Hear, hear.

Hear, hear.

If you tried to create a housing crisis, you could not do a better job than this Government is doing. It has allowed investor funds to come in and purchase family homes - ordinary homes - from under the feet of families who need them. Big corporations and big multinationals are coming in to make money while families are looking for a roof over their heads and for their own homes. The Government has created a situation where house prices have increased by 50% in the last five years. We have record homelessness. We h…

Ireland needs an international protection system that is fair, efficient and enforced. That means being fair to those coming here fleeing war and persecution. We have to respect and protect their dignity and provide clarity and timely decisions. It must always be fair to communities as well by providing resources and supports to them when additional people come. The system also has to be efficient. It has been accepted by the Government that the system has not been as efficient as it should be. We have not been man…

I thank the Minister of State for visiting Passage East on Sunday last. He met with the local authority and with residents whose homes were affected by flood damage. He would have heard at first hand that what those who were affected by the floods in Passage East want is less talk and more action. There were concerns raised - rightly so - by residents in regard to the response from Waterford City and County Council. They were not pointing the finger of blame at individual staff members. They acknowledged that the s…

I acknowledge that Irish cancer services are among the best in the world. I want to pay tribute to all the staff who work in cancer services. However, we are beginning to see slippage in some areas which is disappointing. The response to a parliamentary question from me on key targets set by the HSE for diagnostics and treatment shows that we are beginning to see serious slippage. One in seven chemotherapy appointments did not happen on time. In my constituency of Waterford, it is one in three. Only half of breast …

The Taoiseach says time and again that housing is the number one issue for this Government, and he accepts that there is a housing crisis. Notices to quit are on the increase in every county, including mine, Waterford. Last week, I met with three families, all of which have children, who received notices to quit. They are very worried and stressed about having to find alternative accommodation, which the Taoiseach knows is not easy. They have been getting on to letting agencies and asking me and others to support t…

The council is telling me that this year, it still has not received its allocation. I ask the Taoiseach to look at this issue again because this scheme is one of the few supports that is available and is actually working for those families.

The Government gutted it.

Infrastructure development is really important and is obviously important for every city, county and constituency, so I wish to raise infrastructure development for Waterford city and county and the wider south east. The North Quays development has received significant Government funding so I want to start by acknowledging that. However, I also have to say to the Minister that, per capita , the south east and Waterford are not getting their fair share and have not been getting their fair share of capital funding fo…

I second the motion because emergency mental health care services are not fit for purpose. Too many people in acute distress feel they have little choice but to present to chaotic and overcrowded emergency departments that are simply not designed to meet their needs. This motion is about fixing and reforming the system, not managing its failures. Specialist care and safe spaces, such as assessment rooms, should be available 24-7, so that no person in an acute mental health crisis is left without care or left waitin…

I have ten minutes, and I am sharing time with two of my colleagues. I welcome the opportunity to contribute. We will support the Bill on Second Stage because the private homes support sector must be regulated, and families deserve basic assurances of safety standards and accountability. However, supporting a Bill is the not the same, as I am sure the Minister of State will agree, as applauding the Government's record, which I wish to turn to. This legislation is necessary, but it is also a stark admission of how l…

I want to agree with Deputy Mac Lochlainn. We all have very similar problems with Uisce Éireann. We are on the front line of dealing with these issues. Communities come to us because they have no way themselves of getting through to Uisce Éireann. They expect that their democratically elected public representatives can get fast information for them. Through no fault of our own – because we try – we cannot. Deputy Mac Lochlainn is right. We send the emails, we get a reply and very often the reply is inadequate but i…

That is a different target.

The Bill proposes to ban single-use vapes and creates a framework to achieve this. The ban will be in effect within six months of the commencement of section 7 of the Act, as the Minister said. I support this Bill because it is simple in what it seeks to achieve, which is to ban single-use vapes. I will offer my opinion on, and a critique of, the Government's wider approach to this issue. I will first talk about single-use vapes. We are already seeing the industry attempting to get around these measures. We have se…

I move: That Dáil Éireann: notes that: — in September, the Government accepted and published the new Community Pharmacy Agreement 2025, which was negotiated by the Department of Health; — the Community Pharmacy Agreement 2025 explicitly excluded reimbursement for monitored dosage systems (MDS), which had previously been reimbursed through the phased dispensing reimbursement mechanism, a practice which was widely known, accepted, and unchallenged by the Government; — MDS, such as blister packs, are an essential and …

I do not understand this approach. It may not have been the Minister who gave the speech in the Seanad but certainly it was a Minister who essentially doubled down. Nowhere did the reply say there would be any agreement. In fact, what it said was that this is a private matter between patients and pharmacists. I understand that this was funded indirectly; I said so at the time. It seems that this was funded through the phased dispensing scheme and that pharmacists were essentially offsetting the cost of blister pack…

I will clear a number of things up for the Minister, who is not here, because she seems to think we do not understand how this works or what issues are at play here. We have never said that every patient has had blister packs paid for. That was never the case. We also understand, and I acknowledged this at the time the community pharmacy agreement was being reached, that phased dispensing was being used by some pharmacists to offset the cost of blister packs. Whatever about the rights and wrongs of that, which is w…

The Port of Waterford is a critical infrastructural asset and has very important potential to support Ireland's growing offshore renewable energy sector. This would obviously create jobs across the south east but it would also ensure the State can meet its climate action targets. I have met the chairman and representatives of the port several times over the last number of years. They have very ambitious targets and plans. They are looking for State support. Like Rosslare Europort, it is a very important asset for t…

I thank the Minister of State for his response. I agree that the submission of a planning application is obviously a very important first step and is a very clear statement of intent by Waterford Port in this area. The Minister of State echoed some points I made earlier by saying that Waterford should work closely with Rosslare Europort, and, indeed, Cork Port, because the DMAP for that whole area obviously creates huge opportunities for offshore renewable energy. While the planning application is going through, it…