We have had a housing crisis for more than a decade. It is a social catastrophe driven by the political choices made by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in that time. The situation is especially acute for our young people, for public services and for business. It is crystal clear that the Government does not appreciate the scale of the challenge. What is needed is a major step change from the Government to deal with the crisis. The measures the Taoiseach announced earlier today see Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil continue to ti…

Of course the removal of the development levies is a viability measure. It carries with it no guarantee of a reduction in cost to the end buyer. In other words, it does absolutely nothing in terms of the affordability dilemma. I do not know whether to be more taken aback by the Taoiseach's sense of self-congratulation or the obvious inertia in which he wallows at this point. Where I come from, Housing for All is more popularly known as housing for no one. That is the experience of people on the ground. The Governme…

Energy costs are sky-high and putting real pressure on workers and families. People are getting bills for eye-watering sums that they simply cannot afford. A study of electricity prices across Europe has found that Ireland is the most expensive of 33 countries. That comes as no surprise to people living here. The cost of electricity has doubled for Irish households in the past two years, and yet the Government has simply asked companies that are enjoying record profits to pass on savings to customers. It has done n…

Everyone has the right to feel safe in their home, on their streets and in their neighbourhood. This right has been taken from so many communities by organised criminals and drug gangs, gangs of thugs using violence, menace and intimidation to exploit working-class communities, targeting our young people to groom them into a dead-end life of crime. They prey on vulnerability and poverty and thrive in the deep pool of disadvantage that too often encircles good, decent people. Poverty is not an accident. The State an…

-----will stand shoulder to shoulder with communities to face these thugs down.

Fine Gael has been in power now for more than 12 years. In this time we have seen Government make decision after decision that have escalated the housing crisis into a full-blown emergency. Rents are out of control and a whole generation is locked out of homeownership. Homelessness has reached a record level that we could only have imagined. This is the dire situation seven years after the Minister opposite, when he was the Minister with responsibility for housing, said the Government would end homelessness. It fai…

The critical distinction between here and the North-----

-----is that here, public finance is not the issue and there it is. There, the block grant and the Tories are an issue. I do not have the space, a Cheann Comhairle, to elaborate beyond that.

Fine Gael has been in government now for 12 years and the Minister has sat at the Cabinet table, if I am correct, for the entirety of that time. When he was the housing Minister there were 5,000 souls, God help them, homeless. There are now 12,000. We have record house prices and record, extortionate rents. We have a Government which brags of its largesse and the billions coming into the Exchequer and we have an entire generation which cannot put a roof over its head. That is on you.

The Minister says the Government has everything sorted. I told him about Eamon, his son and his three children. I told him about Margaret, her daughter and her two children. I told him about Colm. These are real people who have nowhere to go, unless I am mistaken and the Minister actually has an answer to that. I put it to the Minister again. For families who will face eviction, where do they go?

You believe in neither.

You have been in government 12 years.

The following are the words of Arklow teacher, Aoife Ní Chéileachair, who told her heartbreaking story to the media: I am going to be evicted at the start of the last week of term. It's gotten to the point that I may not be able to take my job up next September because I have nowhere to live in the vicinity. In a few short weeks, she faces eviction from the home she has rented for seven years. She has tried to find alternative rented accommodation and she has tried to buy a home but all to no avail. Aoife, a teache…

The one thing that is absolutely clear is that the Government's failure to rise to the housing emergency is having real and devastating consequences for people's lives. The figures published reflect the fact that the Government missed its target on affordable housing by almost 60%. If the Taoiseach counts that as an achievement, or if he regards that as an acceptable level of performance, then God help us all. That is all I can say. I have given four examples. I mentioned Aoife Ní Chéileachair and told the Taoiseac…

I ask the Taoiseach again to accept that this disaster is looming for these families and do the only quick thing he can do, which is to reinstate the eviction ban and, for God's sake, buy the time the Government clearly needs to get this right and protect these families.

The Taoiseach was castigating them for not-----

I thank the Ceann Comhairle. As we speak, people protest at the gates calling on the Government to ratify and implement the optional protocol of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD. The Government signed the convention five years ago but despite commitments made, it has still not ratified the optional protocol. This protocol is crucial for people with disabilities to vindicate their rights as full and equal citizens and to hold the State to account when they are denied the services …

I agree with the Taoiseach. The visit was hugely successful. It was a visit primarily about Ireland and it involved a person with a very deep connection with this country returning home. I for one think we should be gracious about that. Notwithstanding the obvious difficulties and objections we have to wider American foreign policy, let it be said and clearly understood that the US was and remains a crucial and key partner in the Irish peace process. We meet at a time when the institutions of the Good Friday Agreem…

The Children's Rights Alliance recently published its annual report card on progress for children under the current programme for Government. The performance in delivering adequate youth mental health received the lowest grade for a second year in a row. The alliance notes that the Maskey report on child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, in Kerry, and the Mental Health Commission interim report, revealed just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to failings in the provision of mental health services for…

Last month the Council of Europe published its annual conclusions assessing member states' compliance with the European Social Charter on labour rights. The European Social Charter is a Council of Europe treaty that guarantees fundamental social and economic rights to member state citizens. Ireland is in breach of nine separate areas of rights relating to workers' terms and conditions of employment, and trade union rights. Among other matters, the Council of Europe found that the sub-minimum wage paid to workers ag…