The feedback from our budgetary measures is positive in terms of getting more apartments going in that particular sector.

The case the Deputy just outlined would be covered by these regulations and she is opposing them. There is no point in raising individual cases here, with the correct empathy and so on like that, if she then proposes to oppose the very measure that would prevent three such evictions in a short number of years.

That is exactly what this regulation is trying to counteract and deal with. More importantly, I take issue with the Deputy's construction company in terms of the substance behind it. Is she saying we are going to have direct labour in every local authority or direct labour by the State? Is that the model?

We have delivered 53,000 social houses since we came back in 2020 through local authorities and through approved housing bodies. That is a good mechanism for social housing and it is working. We need more affordable housing and we need more apartment building in addition to what we are doing on social housing. We are getting results on social housing, no question, where construction is at its highest since the 1970s. We are going to continue with that and increase it in the time ahead.

First of all, the Government did discontinue the specific measures that we had introduced for the previous two years to deal with inflation across the board. It was not any one particular sector. The Deputy continually and disingenuously narrows it down and say we made cuts. We got rid of the one-off payments. They were not fiscally sustainable and they are not fiscally sustainable. That is the bottom line here and we need to be honest and real about it. I know those in opposition will not be because they will alwa…

We did not cut anyone's income by €1,400.

Hold on now. We brought in emergency one-off payments for two years for a whole range of sectors. The Deputy knows that well. Fine, he is in opposition and has to spin it in the way that he is spinning it.

What we did in the budget was to introduce record increases in investment in services for people with disabilities-----

------in education, in health and in areas like respite and residential where we have to substantially increase provision. The way to do that is to allocate funding on a sustainable and permanent basis. The additional needs payments are there and that is what the Minister is referring to as well. They are there for people who are in difficulty in terms of heating and food. Those payments are there and 2,300 people availed of them last year. They are available to people who end up in difficulty for one reason or ano…

I find the Deputy's contribution interesting-----

-----because she quotes the poem, "First They Came." That is more applicable to the Maduro regime than------

It is. What is the "aw" about?

President Trump was democratically elected by the American people in an emphatic electoral victory. The Deputy may not like that but she cannot actually dispute it. Maduro stole the election and had a regime of repression that was reprehensible.

I am answering the question.

It was a regime of repression and that regime came for people. It created the largest migration out of Venezuela ever in that country's history. I met with migrants from Venezuela when I was at COP. They told me in a very sad way of the demise and destruction of their country by Maduro and Chávez before him.

People on the other side of the House were sneaking regarders of the Maduro regime. It always strikes me as extraordinary that the main Opposition party attended his inauguration. That is the difference in the House here. Let us be under no illusions.

I am. Of course I am.

We have compromised not one iota of our values in terms of our engagement with the United States-----

-----or in terms of our position, for example, on the Middle East, where there was significant pushback. Ireland is recognised around the world as asserting its principled position. I salute what Prime Minister Carney said at Davos. It is exactly what we have been doing: application of principle and pragmatism. The principle is we believe in an international rules-based order. We have not compromised on that and will not. When it came to Greenland, we very firmly and calmly, along with our European partners and mem…

That has been a consistent thread in that group's presentations here for the past two decades.