Thank you.

No. The Minister of State is out of time.

Thank you.

No, you cannot because I have been strict on everybody.

I enjoyed the research on this Bill, mainly because a constituent came to my clinic last night who raised the issue and brought along his and his wife's private health insurance policy. He had noted that the premium for 2022 compared with the premium for 2021 had reduced but the credit for the risk equalisation had also reduced, resulting in little change in the overall cost of his premium. He was wondering about the risk equalisation piece. I am in a much better position today to tell him, having read through the …

I am always interested in what Deputy Nash has to say. His contributions are always reflective and he is practical, reasonable and objective. Even he will recognise that his party leader, who is a former Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, took a couple of steps regarding the size and scale of apartments that had a pretty devastating impact on property development in Dublin and the living conditions of people who ended up renting those apartments. It is not something to be proud of and is …

What about the funerals in the North?

We need to be careful about language in this House, particularly at this time. I uphold - one might ask who I am to uphold it - the right of every Deputy to express his or her views but, like me, Deputies will have noted an increase in the public temperature over the past week and, therefore, there is a need for measured comments and measured responses. I have heard members of the Opposition speak of a complete failure in our schools. Where is the evidence that there has been a complete failure in our schools? This…

It was also stated that there is no hope from Government. The Government moved very quickly this week. It met the Licensed Vintners' Association, the Irish Hotels Federation and the Restaurants Association of Ireland to respond as quickly as possible to the issues, concerns, anxieties and awful challenges that they face. The Government will continue to do that. A sum of €600 million per month is being expended by the Government on behalf of taxpayers and citizens on support measures for businesses. I accept, as muc…

Deputies opposite are entitled to constructively criticise the Government and to oppose the Government but if ever the country needed some semblance of the centre to hold, it is now. All Government decisions in the past year and a half have been predicated on science. When science starts to contradict itself that creates problems. When scientists say schools are safe and they then say they never said that, that creates the kind of chink that the people who were outside this House today need. It cannot happen. When …

I thank the Acting Chairman for allowing me latitude.

What about the Road Runner?

I have some sympathy for Deputy Boyd Barrett's point, and he and I sat on the Committee on Budgetary Oversight together over two Dáil terms. I know the Minister is aware of the following point but I want to throw it into the debate. I am beginning to hear advertisements on the radio again for financial institutions offering incentives for people to cash in part of their houses and take on a mortgage. These are not the pillar banks but other institutions. The Minister does not need me to explain the consequences of …

Deputy Boyd Barrett will be happy to hear I yearn for a world where every enterprise was a social enterprise but we would not get very far with that. I mean that sincerely. I have been fortunate, since I became a Deputy, to be a voluntary board director of a social enterprise and it has educated me greatly on the not-for-profit model. However, we live in a world where private enterprise is front and centre. I would like to see more social enterprise. It is a model that is certainly much more promoted in other count…

In my own modest way, I was a big believer in and proponent of the rainy-day fund on the Joint Committee on Budgetary Oversight. With regard to what Deputy Doherty said, if there is to be some kind of a windfall, for want of a better term, as a result of this increase in the standard rate of corporation tax, how do we marry that with the consistent commentary by IFAC, the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, and the Governor of the Central Bank in speaking about an over-reliance on corporation tax? How do …

I apologise. I was not watching the clock.

I have a lot of sympathy with what the Deputy said about rebalancing this. It is important for the Minister to outline the economic context that initiated this process. Entities such as the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, and indigenous pension funds such as An Post that invested in some these organisations. I am of the view that so much momentum has now been gained, particularly in the apartment construction sphere and in the city and county of Dublin, I would like to hear the Minister's views on what the…

The problem that confronts me here is to combine my loyalty, affection and respect for the Minister as a colleague with the criticism which he knows I have of the previous process. One of the previous speakers suggested this was a U-turn in Government policy. As a Fianna Fáil Deputy, I can say this is not a U-turn in Government policy. This is Fianna Fáil putting its stamp on seriously flawed Fine Gael policy. It was stitched into the programme-----

We did not support it, actually. It was stitched into the programme for Government. I wish we had outlawed SHDs from the start. However, this legislation appears to do it. I was concerned that a Government press release about its legislative programme and what it was prioritising for autumn term - I welcome that this Bill has been prioritised - stated that the legislation would see a streamlining of the SHD process. We need to be very clear; that was Government language. This cannot be streamlining of the SHD proce…

It was a Fianna Fáil commitment in that regard. I have heard the Deputy speak passionately about this and I acknowledge that he supports such action. There are a few amendments I would like considered as well but the bottom line is that an unsuccessful, disastrous policy is being brought to an end by a Fianna Fáil Minister with responsibility for housing. The House should at least acknowledge that. We made a commitment and we are following through on it. I hope what comes after represents a much more democratic, tr…