent. To walk back, how is that distributed across local authorities? When the Minister of State says that this year there will be 2,400 units done, how is that broken down throughout the local authorities? Does Dublin City Council tell the Department it has X number of units that it can do this year? Does Louth County Council come to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: Is it the case that the local authority in Louth goes to the Department and says it can do 164 units? Where does the figure of 164 come from? What is the difference between Louth doing 164 and Meath doing 180?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: That makes sense

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: No, that makes perfect sense. The figure is based on total stock, which will obviously be different for each local authority. That makes perfect sense. That is gets me where I wanted to go, which is excellent. I wish to make three other points regarding what the Minister said. They do not relate to the Department in a big way, but they are interconnected. The first point relates to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: That is why we need Ministers to fight the corner of lowly Senators like me.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: The final point I would like to make is about urban regeneration funding. I have seen how successful that is in my home town of Dundalk. It is absolutely incredible. The Ministers of State, Deputies O'Donnell and Noonan, are both well aware, dereliction breeds dereliction. Where there is one derelict building, that leads to two, three or four derelict buildings in an area. We have pumped...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: He was a forerunner with that idea nationally as well as locally.

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Health Services (15 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House to discuss the very important issue of palliative care services in the north east of Ireland, which is where I come from. I am raising this issue today because of a real discrepancy in the services that are being provided in the CHO region - not compared to the rest of Ireland but in the region itself. It concerns the difference between...

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Health Services (15 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: That is very promising. As always when the Minister of State comes to this House, she has come with a fair and balanced view. I greatly appreciate the outcome she outlined. What is needed is a fundamental review of the services in Louth and Meath with a view to finding out why they are different from elsewhere. To be clear for the record, in Laois, Cavan and Monaghan, public health nurses...

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: School Textbooks (21 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: I thank the Minister of State for taking this matter. The reason I am raising this in the House is as a result of a conversation with a long-time friend of mine, Tom Muckian, from Dundalk who is an independent bookseller in the town for more than two decades. He brought up three issues with the free books scheme from a bookseller's point of view. I am raising those three issues in the...

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: School Textbooks (21 Jun 2023)

John McGahon: There are approximately 150 small independent bookshops right across this country. If we do not tinker with this scheme and fix it, it will push many of those bookshops, which are already operating on very fine financial margins, to the brink. If we can fix this scheme and tinker with it, with a couple of the suggestions I have made, it will make this a very profitable and very viable...