Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach for his kind words. I want to thank a number of people who worked on this project and drove it. First, in particular, I thank the members of the committee who put to the Houses of the Oireachtas that this was something they wanted to see implemented, including Senators Ardagh, Wall, Garvey and Flynn. It was taken on board by the Cathaoirleach, the Ceann Comhairle and the Secretary General, Mr. Peter Finnegan as a project they wanted to see implemented. It was a challenge to be one of the first parliaments in the world to do this and to be the parliament with the highest standards and to set a standard for all government buildings and organisations throughout the country. I pay tribute to them. I also pay tribute to Breda Burke, principal officer, Roisín Deery and Roisín Sweeney who drove the project on the ground and spent a considerable time putting in the background work and working with all the teams within the Houses of the Oireachtas. The Cathaoirleach mentioned facilities management unit, the superintendent's section, training section and the broadcasting and web teams. It was a broad collaborative effort from all sections of the Houses of the Oireachtas Service to make sure we got our accreditation in an extremely short time. We launched the project in April 2023 and we officially achieved our accreditation at the end of December. It was presented to the Ceann Comhairle by AsIAm last week. I thank Zarah and Adam in AsIAm for the considerable work they put into the project. I also thank the entire parliamentary community, the members and political staff of all parties and groupings who got behind the project and spoke to people in their own parties to make sure that we played our part in the parliamentary community and that we have an understanding of what it is to be autistic. When we have more understanding in society about disabilities in general, we have a better chance of making changes and the significant changes that need to be made for autistic persons and, indeed, across disabilities. Only yesterday, following a Commencement matter taken by the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, we received confirmation of the roll-out of a pilot one-stop shop throughout the country for those on the autism spectrum.I thank all of my colleagues and the team in the Houses of the Oireachtas Service for delivering this project. This project is bigger than the project itself. It sets a standard for all Government organisations and other organisations to follow. That is a challenge I intend setting and I will be calling on all Departments to follow the Houses of the Oireachtas by getting autism-friendly accreditation for their buildings, and also that all Government staff and ultimately local authority staff undertake autism awareness training. That is a challenge I put to them from today.

We received correspondence this morning from the Social Economic Environmental Forestry Association of Ireland, SEEFA. Afforestation is raised regularly in the House. Based on the information we got today, it looks like we will hit only 1,500 ha of afforestation in 2024. We need another discussion on forestry. This cannot continue. I have seen the knock-on effect of it in my own community which is without electricity for the fifth time in two and a half months because of trees falling on power lines. The landowner is waiting for a felling licence to cut these trees down and the ESB cannot do anything about it. Things need to move on or we will have the same problems again this year.