Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Like the Leas-Chathaoirleach, I welcome the students from St. Tiernan's in Dundrum and our guests from the European Court of Justice and I offer a particular welcome to the Estonian ambassador. Ireland and Estonia have a long range of links and friendships. Tallinn is a beautiful city so I recommend that anyone who has not been to it definitely visit Estonia. Apart from recognising independence, we appreciate the fact that we live in a free and democratic Europe. Our values are very much shared based on human rights and the rule of law. Given that we are now two years into Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, it is more important than ever that we express and share solidarity with our Baltic friends and neighbours.

Today I wish to raise the question of railways. It is very welcome that under the initiative of the shared island unit, we will see heavy investment in the rail line between Dublin and Belfast to move towards hourly services but I want to raise the fact that while this welcome investment is continuing, we are not seeing any further improvement in the Rosslare rail line. This is one of the oldest and busiest lines in the country but we are now talking about potential disruption of services with those travelling from south of Wicklow town having to change trains in Wicklow town if they wish to continue to Dublin. I ask for a debate on railways. I know the Leader has an interest in the western rail corridor. We need to see the publication of the all-island rail review and I hope the Leader would invite the Minister for Transport to the House to discuss this issue.

I also want to raise a proposal made by Councillor Albert Dolan from Galway. Albert has proposed that as a health initiative, gym membership be made tax deductible. I favour this idea. I know it has been discussed and the Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, has raised it with the Minister for Finance. I am not just talking about gym membership but about membership of sports clubs or other organisations so that there is an incentive and that if people are involved in sporting organisations, there could be tax relief for that. We talk about mens sana in corpore sano. Apart from just talking about a healthy body, we must ensure we have healthy minds. Membership of artistic organisations could also be considered for the purposes of tax relief. This country has a long and proud tradition of investment in arts and sport and trying to encourage that is healthy. If the tax system could assist that, I hope we could ensure that this would happen as well.