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

In regard to climate action there are many areas, where Ireland does well environmentally. We are close to the top of the league tables when it comes to things such as recycling. We are doing well on wind energy and can do much better again. We have brought through some really important legislation in the past three years, largely Private Members' Bills, for example, Deputy McLoughlin's Bill to outlaw fracking, Deputy Pringle's Bill to divest the State from investing in fossil fuels and the Bill initiated by Senator Grace O'Sullivan and the Labour Party around microbeads, which will become law.

There is an obvious area where we are not succeeding and that is on greenhouse gas emissions, where we need to do much better and we need to catch up. I am very much inspired by the protests that were carried by young people in recent times because I know - and I have monitored this and studied this all around the world - that the politics of climate is tricky. We saw what happened in France with thegilets jaunes. We see where a populist party in Finland did very well in elections this week, and part of its argument was to ask why a small country like Finland was doing all the work on climate change, when the Chinese and the Americans are not doing it. We know that in Australia that a Government and a Prime Minister lost their positions because of carbon tax. I know the need to deliver on climate change and climate action but the worst thing one can do in politics is to try to do something and then fail to deliver, not getting a majority. One needs to brings the people with one. That is the real challenge when it comes to climate change. Advocacy is easy, actually bringing a whole country with you is a bigger deal. That is why I am inspired by what I saw those children, students and young people doing, because it says to me that there is a critical mass of support. There are people who care about this enough to counterbalance the vested interests on the other side who will try to stop things from being done. I really welcome the cross-party report on climate action and that will inform the Government's response to it - and respond to it, we will.

The issue of the DeSouza case was raised and I strongly agree with the Senators' views on this. The Good Friday Agreement is eloquent, it is one of the best international treaties one could ever read and we are all in the business of reading treaties. It is a strange job but that is what we all do. One of the most wonderful things about the Good Friday Agreement is that it is so readable and there it is in black and white: the right to be Irish or British or both and accepted as such. I really think the British Government has got it wrong in respect of the DeSouza case and we are going to examine whether we can intervene in it in some way, while respecting their legal system. At political level, we have raised it on a number of occasions and we will continue to do so.

The question on the European election is moot in many ways because it appears now that the European elections will happen in Northern Ireland and people in Northern Ireland will be able to vote in those European elections but I think we need to understand the distinction between citizen's rights and the rights of residents and citizens who are resident. There are many EU citizens around the world who do not live in the European Union. Some of them have the right to vote in European elections, but many of them do not have the right to vote in European elections. The democratic logic behind that is that Parliaments set taxes and Parliaments make laws. If one is not paying those taxes and is not bound by those laws, should one have the right to elect people to such a Parliament? Should people who do not EU VAT, or those who do not have to obey European laws elect a Member to Parliament? It is not the old fashioned concept of no taxation without representation. It is a very simple thing as to whether I should be able to cast a vote that imposes taxes and laws on other people that I do not have spend or obey. There is a democratic principle at play. The Office of President is different because the President does not have such powers and is a representative of the nation.

On the question of disability, we have since I was last present in this House, ratified the UN convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I think it is important to acknowledge that one reason we were one of the last countries to do so was a good reason, because we are not a country that just ratifies conventions and then says it is done. We did a lot of things leading up to it, as a significant number of legal instruments had to be put in place to ratify the convention, in order that our ratification was meaningful. Other countries, particularly in eastern Europe, ratified it long before us but our approach to UN conventions is different. We do not just sign them and then implement them. We implement them and then sign them, but that is not to say that there is not an ongoing agenda of things we need to do, convention or no convention, to achieve equality of opportunity for citizens in Ireland who are disabled. What I want to do is to do something meaningful and practical every two or three years that helps people with disabilities and gives them greater equality of opportunity.We have done a lot. For example, we have fully restored the disability allowance, carer's allowance and the carer's grant and we have brought in more respite services. As I mentioned, we have extended free GP care to carers and extended the medical card to disabled children. We have also changed the rules around medical cards because many people with disabilities fear losing their medical card if they take work, which is a really perverse incentive. We have also changed the rules around the travel pass. We need to do a lot more, as I acknowledge, not least around access to transport, public transport in particular, which I know is an enormous issue. In addition, we have set a new target to increase to 6% the number of people with disabilities working in the public sector because, while we have achieved the 3% target, we need to go to 6%. The Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, is very much leading that.

I was glad the issues of mica and apartments were raised together because they are not unconnected. At the moment, we are working on a scheme to assist people and families in Mayo and Donegal who have mica in their homes. I have been in those homes and met those people. That is being worked on and it will be delivered this year, It is hoped in the next couple of weeks or months, although it is not entirely under my control. Pyrite is different from mica. The cost of remediating mica homes is going to be a lot more than was the case for pyrite homes. Behind that, as Senator Humphreys mentioned, there are 70,000 people living in defective apartments, many in my constituency and particularly in Dublin and Leinster, as well as in Munster and Connacht. The Senator is correct to say the State needs to help. Sometimes, however, the State has no face. Behind the State, there are taxpayers and citizens. Taking on the cost of remediating and repairing 70,000 apartments is quite a bill, and if we do that, it will be mean we will not be able to do other things.

