Maria Byrne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the students of Laurel Hill Secondary School - Aisling, Maebh and Vivian - who won the gold medal at the SciFest regional final of the EirGrid: Climate and Delivering a Cleaner Energy Future competition for their project, "Turn it off or keep it on - which is more energy efficient?". Science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, projects are very much about our future. I wish the three students all the very best in the national final where they will represent their school and the region.

When representatives of Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, appeared before Dublin City Council recently to speak about contactless payments on buses, they said it will be a number of years before TII will be able to introduce contactless payments. Given that in the majority of cases, people now use their cards for contactless payments everywhere they go, this needs to be progressed sooner rather than later, and not into the future. I do not think it is very appropriate to say that it will be a few years down the road because buses are used every day.

Some Members have raised the issue of concrete defects. I was involved with the residents in The Meadows in the Corbally area of Limerick with respect to the pyrite resolution scheme. It is welcome that work is now commenced on their houses. I thank the Department and the Minister, and the former Minister of State, Deputy English, who at the time was involved in the work that has happened. The residents of the 18 houses where work is being carried out have had to move out of their homes for up to six months, but at least they will have the defects in their houses corrected. I thank the Government for the help and support for the residents in that scheme.