Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach is welcome. It is an honour for me to stand here as a Member of the Oireachtas addressing him.

I want to raise a couple of local issues. I concur with the comments of Senator Murphy on just transition. Not enough projects have got off the ground. More funding needs to be made available. The local contribution – 25% – is becoming increasingly difficult to make due to increasing costs. That is an issue. Perhaps another meeting in the not-too-distant future with the party leaders, the just transition commissioner and Oireachtas Members from the area would be a good idea.

Considering that the Taoiseach mentioned the road network, I want to highlight the N4. With the 2:1 arrangement in respect of expenditure on public transport and roads, it will be extremely difficult to get everything done, but if you look at a map of Ireland you will see the one missing piece of the jigsaw is the N4 from Mullingar to Roosky. That has to be a priority ahead of many other road projects.

The Taoiseach mentioned the advancement regarding special needs assistants, SNAs, when he was Minister for Education. I want to see further investment in the school inclusion model under the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, and in the progressing disabilities services scheme, which has been rolled out by the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, to make sure all children receive the supports they need. Senator McGreehan mentioned that we pass by the Proclamation every day we come in here. It refers to cherishing all the children of the nation equally. One hundred and five years later, we are not doing so. We are getting there but a further investment needs to be made to ensure that we look after all the children and so they will get the services they need.

We need to extend the use of the Covid passes further. We need to develop a new communications strategy or develop a new communications unit to make sure we get across to the unvaccinated the damage they are doing to our hospital system.