The question is?

Am I going to-----

First of all, I say to the Deputy that he has a tremendous habit of asserting what I said earlier, which of course I did not say at all.

I did not rattle off any figures when I was answering Deputy McDonald.

I did not. What I said was, I outlined what TASC, the Think-tank for Action on Social Change, said in its publication today. That is not rattling off figures. It basically said that the short-term, once-off cost-of-living packages that we introduced had a very significant impact in helping people to deal with what has been the worst inflationary spiral since the 1970s, which we had after Covid and as a result of the energy crisis resulting from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Those things did happen and there was an …

-----but they still did not go to meet the enormity of the increases people experienced at the time. Do not say I just rattled off figures. I did not.

I then went on to say that we had extended the VAT reduction to 9%, which we did. That is not rattling off figures. That is a fact, which has had some impact. I mentioned free-of-charge HRT coming in on 1 June.

I mentioned the extension of the free schoolbooks scheme to all students. If you have one income coming in, we all know that every September and every summer, schoolbooks, going back to school and the cost of schoolbooks was the bane of most parents' lives. That is gone, eliminated. The Deputies did not have the good grace to acknowledge that. I do not expect any acknowledgement, but they just ignored that and its impact on household budgets. St. Vincent de Paul has said this has had a significant impact on househo…

I did acknowledge, and have spoken a couple of times today about, the elevated level of grocery prices and the impact it is having on households. Please do not say I did not acknowledge it. I did. It is the Deputy's standard practice now to make assertions that are not true. Of course prices are impacting on families and households but the taxation measures we took last year in the budget benefited low-income workers and medium-income workers, through both the USC reduction, in particular, and the income tax reduct…

We are looking at every aspect of cost and price with a view to getting prices down.

I assure Deputy O'Callaghan that we understand fully the degree to which this is impacting on people, households and families, but we have taken very effective measures. They include ones that even the Social Democrats did not advocate for, such as free schoolbooks, notwithstanding the position that party adopts on so many issues.

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue of primary care and GP provision. Undoubtedly, in rural Ireland in particular and in some urban areas, over recent years there have been challenges accessing a GP and getting a GP. On the other hand, there have also been significant developments and growth, particularly in terms of the number of places at third level. That has increased very significantly over the last two to three years. The work done by the then Minister, Stephen Donnelly, with the Tánaiste when he was Min…

The new programme in Galway will be specifically focused on rural GP medicine. A huge investment is going into primary care and this area.

Practices in receipt of the rural supports receive the maximum rate of practice staff subsidies, significantly reducing possible staff costs for smaller practices. They also receive the maximum rate of locum support for leave-taking. A new locum support initiative commenced in May, providing GPs in receipt of rural practice supports with access to a streamlined locum-sourcing service. The annual intake to the GP training scheme increased by approximately 80% from 2019 to 2024, with 350 new entrant training places m…

I think the Deputy's initial instincts were correct. "Brilliant", he said.

It is rare that an Opposition Deputy would say we were "brilliant" when he got out of bed first thing in the morning.

Ireland is number one in the world in terms of participation in third level education. That is the measure of this Government's commitment to students in third level education in terms of supporting students with reduced fees over the last number of years, improving the various maintenance and SUSI schemes for students, and building more accommodation, which is currently under construction in a whole range of programmes. We support students in this country; the statistics show that. In respect of the measures the M…

The Deputy said 70% of services trade with Israel.

The Bill only affects the occupied territories so I think the Deputy is conflating two different things there. The Tánaiste has asked the Attorney General for legal advice in respect of services. Obviously, there is a clear difference between services and goods in terms of tracking, tracing and manageability. It is quite a good Bill in terms of linking it to the customs legislation, which can make an offence under the Customs Act in terms of goods coming from the occupied territories. We will be the first country i…

-----in terms of asking if the European Union is compliant with the ICJ opinion in respect of the illegally occupied territories, and then the EU-Israel association agreement, where we are also pushing strongly.