The landlord gets €14,000 for renting a room.

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House for this very important Commencement matter. I thank him for being here, because it is in his Department. I would like to acknowledge the good work he is doing as Minister of State in the Department of Health. I tabled this Commencement matter on foot of the retirement of Dr. Victor O’Loughlin from his post as a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist for children with disabilities. There has been no replacement found for this role. We now have children in …

I thank the Minister of State. I know he has been working on this because we have spoken privately about it. I am grateful that a candidate has been offered a position. The start date cannot be soon enough. A professional from the UK currently comes over once a month. In this regard, the HSE is not fit for purpose. Certainly from the perspective of parents of children with disabilities, it is just not accountable. Staffing and recruitment are issues. The HSE should be using the work permits scheme more to find peop…

I will be talking about the same issue. I did not know Senator Lombard was going to talk about it. I also request a debate with the Minister of State with responsibility for special education on special schools and special needs assistants, SNAs, and teachers in particular. It is important to recognise the amount of funding announced in the budget last month. Some €2.6 billion has been ringfenced for special education. That is 27% of the educational funding in total. As part of that, there will be an extra 1,194 SN…

-----and they really need to be given a decent wage for the important work they do. The Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, visited Tipperary last week and she came to a number of schools. She visited two schools in particular, the fantastic special educational schools that we have in Cashel, namely, Scoil Chormaic and Scoil Aonghusa. She met the two principals, Lorraine Lowry and Siobhan Keyes Ryan, and we saw the phenomenal work that all of teachers and the SNAs do. As a Government, we really need to recognise tha…

To pick up on that point, it is infuriating given there are obvious, simple solutions that do not seem to be listened to when we put them forward. This was well intended, but a lot of the problems we are talking about have been caused by us, the Government, and that is just a fact. Everyone who has been in that situation and who has been left without a seat on the bus is well aware that because it was made free for everyone and, therefore, everyone decided they were going to take it, that even included people who d…

Will the Leader arrange a debate with the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth regarding the reports over the past number of days about Ukrainian citizens who do not have accommodation? It is important to recognise that although it is a difficult situation for people who come into this country, 52,000 have come from Ukraine and they have been housed and protected through a range of measures. The support that the Irish people have given in opening their homes to Ukrainian citizens for a…

I ask for a debate on Irish Water to be arranged and for the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, to be invited to attend. I do not think we have had a debate on Irish Water for quite some time. In Clonmel, which is in my own county of Tipperary, we have waited years for a new water treatment plant and expected that it would arrive at some point. However, on a weekly basis the local water supply must be turned off because of adverse weather conditions and that situation will …

There has been a big increase in antisocial behaviour in Clonmel and the surrounding areas in recent weeks. This has been brewing for a number of years. Gardaí are doing their best but their resources are limited. We have now got to the stage where a young farmer was beaten so badly this week that he almost died. There is a fear within the community, across Clerihan, Lisronagh and Powerstown, about this and about the inaction there. Members of the Garda are under pressure themselves but there is a real fear within …

I feel like it is almost obligatory now to say we need a passport office in Tipperary.

We are all one county - at the moment anyway. There are 167,000 people in Tipperary. There is a vacant office two doors down from my office in Clonmel, so it would be very easy to have a passport office right beside where I am located. Queries about passports are among the queries we get that are actually solvable for people. On a serious note, however, I thank Sinn Féin for tabling the motion. Senator Gavan said everyone agrees with the motion. It is not that I agree or disagree with it, and I do not want to be on…

It was only 600,000-odd last year, so the turnaround has been incredible. The number of passports that have been delivered this year has been incredible. Senator Wilson said we need to get the awareness out that people should renew their passports at off-peak times, and I agree with him. He mentioned we will be in the same predicament next summer. We will not really because last summer was unique. There were almost three years backlog of people looking for passports last summer, and that will not be the case next s…

"Do not send them" is definitely the advice to give. However, on first-time applications there is an estimated date, and people come to us worried about whether they will get the passport in time. There could be an estimated date, say, in the middle of October or the middle of November, and someone could be applying a week after the estimated date. We politicians cannot do anything about it until the estimated date has passed. Is there some leeway - well, not leeway, because I understand that there are technicaliti…

Tomorrow at 10.30 a.m.

I also welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Calleary, to the Chamber. It is my first opportunity to congratulate him on his new role and position. I thank him for taking this Commencement matter. I acknowledge the good work he and his Department did last week in regard to the budget and supporting business over what is going to be an uncertain time during the winter months. I had a meeting a number of weeks ago with Mr. Patrick Fox from the Bromine Science and Environmental Forum, BSEF, on fire regulations. The BS…

There is an understandable fear when reviews are put in place that changes could be made when we recognise that Irish safety standards are more robust than those that apply in other EU states. What we want to do is maintain that. It is true that there have been changes in consumer expectations and furniture manufacturing practices. That has to be recognised and changes have to be made but we need to stick by the same kind of safety standards that we have at the moment. That is the most important thing. I look forwa…

Before I talk about a budgetary measure that was brought in today, I want to pick up on Senator Flynn's comments on refugees and remind Members of the question of comparing like with like. It is important to say that the 50,000 Ukrainian people coming into this country are not refugees. They are here under an EU temporary protection directive. Their position is nothing similar to being refugees and comparing them with refugees is not comparing like with like. When the Senator talks about people in Ireland meeting t…

It is long overdue. This House has played a key role in advancing it, with a large number of Members having spoken here on the issue. The Cathaoirleach has given me three opportunities to table a Commencement matter on this issue over the two years that I have been a Senator and an awful lot of people of people have pushed the issue. Whatever we talk about in terms of the budget supporting people financially, giving people the opportunity to start a family is a real change and will have an impact. I welcome the ini…

I am sharing with Senator Dolan, if she arrives, and Senator Burke in her place if she does not.

I welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber. I also welcome the budget announced today by the Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Michael McGrath. It has to be put into context. Every party comes up with its proposals on what it wants to do in the budget and what money should be spent on. The most important thing to recognise is that the position we are in enables us to do what we are doing. That does not happen by accident. The public is looking in and seeing that today's measured decisions are being made in recogn…