Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail)

Last Thursday, when I was taking the Order of Business, people were talking about their various football teams and I talked about wearing our jerseys. Today, I am very proud to be wearing my jersey of nearly white to congratulate the terrific performance of the Kildare footballers in Croke Park on Saturday where they won the Tailteann Cup. I give a huge congratulations to the manager, Brian Flanagan, and to Kevin Feely from Athy, who captained the team. Of course, that goes along with cementing the great win we had in hurling with the winning of the McDonagh Cup. I congratulate Brian Dowling, the manager, and Rian Boran from Naas, who was the captain. Yesterday, we heard that Brendan Cawley from Sarsfields in Newbridge will be refereeing the All-Ireland final between Kerry and Donegal. It has been a great season for the Lilywhites.

On Friday, I had the opportunity to visit Kildare Village, which is always a pleasure. In this particular instance, the Minister, Deputy James Lawless, officially launched the Kildare Village Assured programme. That is a new educational certificate for retail staff at Kildare Village. That is a collaboration with the retail complex. It was the idea of the incredible Maureen Bergin and the Kildare and Wicklow Education and Training Board, KWETB. The programme is certified by City & Guilds. It offers a formal recognition of on-the-job learning in retail. That is really important. It provides a digital badge and career development within top-class brands. It is a great model of how industry and education can work together to support workers and strengthen the economy. It is a great blueprint we could copy and it absolutely should be adapted to the hospitality industry. We should extend it to the hospitality industry. In September, we should have a debate with the Minister, Deputy Lawless, as to how we can do that. This was the warmest weekend of the year, as we are all aware. Thousands of residents in north-west Kildare were again left without water with a decision to turn off the reservoir in Allenwood. It was very challenging for families to keep hydrated and very difficult for farmers. I get that Uisce Éireann has to ask people to conserve water, absolutely, but to once again have a situation where people are left without water signifies a real lack of planning, and we need to have a debate.

I raise the issue of the N81, which runs from Tallaght to Tullow through west and south Wicklow and through south Kildare and Carlow. It is the only national road leading to our capital city that has not been upgraded in the past eight years. It is totally inadequate for traffic, it is unsafe and it does not help economic development. It is beyond time that we had an upgrading of the N81. I would like debate with the Minister in that regard too.