Yesterday, we received a great presentation from Irish Rail in Buswells. It has great plans and I compliment the CEO, Jim Meade, for the wonderful presentation. There will be an investment of approximately €2 billion in Irish Rail over the next years and it wants the Government to bring forward some of that investment, which would make sense. He informed us that all of the hybrid trains that are currently used will be used on the long services, such as from Cork, Galway, Sligo, Westport and Ballina. He said that the new trains which are being purchased will all be electric and will be used on shorter routes, such as to Maynooth, Drogheda and Dún Laoghaire. This makes sense and it is a fabulous plan. I ask the Leader for a debate on Irish Rail's plans. I put it to Mr. Meade that we need more people working in customer service on trains and platforms. Quite a number of people use wheelchairs and such, and they are at a disadvantage when large numbers of passengers use the service. There are quite a number of complaints. He is willing to address many of those issues. Some of the train stations will become ticket-only and no staff will work on those platforms. I ask for more investment in this area by Irish Rail and for better customer service on trains and platforms. I ask the Leader to arrange a debate on Irish Rail's plans.

I begin by mentioning that there are 92 patients on trolleys in University Hospital Limerick. This is a new national record. I will not repeat all the points I made last week again but ask for an urgent debate as conditions continue to worsen weekly.

I raise the issue of school patronage. It will not surprise the Leader to know that I have a different take on it to the conservative stance taken by my colleague, Senator Horkan, from Fianna Fáil. St. Sylvester's infant school in Malahide has become the third Catholic school in north Dublin to write to parents, warning them not to vote to change from a Catholic school to a secular school. These letters, which were ordered by the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin, contain a number of unsubstantiated claims, such as: stating that the standard of education will drop; teachers' contracts will be under threat; there will no longer be school uniforms; children's safety will be compromised on school tours; and grandparents will no longer be allowed to be celebrated. It is utter nonsense. These letters represent nothing more than scaremongering tactics by a powerful vested interest.

The Department of Education and Skills should demand an explanation from each of the three schools and from the archdiocese. It is unacceptable that such an important consultation process is being manipulated and influenced by a body with a powerful ideology. The reality is that in north Dublin, 97% of school places are in schools with a religious ethos. The Department has discovered through consultation that there is demand in the area to divest patronage and move to a secular model. We must work towards ending the patronage system completely. It is time that the State finally took responsibility for running and delivering an education system for all of its citizens through a secular medium, rather than simply outsourcing its responsibility to private patronage bodies. As a republican, I believe in the separation of church and State. It is fundamentally wrong to separate children at the age of five on the basis of religion.

An RTÉ reporter in our part of the world, Pat McAuliffe, died in the last few days. He was a very well-known sports journalist. I met him several times at Cork City matches over the years. He is an awful loss not only to the sporting world but to Cork's sporting community. I register my deepest sympathies to his family and the Cork community. Pat was a lovely, jolly man. Every time one met him, he had a kind word. He is an awful loss to us in that part of the world.

This week is National Tree Week. We need to start talking about it. We published a comprehensive report regarding climate change last week. We included nearly 40 recommendations in a comprehensive, ten chapter, all-of-Government report, and most parties bought into the concept behind it. It is important that we acknowledge that this week is a week where we try to promote the planting of trees and people getting involved in that. The turn of the millennium was 19 years ago. We put a project in place where we planted a tree for every person in the State. Perhaps 20 years on, we need to look at another similar project, with the State getting behind a proposal of planting a tree for every person in the State in 2020. Perhaps the Seanad could lead on this issue. We could get the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine into the House to have a debate on the proposal to plant a tree for every person in the State. It would take into consideration so much of what has changed in the world. Climate change is a significant issue. Perhaps the State and local authorities need to be the driver for growing trees. We will have a 12-month period to plan it. It is sustainable. The millennium forest is now 19 years old and was a very positive step. Let us push forward and have another drive to ensure that we can get another 4 million trees planted by the State next year to celebrate our commitment to climate change and what we need to do.

I beg the indulgence of the Cathaoirleach to mark the passing of our political colleague, Councillor Michael "Stroke" Fahy from Ardrahan. He was a Fianna Fáil candidate in the Gort-Kinvara electoral area. Our colleague, Senator Boyhan, visited him in hospital quite recently. He was a wonderful public representative who represented the area for four decades. His name came up many times over the last years. I pay deep sympathy to his family on the sad and very sudden death of a great public representative and friend to all of us in the Seanad.

