Emer Currie
Dublin West · Fine Gael · Ireland
“I wish to begin by recognising the substantial work undertaken by the Government-led shared island initiative, the ESRI, academics and opinion leaders. Without that work, we simply could not have a debate of this quality.”
“This is not simply about replacing old buildings; this is about building a modern educational campus that reflects the needs and the wishes of the families in Dublin 7 and Dublin 15 for generations to come. The community has waited long enough.”
“Rather than simply replacing the existing buildings, they have come together with an ambitious proposal to create one educational campus on the existing site. This project has the potential to be one of the most significant primary school developments in the State. However, the project has been stalled at stage 2a since 2024.”
“Many of the economic gaps that will likely be highlighted in the wider debate as barriers to unification - productivity, earnings, disposable income, tax revenue and educational attainment - are not as inevitable as some would like us to believe.”
“However, Northern Ireland has outperformed many UK regions since Brexit, helped by the competitive advantage created through dual access to the UK and EU goods markets under the Windsor Framework. More recent research suggests the productivity gap is narrowing.”
“If you believe in a united Ireland, then making Northern Ireland more prosperous, a better place to live and a more attractive proposition for the people who are undecided about how they would vote in this referendum should not be a secondary objective; it should be central to achieving a united Ireland.”
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“I ask the Minister for an update on the review of the 2001 planning guidelines for childcare facilities whereby for 75 new homes, there should be the provision of 20 childcare places. The link between supply of new homes and childcare places has not been working effectively. I welcome how the Minister has addressed this as an issue of concern and I seek an update on her progress.”
“At the centre of that, to provide that service we need to rectify the driver's licences for the over-70s so we can increase the number of buses available.”
“Children attending Catherine McAuley National School are already travelling outside their area to attend the school because we do not have reading classes in Dublin West. They have missed four weeks of school because the service was pulled at the last minute. Parents have been told that their bus will collect their children at 6.45 a.m. As a parent, I am saying that this is not on. That is not a solution for these families. The Minister of State's office is extremely helpful for which I thank it but I ask his intervention in finding workable solutions. This system is built to provide 175,000 tickets, which is to be commended, but it is a black-and-white system that needs to recalibrate to work for families and modern Ireland.”
“In two years' time, Ériu Community College under the direction of the Department will move to Hollywoodrath but there is no bus to accommodate those students for whom this will become their local school and there is no commitment to accommodate the parents in Hantsfield who in good faith sent their children to a local school that is now being moved from one catchment area to an entirely different one. It seems to have fallen into bureaucratic purgatory. Can we please sort it out? The system works on the basis of the first available school but ethos and whether it is co-educational must also be taken into consideration in modern Ireland. We cannot say on one hand that we recognise the importance of diversity when it comes to school ethos and then limit that choice because of bureaucratic sticking points.”
“I know the Minister of State wants to hear about issues our constituents are facing so he can fix them and I appreciate that. I also appreciate that there has been an increase in the number of students accessing the service and most families have a positive experience but too many do not and for those households, it is causing havoc. A total of 11 students are travelling 10 km from Tyrrelstown, Hollywoodrath to Ériu Community College in Hansfield. The local secondary school is full.”
“Mothers should not be penalised. The Government must intervene to address the sharp decline in baby rooms in State-backed crèches, which encompass 92% of crèches in the country.”
“According to data from the Department of children, there has been a 25% reduction in the number of State-supported crèches taking babies under one year of age since 2022. Baby rooms in crèches outside of core funding are not subject to fee caps, meaning parents are likely paying over and above for services they are desperate to secure. These are damning figures and should be a wake-up call to those who constructed core funding and batted off questions last year, insisting supply of places was broadly meeting demand. These figures reflect the reality for parents. Mothers start to look for baby rooms in early pregnancy, delay their return to work and leave work as a result. In Ireland in 2025, mothers are still penalised. They face a 27% earnings drop after their first baby is born, according to research from Maynooth University.”
“The Minister and the Tánaiste have shown leadership on this issue and I welcome their commitment. The State has a duty to act decisively and ensure accountability in every instance where abuse was allowed to occur. We must ensure the State has the legal means to hold institutions accountable and require contributions from those responsible. I commend the bravery of the survivors who have come forward over the years and who broke the silence and the shame and smashed the culture that allowed this to happen. We owe them our deepest gratitude and respect. My thoughts are especially with the families of those who are not here to see the commission set up. I thank the Minister and all those involved for their work in establishing this commission. Its creation marks an important step forward on the path to truth, accountability and justice.”
