Michael Mullins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I join with Senator Leyden in extending our good wishes to the Irish throughout the world on St. Patrick's Day weekend. This is the last sitting of the House before St. Patrick's Day and it is appropriate that we wish Ministers embarking on the promotion of our country abroad all the best. Some 88 high level political meetings will take place, there will be 180 public diplomacy events and 70 focused industry events during the course of the next number of days.

I am also pleased that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of the Taoiseach issued an instruction that there will be no first class flights taken, no use of limousines by people abroad on business and that Ministers will use embassy accommodation where available. It is appropriate during these difficult economic times that everybody consciously watches the cost of their visits abroad. At the same time, this is the one real opportunity we have in the year to showcase Ireland, promote business and, hopefully, attract tourists to the country.

I join Senator Coghlan in welcoming the announcement made yesterday by the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, of the €68 million investment in local authority housing. I welcome in particular that €15 million of this will be made available to bring 500 local authority houses back into service. I have always been very critical of local authorities that have left houses idle for far too long, depriving people of a home. Those houses are often vandalised and are a source of antisocial behaviour. I very much welcome the announcement and hope local authorities take up their allocation quickly and bring these houses back into use as a matter of urgency, given the huge number of people on local authority waiting lists throughout the country.