In February this year, I addressed the House during a debate on a Sinn Féin Private Members' motion in relation to the driving test backlog. We outlined our proposal to address the backlog, not for the first time. I ask the Department to redouble its efforts regarding the recognition or exchange of international driving licences. This would decrease the number waiting, whether it be the long-term diaspora seeking to return home or those arriving to work in the health service. With a shortage of carers, this has to …

To conclude, I ask the Minister to please hire more testers, create more test centres and allow the exchange of international driving licences.

It is right and positive that we debate the power of higher education. It is simply a shame that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael consistently see it as a soft touch, something to be cut. If there are any consistent trends to Government's approach to higher education, they are inconsistency, pretence and speaking out of both sides of their mouths. In recent weeks in this House, we have discussed all manner of promises to benefit ordinary people that will be broken. We are told, because of economic turbulence, extending si…

Is Europe Day a day to celebrate? It is certainly not for Irish farm families who have weathered a tough decade with Brexit, the pandemic and increasing input costs compounded by the energy crisis. It is unforgivable that uncertainty is thrust upon them by their own Government as has been for the case for nearly a decade regarding the Mercosur trade agreement with both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil being seemingly either in favour or against it depending on how close an election might be. While the programme for Govern…

In advance of the general election, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were content to trumpet commitments in their manifestos to deliver childcare at a cost of €200 per month to parents. The programme for Government will have disappointed those parents, as will the Minister and her inaction over the first 100 days in the lifetime of this Government, when we have seen no action taken to reduce the cost of early years education. The inadequacy of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governance has had very real consequences for ordinar…

International Workers' Day should be a celebration of the advancement of workers' rights; a celebration of those who have made great sacrifices to better the condition of ordinary workers. It is also an opportunity to reaffirm our demand for workers' rights fit for a modern era. It is a day to reaffirm our demand for the Government to improve workers' rights and conditions, and especially to demand that governments are held to their related promises. Unfortunately, indications are that this Government intends to br…

I thank the Labour Party for bringing this motion forward. As the Minister knows, families in County Monaghan have been campaigning for access to appropriate and adequate education for their children with special educational needs for years. They are entitled to it and should not have to fight for it. They campaign for new and additional classrooms within existing schools and the establishment of a special school. The announcement of an interim school with 18 places is welcome. It is 18 places more than we had prev…

I ask the Minister of State and the Government to listen to the families. From a sample of classes, 79% of hip surgeries on children at one hospital and 60% at another were found to be unnecessary. There are cases where not only was a second opinion not considered to be necessary but actually found an incorrect diagnosis. Parents are outraged, but the overwhelming response from those parents I have spoken to has been worry and concern - concern as to the well-being of their children who, on the watch of Children's …

Last night Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael voted against permanently banning water charges. If the Government does not have an intention of introducing water charges, why does it feel the need to cling on to the power to do so? Why does it continue to hold the power to do so within its grasp? Irish households pay for water charges through general taxation. The amount of water used is comparable to countries that have metered charges, so the conservation argument does not hold. This Government is seeking to cling to the p…

Fine Gael has a problem with retirement, older workers and how it treats those who want to retire in general. On the one hand, it contested the 2020 election on the basis of increasing the State pension age to 67 by 2021 and to 68 by 2028. As recently as three years ago, the former Minister, Heather Humphreys, described the current pension age of 66 as non-sustainable. On the other hand, it has taken until now to introduce this Bill which will abolish the mandatory retirement. It is unfortunate it has taken Governm…

The genesis of many of the issues we face today lay in the Fine Gael austerity years. Addressing issues like economic inequality and deprivation are the best proven methods to divert young people from crime. The truth of the matter is that we have yet to redress impacts and cuts to community projects and to youth projects from the time of the Fine Gael austerity years. Not only is this the case, in some crucial areas the situation is actually getting worse. Community gardaí are a vital component. They establish and…

Better than Fine Gael.

Thirty-nine-----

It is the reality.

I thank Deputy O'Reilly for tabling this motion tonight. The scale of the damage and the hardship caused by Storm Éowyn was unprecedented. I thank all those at the coalface who helped with this. However, there is a sense in many rural areas that poor planning compounded the hardships borne by ordinary families because the extent of damage and hardship is sometimes not known. In my constituency of Cavan-Monaghan many were left without power for more than a week following Storm Darragh which was only a few weeks earl…

Government statements on childcare bear little resemblance to reality. Despite claims that costs have been reduced by upwards of 50%, survey data last year illustrated that parents in some counties are still paying upwards of €1,100 per month. Despite Fine Gael having campaigned on introducing a public model of childcare, in the programme for Government it is silent. Allusions to reducing childcare costs to €200 per month by some unstated and unknown date are without any meaning or worth. For many families, childca…

I thank the Social Democrats for putting forward this motion. Ireland can be proud of our contributions to the multilateral system in terms of the role we have played regarding humanitarianism, disarmament, non-proliferation and peacekeeping. Alongside our diplomatic corps and peacekeepers, who see policy enacted, our independent foreign policy and triple lock neutrality protection, the chief components, have allowed Ireland to make those contributions. This is what the Taoiseach thought in 2013 when he responded t…

Shame on you.

Energy prices are crippling ordinary people, business owners and even schools right across this State. At a time when people are enduring a cost-of-living crisis and undue financial burdens in a plethora of other areas, our regularly scheduled energy cannot break a person's back. In this context, people expect the Government to do all it can to help alleviate this burden and it is welcome that energy prices were on the agenda for the European Council. One area where the Government utterly failed the Irish people wa…

Did the Government speak in favour of decoupling at the European Council? If so, does the Minister of State acknowledge it was a mistake not to implement this years ago while families and businesses are suffering? Does he accept the Government wilfully failed to employ every tool at its disposal to alleviate the undue financial burdens that families and businesses are suffering under? If so, will the Government begin to implement the necessary reform today, rather than many months from now?