The Order of Business is No. 1, motion regarding the arrangements for the sitting of the House on Thursday, 2 February 2023, to be taken on conclusion of the Order of Business without debate; No. 2, statements on child and adolescent mental health services, to be taken at 12.45 p.m. and to conclude at 2.15 p.m., if not previously concluded, with the time allocated to the opening remarks of the Minister not to exceed ten minutes, all Senators not to exceed six minutes, time can be shared, and the Minister to be given no less than ten minutes to reply to the debate; No. 3, Road Traffic and Roads Bill 2021 – Committee Stage, to be taken at 3 p.m. and to adjourn at 6 p.m., if not previously concluded; No. 4, Private Members’ business, motion regarding University Limerick Hospitals Group, to be taken at 6 p.m., with the time allocated to this debate not to exceed two hours.

I wish the Cathaoirleach, the Leader, the staff and everyone here a very happy St. Brigid's Day. I believe this day is going to become a very important one on the calendar and, it is fair to say, that St. Patrick will not have it his own way from here on in, and will have a little competition.

I support the Order of Business as outlined by the Leader. I refer to a big ongoing debate on home vacancies throughout Ireland. This is particularly bad in the west of Ireland when one looks at places like Leitrim, Roscommon and Mayo, where this is at levels of 10%, 11% and 12%, as the Leader knows.

I have always stated regarding home vacancies that there were always issues which will not be easily solved. I never believed the figure up there in red lights and that there were all these vacant homes. There are still, nonetheless, a substantial number of houses there. That is why I welcome the recent initiative by the Government of €150 million for local authorities to get working on this, once and for all. The money is there now. It will not happen overnight but I hope that all local authorities over the coming months will get their act together on this issue and, where possible, that houses which can be reconstructed and brought into the housing market are put there. The Government is trying to do everything it can in respect of housing, which I accept. The money and the commitment are there, together with the Minister and his junior Ministers who are committed. It is not an easy task at the moment.

When one looks at other countries, such as England, for example, it is having very significant problems with housing at the moment also, as is the case with some other European countries. We were talking to a Turkish delegation here yesterday and discussed their housing policy. It is remarkably simple and Turkey does not have a housing problem. We will talk about that another day. I welcome the Government initiative and it is a good one. It will bring a certain number of houses back into use and that is what we all need.

There are indications also that the present Government policy on housing is beginning to work. Some material was brought out yesterday showing that we have a very significant number of first-time buyers coming into the market. New builds are way up and the Government has reached and overshot its targets in respect of the number of houses, overall, that have been built. However, that needs to increase more, which I accept. We need more houses but we will get it right.

I want to return to an issue I have spoken about here in the past week with regard to respect for front-line workers and, in particular, An Garda Síochána. I briefly mentioned that there have been a number of vicious attacks on members of An Garda Síochána but I mentioned in passing that day also the effect this has on the families of members of the force, male and female.

These types of incidents, where their children are at an age where they know what is going on, have an appalling effect on their mental health. There are situations where gardaí have been followed home from work by alleged criminals who say that they know where these Garda members are and where their children are. Every one of us needs to stand and support all front-line workers but, in particular, An Garda Síochána, who are the people we all call for when we are in bother and when we need them. I know that they cannot be there for everything and do everything but, in general, they do a good job. People say that there is a bad apple here and a bad one there. Yes, there is but, in general, we have a good Garda force, we need to support them, and the money is there for more recruits. Let us get it done but let us get everybody supporting all front-line workers and not accept any sort of abuse, which is just not on.

I thank the Cathaoirleach. I want to wish everyone a happy St. Brigid's Day and to thank Senator O'Loughlin in Kildare for organising that event to make St. Brigid's crosses. It is a nice idea which I welcome.

