Written Answers Nos. 487-503
488. Deputy Louis O'Hara asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport the funding scheme from which €2 million has been awarded for the detailed design of Buncrana Leisure Centre; if his Department will accept funding applications for design of swimming pool projects in other areas where demand exists such as Loughrea; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [66185/25]
View answerGrants totalling €173 million, benefiting 35 individual projects, were allocated under the second round of the Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund (LSSIF) in November 2024. In parallel, funding towards design costs was allocated to the leisure centre project in Buncrana and a swimming pool in Edenderry. This was done as there were outstanding Local Authority Swimming Pool Programme grants which were originally allocated toward refurbishment of existing pools in those locations and had not been drawn down. This funding will be paid from the LSSIF subhead.
I met with a representative group from Loughrea earlier this month regarding a proposed swimming pool. Investment in such a project is matter for the local authority and Galway County Council will be eligible to apply for funding in this context when the next LSSIF round opens. My current focus is on ensuring project delivery under the first two rounds of the LSSIF and this process will inform any decisions regarding the timing of a future round.
Ireland’s first National Swimming Strategy was published in August 2024 and it sets out a vision to provide everyone in our country with an opportunity to swim. It includes an Action Plan containing over fifty actions across five thematic strands, focusing on providing improved facilities, increasing access for people with disabilities, improving the culture of inclusion, better coaching supports, increasing safety awareness and providing a pathway that allows for the nurturing and development of potential high performers.
Swim Ireland, the National Governing Body for swimming, is currently undertaking an analysis of the type and nature of swimming pool ownership in the country, with a particular focus on identifying gaps in provision. Swim Ireland will publish a report on its analysis in the coming period, and this report will be central to the future development of swimming pool facilities in Ireland.
489. Deputy Pádraig Rice asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport if certain Departmental records are missing from archives (details supplied); the action his Department has taken to locate these records; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [66218/25]
View answerUnder the Telecommunications (Transfer of Departmental Administration and Ministerial Functions) Order 2025 (S.I. No. 237/2025), all relevant functions under the Postal and Telecommunications Services Act 1983 were transferred to me from the then-Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications.
As part of the transfer of functions, officials in my Department have liaised with officials in the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment with respect to records on the matter referred to, and that Department has confirmed that it holds no files on the matter. Accordingly, my Department does not have access to the files in question, if such files still exist. Officials in my Department are reviewing filing lists and other records which are held to ascertain if such records relating to the "Departmental Council" exist.
The Department of Posts and Telegraphs was abolished in 1984 and any relevant files should have been transferred to the Department of Communications, however I would also note that the abolition of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs pre-dated the National Archives Act 1986 and therefore the obligation to preserve government records; so it is also possible that all files may not have survived.
490. Deputy Sinéad Gibney asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport whether he will advocate for Ireland to become a signatory to the International Convention against Apartheid in Sports. [66253/25]
View answerIreland has not signed the 1985 UN international Convention against Apartheid in Sports but did sign in 1968 the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
Under this Convention, an onus is placed on Ireland ‘to pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating racial discrimination in all its forms and promoting understanding among all races’.
Following the enactment of the Employment Equality Act 1998 and the Equal Status Act 2000, the Convention was ratified by Dáil resolution in December 2000 and entered in to force in January 2001. In the light of the above there are no plans to pursue ratification of the convention referred to in the question.
491. Deputy Barry Ward asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport the status of a proposal for a women's museum; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [66267/25]
View answer492. Deputy Barry Ward asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport if he has reviewed the Collins Report on a women's museum; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [66268/25]
View answer493. Deputy Barry Ward asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport the timeline for the establishment of a women's museum; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [66269/25]
View answer494. Deputy Barry Ward asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport if he will commit to establishing a women's museum; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [66270/25]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 491, 492, 493 and 494 together.
I was very pleased to have received the Report of the Advisory Committee on Women's Stories last month.
By way of background, this Advisory Committee was established in March 2024 to make recommendations that will advance and enrich the representation of women and women’s stories, in all their diversity, in the National Cultural Institutions and the national collections. The Advisory Committee was also asked to consider a range of options for the creation of a dedicated presentation of women’s stories, including a permanent women’s museum.
