Dé hAoine.

Friday.

Sure we are here on Saturday.

Yes. I wrote to the Business Committee.

Not agreed.

The Taoiseach is aware of who Cara Darmody is. Cara is here today in the Gallery with her dad, Mark. She is directly in front of the Taoiseach so he might give her a wave. She is the most high-profile autism advocate in Ireland today. She recently sat the junior cycle maths exam at only 11 years of age to raise awareness of the lack of therapies and assessments for autistic children. She received an incredible result of 97%, which was delivered live on "The Late Late Show". She has received the award for Munster Yo…

She is a very special national advocate. They raised so much money and not a penny of it has gone towards themselves, but it is so that other people can get services. Surely this must be corrected. On the Taoiseach’s last day in office, I hope that he will give a reasonable response that the Government will do something for these people who so badly need to be recognised and supported.

On behalf of the Rural Independent Group ba mhaith liom comhbhrón a dhéanamh leis an teaghlach Aylward freisin. Cuirim fáilte roimh his wife Helena, his long-standing partner; his family, Triona, Bob and Mark; agus an tAthair Eamon. Bobby often got a refuge for us in Dublin and sent many friends up to Fr. Eamon's house, where he looked after us well. I too want to say what a contrast there is in the weather. The sun shone so gallantly on Mullinavat on the evening of his wake and the day of his burial. Crowds turned…

The Minister must have also lost my telephone number, but that is okay. There are 3,500 people waiting on the housing list in County Tipperary. We have many homeless. We have agencies and people. We have direct build, modular build housing and everything else now for people fleeing the Ukraine war. I do not oppose that, but we cannot do it for our own people. Someone said earlier that the Minister introduced 22 Acts. It is a pity he is not in the Gaiety Theatre or the Abbey Theatre. He is in the Houses of Parliamen…

All Baile Átha Cliath.

Bogaimid ar aghaidh le Páirtí Shinn Féin. Tá cúig nóiméad ag an Teachta Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire.

We move to People Before Profit-Solidarity. I call Deputy Paul Murphy, who is sharing time with Deputy Mick Barry.

I too compliment the Social Democrats on tabling this motion, which is very timely. I do not agree with Deputy Barry on much, but I agree with everything he said. We can pay the bankers, or any of the senior civil servants in Departments who want to move extra money, but we cannot support our teachers. They play such an important role in giving tuition, learning, education and life skills to na daoine óga, our children. Is mór an trua é. The situation is not good enough and it is right across the spectrum. I will m…

Next is Deputy Pringle, who is sharing time with Deputy Harkin.

It has been reported this week that a survey of primary school principals has revealed they have no faith in the National Council for Special Education, NCSE. Some of the reported concerns include that the vast majority of schools have pupils with additional educational needs who are awaiting diagnosis due to the chronic waiting lists. Over one third of schools had periods when they had no special educational needs organiser, SENO, to assess special needs. Some 55% of the schools surveyed stated that the additional…

Cá bhfuil an t-airgead?

They are not my comments. They are the comments of the school principals.

The $60 per barrel price cap on Russian oil is nothing more than virtue signalling by the EU and US. The reason is that the price of Russian crude oil was already below $60 per barrel when the cap was announced. These are more games. The people are sick and tired of this. Here we go again with statements on the European Council meeting, where the Ministers will go out and honour their European globalist friends.

I have said it before and I will repeat it. The Minister of State is as good as any of the rest of them. It is what the Government wants and not what the people of Ireland want. People can see through this. We have an educated electorate who, thankfully, can see every move the Government makes. Every time the Government's EU globalist friends ask the Government to jump, it asks "How high?". We saw it last week during the address of President von der Leyen, whom we all welcomed. Why was she here? It was more virtue …

I voted for the bank guarantee - the biggest mistake I ever made - but I did not vote for the bailout because it was not a bailout. It was an absolute clean-out of the Irish people, in which we took on 42% of the total EU debt. As I said to President von der Leyen, major banks and institutions from her country shovelled the money into Ireland and left us to pay back the debt for all the countries. It was the biggest mistake we ever made. The price cap comes at a time when global oil prices have dropped dramatically…