I am conscious today, speaking to both the Leader and the Cathaoirleach, that the three Ministers, Deputy McConalogue and his two Ministers of State, are currently in Portlaoise where the Minister is already giving an outline to a conference called National Dialogue on Women in Agriculture. This is very important and was headlined and discussed in agriland.ie, the Irish Farmers' Journal and a few other publications. It is also mentioned today on the radio. What was interesting was that the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, said that he is very concerned at the lack of women coming through semi-State companies. Perhaps it is not a question of coming forward but of not getting that opportunity of having those appointments confirmed. He was anxious, was going to be very proactive in this area, and was going to insist that he would not ratify appointments of board members if there was not a good, logical reason there was not an equal number or why many of these women were not coming through, particularly in the area of the agri-enterprises and agrifood sector.

We know women play a huge and significant part in all forms of agriculture. I commend the Minister on all of that. However, I thought it was worth noting that there is only one woman from any of the political parties on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, of which I am a member, and that is Senator Lynn Boylan on my left here, who is an exceptionally good member. There is a challenge and an opportunity there and I mean that genuinely. There is a real opportunity for the parties to go back and look at why no woman has come forward or been allowed come forward. I do not suggest they are being stopped but it is a question. Committee members do not have to stay for five years: the committee stays. Maybe we have to look at that. Why have the other parties not had any women coming forward on the agricultural panel? They are elected on the panel but somehow they are not making it onto the committee. I put that as a challenge.

Finally, I seek a debate on town, village and urban renewal. There was much talk in recent days about it and I had a Commencement matter debate on the topic yesterday. I will finish on this point. I raised with the Minister that €1.5 billion was announced for regeneration and we now know we have had the first and second calls. Yesterday we were talking about the third call and there will be a fourth. Out of all of that, in a circular to all the sitting county managers, which some chief executives forwarded to me, was a confirmation that only €144 million has been spent so far. It could be said projects have been worked up but I seek a debate. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage drew up a report on urban regeneration that had 39 recommendations and which requested that this matter would come to both Houses for a debate. It is time we had a debate. I have already sent a circular to the Cathaoirleach's office on that report that we might discuss at some time in the next few months, as was requested by the committee.

I congratulate Senator Boyhan on his Commencement matter yesterday on the same matter.

I echo what others have said and wish everybody a Lá Fhéile Bríde sona. It is very welcome that we are now going to celebrate St. Brigid who was a powerful feminist who challenged the status quo, respected the environment and wildlife, established leading community movements and, I believe, inspired Grace O'Malley, Maud Gonne, Brigitte Bardot and suffrages all over the world. It is welcome that we recognise her today with a bank holiday.

I also raise something most Senators would not have failed to notice, which is that households will now be getting €50 back in their electricity bill thanks to the work I have been doing in my office with Brian Marron in trying to chase up how it came about that households were subsidising large energy users - very profitable companies - and were doing so for 12 years. Through the freedom of information, FOI, documents we received, it was clear the recession was used as the excuse. It was going to save jobs in these large industries. At a time when households were on their knees and people were in mortgage arrears, their electricity bills were going to increase to subsidise these large energy users. It was clear in the Cabinet memorandum that this was something for which the industry had been lobbying for a long time. It was not due to the recession. It was a lobby request of large energy users of profitable companies and the Government at the time capitulated and instructed the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, to introduce that subsidy. The question is, why was it allowed to continue for 12 years, long after the financial crash was gone. At a time where we have had a cost-of-living crisis for two years, it was allowed to continue. It is news to everybody because it is not very clear on one's bill that we were subsidising those profitable companies. Now we are going to get €50 back which is very welcome and is money back in people's pockets. Nobody is denying that but that is only the error in the calculation of that subsidy; it is not the entirety of the subsidy at all because that figure would be up in the hundreds of euro for households if we were to return what we have been taking from them to subsidise these large energy companies.

We need to hear from the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, on this issue. In the first instance, this is because he said in the Dáil that he had instructed CRU to unwind this subsidy when in fact, the CRU carried out that analysis and informed the Government it was going to do it. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment complained about how it was going against a ministerial direction by unwinding it. Consequently, we need to get to the truth here. Did the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, instruct the CRU to unwind the subsidy or, as the CRU has said, did it decide to unwind it only for the Department of the then Minister, the Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, to complain about the unwinding?