“I, therefore, welcome the Minister's commitment to establishing a separate survivor engagement programme alongside the commission's investigative work. This is not part of the formal investigation but it is just as important. This process must provide the safety, dignity and respect many were previously denied. The scoping inquiry made clear that many survivors viewed financial redress as a critical part of accountability and I fully support the Government's approach in pursuing this. The Minister has stated that all potential levers will be used to secure funding from schools and institutions where abuse occurred. In October 2024, the then Taoiseach, Simon Harris, confirmed that the Government may legislate to require organisations to contribute to a redress scheme.”
“It will cover all primary and post primary schools. It will also cover how An Garda Síochána, the HSE and the Department of Education handled concerns and reports of child sexual abuse. Its remit spans from 1927 to 2013 but the commission may focus on specific periods where appropriate. The commission must take a survivor-centred and trauma-informed approach, with emotional and psychological support to be available throughout. I echo the comments of Caoilfhionn Gallagher, the special rapporteur on child protection, who in welcoming the commission of investigation called for support for survivors at key stages of the process, including clear communication and transparency and steps to mitigate the risks of retraumatisation.”
“I welcome the establishment of this commission of investigation into historical child sexual abuse in all schools. The scoping inquiry received 2,395 allegations involving 884 alleged abusers across 308 schools nationwide. That is 2,395 allegations; 2,395 cases of children abused by monsters, and 2,395 cases of our nation's children being failed by our schools, 308 schools, and by our State. Survivors have shown immense courage in coming forward about their suffering. For too long, survivors have carried their trauma without recognition, accountability, justice or redress. This must finally be put right. The Government has listened carefully to the findings of the scoping inquiry and to the voices of survivors. The commission will finally deliver recognition, accountability, justice and redress.”
“I ask that the community model be specifically examined in the context of the review under way to reduce the administrative burden on providers and a review of core funding to support and increase community childcare services.”
“Community childcare not-for-profit operations led by the community for the community stand out in a sector dominated by private provision as an alternative, often part of a wider network of early intervention and family support services. Availability varies wildly across the country, from over 60% of services in Monaghan and Leitrim to just 6% of less in my own county of Fingal. It is 13% in Wicklow. In Dublin 15, two community childcare services in two years have take the really difficult decision to shut their doors. It is nothing to do with demand in the area. In Ireland, over the past five calendar years, the total number of community service providers that entered the sector is 114. Over the same period, the total number of providers that left is 113. That is an increase of one. Something is obviously wrong.”
“That is how new the force is in the district. Will the Minister examine the inconsistency and encourage evidence-based policy across population, crime statistics and geography? We need to receive the same attention as the city centre.”
“I thank the Minister for the update. I will circle back to the matter of Garda numbers because community safety also depends on that. There should not be inconsistency across the districts in the Dublin metropolitan region. The K district might be losing out to the city centre at the moment but, historically, there have been inconsistencies with other Dublin districts as well. There is potentially one Garda for every 531 people in the K versus one Garda for every 397 people in a neighbouring district that has significantly lower crime statistics. Gardaí in the K are hungry, driven and dedicated, which is very evident when one works with them. The leadership is rolling out very positive and proactive initiatives. It has a very high proportion of gardaí who are still within their probation period.”
“The local partnerships, if they are working, will have strategies and recommendations and those solutions need to be funded and will not always fit neatly under local authority or State agency budget lines. I hope the Minister will take an active role in ensuring the partnerships are working from the ground up as well as from the top down.”
“Community partnerships have the potential to truly impact community safety because intervention and prevention are not only the remit of the Garda. We have to bring local stakeholders to the table to tackle local problems with local solutions. I am wondering how the Minister will ensure residents know about this initiative. Will there be a local campaign or a local awareness drive? I believe €5.5 million has been provided to set the partnerships up. How does the Minister envisage these funds being spent? Will there be a community safety partnership office, for instance, situated in the community for people to access? There is also the community safety fund putting proceeds from crime back into communities, but it is only €4 million.”
“I thank the Minister for bringing the regulations into effect for the local community safety partnerships so they can get up and running. This new approach will involve residents, social workers, youth workers, businesses, education representatives as well as An Garda Síochána and State agencies. The initiative is important to us in Fine Gael and I commend the Minister, Deputy McEntee, on developing this vision. Can the Minister provide an update on the roll-out of local community safety partnerships in Dublin West?”
“There are only four inspectors across three stations for a population of approximately 200,000 people. It is not sustainable. We have brilliant gardaí but we do not have enough of them. What needs to happen for the K district to get the same level of attention and allocation that is currently being given to Dublin city centre?”
