-----and to try to present them as something hard right followed by the centre right-----

-----really misunderstands where the mainstream of European opinion now lands. These conclusions were supported by centre-left Governments, the Party of European Socialists and the European Green Party in government. For my part, I supported the conclusions on behalf of the Irish Government. I also made the case for legal pathways, which is something we in Ireland do better than other countries. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, at which I was the Minister last year, issued a record number of 40,0…

-----but we also need controls as well. I do not agree with the view that we should have no controls at all or have no nations or borders. Those who have that view should be honest about it and not try to cover up that they do not believe in any returns or any borders. They should be honest about that if that is their view. As the Deputy rightly pointed out, my reference to being hard was specifically in reference to traffickers. We need to be hard on traffickers. That is what I said in Brussels, what I said on Sun…

-----why somebody may have false papers if they are coming from a country where they cannot get papers. What I do not understand is the destruction of papers.

Trade is an EU competence so it is the same position as we had before.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 10 to 12, inclusive, together. The Mulvey report, Dublin's North East Inner City: Creating a Brighter Future, which was published in February 2017, contains recommendations for the social and economic regeneration of Dublin's north-east inner city. The report has been further supplemented by the north east inner city strategic plan 2020-2023. Implementation of the Mulvey report and the strategic plan is overseen and progressed by the programme implementation board. The board meets o…

I thank Deputies for their questions. Regarding the programme implementation board and the appointment of a new chair, no decision has yet been made on the appointment of a chair but I would very much welcome any suggestions or nominations that Members may have, perhaps on a confidential basis. It can be difficult to approach people for these roles. The enthusiasm for taking on this kind of work is not what it used to be for all sorts of obvious reasons, but any suggestions from Deputies would be dealt with confide…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 13 to 25, inclusive, together. The Cabinet committee on housing met on 30 January. The next meeting of the committee is scheduled for 9 March. The committee works to ensure a co-ordinated approach to the implementation of Housing for All. The quarter 4 2022 progress report was discussed at the most recent meeting of the committee, and was subsequently approved by Cabinet and published on 7 February. This is the sixth quarterly report under Housing for All and details further progres…

What was the Deputy referring to?

I apologise if I did not catch everything. The Deputies spoke much more quickly than I can write, but I will try to cover as many questions as I managed to jot down. In respect of Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan's question about the tenant in situ scheme, that is a scheme the Government supports and I know the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage supports it very strongly. We are providing funding to local authorities for it and we need to push it and promote it more. One thing we are considering is an ame…

I do not know. I will have to check with the Minister on that.

In regard to Deputy McAuliffe's question, I am not familiar with the site-----

We might have a chat afterwards and he can let me know where it is. We can certainly ask the LDA to take a look at it. On the rent tax credit, it does cover students who are paying rent and where parents pay on their behalf, but it does not cover unregistered landlords. The difficulty with unregistered landlords is they should be registered. They are either not registered with the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, or are not paying their own taxes, and that has to be regularised. I do not think we could have a situ…

Family breakdown is one and another, of course, is people being evicted from private rented accommodation. We are seeing a change in the profile of people who are homeless. It is quite different from what it would have been five, six or seven years ago and that is a factor too, but we will assess that over the next couple of weeks. It will remain the case that if somebody is not paying rent or is engaging in antisocial behaviour, that will be grounds for eviction. I do think we have a problem - it might be a small …

I will have to check with the Minister for Finance but I would have thought there would be a charge this year.

At the outset I join Deputy McDonald in expressing my sorrow to the people of Türkiye and Syria who have experienced a terrible earthquake, and to express my solidarity with Ireland's Turkish and Syrian communities, some of whom have been directly affected by that. Some are mourning family members and others are worried about family members and friends. As part of an initial response, the Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin, has allocated €2 million in emergency assistance to the Red Cross and the UN to help with the e…

As I said earlier, these interest rate increases are most unwelcome, particularly for people who have tracker mortgages or are seeing their variable mortgage rates go up and go up dramatically. It would be wrong of me not to acknowledge that the European Central Bank, ECB, is raising interest rates to bring inflation down and to restore price stability. This is why it is being done. Unfortunately, the impact on people who have tracker mortgages is very severe. We are happy to consider any proposals that the Sinn Fé…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue again. I emphasise that this is largely an historical issue. It relates to nursing home charges prior to 2005, which is more than 18 years ago and disability payments prior to 2007 or perhaps even prior to 1996 and largely relates to laws from the 1970s. We do not have all the facts yet - nobody does. As I said last week, we will do whatever is legally required, just and in the public interest. The Attorney General's report is now published. It takes about 20 or 25 minutes …

On the issue of junior bondholders, there was a positive legal obligation in many of those cases and a court case was taken which, unfortunately, went against the State in regard to some of those cases. Leaving that aside, Ministers will look at this in the round. Of course, it will not take them three months to look at the Attorney General's report but they will have to look at many documents going back to the 1970s and 1980s and listen to what the House and what people have to say at the Oireachtas joint committe…

I want to be very clear that I do not accept the suggestion of double standards in this regard. I have often had the opportunity to speak to our colleagues in the US, in the US Administration and to Members of Congress. When I say to them that we wish to have something done to help undocumented Irish people in the US or, indeed, undocumented people from other parts of the world, I precisely point to what we have done, because what we have done as a Government in the past number of years is put in place schemes to a…