We did reduce taxes in the budget, both the USC and income tax, and people will see that reflected in their pay slips in January. I am glad we were able to do exactly that. I am also glad to report that inflation is now easing. It is now at approximately half the rate it was at this time last year and needs to fall further. Those are the facts. I stand over what the Government is doing when it comes to improving pay and terms and conditions for workers. It is something I have been working and leading on for many ye…

I really think the Deputy is all over the place, quite frankly. A minute ago he was criticising us for increasing the minimum wage and then two minutes later he was saying he thinks it is right that there should be an increase in the minimum wage and that people should be paid more. He talks about an employee in the HSE being paid €974,000. There is no employee in the HSE paid €974,000. It is possible that a medical contracting firm, or something like that, got that payment but certainly there is no employee of the…

The recruitment freeze the Deputy referred to does not apply to nurses, midwives, GPs-----

It does not apply to consultants-----

First, I want to clarify, from the HSE CEO's memo of 10 November, that the recruitment freeze does not apply to consultants, graduate nurses and doctors or anyone who has been given a formal offer already. That runs until the end of the year and next year, the HSE can hire an additional 2,000 staff, and that will include nurses and midwives. In relation to vacancy, the approach we are taking is one of carrot and stick. We are providing grants to people to renovate old buildings and bring them back to life. There is…

I have never argued, and nor has anyone on this side of the House, that the vacant home tax was some sort of silver bullet. A set of measures is needed - incentives and disincentives, carrot and stick - and that is exactly what we are doing. If anything is shown by the work done by the Revenue Commissioners on the vacant home tax, it is that those who argued in this House that 150,000 homes being empty on census night meant they were vacant are wrong. There are lots of reasons a home might have been vacant on censu…

Our preference is to build social housing and that is exactly what we are doing - building thousands of new social homes every year, whether it is through councils or approved housing bodies. In some cases, we will purchase them. That makes sense too, particularly in areas where it is less expensive to purchase a home than to build one. There is a role for leasing, too, but it is not the main part of what we are doing as a Government. What we are doing is scaling up the number of new builds. I cannot remember the e…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. I know he has a particular interest in the issue of rare diseases and has raised it many times in the Chamber. I am not sure what the date is for publication of the new plan but I will check with the Minister for Health and revert to the Deputy directly by correspondence.

I agree it is not acceptable that people should wait that length of time. As the Deputy is aware, our target is that nobody should wait more than ten to 12 weeks to see a specialist or to have an operation or investigation they need. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of people still have to wait longer than that time. In terms of the particular waiting list referred to by the Deputy, I do not know the details of that but I will make inquiries with the Minister for Health and reply in more detail next week.

I am aware of the issue. It relates to a Revenue determination made with respect to how GPs are taxed. We have found a solution to it and an amendment was approved by Cabinet to the finance Bill. I am not sure why that has not been published yet. It has been agreed by Cabinet. I will double-check on that and follow up on it. It should have been published by now but perhaps it has not been.

I am pleased to welcome the fact that the Cabinet signed off on the approval of the Adare bypass. I expect that will get under construction next year and be completed by 2027. At the same time, we are very keen to progress the reopening of the line to Foynes for freight, but also the development of Limerick commuter rail and the opening of new stations in and around the city.

I thought those questions were for one of the Ministers.

I am not, and I spoke to the Minister for housing about this only on Tuesday. We are seeing some great regeneration projects happening around the city but some are painstakingly slow. Dolphin House and St. Teresa's Gardens spring to mind, and that is very frustrating. It is a matter for Dublin City Council to lead on these projects, not central government, but it is certainly something I intend to take up with the new city chief executive once he or she is appointed.

I have just conferred with the Minister for Justice and we expect to have the new defamation legislation published in the new year, and we hope it will be enacted later in the year. I saw the letter that Deputy Cannon saw too. It is signed by the Coalition for Women in Journalism; the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, named after the Maltese journalist who was murdered; the European Federation of Journalists; the International Press Institute; and Reporters Without Borders, among others. I have been in the Dáil fo…

It is up to the Deputy whether he supports the Finance Bill but I ask him to look at the merits of the Bill with regard to whether he supports it or not. If he votes against it, as he is free to do, the Deputy will be voting against income tax cuts for people in Waterford and help for small landlords and people who are struggling with their mortgages. If he wants to vote against those things that are in the Finance Bill, as he is free to do, he will be voting against help for small business around angel investors a…

The Minister, Deputy McEntee, might be better able than me to answer that question but she is in the Seanad. The community safety partnerships are an important innovation, on which she is really leading, and will help to make our communities both safer and stronger. I am meeting the Garda Commissioner today to discuss a number of matters and this is one of the issues on the agenda. Once I have met him, I may be able to provide more up-to-date information on how the pilots are going. What is clear is that one size w…

Ireland has welcomed a lot of people - approximately 100,000 - from Ukraine in the past two years. I am proud that we as a country were able to do that, notwithstanding the pressures and problems it has created. The numbers are big but we are not top of the league table in the EU, either on raw numbers or in percentage terms. There are much higher numbers in countries like Poland, Slovakia and so on, for obvious reasons. It would not work to have a single uniform payment rate across the EU for the exact same reason…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 4, inclusive, together. The Government intends to hold a referendum next year on gender equality, as recommended by the Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality and the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Gender Equality. The decision to hold one or more referendums on this issue is in line with commitments in the programme for Government to respond to the recommendations of the citizens' assembly. An interdepartmental group, led by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Inte…

On the questions asked about the referendum on housing, in line with commitments in the programme for Government and in Housing for All - a New Housing Plan for Ireland, the Housing Commission was established by the Government in December 2021 to independently examine and review the housing system in Ireland. The Housing Commission submitted its report, proposed wording for an amendment to the Constitution, and made recommendations to the Minister in August. The report and the next steps are currently being conside…

The Deputy has an obsession with which words are used. It is the same thing.