Does the Minister know how humiliating it is for anybody to have to go to family members to borrow consistently to pay their household bills? Does he know how demoralising it is for working people to go out Monday to Friday, work hard and do their best and still not be able to keep their children warm? Does he know how unacceptable, in fact, how immoral, it is in a wealthy society under a government that boasts billions of euro in surpluses to leave people so stranded and so desperate in these circumstances? The Mi…

Let me ask the Minister a supplementary on the energy credits.

The energy credit should be reinstated. I am right, am I not? Is that not a correct position in a wealthy society and from the Minister's Government?

That is pathetic.

The Government has abandoned them.

Not agreed.

Under Standing Order 35(3), I propose an amendment to the Order of Business to strike from the business of the day Supplementary Estimates for Public Services 2025 - Votes 2 and 6. These Estimates have not been scrutinised by the relevant committee, that being the finance committee. The Taoiseach has repeatedly refused to attend that committee. Let me say that again. The Taoiseach has refused repeatedly to attend the committee to allow for the proper and lawful scrutiny of these Estimates.

They should not be taken in this House until the Taoiseach presents himself and the appropriate scrutiny is applied.

When he gets to his feet, the Minister might clarify the precise whereabouts of the Taoiseach. Tonight, our justice spokesperson, Deputy Carthy, brings forward a very important piece of legislation - a Bill that would allow courts to impose a restraining order on someone convicted of a sexual assault, preventing them from approaching the victim when released from prison. Not alone would this increase protection for victims but also play a really important role in women regaining the sense of safety so violently rob…

Is he still away now, though?

Met Éireann issued a cold weather warning this morning. Temperatures are set to plunge to -3° with frost, ice and dangerous conditions expected over the coming days. People are anxious. People are preparing. People are scared because they simply cannot afford another winter like the last one. One communication to my office this morning was from a person who wrote: We got our autumn gas bill. It was €275. The heating had barely been on. We paid just under €20 in VAT, €20 in carbon tax and a standing charge of around…

No. The Taoiseach's recall is wrong; it is sketchy.

All of the bragging in the world from the Taoiseach does not alter the fact that 250,000 people and families will reach out to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul for help. I am glad the Taoiseach's benches finds this amusing and that his would-be successor is grinning like a Cheshire cat while we have this exchange. I have to tell the Taoiseach that I do not find this funny. I do not need him to mansplain the economy to me. I do not need him to dodge and evade a simple question. I asked him about energy credits. I …

They clearly do not.

No, we do not.

They cannot heat their homes.

The Taoiseach is delusional.

The case of nine-year-old Harvey Morrison Sherratt exposes profound and systemic failures. This child was left waiting years for essential spinal surgery, then removed from a waiting list without his parents' knowledge or consent. His experience was by no means unique. The Taoiseach has now committed to a statutory public inquiry into scoliosis and spina bifida services. When will the legislation to establish this inquiry be brought before the Dáil? Can the Taoiseach also confirm that it is parents, families and ad…

Today, we note the resignation of the Minister, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, as he leaves the Government to take up a senior position with the World Bank. Paschal and I have been constituency colleagues in Dublin Central for many years and I wish him, his wife and his family well. I genuinely hope that the next chapter in their lives brings them good health and much happiness. Today, we must confront honestly the record of the Government he leaves behind, a record defined not by service or ambition but, rather, by a rel…

This year, though, has most of all been the year of broken promises by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, promises loudly made at election time and then thrown in the bin. The occupied territories Bill, diluted and sidelined, is a case in point. The Government promised tax cuts for workers, but it gave them to banks, landlords and developers instead. It promised support on energy bills, but it withdrew the energy credits. It promised to increase the renters' credit; it did not deliver. Does the Government remember that it …