These are the real choices that we have to make in government. For anything we do, whether it is assisting people whose homes are affected by mica or assisting those who live in defective apartment buildings, we have to know the cost, we have to work out what contribution would come from the taxpayer and what would come from the owners of those homes themselves, and we have to consider what other things we then cannot do as a consequence. That is the realpolitikI face every day in government, which I understand is not the case when one is not in government. Nonetheless, it is the basis I operate on, as does the Government. We make those decisions every day - which are the two things that we do and which are the two things that we also want to do but we now cannot do. That is the hard part of the job but it is a job I love nonetheless.

In terms of the issues around regional development, Senator Mulherin mentioned Athenry. I was crestfallen that the Athenry development did not go ahead. It would have been the biggest single private sector investment in the west ever, alongside the biggest ever public sector investment in the west, which was the Gort to Tuam motorway. We should not forget that the biggest capital investment in the State, in the past ten years anyway, was in rural Ireland, in the west, and it was the Gort to Tuam motorway. That motorway cost more than Newlands Cross, the N11 and Luas cross-city combined, so anyone who says we are not investing in transport in rural Ireland or the west needs to know that fact. Having done that massive public investment, the Athenry project would have been a massive private investment. I do not think it should be considered typical. All over the country, planning permission is being granted for data centres, so it is not typical. We did win the case and it is an important point of law. When I was in Cork last week, I used the opportunity to raise it with Apple, which said it would engage with the IDA. Perhaps it will want to use it itself in the future, although it has no immediate need for it now. However, if it is not going to use it, Apple could, perhaps by engaging with the IDA, sell it on to another tech company which will use it. I do not think that investment is lost, by the way, and we still need to work on it.

On roads infrastructure, as Members will know, the vast majority of the roads budget is now invested in rural Ireland and the regions. Somebody mentioned to me yesterday that 10% of the entire roads budget this year is in Donegal and the other 10% is in Sligo, so 20% of the entire roads budget is in two counties in the north west, and very rural counties too. If Members look at what is going to be completed this year in Wexford - the New Ross bypass and the Enniscorthy bypass - and what has started already this year on the N4 to Sligo and also at Dunkettle in Cork, they will see that the major road investment is happening now outside of the Dublin region and very much around the country. We also need to press ahead with the Galway out-of-city bypass and those improvements. I very much share the sentiments of Senator Mulherin in that regard. We have to balance the need to protect our environment and habitats with the need to realise that humans have a habitat too and have socioeconomic needs, which need to be considered as well.

On the issue of the family reunification Bill, I will give that consideration when we see the report. I come across individual cases, as Senators do, and I am enormously sympathetic to those cases. However, as is always the case with any law, there is the law of unintended consequences. If it is a modest measure, we should do it, but if it opens the door to much more, then we need to be very cautious about it. Migration is a really good thing. I am a product of migration. I would not exist if it were not for the fact both my parents migrated to England. Our public services would not operate without migrants. Our economy would not be as strong without migrants. I was in Apple in Cork last week, where half the workforce are Irish and the other half are non-Irish, and Apple would not be there if it did not have access to that workforce. That is worth €250 million in payroll alone to Cork, which is massive money. Of course, as well as that, migrants have helped to enhance our society and made Ireland a much more interesting place. At the same time, we cannot have uncontrolled migration. I know nobody who is arguing for that, or very few people other than on the very far left. We need to bear in mind that any legislation we bring through does not create chain migration, create problems for the common travel area with the UK or create problems with the EU around freedom of movement. If we are confident that it does not do any of those things, then it is something I would like to support and definitely have an open mind on.

On pay for the Defence Forces, I know this is a huge issue. Recruitment in the Defence Forces is going very well but retention is not because there are now enormous opportunities in the private sector. Whether it is pilots leaving Baldonnel for Ryanair or engineers in Cork leaving the Naval Service for the private sector, we are losing very good people from our Defence Forces and we need to act on that. We are acting on it by having rolling recruitment and by allowing people who have left to come back. Many people who leave the Defence Forces want to come back and they could not do that until recently, but now they can. We are encouraging female members of society to join our Defence Forces. We are restoring pay in the same way that pay is being restored for public servants across the board. However, there are issues around particular allowances which, if restored or enhanced, could make a real difference for the Defence Forces. In recent weeks, I met the head of the Public Sector Pay Commission and he has given me an assurance that it will be able to give us an interim report next month, and the Government will respond to that and will act on it.

Once again, I thank Members for their contributions and for the very important work they do for our State.