There is no loophole in the Genocide Convention-----

I join the other Deputies. It is ridiculous that the Government would rip up the Dáil schedule, as it did last night, and not come in here to urgently enact the occupied territories Bill or address the shortcomings in disability services or treatment for children with scoliosis and spina bifida, but to have a backslapping exercise and put down a motion of confidence in themselves.

We got word last night that the Dáil schedule was being ripped up, not to address any of the crises gripping the country or to enact some critical legislation, but to spare the Government's blushes and to try to prevent a spotlight being placed on the Government's shameful treatment of people with disabilities. Aontú signalled yesterday that it was going to put down a motion of no confidence in the Tánaiste next week and within hours, the wagons circled. The Government did not even wait for the text of Aontú's moti…

The answer to that, quite clearly, is "No".

For that reason, I and the Social Democrats do not have confidence in this Government.

This Government is clearly in panic mode. Its new housing plan was supposed to be published in July and there is still no sign of it. Instead, what we have seen is a succession of measures that all have one common feature: throwing more public money at developers in the desperate hope that the market will deliver. We have been here before and we know how it ends - soaring house prices and rents and a broken housing system. I am sure the Taoiseach does not need me to tell him that there is more disastrous news in ho…

Answer the question, Taoiseach.

The Taoiseach says he is not in panic mode but it does sound like he is panicking-----

-----and he is yet to answer my question on when the Government will produce its housing plan. It is still delayed. There is acknowledging the role of the private sector, which we do, and then there is completely and utterly relying on it, which is what the Government does. The Government goes far beyond acknowledging the role of the private sector and goes to the extent of paying private developers to build luxury apartments it has already built. It is quite simply unbelievable. The dominance of private developers…

I will ask my question again: is the Government going to do anything different in this plan, and when will it produce it?

I should not be surprised by this Government's approach to the budget. Time and time again, we have seen Fianna Fáil's and Fine Gael's approach to these things. It is just that no matter what, it is hard to understand how, at a time when the number of children living in consistent poverty doubled last year, the Government chose not to introduce a second tier of child benefit. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why after all its election promises, the Government did not introduce a weekly cost of disability pa…

Can you answer the question, please? The cost-----

We are asking you about disability and the cost of disability payment.

On the cost of disability-----

How much the Taoiseach ignored disability in his reply is representative of how much it has been ignored in the budget. The Disability Federation of Ireland said it too; the Taoiseach does not have to take my word for it. It described the budget as a betrayal of disabled people, stripping away vital supports and deepening poverty. I recognise there was increased funding in the budget for disability, but the Minister of State with responsibility for disability herself said that the Department was coming from a low f…

Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that five Irish citizens have been kidnapped and detained by Israel today. If the Taoiseach and Tánaiste were here, I would appeal to them to do everything possible to secure their safe release and ensure Israel faced consequences for its actions. Instead, I appeal to the two Ministers of State present to relay that to the Taoiseach and Tánaiste. The real surprise from yesterday's budget was not what was in it but what was missing. Yet again, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael walked in…

I thank Deputy Quaide for all his hard work on this motion. There should be no need for this debate. We are all in agreement that the means test for carers needs to be abolished, so the question is: why do we not just do it now? It is extremely insulting to reduce the work of carers to numbers on a spreadsheet. It is the only type of work that is means tested like this. Carers who are slightly above income thresholds are often denied any support. People who have carer's allowance live in fear of it being taken away…

There is less than a week to go before the budget is announced and it is apparently "elbows out" at the Cabinet table, or at least that is what the newspapers are reporting. We are told there are battles going on behind the scenes as Ministers try to secure money for their Departments. You would swear this was a Government that made every single penny count. Of course, then we read the latest damning Comptroller and Auditor General report about enormous levels of waste across government and public bodies. A total o…

I do recognise the big surpluses, and something the Social Democrats highlight every year at budget time and, indeed, throughout the year is that they need to be spent wisely because they are not necessarily forever. It is exactly a year ago today since the previous budget, a giveaway on steroids basically to try to buy the election. Now that there is no election on the horizon, the Government has suddenly realised that untargeted one-off measures are not a good idea, as if giving €100 million in energy credits to …

This Government constantly tells us that it values the work of carers. It has a chance to prove that in the budget next week. So far, carers have never been prioritised by this Government or previous governments. The Taoiseach does not have to take my word for that. A report from Family Carers Ireland last year was damning. It found that an overwhelming majority of carers - 70% - find it difficult to make ends meet. That is the reality of life for carers in Ireland. Many are forced to cut back on essentials just to…