Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support the Order of Business as outlined. I give a shout-out for an event, Calves for Ukraine, happening in Kilcullen Mart. The sale of 50 calves is happening on 20 April and has been organised by the Kildare and west Wicklow branch of the Irish Farmers Association. It is great to see so many different factions in our community supporting Ukraine.

The Deputy Leader will remember we had a debate in the House on maternity leave for councillors. I initiated it with the support of Senators from the administrative panel. I am happy to say, following a meeting between members of the women's caucus and the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, it is hoped legislation will be put in place before the summer to enable maternity leave for councillors. There will be that element of flexibility around supports in a financial way for secretarial support if councillors wish to remain on and not take maternity leave. There will also be options around having a substitute if the councillor wishes. I thank the Association of Irish Local Government for all its work on this. Three Acts will need to be amended. I thank the Cathaoirleach and all Senators for supporting this debate and ensuring this will happen.

I mention also an event happening tomorrow morning. It is the turning of the sod for a Primark facility in Newbridge. I mention it because it is a €75 million development for Newbridge and it is going to provide employment but it is also providing significant levies. The figure is €3.5 million. When we put that with the development levies that came from the recently-built Lidl extension, which were also €3.5 million, we then have €7 million in such levies. Under Kildare County Council, 71.8% of commercial development levies go to roads and 8.4% go to recreation and amenity. I thank Richard Kelly for digging out the figures and doing some of the sums on this. There is another €7.2 million in development levies coming in from residential and of those a smaller percentage, 47.5%, goes to roads and 34.5% to community and recreation.

My point is that €60 million is coming into the council for that area in Newbridge and at the moment there is a huge imbalance between the number of developments and housing that has been built and what is being spent on community recreation versus roads. The biggest issue, which I have spoken about here before, is the need for a second bridge into Newbridge. On my accounting, €7 million has come in for roads in development levies and €3 million for community. We need to see that spent on a second bridge and we need oversight from the Department with responsibility for local government to ensure development levies are being spent in the very best way they can to service the needs of the community.