GPs will not accept parents going to them to look for developmental checks. Parents have tried that. That is not an option.

It is left to the parents to ascertain if their children are not well.

I ask why youth service workers employed through the City of Dublin Education and Training Board channel of funding in the drugs and alcohol task forces have not received the October 2023 WRC 8% pay rise or had their wages restored to pre-2009 cuts levels. What detailed measures is the Government putting in place so that pay rises are specifically accounted for in channels of funding?

That is interesting. I raised this issue on Leaders' Questions again a couple of weeks ago. The way the funding seems to operate with section 10, section 39 and section 56 organisations and all the private charitable status groups makes it difficult to see where an 80% increase in an area has to be met through existing funding. My understanding is the Department of Health has the funding. The agreement is 8%. It has given it to the HSE. The HSE distributes it to City of Dublin ETB, while the Department of Justice d…

Pre-2009 and the crash, all these workers were linked in with public sector pay and got increases as public sector workers got their increases. That is my understanding from talking to people in the canal drugs task force and other task forces. That link was broken in 2009. I am sure the Minister of State will agree it is a serious issue that these workers have not had their pay restored since 2009. These people are getting up in the morning, going to work, applying their services and then coming home. They have bi…

Where does the funding come from to pay these workers, if not the HSE?

I thank the Minister of State.

I note that the Minister for Finance is not in the Chamber.

Can I defer it?

I was not. I checked with my office to make sure. I was at a meeting at 2.15 p.m. and I checked in my office before I walked in the door.

Okay. I was just about to look for a deferment. I am raising Ireland's position on establishing the United Nations framework convention on international tax co-operation. Last month, at a statement in Paris urging EU countries to support the new UN framework convention on international tax co-operation, we learned that global tax abuse will cost the EU €1 trillion over the next ten years. This follows a landslide majority in last November's UN General Assembly vote on a resolution for the framework convention. The …

I will have to read that reply again as it got very convoluted. I will read it in detail because I want to come back to the Minister of State on it. It does not look to me as though the position Ireland has taken is as positive as he has stated. All OECD members were part of the 48 countries that voted against the UN resolution. Those countries represent 15% of the world's population and are estimated to enable 75% of global tax abuse. Developed countries, including Ireland, facilitate the majority of that global t…

I want to start by quoting the headline of the article by Kitty Holland on "The full story of the Stardust fire", which is, "Jesus Christ, the doors are locked". That is what the survivors from the Stardust fire have been saying for more than 40 years. They were not believed. They were ignored and, as Antoinette Keegan has said, they have been systematically abused by the Irish establishment for the past 43 years. I welcome to the Visitors Gallery all the families of those who lost loved ones. I welcome all those i…

I also wish to express solidarity with the families of the Stardust 48 and the communities of Kilmore, Artane and Coolock, where I grew up as a child. I want to raise the issue of children's developmental health checks. I raised this issue on several occasions last year with regard to the Curlew Road and Old County Road primary care centres. I have recently been informed that the same problem exists at the centres in Islandbridge and it continues at Curlew Road. A lack of public health nurses is stopping children's…

I am sharing time with Deputy Harkin. I thank People Before Profit-Solidarity for presenting this Private Members' motion to the Dáil. I welcome the news that the Government is planning to scrap the Green Paper on Disability Reform. The proposals were widely condemned by a broad coalition of disability, mental health and carers' groups. I am glad the Government has recognised, as everybody else has, just how unfit for purpose the Green Paper was. This was, however, a shameful attempt to reform the system to benefit…

I agree with the two previous speakers about the documentary last night on the O'Shea report but I want to raise the following issue. Earlier this month, we learned that health and social care staff with community and voluntary bodies are still awaiting pay increases agreed last October. I am referring to section 10, section 39 and section 56 workers. There was an agreement for an 8% pay increase and a commitment from the Government to work towards pay parity with public sector workers. Many workers have not receiv…

It is their view.

I thank the Taoiseach. It has been 15 years since the crash. Until 2021, many of these workers had not even received a pay increase. The staffing community of voluntary organisations who are awarded the pay increase of 8% have not received it and have not been paid to date. That is outrageous. Why has it not been paid and when will it be paid? This needs to happen urgently. It undermines and makes a complete mockery of our system of industrial relations and collective bargaining. When agreements are made, they must…

I wish to share time with Deputies Connolly, McNamara, Harkin and Fitzmaurice.

There is a lot of fanfare about this being a new start for Fine Gael, this Government and the country. In reality, what we see is the same old stale, out-of-touch political system that has been in power since the foundation of the State. We can play political musical chairs and give everything a fresh look but this is just two sides of the same coin. It is another Taoiseach for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, the parties that have led this country into crisis after crisis. We have a broken housing system with record hom…