John Kelly (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I support Senator Landy's call for a reversal of the proposal to take away tax credits from what will be, in the main, separated fathers. As the Senator noted, and as I am well aware, there are many separated fathers who provide as much care for their children as the principal carer does. This would be a retrograde step. In recent times some separated fathers were granted the child dependant allowance on top of their jobseeker's allowance, but recently that has been withdrawn. They are taking enough of a hit already.

I ask the Leader for a debate in the House about our critical infrastructure policy on energy needs. This affects the Cathaoirleach too - I refer to the pylons that are to come all the way from Mayo to Flagford in County Roscommon. This is an issue in many other parts of the country; Senator Cullinane raised the matter yesterday in an Adjournment debate. In 1927 the ESB was given the right to erect electricity poles anywhere it wanted to throughout the country because we needed the power. However, now we are discussing pylons that are 40 and 50 m in height yet all we have is the same legislation. It is time to revisit that legislation and make it more appropriate to deal with such pylons, as distinct from ESB poles.

I have a problem with the consultation processes put in place by EirGrid. These were probably designed by the Government to tick all the boxes. People will be called in, told what the proposals are and asked for feedback. This is "liaison" with the people. There will be many hundreds of submissions from the public but none will be published and the Government will not act on any of them. When these power lines are introduced in the west of Ireland there will be "sensitive" areas. One such area is in my neck of the woods where a family with an autistic child lives. A proposed pylon may be erected within 40 m or 50 m from her home, which would seriously impact on her health. Will EirGrid listen to that point? It will talk about all the reports it has commissioned that say powerlines are-----