Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and his officials. I compliment him and his two Ministers of State and their officials for at least bringing this Bill before the Houses of the Oireachtas to get something done about planning. This has been going on and has been discussed for years and little has been done. He is here and there has been a lot of discussion within parties and outside parties, and with local authorities and local authority members. I will make a few brief points because I am aware that other people want to speak. Life goes on outside this planning Bill. Yesterday I made the point to Senator Flynn that many of us, without going public, have worked hard behind the scenes to try to sort out Traveller families. That includes the Minister. As Senator Dolan knows, we have worked on one particular case to get a family housed in Ballinasloe, County Galway. They were living in terrible conditions. It was a young family. When we thought we had a house for them, there were issues with Tusla. The point I am making is that sometimes other bodies get in the way. They have their jobs to do, and we do not get people into housing the way we want to. We do not want to see people living in terrible conditions. That is one area, and we would all like to be able to do more on Traveller accommodation.

I will speak about disabilities and point out to this House one of the greatest projects for disabled people. I know the Minister likes the River Shannon and he knows about Lough Ree Access for All. It is a unique project and the only one in Ireland where the community, with Government funding, has organised trips on the Shannon for people with disabilities. From all over Ireland, and from the city of Dublin, hundreds of families are using that project.It has been so busy that the project has had to purchase a second boat, again with Government funding. Senators Carrigy and Dolan were involved in this project along with me. Things are happening on the ground. Also, it is now well known that public and sports facilities will not be able to access grants for facilities unless the disability situation is in order and everything is right for people with disabilities in such a project. Things are happening.

On funding, if I am not mistaken, the Minister made a major announcement in April of a commitment to €2 billion in funding under the urban regeneration and development fund, URDF, out to 2030. On regeneration, €164 million was announced by the Government and the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, for regeneration projects throughout the country. We have the Croí Cónaithe scheme to address derelict sites, which I spoke about yesterday, in urban and rural areas. We have hundreds of people taking up that project in Roscommon.

The point I am trying to make, and I make it fairly, is that a person listening to this debate would think that there is nothing happening. A great deal is happening on the ground and in communities and the Government is funding those projects like never before. Are there problems, issues and challenges? Of course there are issues and challenges. There has been a great deal of talk here about public spaces. More Government funding than ever before has been put into developing public spaces throughout the country. Can we do more? Yes, we can. I will speak again about Sliabh Bán, which is right beside where I live. It is being developed into a massive walking area used by thousands of people. It is close to the Ballyleague-Lanesborough area and Strokestown.

The point I am making is that all of these things are happening. It is not as if life does not go on, things do not happen and the Government is not committed.

On environmental issues and meeting our challenges, we all know what we have to do. What do Senators really mean sometimes, however, when they speak of meeting our environmental challenges? Is it to close down rural planning? Is it to deny people the right to have a house in a rural area? I do not know but there are many questions which need to be asked here. I acknowledge the right of all Senators to make their views known, but a significant amount of time is sometimes lost as a result of the way in which we express our points of view, particularly in the context of dealing with legislation. If Members make long speeches, we certainly lose out on time to deal with amendments. Many members of the Opposition table amendments and get their point of view across and the amendment dealt with in the space of a few minutes. That is the way it should be done. I respect everybody's right to make their point of view known, however.