It is not up to Fáilte Ireland to solve this problem. I asked what the Minister of State's opinion was on the Government increasing the minimum wage to a living wage for workers in the sector. Retention is equally as much a problem along with recruitment. According, again, to Fáilte Ireland's research, one in three workers in the sector was new to tourism and hospitality, and 42% of workers in the sector who are on the PUP did not return to their employers. Does the Minister of State think there is a case where emp…

I want to raise the matter of children with disabilities in County Meath who have been transferred to the south Louth team under the progressing disability services programme. Children who have been transferred to Louth now find they are not on any waiting list in either county. One family who contacted my office applied for respite for their child over three years ago and, despite fighting its case with the HSE for years, have been told Government intervention is required to resolve it. The child is nine years old…

The Minister was getting tetchy when my colleague, Deputy O'Brien-----

-----was calling him out on his figures and his so-called delivery. I suppose the Minister was getting frustrated that the Deputy was doing that. If he finds that frustrating, I dare him to visit every town and village throughout this State. He will see that there are homeless people, people languishing on housing lists, people who cannot afford to rent and people who cannot afford to buy. If he makes such a journey, he will find out what tetchy is. The rental crisis is continuing to escalate. Everybody has told th…

People are languishing on council housing waiting lists for decades. People cannot afford to rent. People are getting eviction notices-----

-----and people cannot afford to buy. The Minister sits there and has the cheek to be arrogant with us for putting forward solutions.

It would answer him better to adopt some of the solutions. Perhaps our solutions might be able to solve the crisis the Minister and his buddies in government have created.

What does the Taoiseach plan to do to deal with the lack of sufficient funding to deal with the backlog in housing adaptation grants every year? It is not just since Covid. It has been happening for years. There has been carryover year on year. In County Louth alone, 711 outstanding applications have been waiting for years to be dealt with, including elderly people. It is so bad that only some people in category A, the most severe cases, are being dealt with. The Government says it wants elderly people to live inde…

There are backlogs in every local authority. What plans does the Taoiseach have to increase the funding?

Can the Taoiseach tell me what plans he has to deal with those backlogs in order that people can rightly live independently without having to wait years?

There are backlogs.

The backlog has been going on for years.

He did not respond, as usual.

I wish to raise the non-existence of paediatric ophthalmology services in Drogheda and the entire south Louth area. More than 2,000 schoolchildren still have not received appointments since last September. That includes children with conditions such as strabismus. There are no appointments and no follow-ups. There is only one ophthalmologist in Dundalk, who is seeing a restricted number of as few as six to seven children each day. It looks like there has been a complete abandonment of children who need and use thes…

The housing crisis continues to escalate. The war in Ukraine and the resultant humanitarian crisis has highlighted the state of housing in Ireland yet again. We need to allow for thousands of refugees to come here to seek safety but our housing market is an absolute mess. By Easter weekend, we are expecting the number of arrivals to be between 26,000 and 32,000. Fine Gael has been in government for more than ten years, with support from Fianna Fáil for six years, and nothing has improved. Things are getting worse i…

I commend an Teachta Tully on her hard work on this issue and on tabling this motion. We tabled this motion to demand that the Government and the HSE protect the rights of children with disabilities and to ensure they can access the services they need. The situation at the moment is dire. Children are not getting an appropriate AON procedure and they are not accessing the services they need. Waiting lists for therapies and interventions are out of control and children's disability services are seriously understaffe…

It is hard sometimes.

I wish to raise again the crisis in the dental treatment purchase scheme and the fact that people with medical cards have not been able to access a dentist for over 12 months. It is almost 15 months at this stage. Patients with diabetes and patients with cancer are all denied access to basic dental treatment. The Irish Dental Association met with the HSE on 2 March to try to get a resolution to this. The HSE has not rescheduled a meeting until June, which is a full three months away. Given that so many people acros…

This Bill is designed to ensure that social media companies take responsibility for defamatory statements made on their platforms in cases where the companies in question are unable or unwilling to provide the identities of those posting defamatory statements. At the moment, social media allow those who make such statements to hide behind anonymous profiles. In some cases, they are unable or unwilling to identify the poster concerned. Social media is operating like the wild west at the moment and this leaves people…

The astronomical increases in fuel costs have pushed hundreds of thousands of Irish households to the brink, and the statistics laid out in this motion are quite shocking. There have been more than 30 different price increases from energy suppliers in the past year, and costs have risen by around €500 per annum for the average household. Home heating oil has increased by more than €600 for 1,000 litres this year. Coal has increased by €4.50 per bag in the last week. We are expecting major increases in the coming we…