Over the past 18 months, the Advisory Committee on Women's Stories, chaired by Dr Sandra Collins, completed a substantial work programme, underpinned by a wealth of research, consultation and information-gathering, to develop their recommendations. The Advisory Committee adopted an inclusive approach throughout this process, grounded in gender equality principles and the provisions of the Equality Acts in Ireland. Further information about the work and membership of the Advisory Committee on Women’s Stories, including minutes of Advisory Committee meetings, is published on my Department's website and can be found here - www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-and-sport/publications/advisory-committee-on-womens-stories/
The Advisory Committee's report comprises a number of specific recommendations, which the Advisory Committee intends to be helpful across multiple cultural disciplines, art forms, and collections - nationally, regionally and within local communities. It also examines the development of a permanent, women's museum. The report is a very substantial and important piece of work and I am giving all of the Advisory Committee's recommendations my full consideration. I intend to bring the report to my colleagues in Government shortly, and, with their approval, to publish the report thereafter.
495. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport to provide the Department’s annual expenditure on State Claims Agency costs for the years 2020–2025. [66345/25]
View answerMy Department was re-configured as the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport at the beginning of June 2025. Regarding the functions currently under the remit of my Department, I am advised that my Department did not have any expenditure on State Claims Agency costs in the period since the establishment of the former Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media in September 2020 to date in 2025.
496. Deputy Eoghan Kenny asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage further to Parliamentary Question No. 202 of 4 November 2025, if it is proposed to create planning guidelines for the purposes of meeting the State’s obligations to derive energy sources from and including solar technologies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [65423/25]
View answer546. Deputy James O'Connor asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if his Department has considered guidelines for industrial-type solar farms; to outline the planning legislation for solar farms; if his Department has discussed the same guidelines with the Department for Agriculture, Food and the Marine in relation to the EU Land Use Policy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [60442/25]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 496 and 546 together.
The Programme for Government 2025 – Securing Ireland’s Future reaffirms Ireland’s ambitious targets of 8 GW of solar capacity connected to the grid by 2030, to assist with meeting the requirement of 80% of electricity demand supplied by renewables. Solar energy is a growing source of electricity with circa 2.1 GW of solar power capacity currently installed in Ireland, however further solar capacity is required for Ireland to meet its domestic and international targets.
For this reason, my Department will prepare a new National Planning Statement on Solar Energy under the new Planning and Development Act 2024. My Department has begun an initial scoping process to identify the component factors relevant to the preparation of the National Planning Statement for solar energy development, including any appropriate environmental assessment and public consultation requirements and other relevant European obligations such as the Renewable Energy Directive (RED III), which will determine the timeframe for publication of said guidelines.
This scoping process remains at an early stage but I am satisfied that the existing and evolving planning system, supported by Government policy more generally, provides a sufficiently robust policy and legislative framework to facilitate the rollout of solar energy development in a sustainable manner and to assist with meeting our renewable electricity requirements while balancing the perspectives of local communities and allowing for public and stakeholder engagement.
In the interim, there are currently no specific planning guidelines in place in respect of solar energy development. Proposals for individual solar energy developments are subject to the statutory requirements of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended, and the Planning and Development Act 2024, as amended, in the same manner as other proposed developments, with planning applications made to the relevant local planning authority, or An Coimisiún Pleanála on appeal.
The Programme for Government also committed to a Land Use Review to ensure that optimal land use options inform all relevant Government decisions. The second phase of the Land Use Review, which is currently underway, will seek to identify the key demands on land (both public and private) to inform policies for land use across key government objectives, improving socioeconomic, climate, biodiversity, water, and air quality outcomes. The Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine are working towards the conclusion of the second stage of the review. Any National Planning Statement on solar energy development will take into careful consideration any finding of the Land Use Review.
497. Deputy Seán Ó Fearghaíl asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if his Department's policy recognises that the charging of rates on registered childcare provider’s operating from their own family home would act as a major disincentive to such care; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [65558/25]
View answer518. Deputy Seán Ó Fearghaíl asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he accepts that commercial rates should not be charged to registered childcare providers in circumstances where that care is provided in the family home; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [65557/25]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 497 and 518 together.
Tailte Éireann is an independent Government agency and provides a property registration system, property valuation service, and national mapping and surveying infrastructure for the State. Tailte Éireann is independent in the exercise of its valuation functions under the Valuation Act 2001, as amended (the Act), and I, as the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, have no function in decisions in this regard.
