Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am compared to the rest of ye. It is as if there is a cartoon depicting what it would be like if climate change was a hoax and we would still have clean air, happy homes and all these good things that come as a result. In debates on the issue, we often mention the Chinese, we say that we are small and ask what the point is. I want to focus on the fact that climate change is real and it is affecting us now in this country. We have to take it seriously and be ready to mitigate it.

If the climate action plan is to be taken seriously, it should override everything. It affects housing. It will lead to healthier, warmer homes with lower carbon footprints. It will lead to cleaner air and more social and green spaces which help to improve everybody's mental health. If we take what the car has done over the years, people have been shoved into metal boxes that separate them from everybody else around them. During the Covid lockdown, we saw that everybody got to know their neighbours again, especially in rural Ireland, where we have to drive everywhere most of the time because of road safety issues. The Minister for Transport and the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers, are working on these issues at the moment. We do not prioritise people over cars and trucks.

We would really change our cities, towns and villages if we took climate action seriously. It would improve both physical and mental health if we introduced a new affordable public transport system. We have had great success of late, with Local Link services being seen in villages that have not seen a bus in 70 years. That is brilliant. A public bus in every village and town at every hour of every day is the ideal and we are working on that. With our retrofit programme and the Croí Cónaithe fund offering grants of €70,000 and €50,000, we can bring life back into villages and towns. I see that in Clare where vacant buildings are being turned into homes for people. It is amazing to see this in villages and towns in rural areas that have been left abandoned for years. The Croí Cónaithe fund is a real game-changer. Over 100 young families in Clare alone are taking the grants and turning empty buildings in our villages and towns into homes. That is really good.

We need to expedite the work being done to enable people to live above premises again. That is a major barrier. We have empty shops downstairs with families living upstairs and shops downstairs with empty rooms upstairs. We want to have eyes on the street. It can be done through technology. There are architects who have worked on these projects in Limerick and other places. We have been talking about it for a long time. We need to enable people to live upstairs again. It is key to bringing our villages and towns back to life and I know it is important to the Taoiseach and everybody here.

Water infrastructure has to be a major because without it, we will not have housing anywhere in our towns and villages. We do not have water capacity at the moment. Irish Water has been handed a huge job but its work is probably among the most important work in Ireland if we want to keep our villages and towns alive. There are lots of towns where people want to build houses but they do not have the water infrastructure to do so. That is the number one priority, even before housing.

On apprenticeships, I have tradesmen ringing me all the time. I know of a plumber who has 12 apprentices. He has told me that the curriculum is not fit for purpose. It is still about fitting oil and gas burners. There is nothing about fitting heat recovery systems or air-to-water systems. The curriculum is out of date. I know carpenters with 30 years' experience who are not allowed to take on apprentices because they are not getting prior learning recognition. That is a huge issue as well. If we are taking the retrofit programme seriously, we will need to take apprenticeships much more seriously and recognise these great tradespeople who are at the forefront of making our houses better, warmer and safer places.