“I want to raise the issue of Garda numbers in Dublin West. Some 120 new recruits were attested overall in June and 74 were allocated to Dublin. According to local gardaí in my area, only four came to the Garda's K district. Of 150 new recruits in March, 98 were sent to the city centre and four to the K district. The K district consists of Blanchardstown, Cabra and Finglas and is one of the busiest districts in the country. Last year, in one 24-hour period, it had more calls than all of the other Dublin districts combined. Gardaí in the K district have to deal with antisocial behaviour, criminal damage and assaults. I am told it has the highest number of domestic incidents in the country and it has gangland crime, as well as Blanchardstown town centre and Áras an Uachtaráin to manage.”
“We need to keep those meetings going until there is clarity on the legislative framework, the powers and remit given to the transport police and the interaction of the transport security force with An Garda Síochána.”
“I appreciate the recent steps to improve transport security, including the increased budget of over €11 million for a security presence through the Department of Transport, Operation Saul and the new public transport hubs. However, we have to keep moving on the commitment to establish a transport security force. In 2024 alone, over 4,200 complaints were received reporting incidents of drug use, violence and sexual assault. Reports of antisocial behaviour on Dublin Bus have almost doubled since the pandemic and there have been incidents on the Maynooth line where schoolchildren have been targeted. The Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration has recently engaged with the Department of Transport, which is positive.”
“I urge that there be a resolution and clarity as soon as possible. I also welcome the student support plans, or the individual education plans as I know them, being put on a statutory footing. I do not want to be talking about securing school places all the time. I want to be talking more about what happens when children get into the school. I support the AsIAm call for special education policy to be rooted in legislation. That is important. It has been 21 years since the EPSEN Act. We had an implementation plan. We need to start implementing that policy and seeing the benefits and the transformative change that the Minister of State, the Minister and the Government are working on.”
“Yesterday, however, as the Minister of State knows, I was again in the presence of parents in a desperately unfair and unacceptable situation. The school in question has outlined a sequence of events based on its workings with the NCSE that point to a legitimate understanding and expectation that the students had secured places in their local school. Many are already members of the school and school community, but the NCSE seems to have taken a dramatically different approach in recent weeks. For the life of me, I cannot understand how we have ended up where we are. We need to have positive and constructive relationships with our local schools. Whatever promises have been made need to be kept. I know the Minister of State is aware of the situation and is prioritising it as we speak.”
“That is why I have already suggested to the Minister of State a campaign that goes beyond the NCSE, schools and public representatives to generate awareness, and not just of the timeline but how it actually works. We should also be planning five years in advance to meet the new projections that the Department has for children with additional needs. I also wish to talk about trust in the NCSE and the parent experience. Too many parents are still being let down by the system and I continue to be shocked on too many occasions by interactions with the NCSE. I applaud the task force in Dublin 15 for its work. The Minister of State met its members today. The common applications trial and the collaboration between the Department, the NCSE, parents and schools will bring positive change.”
“Despite the investment in special education - and it is significant - we do not have an effective forward planning system for the delivery of school places and enough appropriate supports. We are still in an annual cycle of a scramble for school places for children with additional needs. The Minister of State and I know this needs to end. I welcome the new timeline the Minister of State has outlined to sanction new classes and the bringing forward of the deadline when students should be alerted to the NCSE who require a special class or special school place, but 1 October is very early in the admission cycle and school year. Parents and guardians must be in no doubt about how this process will work.”
“The Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan, and the Minister, Deputy McEntee, are moving on teacher training. All student teachers need experience in special schools and classes. While inclusive education is covered in initial education training, it is limited and theoretical in its approach. Dyslexia needs far more attention. The Minister of State knows I support the provision of more reading classes. There should be better access to continued development for qualified teachers and comprehensive training for members of boards of management. Without a consistent approach in the training of teachers, the experience of students will continue to be inconsistent.”
“I held a public meeting about the EPSEN Act in 2023 as part of the review. Like anything involving parents with children who have additional needs, it was an eye-opening experience. I thank all the parents who have reached out to me over the years. The most important question we need to ask is whether children are given equal access to education by the system which supports their development. We have come a long way, especially in recent years. The answer is that we still have a long way to go. I will speak about some of the things I covered in my submission a couple of years ago. At that meeting were parent representatives from Chasing Justice, the Dublin 15 autism campaign, AsIAm and the Children's Rights Alliance. We will not have an inclusive school environment and culture if inclusion is not supported throughout the education system.”
