The events of last evening are extremely serious and very grave. As the Deputy quite rightly said, our thoughts are about the well-being and welfare of the child involved and with the entire family. It is the fundamental duty of the State to protect the children of the State. Irrespective of the complexity, acuity or severity of any particular case, that duty has to be fulfilled and on this occasion, that duty was not fulfilled. This case will be referred to the national review panel. Legislation will be introduced…

I agree that there needs to be a specific review of this case, but we are not ruling out a wider review of all aspects of how we protect children. We use language like "children in care". That is used in a formal legal sense where a child is in care. However, this child was not necessarily in statutory care because there is an age limit in terms of that. These are important points because the Act is clear in the context of the age at which a child can be formally put into care. All these issues need to be reviewed.…

Clearly, there has been failure of the State's obligation to protect this child.

The execution of a deportation order very much depends on the country involved, the potential country involved or the country alleged to be involved, that is, the country of origin, being in a position to receive a person. There can be a variety of reasons as to why that is not possible.

May I first of all say that I think the CSO should be the standard statistical body that we should adhere to for any analysis and comment, and pin those on it, because there are all sorts of groups coming forward every now and again with indeterminate statistics? There is no question but that inflation has been a very significant issue over the last number of years. In fact, it was close to 10% following the pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. It has eased considerably since then but, of course, prices …

We decided to invest in capital in terms of more roads, more schools, more public transport and better rail services. That is what we are doing right across the board. In terms of disability and child poverty measures, we have significantly enhanced the allocation to those respective areas.

We need to get prices down sustainably over the next number of years. That is the key target. Some of the Opposition's proposals would have added 2% to the inflation rate, which would have exacerbated the problem for many families out there. The International Monetary Fund, IMF, is forecasting that among the euro area, Ireland will have the third lowest inflation rate between 2025 and 2026 at 1.7%. We did not want to do anything. For example, if one wanted universal energy credits, one would bump up inflation and c…

First of all, I appreciate the Deputy raising what is a serious issue, without question. I read part of that report yesterday. I cannot say I was aware of that as Taoiseach back then but there was a lot happening. The Deputy has just asked me right now. Having looked at the report yesterday, obviously the Garda must have put this individual forward for the Scott medal of bravery in respect of the kidnapping of Don Tidey, which, as the Deputy knows, resulted in the murder of Private Kelly and a Garda recruit who was…

I am not justifying what happened. I have made that clear. Certainly, in her time in government, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, did a lot of work as Minister for Justice in respect of domestic violence and gender-based violence. We now have the establishment of Cuan and the new strategy, which I strongly supported as chair of an interdepartmental Cabinet subcommittee, as Taoiseach at the time. The Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, is continuing that and is bringing in further measures and allocating further resources to…

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue in a responsible and fair way. I acknowledge that. People are worried and anxious. The Deputy made a fair point at the outset that he is not criticising migration generally or the fact that we now have a country and society that have evolved, with many people of different ethnic origins living in the State who are as Irish as sure as the next man is. We need proper tolerance and equality on that front. As the Deputy correctly said, in our hospitals, our healthcare facilities…

Sorry, it is about 38%. There can be different factors responsible for that. We need fast, firm procedures in managing the migration issue. That has to be consistent and sustained. This Government took the decision to bring all this back within the Department of justice, which was the correct decision, in my view, and progress has been seen in that respect. I agree that there would be no harm at all in having a proactive debate on these matters and that we should do so.

All those seeking asylum are fingerprinted when they come into the country under the Eurodac system. In 2024, 67% of completed appeals were rejected, and so far in 2025, more than 80% of applications have been rejected at first instance. I accept the Deputy's point if people are here. It is neither fair to the person nor to the country if this system is allowed to drag out for years and years. The focus in the past number of years has been on tightening up and speeding up the process itself. We have more than doubl…

We did take very significant measures in the budget to support families, particularly working families and families on low incomes. The Deputy has failed to acknowledge that in all her commentary. The child support payment had a permanent increase of over €16 for those over 12 and a permanent increase of €8 for children under 12. The extension of the fuel allowance to the working family payment means 26% of all households are now entitled to a fuel allowance. We have already brought in the free schoolbooks scheme a…

That is a fact. That is from the Central Bank-----

By any objective yardstick, one would have to acknowledge that the last five years has seen extraordinary, exponential growth in the provision of social housing in this country compared with any decade going back to the seventies. A total of 50,684 social homes have been added to the social housing stock between July 2020 and quarter 2 of 2025, more than 13,700 homes were brought back into use under the voids programme, and 2023 and 2024 saw the delivery of newly built social housing reach levels not seen since the…

The Minister for Social Protection is examining the proposal and will work with a range of groups and organisations in respect of it. The free travel scheme, more generally, has expanded very significantly since its conception and has very wide coverage. The Government is not opposed to this but the Government wants to work through the implications.

From an overall perspective, the allocation and commitment in terms of the defective blocks scheme is unprecedented in scale and cost to the State in respect of that. My understanding is there is further legislation on the way in respect of defective apartments, so I will talk to the Minister again in respect of the issue that the Deputy has raised.

The recent budget did provide significant supports for quite a number of sectors in the agricultural industry. Obviously, there are still concerns in relation to tillage and I will take on board what the Deputy has said in respect of the pig industry, although I was in north Cork recently and met with a number of people and it was not quite raised with me on that occasion. Certainly, I will ask the Minister for agriculture to engage with the Deputy on that.

I thank the Deputy very much for raising what is an important issue, particularly in terms of smaller schools and smaller denominational schools of particular churches. The late Martin Mansergh was actually very attentive to the needs of smaller schools in rural Ireland and the Border areas, in particular those that were Protestant or Presbyterian, and where the numbers were low in terms of refurbishments. We had a big impact at the time. I will talk to the Minister for education and the Minister of State with resp…

Absolutely. I agree that we should be constantly creating a heightened level of awareness in terms of online fraud and in fairness, An Garda Síochána is doing that. Just last week I heard on a morning radio programme about the impact of online fraud. There is advertising highlighting the dangers and what to watch out for and so forth. It is a very serious issue which is impacting on a lot of people. It is a type of robbery without violence in one sense, compared to the old fashioned type of robberies, but it is mor…