On 21 June, the Minister for Health gave us a commitment that by the end of that day every hospital would have the same rules for partner visits, including access for the full duration of labour. Despite claims by the Taoiseach and others that the situation in our maternity hospitals and units had been resolved, clearly that is not the case. I have been contacted recently by dozens of people about their personal stories. They all revolve around the fact that a woman cannot have her partner present for the entirety …

I hope we can agree that this is the least women and new mothers can expect.

It is not happening.

This afternoon, the Dáil will discuss the actions necessary to tackle sexual, domestic and gender-based violence. I thank the Taoiseach for facilitating my request and agreeing to these statements. The annual Women's Aid impact report published last month highlighted a 43% increase in contact with its services last year. Safe Ireland’s 39 front-line service member organisations provided support to 25,000 women and children from March to December last year. The programme for Government recognises the epidemic of dom…

There was a really shocking report in today's Irish Examiner newspaper that stated a complaint has been lodged with the Irish Prison Service by a female solicitor, who was instructed by a male prison officer in Clover Hill to remove her underwear if she wanted to visit her client because the underwire in her bra had set off the metal detector. The woman concerned has described how she felt extremely vulnerable and targeted as a woman, and how she felt humiliated to have her dignity so casually taken from her. So ma…

I have previously raised with the Taoiseach the need for the shared island unit's research funding model to be extended to include academics in both the North and the South who have a long history of shared work on policies relevant to the whole island. I welcome yesterday's announcement by the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Harris, of a significant funding commitment for the North-South research programme. This is very welcome. I do not doubt that it will deepen existing links between researchers, academics an…

I am sharing time with Deputy Martin Kenny. I asked for these statements following the publication of the annual impact report published last month by Women's Aid. I very much welcome that the debate is finally taking place. That report contained shocking detail that exposes the horrific reality of domestic abuse taking place right across the State. It revealed that the number of people contacting Women's Aid increased by 43% in the past year compared with the previous year. While we were all told to stay at home d…

We have seen some moments of chaos during the lifetime of the Government but yesterday was a new peak. The Taoiseach says the advice given to him by the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, came as a bolt out of the blue. That advice was not to reopen indoor hospitality and that when hospitality would be reopened, to make it available to vaccinated persons only. The Taoiseach says he was caught unawares by that. That is an extraordinary situation given the Taoiseach heads the Government and it is incumbent…

The aggressive transmissibility of the Delta variant and the danger it poses were not new to the Taoiseach yesterday. The Government has known about that for a considerable time, as has NPHET. How is it that we are at lastminute.com again, with eleventh hour decision-making again? As I said, the Government is marching this sector up the hill only to march it back down, again? It is divisive to single out young people who do not have the opportunity to avail of vaccination and tell them they can work in the hospital…

The Opposition has been presented with nothing.

The Government does not brief people because it is chaotic. The Opposition has been presented with nothing because the Taoiseach does not agree that his Government's actions are chaotic.

Last month, the practice of investment funds and cuckoo funds, facilitated by the Government, buying up family homes wholesale and pushing home buyers out of the market was exposed but instead of shutting down these practices in their entirety, the Government only took half measures and took no action whatsoever on apartments. We now know the Taoiseach was warned by a senior official in the Department of Finance that failure to stop these funds from buying up entire apartment complexes and exempting apartments from…

Last week, the Tánaiste, on his own behalf and presumably on behalf of the Government, made remarks that can only be described as woefully belated in respect of the new national maternity hospital. It is fair to say that we are now looking at a mess with the fingerprints of successive Governments all over it dating back to 2013, when James Reilly was Minister for Health and Children, which is more than eight years ago. Yet, to this day a situation persists where women in this State cannot get the care that they and…

It is not only in the National Maternity Hospital that facilities are suboptimal. I could bring the Taoiseach to the Rotunda Hospital Dublin and could recite for him the endless process that this hospital has endured to secure funding to carry on safe service provision. I see that the Minister is leaving the Chamber now and he is well aware of what I am talking about. I am trying to figure out what the Taoiseach means in his response because it is a case of the State funding this infrastructure and facility but it …

That is the beginning, the middle and the end of it. Equivocating on the point does not assist-----

-----in the shared objective of providing those world-class services for the women and neonates the Taoiseach referred to. Will he be specific and send that message? The Sisters of Charity communicated with all of us by means of a press release. I think it appropriate that an answer is heard-----

-----from the Head of Government as to his expectations. I thank the Ceann Comhairle.

Last weekend brought more very bad news for workers and families struggling to buy a home. Media reports quoted a series of housing experts predicting continued housing price hikes. This echoes similar commentary from the Governor of the Central Bank last week. One economist said of our housing market that it is on fire. Another warned that house prices could reach Celtic tiger levels. A third expressed the concern that house prices could continue to rise for the next four years. All of this is, of course, an indic…

Attacking Sinn Féin for a housing crisis Fianna Fáil created demonstrates just how threadbare the Taoiseach's approach is. The story I told of the woman and the family in Ringsend is not a sound bite. It is the truth. It is the reality they are living. One finds that reality throughout Dublin Bay South. The Taoiseach is on the doors and will hear it too in Sandymount, Pearse Street, Irishtown, Harold's Cross, Ranelagh and Rathgar. It is always the same and yet the Taoiseach is so out of touch with the harsh realiti…

----added its voice to this call. If the Taoiseach is serious about it, and I urge him to get serious quickly on this, can he confirm that he is up to that task?