“The first chairs were announced in October. The last joint policing committee in Dublin West was over a year ago, so when will the partnerships be fully established and when will more communities see more gardaí?”
“Since the Minister took office, he has placed a significant focus on increased Garda visibility in Dublin city centre, part of which he represents as a constituency TD. His prioritisation of the city centre seems to be working, and I say "well done" on that, but there is the rest of the country and what about the rest of Dublin? It is not the first time I have raised this issue. Communities outside Dublin city centre like mine, the K district, are crying out for more gardaí to tackle low-level crime and antisocial behaviour and much more serious crime too. No community should be left behind but I fear that is what is happening. We need the new local community safety partnerships. Our colleague, the previous Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, drove the Act through the Oireachtas. It was signed into law by the President in February 2024.”
“There were no new bus services and limited enhancement of the existing ones. Last week, the Green Party had a motion calling on the Government not to put the brakes on progress, but under a Green Party Minister, our community saw a decline in the reliability of its services. I am depending on the Minister to take the opportunity to change that. While BusConnects is promoted as a transformative project, and it will be, we have to properly invest in expanding and improving the services that people currently rely on in the here and now.”
“I would appreciate the Minister's intervention because I find those figures shocking. We cannot wait until BusConnects is implemented in Dublin West, which could be 2027. The Minister mentioned services for Hollywoodrath, including the 37 and 38. I have fought for those enhanced services. Underinvesting in existing services ignores the commuters in established communities who want to shift to public transport. We have seen more than 2,000 new homes built in the Blanchardstown-Mulhuddart local electoral area over the last five years. Many have been in a completely new area called Hollywoodrath. The Minister was there with us.”
“That is a fraction of the nearly €2.9 million spent on new routes. It reflects the reality that people are experiencing. It is just not enough when it comes to the growth and demand in established communities, which is most of Dublin West, and the growth of new communities while we wait for BusConnects.”
“I thank the Minister. His numbers are the same as the ones I got through a parliamentary question dealing with capacity issues in each of the years 2020 to 2024. Seventeen million euro in that time had been invested in launching new bus routes in Dublin West, but, as the Minister said, just €1.6 million has been spent on enhancing existing bus services. That discrepancy tells its own story. The €1.6 million that has been spent on enhancement has been patchy. According to the NTA, nothing was spent on enhancements to existing services in Dublin West in 2023. A year before that, in 2022, spending was a grand total of €97. I would love to know what €97 was spent on. There has been some increase since then. In 2024, €407,000 was invested in enhancing existing bus services in Dublin West.”
“My question is to ask the Minister for Transport to provide a breakdown of the investment made in enhancing existing bus services in Dublin West from 2020 to date. A handful of routes – four in total – have been introduced under BusConnects, mainly to replace existing services, and one new route called the W4. While we await the full implementation of BusConnects in 2026–27, our existing services are really struggling with demand.”
“If U-space is the answer to getting the balance right, then the IAA needs the funding and resources to implement it now and certainly not in 2030, as some of the replies to parliamentary questions suggest. While I have the Minister, and maybe a one-word answer would suffice, the legal barriers to DART+ West have been cleared. Will he progress the project and funding it as soon as he can?”
“I am aware that there are polarised views and I am also aware of the benefits. My concern is also timing. A corporate entity operating in a space without sufficient regulation will not have the duty of care to communities that is required, and we are seeing that already. A commercial operator in our area is claiming it has received 77 complaints about 170,000 flights, but I would have had that number of complaints in the past seven weeks. Companies are operating within the regulations but that does not make it right. We cannot have a situation where the horse has bolted without the legitimate concerns and rights of residents being addressed. That is just bad planning. I imagine it would have consequences under the Aarhus Convention.”
“When we build homes we do not just focus on structural specifications but their place in a community. If we want to erect a bus shelter, there is a planning process. The regulations need to be expanded urgently to cover noise, flight paths, schedules, consultation, feedback mechanisms and investment in public information, because currently it looks and sounds like a free-for-all. The U-space regulations give me the most hope for dealing with that.”
“I thank the Minister. It is good to see a bit of a move away from the gobbledegook that has dominated the answers I have had so far on drones. The indecipherable regulation-speak reflects the paralysis and powerlessness large sections of my community feel when they are in their homes and gardens listening to the drones above them. Dublin West is being used as a test ground for commercial drones making food deliveries. There have been 170,000 flights in the past 12 to 18 months and that figure is set to soar. There has been no direct consultation with our community and no meaningful complaint mechanism. The Irish Aviation Authority, IAA, oversees the regulations we have but those are risk-based. They have no teeth when it comes to the impact of drones on residential areas.”