Tailte Éireann has overall responsibility under the Act, for the maintenance of all Valuation Lists used by local authorities in the calculation of rates liability. Under the Act, all property is rateable unless it falls into one of the exempt categories listed in Schedule 4 of the Act. There is a very specific range of exemptions that can be applied, and Tailte Éireann has no discretionary latitude to grant exemptions not covered by Schedule 4.
Paragraph 22 of Schedule 4 of the Act, which was inserted by the Valuation (Amendment) Act 2015, refers specifically to early childhood care and education facilities and provides an exemption for:
“Any land, building or part of a building used exclusively for the provision of early childhood care and education, and occupied by a body which is not established and the affairs of which are not conducted for the purpose of making a private profit.”
Therefore, while the Act provides that early childhood care and education facilities that are operated on a not-for-profit basis are exempt from rates, it does not provide a general exemption from rates for all childcare or childminding facilities operating on a for profit basis. To avoid ambiguity, if an early childhood care and education facility is operated on a for-profit basis, then they do not fulfil the criteria for exemption under Paragraph 22.
In terms of childminding in the home, Section 3 of the Act defines “domestic premises” as “any premises used as a dwelling which is neither a “mixed premises” nor an “apart-hotel””. If the property is used partly as a dwelling to a significant extent and partly for another purpose it may be a “mixed premises”, as defined in the Act, and consequently may not qualify for the “domestic premises” exemption in accordance with Paragraph 6 of Schedule 4 of the Act.
As a matter of course, Tailte Éireann examines all properties on their individual merits by reference to the relevant statutory provisions governing the operation of the Act and case law arising from the independent Valuation Tribunal and the Higher Courts.
There are a number of avenues of redress for an occupier of rateable property who is dissatisfied with a determination of valuation by Tailte Éireann made under the provisions of the Valuation Act 2001, as amended. Firstly, before a determination is made, there is a right to make representations to Tailte Éireann in relation to a proposed valuation. Later in the process, if the occupier is still dissatisfied with the determination, there is a right of appeal to the Valuation Tribunal which is an independent body set up for the purpose of hearing appeals against determinations of Tailte Éireann. There is a right of appeal to the Higher Courts on a point of law.
498. Deputy Cathal Crowe asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if a person (details supplied) will be eligible for the proposed 10% retrospective payment increase under the defective concrete blocks scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [65676/25]
View answerThe Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks Act 2022 (the Act) commenced on 22 June 2023 which contains the current grant scheme and the related Regulations were adopted on 29 June 2023. The operation of the Scheme and the processing of individual applications is a matter in the first instance for the individual local authority concerned.
Defective Concrete Blocks (DCB) is a complex issue which the Government is addressing by allocating a significant amount of money to affected homeowners to enable them to rebuild their homes and get on with their lives. The overall cost of the scheme is expected to be in excess of €2.2 billion. The Government is making sure that the Scheme is designed and delivered in a manner that meets the needs of homeowners in an efficient and effective manner. Currently, over 3,000 homeowners are at various stages of the scheme.
In the final quarter of last year the then Government provided, via Regulations, for an 10% increase in the DCB Scheme cap (to €462,000) and to increases in the scheme grant rates of between 7.4% and 8.7%. These increases recognise the impact of construction inflation on homeowners in the scheme and were made following the receipt and consideration of updated cost reports from the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) and advice from the Expert Group established to consider the matter.
My Department sought legal advice that confirmed that extending these increases to a wider group of relevant owners, i.e. those who had already received a determination but were experiencing increased constructions costs during their ongoing remediation works, required amending the Act.
I can confirm I received Government approval for the priority drafting of the Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks (Amendment) Bill which includes details of the wider group of relevant owners that can avail of increases in the grant scheme cap and rates approved in late 2024. The Bill will also include other technical amendments to ensure the continued smooth operation of the grant scheme for homeowners.
This legislation is being progressed as expeditiously as possible and the Bill is included in the Autumn 2025 Government Legislation Programme for Priority Publication. However, it should be noted that amending the Act is ultimately a matter for the Oireachtas.