The developing situation in Westminster is a very moving subject. This last stand by Prime Minister May might work, calling on the leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, and the Labour Party, to act in the national interest, as Fianna Fáil is doing in the confidence and supply agreement to ensure that we have a Government here. The leader of the party gave a commitment because of the Brexit situation. He was not going to precipitate a general election. It is a good example to our colleagues in Westminster, to show how a democratic state can operate in a crisis. It is vital that, on 12 April, Britain exits the European Union in an orderly way. That is the most that we can hope for at this point. It will then enter into meaningful negotiations regarding the future relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom, with deep concern about the Border, Republic of Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement. That is the way forward. I am hopeful that the national interest will be taken on board. They can deal politically with the fallout from that. If the Prime Minister gets that deal signed, sealed and delivered through the House of Commons before 12 April, then it can move on in a positive and orderly manner. Talking about referendums and such at this point is not practical. There is a way out. The Brexiteers and non-Brexiteers may unite in the national interest to return sanity to the House of Commons and agree to this Brexit deal which has been negotiated by the European Union and United Kingdom in good faith and should be ratified by the Westminster Parliament.

I fully support the call by my colleague, Senator Paddy Burke, for a debate on the strategy for our railway services. It is timely that we would have that debate now. As Senator Lombard pointed out, last week we launched our climate action report after seven months of hearing witnesses and deliberations. It will chart our way forward to decarbonise our economy. A key issue in that is decarbonising transport, and without a doubt, railways have a big part to play in it. For a considerable period of time, when there was no money in the country owing to our economic situation and our banking situation, which was about a 15-year period, there was no proper investment in railways. Now, as we are beginning to invest in rolling stock in the lines and in the engines and carriages, we want to make sure that they are investing green, they are being supported in doing so and that it is part of the solution in reducing our carbon emissions.

We also need to address other issues with our railways, particularly with journey times, especially into the west and into Mayo so that there would be shorter journey times, more services to make it more practical for people to use and an improvement in capacity because often there is not enough space for passengers on trains. It is becoming chronic at certain times of the week and that really is not acceptable. Our investment in railways also ties into our economic growth and development. I mention the issue of West on Track, which would see a rail line going up pretty much along the western seaboard or charting a path along what we call the Atlantic economic corridor, which is obviously a notion or a proposition. To back it up we need to see this rail infrastructure which would not just take passenger services but freight services as well. I would like to see further development of the freight service within Ballina, which is the second largest freight yard in the country. It needs upgrading and new facilities and it has great potential to take some of our freight off the road. It is a very interesting topic and it is very timely. As a priority of business for this House, it is a good opportunity for us to discuss the importance of and the need to invest in our railways in this House in order to see some results from it.

I want to talk about the local property tax. In the media today, both in broadcast and in print, there has been much discussion about the Government's expected announcement today to defer the local property tax for another 12 months. That is clearly a political decision with political consequences but it defers the real issue that we need to debate in both Houses, namely, how we will fund local government in a reasonable, fair and sustainable way. It is unacceptable that blocks of people are crippled with the property tax without the capacity to pay, and one of the flaws which everyone agrees on across the Houses, is that the system is unfair and that needs to be put right. I am advised that there is a report on the desk of the Minister for Finance since November on this local property tax. It is disappointing that this report has not been fully published but let us not pre-empt the whole day yet and see what comes out of the decision of the Government.

I am calling for a debate in this House because realistically, we need to have a full, fair and comprehensive debate on how we will fund local government and services. Members will remember the great fanfare at the launch of the local property tax. We were told this was an additional source of funding, not a substitute source of funding for the central funding of local government. It was marketed on television, radio and leaflets as bringing new community facilities, new swimming pools, new parks and new public amenities and that has not happened. Chief executives of the 41 local authorities will tell us that the reality was that the central government allocation was dropped and substituted by the take of the local property tax and there is an unfair balance across the country. I am not suggesting for one moment that local authorities that are weaker and do not have the revenue resources should be crippled either. They need to be supported by central government but for those who collect and have money, it should be kept locally and spent locally and decisions about that local funding should be made by councillors. I am calling for a debate on the local property tax.

I would like to be associated with my colleague, Senator Leyden, in expressing sympathy for Councillor Michael Fahy. I knew him well, as everyone did here, including the Cathaoirleach who knew him very well. He always spoke very highly and fondly of the Cathaoirleach and of the Cathaoirleach's support for him. He was a character to say the least and local government had many characters. We will never see his like again. We will never see men and women who served for 30 and 40 years in local government because they cannot do it and they do not have the support to do it. That also feeds into this issue of local government reform and support for councillors and people who wish to carry out that noble and honourable profession of being a public representative in a local council.