“My question is whether the Minister will publish the national policy framework for unmanned aircraft systems, UAS, that is, drones, before the summer recess. As part of that, will he implement U-space regulations that have been applicable in EU states since 2023? U-space provides for the creation of a new, dedicated airspace for drones. It is essentially a traffic management system that could play a critical role when it comes to the proliferation and impact of drones flying over residential areas.”
“I am asking that the framework is also published before the summer recess to look at drone traffic management with limits on flight paths and noise, known in the EU already as U-space, and to launch a public awareness campaign about people's rights in this area.”
“The programme for Government commits to a policy framework for drones to guide high-level strategic planning and development, supporting innovation and addressing other concerns. While that is necessary, it omits a fundamental issue: the impact of commercial drone operations on local communities. Some say there are no regulations at all, which is not true, but it is air and ground risk-based, with model specifications for safety, privacy and noise. We are severely lacking in common-sense rules and regulation for when a commercial entity, including fast food operators, is making 300 deliveries a day over a 3 km radius, relentlessly over a local community, and there will be more. On 21 May I asked the Oireachtas transport committee to meet with stakeholders before the summer recess. That will happen.”
“According to the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, nearly nine out of ten Dublin businesses say childcare is a challenge to their staff recruitment and retention, with one fifth of them saying it is their biggest obstacle. Therefore, childcare should be included in the revised NDP at a significant game-changing level that reflects the now critical need for childcare infrastructure. It would be very significant to hear the Minister say today that childcare will be included in the new infrastructure division of his Department and by the new accelerating infrastructure task force. Other countries consider childcare an economic necessity and we should too.”
“For the first time, the programme for Government commits to a public model of childcare. The Taoiseach has confirmed that work is needed to map out how we will do that in a public building programme and how that will harmonise with existing provision. He also confirmed that the new supply and management unit has been established to do forward planning and delivery and to assess demand, plan and expand public supply using CSO figurers childcare committees and GIS systems. It is great we will be working on establishing demand but we will also have to back that up with supply. Affordability is great but you have to be able to access it in the first place. A lack of consistent and coherent childcare is still a barrier to women in employment.”
“I understand that critical infrastructure, with a capital "C" and capital "I", has mainly referred to nation-building infrastructure for energy, housing, transport, water and climate resilience but the underinvestment we have seen in childcare and the over-reliance on private providers to ensure every community and family has access means childcare infrastructure is now critical. Early learning and childcare are nation building.”
“This Government will be judged by its delivery of critical infrastructure, that is, infrastructure needed for social and economic reasons. In that regard, we have not seen significant public investment in childcare infrastructure in our local communities. For reference, €45 million was ring-fenced to expand childcare capacity in the NDP over the past two years, versus €1.4 billion in the education capital budget for 2025 alone. We have planning guidelines that theoretically link new homes to the delivery of private childcare places but it is not working effectively enough.”
“We need to do what we said we would do in the programme for Government and pull on every lever to actually make delivery happen. We have to review and overhaul the guidelines but we also have to ensure that, when facilities are built, the places then follow.”
“There is a lot of good in the programme for Government. It says that the Government will review these guidelines. It also commits to reviewing core funding and to the provision of public supply. I am here today to say that there are opportunities to combine those and come up with a big vision for the delivery of childcare in our communities. At the moment, there are exemptions to the rule on providing 20 childcare places for every 75 new dwellings. For example, one-bedroom apartments are exempt. Also, if developers say that there is a crèche nearby, then they do not necessarily have to include a crèche in their development even though it could comprise more than 75 dwellings. When the facilities are built, they are only shell and core and so may not be affordable for childcare providers.”
“Sometimes, new crèche buildings are included in planning, are built and are opened but sometimes they are not. I thank the Minister for the information on the capital supports but this forms part of a bigger overhaul of the planning guidelines to ensure that those crèches are not sitting empty, like they are in my constituency, that their use is not being changed and that we see more providers being able to operate in our local communities.”
“At the heart of these questions lies an opportunity to link the provision of childcare places with the provision of new housing. Childcare needs a big idea that can deliver capacity at scale and value for money. I am not interested in the big chains that can do that already but in public supply and in supporting community crèches and the providers, primarily women, who have been running our smaller, independent, local facilities for years and struggling to do so. The Government is delivering new housing but can we also ensure that we are delivering childcare places in tandem with that? The mechanism that we currently have - the childcare facilities guidelines for local authorities from 2001 - is not working effectively. For every 75 dwellings, 20 childcare places are supposed to be provided.”