That is music to Paul Murphy's ears because he believes in the one-party state, as we know.

This is important. We know what is in the pipeline for next year. The Deputy knows the urgency. This is the number one issue facing the country. The Government has acknowledged it is the number one issue.

We need to raise the level of building, not to be playing politics by saying "We have a bigger and better target than you", as happened at the last election.

Someone was doing 50,000, someone else was doing 100,000, so it was "Oh, we are going to do 150,000." You have got to get them built and stop objecting all over the place to housing. If it is the priority that it is, people need to stop objecting to housing developments as they are going up on the basis of whether they are social, affordable or whatever. That has happened too and it has slowed down a lot of projects on councils. That said, do not be under any illusion but that there is total urgency in respect of h…

-----in terms of the numbers of housing that have been completed.

The number of young people who have been able to draw down mortgages in the last year or two is at a record level compared with the early 2000s. We are improving it but we have a lot more to do.

I condemn without reservation the behaviour and activities of people at that location last week. It is not the first time that malicious and false rumours have been spread about people seeking international protection. We have all heard those rumours. They have been deliberately spread, falsely and wrongly. That stands to be condemned. The Garda is investigating aspects of that, I understand, in respect of false rumours but also in terms of any attack on an individual. In respect of Dr. Al-Qadri, it is shocking and…

That is shocking stuff. You condemn racism and appalling behaviour but it is the Government's fault really. That is what you are saying, Deputy, and what you want thousands to say.

You are now exploiting reprehensible behaviour as a political tool to create leverage against the Government parties. That is what the Deputy does with every issue. That is his modus operandi on every issue that comes before society. That is how he operates. It is reprehensible behaviour. The bottom line is that racists and people of the far right will look for any excuse to justify unacceptable behaviour. We need to be categoric and unequivocal. We must not mix the messages.

No.

Let us not mix the messages. There is only one message here. It is "we condemn what you do". We condemn the racists, the undermining of human beings and the undermining of the dignity of every individual that comes to this country.

Let us not try to queer the pitch or muddy the waters, which the Deputy has tried to do.

Everyone knows we have had an unprecedented situation with the war in Ukraine that Russia visited upon Europe. It is the first time since the Second World War and I disagree with the Deputy's views on that. Russia has done that.

Some 100,000 people have arrived. We have had a fivefold increase in the number of people seeking asylum because of war and conflict all over the world. It is a huge pressure point all over Europe. It is not a policy choice at all, as the Deputy just sort of threw out there.

It is not.

It is a genuine attempt by the Government to respond to the unprecedented situation we are facing with the migratory situation across the globe.

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. We have a constitutional framework and a legal framework that the Oireachtas has provided through a variety of laws. I will deal with the latter in a moment. On the constitutional front, the term "durable relationships", as the Deputy correctly said at the outset of her contribution, is about including couples with or without children, single parents and their children and grandparents raising children. Some 42% of children born in 2022 were born to an unmarried couple. The…

It is very clear. I have just spelled it out in terms of the taxation question. There is legislation that governs taxation. We have the civil partnership and cohabitation Act, which we passed in this House. All these issues have been set out in clear-----

But the legal frameworks are in place.

Included are the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005, the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 and the International Protection Act 2015, which deals with family protection rights. There have been attempts – I am not saying the Deputy has been involved in them – to muddy the water and create confusion but there is a constitutional framework. Our Constitution has two great strengths. The first is the power of the people to amend it, which we are now exercising, and the second is judicial interpretation. Judicial interpret…