The Social Democrats opposed that scheme. That is why people do feel, genuinely, that there is a disconnect of the sort Deputy Cairns spoke about, between her party’s actions on the ground and its delivery.

On the vacancy issue, the initiatives of the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, relating to grants for derelict and vacant homes have been the most effective way of dealing with dereliction. I do not believe you can tax your way to housing supply.

I have not seen Deputy Cairns's blueprint for housing. She has been here for four and a half years and her party has not produced any blueprint for housing. She has proposed no solutions other than, I would argue, to dampen further investment in the rental market in particular.

That is simply not true.

It is all just empty rhetoric.

I acknowledge and I am acutely aware that the Government and the country are facing significant challenges in respect of housing, which we discussed earlier, the cost of living, health, climate change and many other important issues, and I look forward to getting out about the country to debate these issues in the time ahead. However, it is important to meet head-on the narrative that the Deputy and her hard-left wing colleagues, along with Sinn Féin, are peddling: that the history of Ireland in the last century is…

Just more than 50% of the population has completed higher level education and that has doubled in just 20 years. More pupils than at any point in the past century are being taught as Gaeilge. We are living much longer now, with an average life expectancy of 82 years. We are healthier than we have ever been and, for example, smoking is at the lowest level in 50 years. Deputy Smith may not know this but Irish people are now living 25 years longer than they were 100 years ago. Some 20,000 fewer people die in Ireland e…

We have made a lot of progress in this country. It is wrong that Deputy Smith does not at least have the good grace to acknowledge the extraordinary progress the country has made, notwithstanding the challenges that we have. We have made progress as a country.

I am the son of a busman.

I came from a working-class community.

I did not interrupt the Deputy. I will tell her "So what?"

I am the son of a busman who was a founding member of the NBRU.

I was the first to get to second level education in our family, and we were the first generation to get to third level.

I do not need lectures from the far left, and many from the far left who were educated in far more luxurious schools than I was ever educated in.

I had the good grace to let the Deputy speak but she does not have the good grace to allow me to speak. I am a product of the Fianna Fáil-Donogh O’Malley revolution of free education.

I participated in it. It was not “God help us” because it brought on a lot of us. It gave me a passion for education. That is why I became Minister for Education, and to make sure every child in this country had an opportunity to participate in education. I do not trade figures across the House. When I mentioned school completion, I mentioned it because I took part in initiatives around school completion.

It is because it matters to me. It is why I am in politics. The Deputy does not have a monopoly on care or compassion on her side of the House. Where she fails is in her understanding. She declared she is a socialist and she is entitled to be, but she has never embraced the Irish economic model that has created enterprise and the opportunity for people to grow and develop in this country. That is the fundamental difference between us, and we should debate that in this House.

I believe the Deputy and others want to bring down that economic model and want to destroy enterprise in this country, which would make more people unemployed, create more poverty and make us all much poorer.

I am in a state of shock at the Deputy's description of Cork politics and psychology.

I must invite the Deputy to Cork. He has had an obsession with Cork, which is quite interesting. I do not know who he has been working with on that but-----