I am glad to get the opportunity to talk on the budget again. As the days go by since the budget, many people realise they will be no better off than they were before, particularly because of the cost of energy and electricity. The way this is being operated is these energy companies are let charge exorbitant sums and then we are here trying to pass a Bill to get a windfall tax from them. Where is the regulator? These people are mostly private investors since the State closed Bord na Móna. We are at their every whi…

I am glad to have the chance to address the Ministers of State this evening and highlight a few things I am concerned about. I will start with the recruitment freeze on home helps. Things were bad enough with the home help situation in County Kerry before this. I am asking for that to be dealt with positively. A new problem is arising with fair deal in that the HSE is refusing to sanction people for it, even though they are living alone, are in their mid-80s, have serious health problems and cannot manage in their …

I am glad to get the opportunity to talk on this very important topic and motion because for all of this year, my office has been inundated with calls from young people, boys and girls, looking to do and to be called for their driving test and to get on the road for many reasons, such as going to college, secondary schools and to work. They have been and are promised driving jobs but they cannot get their test. I had an instance a number of weeks ago where a father wanted his son to drive a van in his business. He …

-----decide that if they have a car but they cannot drive it, that they will have to get a taxi or a bus. In rural Ireland, that is not an option because if one had the money that is in the Central Bank, one could not put public transport into the nooks and corners of Kerry like the Black Valley, Gneeveguilla, The Pocket in Glenmore, Lauragh and all of those places. The money in the Central Bank would not provide such a transport service for them. We also have a shortage of bus drivers. It takes so long to get a te…

I am glad to get this opportunity. There is still a massive number of people dying in County Kerry. The worst thing that ever happened in our country was reflected in the number of elderly people and others who died alone in hospitals and nursing homes. Despite all they did in their lives for community and family, they died on their own. That must never be allowed to happen again. There is a lot of conversation. The minute I mention the word “vaccination”, I am accused of being anti-vax, but the conversation is bei…

I am glad to get a chance to talk and be united with everyone else in the Chamber. We are all calling for peace. No matter how long a war goes on, it has to finish. It would be much better, however, if it finished sooner rather than later. What happened last night, with a hospital being blown to smithereens and more than 500 patients killed in it, is horrible and disastrous. This country suffered for 700 or 800 years and had an awful fight to get our own self-determination. The one thing I have seen around the hill…

I too am very concerned with the idea of windfall profits for anyone at the expense of the public. We here are the guardians of the public. The Minister of State and his Government are driving people into the hands of these energy providers that are making four times the profit they need to make. I do not begrudge them profit. I have operated in business too and you do need to make a fair profit, but it is not the way to run a house to push people and to take so much off them that the Government finds itself giving…

He is hard on the people, a Cheann Comhairle.

He is hard on the people of Ireland. He will get his answer, along with the lads that brought him on board, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

He will get his answer all right. Do not worry about him at all, a Cheann Comhairle.

It is no laughing matter.

The book should be scrapped.

It knows all right.

I also support the cap. The ridiculous thing the cap is there to deal with should not be happening at all but the Minister of State should at least put some reins on these people. If he does not, the thing will get worse and worse. There must be oversight and some law to rein these people in and, in effect, put manners on them. We need to ensure there are rules to go on rather than giving them an open book and then having to try something else down the road when it is too late and when there is no account of the Go…

Who is paying it? The punter.

I, too, support this amendment. Again, I refer to the obscene profits the companies have made and will continue to make. There is no reigning in or genuine monitoring by the regulator, who does not seem to be in action at all at any point in time. It is totally unfair. The Government is driving all consumers in the direction of electricity and they have only one route to go if they want to keep warm or keep the light on. The Government is telling them they must get electric cars as well and that everything must be …

I thought the Deputy was talking about that sow.

That sow is well milked at this stage.

Among other embargoes, Mr. Bernard Gloster is saying there will be an embargo on home help workers. We already have a shortage of home help workers in County Kerry. Many people qualify and get approved for home help, but the home help never arrives for whatever reason. We have a real shortage already. The other point I wish to make concerns an 86-year-old woman who was not approved the other day for the fair deal scheme. She was told she was fit enough to live in her own home. She cannot get home help.

She is in and out of the hospital every second day-----