We have the rent pressure zones. Because of these, according to Daft.ie, the vast majority of people who are renting, those who are established sitting renters and existing tenants, saw rents increase by about 3.5% last year. The huge problem we have is with very high rents on properties that are new to the market. The only thing we can do about that is increase supply. Deputy McDonald objects to increased supply-----

-----because it is for rents. Deputy McDonald objects to it because it is full of one-bedroom apartments for transients, as her party describes them.

We need more supply. That has to be public and private.

It has to be additional public rental properties through cost rental, which is now a reality. Last year, we think about 8,000 new social homes were built-----

-----the highest number since 1975. There is also a need for private supply, which is the kind of thing the Deputy objects to all the time.

I do not accept the Deputy's characterisation of the package announced earlier. I will go into that matter in some more detail later on. I need to emphasise again, and as I said last week, this is not a budget. We only had a budget a few months ago. Some of the measures only started kicking in in the past few weeks. Some have yet to kick in. This is not a mini-budget either; it is a series of one-off measures to help families with children, pensioners, vulnerable people and small businesses. The Deputy stated that …

I thank the Deputy. The qualified child payment is a weekly payment. Along with all other weekly payments, we increase it in the budget. We increased it in the budget only six or seven weeks ago.

What we announced today was not a budget and we did not increase any weekly payments. What we decided to do instead was to target lump-sum payments, including an extra €100 on the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance precisely for the children the Deputy mentioned-----

-----a €200 additional payment for working family payment recipients, who are low-income working families; an additional €100 for all children, including those families; the introduction of hot school meals for every child in a DEIS primary school; school transport being made affordable; and the introduction of free schoolbooks. All of that is happening this year. Can the Deputy give an example of a government in the past five, ten, 15, 20 or 30 years that has done so much in such a short period of time? The next s…

-----in the space of one year has done as much as that.

I thank Deputy Lowry for raising this important issue. All of us in the House agree that we need to train more vets. Government is looking at different options as to how to do that. One option is to expand the existing veterinary school and another is to establish a new veterinary school in another part of the country. Many people want to study veterinary medicine but we do not have enough places for them. I would like to create more. That is not just important to give people the opportunity to become vets but will…

As I explained earlier there is a process under way trying to figure out how many additional places we will have in medicine, nursing, veterinary medicine and pharmacy as well as where they will be located. I do not know the exact number of universities that have made applications but I know a number of universities and technology universities have. It would be wrong for me to prejudice the outcome of that examination. Suffice it to say that there are a number of options open to us. It could be expanding the existi…

I thank the Deputy very much for raising the important issue of fertiliser prices. I think we all know that the price of fertiliser has gone through the roof in the last year or so. As the Deputy mentioned, some of that is linked to the increase in the cost of oil and gas. There is also the situation in Ukraine and Russia, where much of the fertiliser comes from. I know that very high fertiliser prices have cancelled out a lot of the gains that farmers had got from strong prices for what they produced. I am not awa…

I will. Like I said earlier, I will certainly look into the matter. I will speak to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine about it this week. There might be a good reason for it, but I do not understand why there would be a big disparity in what Irish farmers have to pay for fertiliser versus those in Germany and the UK. We will definitely have it examined. In terms of a CCPC investigation, it would be up to the CCPC to make that decision as to whether it wanted to investigate or not, but we will certai…

For clarity, the lower rate of VAT on hospitality, energy and gas and the lower rates of excise on petrol, diesel and green diesel are due to go back up fully in eight days' time. We have taken a decision as a Government not to do that and not even to begin unwinding it until June, which is what Members will be asked to vote on. They need to be unwound at some point. They were not factored into the budget but we have enough finance to extend them for some more months. We intend to do this. That is the proposal bein…

I do not think what Deputy McDonald said was quite correct. The low 9% VAT rate on electricity and gas has been extended until the end of October. It was the position of Deputy McDonald's party not to extend it until the end of October but only until May or June. This is the measure that is in the announcement today that will at least have a marginal downward effect on electricity and gas prices that would have gone up otherwise. There will be another €200 energy credit applied to people's bills in March or April, …

This was not a mini-budget or a budget, which is why we did not make changes to any weekly payments, although there are quite a number of once-offs. In regard to the national minimum wage, it went up by 7.8% this year and it looks like inflation this year will be lower than 7.8%. It is not the case that the minimum wage goes up faster than inflation every year but if we take the three-year view, the five-year view or the ten-year view, it has done so, and I think this year will see it go up faster than inflation. W…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. I am afraid I do not know the details or the facts so I am loath to comment on it. Certainly, if the Deputy wants to get in touch with my office with the details, we will look into it further and raise it with the relevant council and company.

I have been to Tipperary town many times and I agree it is a town that needs a bypass. I think about €2 million was provided for that particular road project-----

-----but that just helps narrow the route and with route design. We have about €250 million a year for new national roads. That is not enough to allow every project to progress every year but it is enough to make significant progress on many of them. The Minister, Deputy Ryan, is especially keen to prioritise bypasses of towns. Many got funding in this round, including Virginia, Carrick-on-Shannon, and a couple of others too. Perhaps Tipperary can be considered as part of that in future.