As a Kildare Deputy I too would say that the ratio of gardaí to population has to match up. I have been complaining about that for many years. A policing service cannot be run without gardaí and counties Kildare and Meath are complete outliers in the ratio of gardaí to population. It is not enough to tell us it is an operational issue; there has to be a fairness on this. I am not alone in having concerns about parts of this Bill and how the Minister for Justice has chosen to progress the Bill through the House. We …

The Taoiseach and his predecessor, Deputy Micheál Martin, repeatedly told this House that housing was the biggest single social issue facing the Government. In his first interview after he assumed the office of Taoiseach, he said we needed to turn the corner on housing with a Covid-style response. He then clarified that what he meant by that was to adopt a can-do attitude. His can-do attitude appeared to evaporate in the Dáil yesterday when he flippantly dismissed concerns in respect of the significant under-delive…

We have repeatedly said there is an over-reliance on the private sector and there has to be a scaling-up of the public sector. A briefing note prepared for the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, in December stated that the reliance on the private sector delivery is a vulnerability for 2023. When it comes to social homes, 2,706 new-build social homes were delivered at the end of September. More than 70% had been acquired by the private sector. I repeatedly see in my area that when a housing estate is built, the council buys …

Driving a vehicle without an NCT certificate is an offence under section 18 of the Road Traffic Act 1961. That offence carries a penalty of five penalty points, a €2,500 fine or three months imprisonment. This is pretty serious stuff. We are being told that insurance providers will be pragmatic. Part of the reason there is a backlog is that people are trying to comply. We are told that insurance providers will be pragmatic and understanding. That is not in compliance with the law. We have to hear something other th…

The contract with this particular company was rolled over for another ten years in 2020. A contract is a two-way thing and they are reaching their contractual obligations. If I were to apply for a test for my own car, for example, the first available date at my nearest centre is 24 August. I had a look nationally at the 49 centres and none of them come in within the 28 days in terms of the information that is published on their website. In fact, nobody has been given what the RSA advertises as a free test if they d…

One of the penalties on companies is that they are required to provide the test free if they are not in compliance. Why is that not happening? Has the Minister of State talked to the RSA about that? Will the Minister of State tell us how many are on the priority list? If everybody was on that list, it would not solve the problem of the lack of personnel to do the job. The priority list is for exceptions. People will want to be in compliance. That is why the lists are so long. People are trying to be in compliance. …

I start by going back in time to 27 June 2020, the day Deputy Micheál Martin became Taoiseach. Back then the Dáil business was conducted in the convention centre, as we well remember, and the country was in strict lockdown. It was so strict his family were not able to be with him on that important day for them and for him. I acknowledge he led by example on that occasion and throughout the crisis. We are all grateful for that. Deputy Martin has always viewed the office of Taoiseach and the awesome responsibility it…

When will Fianna Fáil learn the lessons of the crash that its policies led to more than a decade ago? I am really struggling to understand what the Government is at. The big innovation from the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage when it comes to restoring public confidence in An Bord Pleanála is to revert to a discredited system of political appointments that was done away with almost 40 years ago. I do not think you could make this stuff up, that we are going back in time on this. I would not have…

The strategic housing development legislation actually slowed things down in that it resulted in people taking judicial reviews. Things can be done that are counterproductive, and I will point that one out. Just this week, the Committee of Public Accounts received a reply from the Minister's Department of Public Expenditure and Reform that told us the Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments has not yet fully concluded but has come to a total of €143 million to date. We cannot go backwards in …

What about An Bord Pleanála?

I too welcome the Aylward family and extend my sympathies and the sympathies of the Social Democrats to Helena, his wife; his daughter, Triona; his sons, Bob and Mark; and their extended family. I was aware that Bobby had grandchildren, and that tells you something. Like Deputy McDonald, I served on the Committee of Public Accounts with Bobby. When you were in the Dáil with him you were acutely aware of where he was from. He was most definitely from Kilkenny and I knew that well. I was sad to hear of his passing ea…

As Deputy Gannon has said, the people most impacted by the teacher shortages are children with special educational needs. These children have already been waiting for four years for assessments of need, speech and language therapy and occupational therapy and now the last plank they have to lean on - their support teachers - is being taken away or reduced. When permanent posts cannot be filled or a substitute teacher cannot be found, support teachers are filling the gap, meaning the most vulnerable children in the …

This is typical of what we see in December and it is hugely disappointing. There are many issues to be had with the Government's Report Stage amendments to the Bill and to have the debate this evening guillotined to 60 minutes is a joke. We requested extra time for the debate at the Business Committee, as did other parties, and that was refused. A few of the amendments were completely outside the scope of the Bill and we are having a debate on that for an hour while the actual debate time largely remains the same. …

It is not lost on us that the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill is being debated at 9.40 p.m. on a Wednesday night. It certainly says everything about not having a good work-life balance. I pick up on the point that Deputy Funchion made. There is good reason to have five Stages to legislation. It means it has been thought out and teased out, that the principle of it has been talked about, that amendments have been tabled and considered on Committee Stage and reported back to the Dáil. There is the…

As Deputy Micheál Martin prepares to leave the office of Taoiseach, it is an appropriate time to reflect on his tenure in office. He has repeatedly said he considers housing the most important social issue in the country but his record tells a different story. It is not a record of problem solving; it is a record of problems multiplying. The crisis has now morphed into a disaster. The facts speak for themselves. House prices, rents and the rate of homelessness have never been higher. On Friday, we learned that ther…

The Taoiseach said nothing about the 11,397 people who are in homeless and emergency accommodation, including almost 3,500 children who will spend this Christmas in homeless accommodation. It has almost become permanent. It has become normalised. We get these figures on a Friday towards the end of each month and each time they are going up. We have seen a reduction in commencements in the past three months, with no local authority new builds in the first six months of this year in 11 local authorities. It does not …

The Taoiseach knows that is not-----

It is a disaster.

It is difficult to see any justification for the increase in tolls, whether they come into effect in six months or in January as originally planned. With private motorists and haulage companies struggling with increasing fuel costs, any rise in toll prices will come as a further blow amid the cost-of-living crisis. The level of the increase is difficult to justify in the current climate and I do not foresee that changing in the next six months. We all appreciate the need to reduce the use of cars in daily travel, b…

It is correct.