As the grandparent of a child who is five years of age, I can understand the trauma and upset of the families concerned and all those injured. In Drogheda just over two years ago, we had a deadly drugs feud that resulted in violence, deaths and widespread fear and intimidation. The Minister responded to that in the appropriate way. Following a period of lack of interest in what was going on there, she has invested over €16 million in the last two years to address concerns in our community suffering from deprivation…

I bring to the attention of the Government the serious crisis in child and adolescent mental health services in the Louth-Meath area. There is presently no out-of-hours service liaison for these children and adolescents. There are no plans or resources to develop such a service. There is no approved centre for child and adolescent mental health services either. A farcical situation was brought to my attention yesterday whereby a clinical psychologist, who studied for 11 years and was trained by the HSE at a cost of…

The care of older people in nursing homes like those run by Aperee is a cause of increasing concern for HIQA and others. Sage Advocacy recently published a Red C poll of public opinion on the issue of supports and care for older people. One of the significant findings is the public has a concern that home care and nursing home care have become overly concentrated in the hands of private providers and people feel we need innovation and new alternatives to nursing home care, especially with regard to not-for-profit o…

I welcome this debate and the increased supports for account holders that were announced in the budget. They will all be very welcome. I am aware that many of my constituents are having extreme difficulties in paying their bills, notwithstanding the electricity credits they have received. I was with an employer yesterday who told me that one of her senior staff could not pay her electricity bill, a sum of €3,000. She has a large family and found it impossible to pay, so the employer paid it. There is pain and a lot…

Hear, hear.

I welcome the opportunity to debate and welcome the significant changes that have been made, particularly for married couples, pensioners and single workers. In particular, it is important to point out that if the average wage is somewhere around €40,000 or €45,000, two earners, perhaps a married couple, would have approximately €95,000 between them. There is significant benefit for them in the budget. The changes to tax bands, credits and the USC band rate, the childcare fee reduction, the double child benefit pay…

My question was answered to some degree by the reply the Minister gave in respect of the previous question. I welcome what the Minister said, particularly about the additional €172 million for An Garda Síochána. How many extra gardaí does the Minister expect to have in the college by the end of this year?

I welcome the Minister’s comments. In particular, I welcome the reassurance for the whole country that we will have more gardaí, that they will be better looked after in terms of better training and that there will be an additional Garda Reserve presence. I would like to ask a question without going into the detail. I appreciate the position as to why people resign as opposed to retiring. The Minister spoke about tackling that from the retention side. Has the Minister commissioned a study or report as to how we can…

I thank the Minister. I do not know if that interview summary will be published or not. If it is, it would be very helpful to see the non-personal reasons in order that we can study and analyse them. One of the impacts of the resignations is that if the numbers in a particular cohort are lower than we need, it will often impact community gardaí. I live in a town that has had a lot of trouble with drugs, crime, etc., and the community gardaí there are a huge advantage. They provide a major support service to the com…

Yes, it can.

Sure.

The Aperee nursing home group has more than 500 residents in ten homes around the country. There is a serious crisis in the management of finances of residents in these homes. The HSE and HIQA are acting on that. It appears money is being taken from residents and being demanded by entities outside the structure of the home, or companies outside of the home, which are getting their hands on these funds and using them. It is an appalling and unacceptable abuse. I appreciate that HIQA and An Garda Síochána are well aw…

The number of contributors to the debate, from a number of different constituencies, shows the importance of this issue. The demand for school transport is rising because our population is growing. There are new housing developments in every county that are not on any public transport route, which creates problems. It is important when planning permission is being given to ensure there is a transport corridor that can and will be used. More than 150,000 children go to school every day on school transport. We all ac…

The applicants fall into three different categories. The first is priority one, where the applicant is terminally ill, needs a full-time family carer or where adaptation of facilities will allow discharge from hospital. Most of the applications I deal with are priority two, where people are mobile but need assistance in accessing washing and toilet facilities and bedrooms, and where, without the adaptations, the disabled person's ability to function independently is hindered absolutely and unacceptably. It is not, …

We have an opportunity in this budget to put this right and I hope the Minister of State does.

Well, where is it?

This is not a successful scheme in Westport, where there is a lady who, according to the ALONE survey, is confined to the top floor of her house while awaiting a grant. It is not a successful scheme in Galway, where older people are waiting for money approved in 2022. A woman who is a high-priority case is housebound because she cannot leave her third-floor apartment without works first being completed to facilitate this. She has been waiting since 2022, and lives in social housing. ALONE staff have described the s…

Drogheda's traffic is grinding to a halt every day. Indeed, the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, who lives locally will know that development north and south of the river is resulting in huge volumes of cars going into our town. It is being compounded by the closure of the Obelisk Bridge for essential repairs. It is a dangerous bridge which carried local traffic north and south of the Boyne without going into Drogheda. There can be queues of up to 100 cars waiting to get through a junction. People are very angry. J…

This affects school children, business people and anyone travelling north and south. It is really bad.

He will fill the Tánaiste in.