I know. They are trapped people.

You have not-----

The budget comes at a time when people are crying out for change. The past two years have been extremely tough for workers, families and businesses. The pandemic has tested us all to our very limits. It has been a time of heartache and hardship and of lost lives and lost livelihoods. It literally stopped our way of life in its tracks. It created a watershed moment when it became painfully apparent just how broken the system is and how exposed and vulnerable we have been left by decades of bad government priorities,…

Workers and families are being hammered. The cost of living is now at crisis level. Families pay very significant fees for childcare. Yet all the Government has done is to freeze those fees, if it has even managed that. Sinn Féin would have slashed those fees by two thirds over two budgets. The Government, incidentally, could have done that too but it has chosen not to. Instead, it has unveiled a plan that will have very little impact and mean nothing for parents with children under the age of three years. Families…

I welcome the fact there will be an opportunity to hear from the Minister for Health on the issue of the horrific turn of events at the maternity hospital in Cork. In October 2018, the then Government announced an affordable housing fund worth €310 million to deliver 6,200 homes to rent or buy over a three-year period. In the Taoiseach's budget day speech at the time, he claimed this fund was a result of Fianna Fáil influence over the then Government. Will he also claim the fact the plan was an absolute failure? Ze…

The Taoiseach is big on numbers and targets but very low on delivery. That is the reality. He cannot spoof his way out of this one because I have a reply from his Minister, dated 21 September, which makes it clear that the sum total of eight affordable homes for purchase will be delivered by the end of this year - eight - at a time-----

The Taoiseach knew that. It is not a surprise to him.

I have to tell him it is a surprise to people-----

-----who are looking to put a roof over their heads.

We have a housing emergency. The Taoiseach has said that housing policy will be front and centre and that he understands the depths of this emergency, when he clearly does not. He sat there in a state of self-satisfaction when no more than eight affordable homes will be delivered by the end of this year. I think that is scandalous. He ought to be ashamed that this is his record in government. Can he explain to people who wish to put an affordable roof over their heads-----

-----how it is that only eight homes will be delivered by the end of this year? People deserve a full explanation and accountability for that.

Of eight houses.

Not 16,000, but eight.

A Cheann Comhairle, can I enquire and ask for your guidance, as Cathaoirleach in this House? The objective of this session is that questions are put to the Taoiseach and the Taoiseach attempts, to the best of his ability, however limited that might be-----

-----to answer the questions.

I do not believe that it-----

-----ought to be for the Head of Government-----

-----to go off on a diversion-----

I will resume my seat. What brings this House into disrepute is that kind of blather that we have had to listen to-----

-----with no answers to very important questions.