499. Deputy Robert O'Donoghue asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to confirm that community-based, not-for-profit early years services are exempt from commercial rates; the guidance provided to local authorities to ensure that such community services are treated consistently with regard to rates liability; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [65980/25]
View answer500. Deputy Robert O'Donoghue asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he is aware that Tailte Éireann has recently contacted community-based, not-for-profit early years services in Waterford indicating that they may be liable for commercial rates; if he will clarify Government policy regarding the rates status of such community services; if he will engage with Tailte Éireann and local authorities to ensure that community early years providers are not incorrectly deemed rateable and are protected from unwarranted threats of rates liability; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [65981/25]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 499 and 500 together.
Tailte Éireann is an independent Government agency and provides a property registration system, property valuation service, and national mapping and surveying infrastructure for the State. Tailte Éireann is independent in the exercise of its valuation functions under the Valuation Act 2001, as amended (the Act), and I, as the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, have no function in decisions in this regard.
Tailte Éireann has overall responsibility under the Act, for the maintenance of all Valuation Lists used by local authorities in the calculation of rates liability. Under the Act, all property is rateable unless it falls into one of the exempt categories listed in Schedule 4 of the Act. There is a very specific range of exemptions that can be applied, and Tailte Éireann has no discretionary latitude to grant exemptions not covered by Schedule 4.
Paragraph 22 of Schedule 4 of the Act, which was inserted by the Valuation (Amendment) Act 2015, refers specifically to early childhood care and education facilities and provides an exemption for:
“Any land, building or part of a building used exclusively for the provision of early childhood care and education, and occupied by a body which is not established and the affairs of which are not conducted for the purpose of making a private profit.”
Therefore, while the Act provides that early childhood care and education facilities that are operated on a not-for-profit basis are exempt from rates, it does not provide a general exemption from rates for all childcare or childminding facilities operating on a for profit basis. To avoid ambiguity, if an early childhood care and education facility is operated on a for-profit basis, then they do not fulfil the criteria for exemption under Paragraph 22.
As a matter of course, Tailte Éireann examines all properties on their individual merits by reference to the relevant statutory provisions governing the operation of the Act and case law arising from the independent Valuation Tribunal and the Higher Courts.
There are a number of avenues of redress for an occupier of rateable property who is dissatisfied with a determination of valuation by Tailte Éireann made under the provisions of the Valuation Act 2001, as amended. Firstly, before a determination is made, there is a right to make representations to Tailte Éireann in relation to a proposed valuation. Later in the process, if the occupier is still dissatisfied with the determination, there is a right of appeal to the Valuation Tribunal which is an independent body set up for the purpose of hearing appeals against determinations of Tailte Éireann. There is a right of appeal to the Higher Courts on a point of law.
Under Irish law there is a distinct separation of functions between the valuation of rateable property and the setting and collection of commercial rates. The commercial rates payable on a particular property is a product of the valuation of that property determined by Tailte Éireann multiplied by the “Annual Rate on Valuation” (ARV) which is set annually by the elected members of the local authority as part of its budgetary process. The billing and collection of rates is solely a matter for the relevant local authority. Tailte Éireann has no function in that regard.
501. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the breakdown of funding for the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan as part of the Shared Ireland Initiative, including any funding that can be applied for by local authorities, beekeeping groups or individual beekeepers. [66163/25]
View answerThe All-Ireland Pollinator Plan (AIPP) 2026-2030 will be co-funded by the National Parks and Wildlife Service of my Department, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Government of Ireland’s Shared Island Fund and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency. The AIPP will be managed and delivered by the National Biodiversity Data Centre (NBDC). Following the recent announcement that this funding has been secured, work is underway by the NBDC to develop the the detail for delivery of the next phase of the Plan.
502. Deputy Louis O'Hara asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage for clarity on the requirement for local authorities to provide a co-funding contribution for water infrastructure projects, as raised during an exchange at the Joint Committee on Infrastructure and National Development Plan Delivery on Wednesday, 24 September 2025 (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [66254/25]
View answerHaving examined the details supplied, I understand that the Question relates to the Measure A8 demonstration projects under the Multi-annual Rural Water Programme.
Government has recently approved revised funding for these projects, including the wastewater projects in County Galway referenced during the Joint Committee on 24 September 2025.
In accordance with this decision, local authorities will continue to contribute co-funding based on the original project costs, while my Department will fund the additional amounts required to meet the revised increased costs.
This means that Galway County Council’s co-funding requirement for the projects remains unchanged, with the higher costs being met by my Department. The projects will continue to be delivered by the Council in consultation with Uisce Éireann, which will take ownership and responsibility for the operation of the completed infrastructure.
