Results 1,321-1,340 of 1,345 for speaker:Conor McGuinness

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Aquaculture Innovation and Development: Discussion (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: I will open it up to questions and answers. Thank you very much for that. We can get the remainder in questions and answers. Deputy Mac Lochlainn is next.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Aquaculture Innovation and Development: Discussion (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: I thank the Deputy. That is something that has been raised here before with the Minister and something we will definitely be coming back to because, as the Deputy has rightly pointed out, it is absolutely astounding that there are such delays.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Aquaculture Innovation and Development: Discussion (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: We will discuss the arrangements around that but it is something we need to look at for sure.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Aquaculture Innovation and Development: Discussion (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: Very briefly, if Mr. O'Sullivan does not mind. We are under pressure.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Aquaculture Innovation and Development: Discussion (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: Go raibh maith agat. All our members have had an opportunity to speak so I will take my opportunity now. I have a number of questions. The first set is for the witnesses from the IFA. As has been said, the issue around licensing is the biggest single barrier to innovation and development in the sector, a sector, as Deputy Mac Lochlainn rightly said, that could play a much more significant...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Aquaculture Innovation and Development: Discussion (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: Does Ms Morrissey think that is a wasted opportunity, given that these heads in respect of a limited, albeit welcome and necessary, piece of work have been two years in the making and have still not been published? Would the Department's time perhaps be better spent working on that all-encompassing Bill and making that work a lot faster?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Aquaculture Innovation and Development: Discussion (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: I have a couple of questions that relate to supports. We often talk about supports for the fishing industry in terms of the mackerel and wider pelagic species crisis around quota, and inshore fisheries and the challenges they are facing. The refrain we hear, which we understand and accept, is that fishers do not want supports, but to be able to fish. I am sure it is the same for those...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Aquaculture Innovation and Development: Discussion (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: I will reiterate my call that, where there are incidents such as storm damage, biological challenges or multi-year mortality events, targeted supports should be made available to aquaculture operators. As other speakers have mentioned, the economic and social benefits of these industries and this sector to our coastal communities cannot be overstated. I will allow myself a level of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Aquaculture Innovation and Development: Discussion (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: We have some time left, so I propose to take another round of questions and answers. We will go for five minutes each. I call Deputy Mac Lochlainn followed by Senator Boyle and Deputy Gallagher.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Aquaculture Innovation and Development: Discussion (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: Before we proceed, I will put those two proposals to the meeting. Proposal No. 1 is that we have a meeting early in the new year about licensing. Is that agreed? Agreed. Proposal No. 2 is that we have a separate meeting with regard to the legislation. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Aquaculture Innovation and Development: Discussion (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: Greece is a lot nicer this time of year.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Aquaculture Innovation and Development: Discussion (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: Get the shorts packed. We have agreed those two work items. The third is the piece of research Deputy Mac Lochlainn referenced. That would be an important starting point before we pack our bags, to have that comparative piece of research done. I ask members - perhaps the clerk can circulate this request to members not present at the meeting - for ideas around the terms of reference for...

Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Second Stage (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: Ireland's electricity grid is not fit for purpose. It is holding back housing delivery across the State. It is stalling renewable energy projects and limiting development in towns, villages and rural areas. It did not just happen by accident and it did not happen overnight. It is the result of years of underinvestment, poor planning and mismanagement by successive Fianna Fáil and...

Education (Affordable School Uniforms) Bill 2025: Second Stage [Private Members] (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: Every year, families across the State face a financial cliff when the school term begins. Parents are being forced into debt. They are dipping into savings and turning to credit unions just to send their children to school. As we have just heard, they are going to money lenders, unscrupulous ones at that, and getting themselves into huge unsustainable debts. One of the biggest drivers of...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Schools Building Projects (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: 12. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills for an update on the extension of a school (details supplied). [59597/25]

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Schools Building Projects (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: My question relates to Scoil Garbháin, an Irish-medium school in Dungarvan, County Waterford. I am seeking an update on plans for the extension. The school got word in January this year that the long-awaited and much-needed extension had been approved. It was told in February that it would hear within six weeks from the technical team in the Department. Over nine months later, it has...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Schools Building Projects (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: I have to say I am deeply disappointed, bemused and bewildered at the Minister of State's response. I got a copy-and-paste, generic response for half the time he was speaking and for the rest, I got a potted history of what I and others involved in the school and community know has happened. I did not get a straight answer. I do not know how the Minister of State's response tallies with...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Schools Building Projects (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: I thank the Minister of State. I will engage with him further on this matter, and in writing, because I am dumbfounded and none the wiser. As the Minister of State was speaking, I checked the website of Waterford City and County Council. Planning permission was finally granted on 7 February 2025. Planning permission is in place. The land is acquired. The application was submitted in...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Schools Building Projects (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: I think so.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Aquaculture Innovation and Development: Discussion (4 Nov 2025)

Conor McGuinness: Thank you. Ms Bocquel, would you like to respond to any of Deputy Cahill's remarks?