Young people have borne the brunt of the pandemic. They are stuck at home, many with parents, or are renting and paying huge rent. As the Taoiseach will be aware, the Residential Tenancies Bill (No. 2) Bill 2021 comes before the Dáil later today. This is further emergency legislation, but it will not deal with the issues in respect of which renters need a break. We need to close the loophole in regard to the 8% rent increase. The Bill, as published, does not do that. It merely extends protections for those who proa…

I would like to tease this out a little bit further because I did not get much from the Taoiseach's answer to Deputy McDonald. To be honest, the Taoiseach did not answer the question. The Taoiseach keeps saying that this is going to be owned by the State. If that is the case, why is the Minister going to talk to the Sisters of Charity? A deadline will have to be set at some stage. Does the Taoiseach accept what his Tánaiste said a few days ago, which is that we may potentially have to look at a new site? Or will th…

It should have been done years ago.

I suggested a CPO in 2017.

Absolutely. We are depending on the Pope.

This has been going on for a decade.

This could go on forever.

The figures from EUROSTAT yesterday show that Ireland ranks 13th out of 27 EU countries on household living standards, falling behind Germany, Italy and Lithuania. That is where we really stand when the impact of multinationals on our GDP is stripped out. When it comes to living standards and what people can actually afford to buy to live their lives, Irish people are in fact less well-off than the EU average. That is what these figures are saying and is a reflection on the high prices here. One of the principal dr…

The last Government had a Cabinet subcommittee on national security. Why was it dropped? Is it not even more pertinent now that we have such a Cabinet subcommittee? We have the National Security Committee. I do not want the details, but I presume Ministers attend that. Can the Taoiseach tell us how often it meets and at what level? Where are we at as regards the cyberattack on the HSE? Have we sourced where the attackers targeted or how they got into our systems? I do not want the Taoiseach to tell me here, but doe…

Covid will continue to be the biggest risk as we move forward but hospital overcrowding will also be a significant risk. We barely had a flu season in 2020 due to everything. Ensuring as many people as possible are vaccinated this winter will be critical. I want to ask the Taoiseach about supply issues regarding the roll-out. What are we ordering for next year? I know decisions were to be made by the Cabinet today. It would be useful if the Taoiseach outlined them in his response. I know we had 4.9 million Pfizer d…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I wish to share time with my colleague, Deputy Howlin. More than 50 years ago, in the late 1960s, amid concerns about the high cost of housing for home buyers, a situation which has repeated itself several times since, the then Fianna Fáil Minister for Local Government, the late Bobby Molloy, commissioned a report on ways to tackle the supply of development land. A High Court judge, Mr. Justice John Kenny, was appointed to lead the committee established to examine …

I want to raise the issue of community employment, CE, schemes. In my county, Tipperary, I have had a range of people contact me on this issue. Last week, David Mulvaney in Ballynacargy, County Westmeath, eloquently outlined the situation there to me whereby if these schemes are not extended, many people whom the ESB is pushing towards getting major awards under the CE programme will simply not have enough time to complete their training. Given that this issue affects thousands of people, will the Taoiseach conside…

I will raise three issues. First, in relation to the Delta variant, I welcome what Mr. Paul Reid communicated in the HSE update yesterday. With regard to the AstraZeneca vaccine, an issue I have been raising for weeks, ongoing communication is needed and the commitment needs to be honoured by 19 July. Have studies been commissioned or has the Government received a briefing on the efficacy of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine against the Delta variant? That is an honest question. Does the Taoiseach have any information …

The criteria are tight.

I am blue in the face raising the issue of maternity restrictions here. I have raised some very personal stories of friends and neighbours of mine. The situation is still ongoing. Pictures emerged at the weekend of partners queuing outside the Rotunda Hospital waiting to get in. It was crazy and barbaric. Partners are not able to attend scans or help their partners through all stages of labour or induction, or even after the birth. Of those hospitals that are open, many have strict visiting hours. A new dimension h…

Unfortunately, it happens.

There are not enough people.

I agree.

It was a significant meeting of the European Council in May. A strong statement was made on the diversion of the Ryanair flight to Minsk and the sanctions against Belarus. Those sanctions need to be very strong because what happened was unprecedented. I ask the Taoiseach to update us with any other information he has on that matter. Are we still on track to have the digital green certificate in place by 19 July? Hopefully all our 60 to 70-year-olds will be vaccinated by then. It is so important given all the discus…

For many weeks and, indeed, months, I have been raising the same issue with the Taoiseach in regard to people in the 60 to 69 age group, some people in cohorts 4 and 7, and also some healthcare workers, all of whom were vaccinated with AstraZeneca and who initially had a 14-week wait for their second dose and then a 12-week wait. I am not an immunologist or a scientist, and nor is the Taoiseach, but I believe in common sense. We have a collective need to address this issue now because there is a race on between, on…