I welcome the pupils from St. Columba's National School in Cork. I hope to meet them after this session. Ní aontaím leis an Teachta. Bíonn suas le €14 billiún á chaitheamh ag an Rialtas gach aon bhliain anois. Tá an-chuid foirgneamh scoile, tograí sláinte agus tithíochta curtha i bhfeidhm ar fud na tíre. I do not agree with the Deputy's overall narrative in respect of what has been probably the most extensive building of schools, primary care centres, hospital facilities and public facilities across the country. We…

-----to increased expenditure and so on. There has been inflation, coming out of the war in Ukraine. We all know that. Everybody knows there was a period coming out of the start of that war and coming after Covid where the cost of building materials, in particular, went through the roof. We know that from some of the road projects. Some of those road projects we approved, where the final bill was higher than what was estimated, were road projects for which Deputies from Sinn Féin and, indeed, other parties had lobb…

-----which were being evaluated was such that its Deputies in here said they wanted the project to get done and asked why we were delaying it. The Dunkettle interchange is an example. It is an exceptional piece of work from an engineering perspective on the way into the Jack Lynch Tunnel, but I recall that when we went back to tender to get better value for money compared with the original tender, the cry in the House from the Opposition, including from Sinn Féin Deputies, was that we were delaying it deliberately …

We are fundamentally committed to value for money. The Comptroller and Auditor General is there; the public accounts committee is there. This is part of our system of rigorously examining public expenditure. My point, in response to the Deputy's presentation, is the lack of balance in her presentation and the lack of any reference to some very significant projects that have been delivered. More than 330 school building projects were delivered in 2023 under the large scale and additional accommodation programmes. Un…

-----and transformation of our school system. In social housing along in 2023-----

-----some 8,000 new build social housing homes were delivered.

Then if we look at transport links, the Deputy knows herself about the Maynooth bypass-----

I am sure the Deputy welcomed that Maynooth bypass. However, there is also the Collooney to Castlebaldwin N4 road project. Then there is Gort to Tuam on the N17-N18-----

-----and the N25 New Ross bypass. These are all projects. There is the Westport to Turlough N5 protect, the N22 Baile Bhuirne to Macroom-----

My point is, I am redressing the imbalance-----

-----in the Deputy's presentation. If she talks to the people in Macroom right now-----

-----and the people all along there who travel to Cork and Kerry, she will hear that the Macroom and Baile Bhuirne bypass has been an extraordinary-----

-----game-changer in terms of-----

-----the quality of life of the local people. It is well worth the expenditure that was allocated to it.

What is happening in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon is absolutely unacceptable. It is clearly in breach of international humanitarian law. In terms of what happened in northern Gaza in the last week, we witnessed war crimes of a shocking nature taking place. I immediately called that out in a statement in respect of what was happening in northern Gaza and followed that up at the Foreign Affairs Council on Monday this week. I really had to say to some of my colleagues around the table there that the European Union …

Yes.

There are aspects of the occupied territories Bill that are clearly unconstitutional but they can be rectified and amended. It is clearly unconstitutional as it is currently drafted. There was a case just ten days ago concerning France v . the European Commission in respect of Western Sahara. There are very clear similarities between that and the West Bank. The ruling on that was not as favourable as we would have liked given what we want to do in ensuring we can prohibit trade to the occupied territories. That is …

I do not accept that. The carbon tax commenced with this Government. We legislated for it to provide funds to help us reduce carbon emissions and transform certain sectors of our economy, one of the key aspects being retrofitting and creating more energy-efficient homes. The carbon tax has ensured that €262 million-----

The Deputy asked me where the money was spent.

The Government allocated €380 million to retrofitting this year, more than half of which is dedicated to providing 100% free retrofitting to low-income households and those at risk of energy poverty. Anybody in the country would have to acknowledge that the retrofitting programme has been a transformation in the past four years. If we did not have the carbon tax, we could not do that and we would not have developed an industry around retrofitting. The industry knows that for the next decade funds will be available …