I will, no problem.

I wish to raise the issue of resourcing for the housing department of Limerick City and County Council, specifically the need for a dedicated team to drive affordable housing targets forward. Right now, the same staff are trying to keep their social housing targets on track while also having to share time to keep their affordable housing projects up to speed. Clearly, this is neither ideal nor sustainable. I will set out the context for what we are dealing with in Limerick so the Minister of State will understand t…

I acknowledge that the Minister of State is handed a script to read out in response to these Commencement matters but, with respect, I request an answer as to why it has taken the Government seven months to decide to appoint new staff. Moreover, why has that decision been taken to appoint just two additional staff given Limerick City and County Council requested a team of ten, given it has been well acknowledged that the council, like so many other councils, is way behind its targets and given it has also been ackn…

There were only 980 from 2020 and 2021.

The Minister of State is blaming the councils now.

I would like to second the Central Bank Bill to which Senator Ardagh referred, which is also known as “the right to be forgotten” Bill. I wish to commend everyone who is involved in relation to this matter. I formally second that Bill. I want to raise the issue of my village of Castleconnell, because two serious aspects of life in Castleconnell have been highlighted in the last few days. First, in a village of 2,500 people, we have 443 applicants on the housing waiting list. That is 443 families and individuals. Th…

The Minister of State is very welcome. It is good to have her in, particularly to talk about a subject as important as this. I am standing in for my colleague, Senator Warfield, and I will do my best to address some of the key topics the Minister of State has raised. The summer programme is an opportunity to provide additional supports for children with complex special educational needs and for those who are at greatest risk of educational disadvantage. The few weeks of the summer programme in school can really hel…

I have been called worse.

This morning I met a wide-ranging group of community employment supervisors who, because of their plight, had taken the time to come here to meet Sinn Féin. I know the acting leader is very familiar with this because, unfortunately, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Governments have refused to give any pay increase to these workers for 14 years.

They have no pensions. The starting rates of pay for an assistant community employment supervisor is €11.01. It will actually be less than the minimum wage come the beginning of next year. What is most regrettable is that government after government has taken the line handed to it by the Civil Service and repeated it parrot like, that the State is not the employer and that it is up to the employers to give the community employment supervisors a pay rise. At the same time, if employers dared to give community employ…

Last week we had the budget. I think the Government told us it spent approximately €11 billion. Fair play. The issue with the community employment supervisors would take a fraction of a fraction of that money to resolve. Once again Government Deputies and, unfortunately, Senators decided they would not do this. This is a political choice. This is the point I made to community employment supervisors this morning. A political choice is being consistently made by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to deny these people a pay ri…

It was not.

Talk to the community employment supervisors. It was a gratuity. It was pointless.

They have no pension.

Well said.

The Minister of State is very welcome. I got my first passport in 1988. I did not get it in Ireland but in London. I had been forced to emigrate like so many more people at that time. It meant an awful lot to me that I could access an Irish passport as a London-Irish citizen by going to my embassy. It was so long ago I was travelling through a country that no longer exists, Yugoslavia. I find it really strange that we are here 35 years later and people in the Six Counties still have to come down and negotiate Dubli…

I made most of my main points before the interruption for the vote. Like so many others here I see a clear case for opening a passport office in the Six Counties. I know many people, particularly from the North, are watching this debate. They will be very disappointed to hear a Fianna Fáil Minister of State disagree with people from so many parties in the Chamber. As I was saying, Senator Joe O'Reilly made the most powerful point of the evening so far when he asked what the Minister of State will do about this. Unf…

Well said.

The Cathaoirleach may remember that just two weeks ago, I raised the shocking increase in homelessness in the State based on the July figures. Unfortunately, we saw the August figures on Friday and they are truly shocking, with 10,805 people who are homeless. That is an increase of 237 on the previous month. That number includes 3,220 children, which is an increase of 83, and 1,483 families, which is an increase of 60. Each month, the figures get worse. We are now heading for an official homeless figure of 11,000 p…

Well said.