I want to raise the poor state of healthcare for those suffering with allergies in this country. Many parents are forced to spend huge amounts to travel abroad to get their children the treatment they need. I spoke to a woman a few months ago who had to go to America for six weeks. She had to pay €8,000 for treatment. She was also out of work for six weeks and had to pay for accommodation. That is not unusual. A lot of families go to Britain or America to get oral immunotherapy in particular. This can take the form…

I found the “RTÉ Investigates” programme horrifying, obviously, and very difficult to watch. It was clear that the older people were not being treated as human beings, with decency, dignity and respect. Instead, many were being treated simply as a burden – a burden for whom there were not enough gloves or incontinence pads. They were treated like sacks of meat thrown on the chair, as was the case with one man. It is clear that this is not unprecedented or really unexpected. Cost-cutting, staff shortages, elder abus…

I want to thank all the participants in the Global March to Gaza, particularly the Irish ones, for the support we received from ordinary people in this country. I express my wish that everyone currently being detained by the Egyptian authorities is released, able to go home, and to continue to apply pressure to prevent the sort of scenes we saw yesterday where more than 50 people were killed by Israeli tanks while queuing to access humanitarian aid. The blockade and forced starvation needs to end. I thank Deputy O'…

It is interesting in debates in the House and on the media how the Government will not own its own proposals. It tells us that what it is doing is going to increase investment in the rental sector and that will ultimately bring rents down. That is the underlying logic of what the Government is doing. However, it refuses to say the bit in the middle in terms of why this is going to increase investment in the rental sector. This is because the plan is to raise rents. Every time the Government is asked this, it tries …

First, I thank the Social Democrats for using its time to allow this joint motion to be debated. There is a lot of obfuscation from the Government and an attempt to mislead people in the countermotion and in the Minister’s speech. It is true that the Central Bank does not sell, endorse or oversee these bonds, but the key point is that it is facilitating the sale of Israeli bonds across the European Union that pay for the genocide in Gaza. There is no question that Israel is carrying out a genocide; the Taoiseach an…

You are.

You are.

Well below the market rate.

I asked a question about a Government press release.

Thanks, Ceann Comhairle. This is an incredible, brazen display by the Taoiseach. It really is.

Three times now the Taoiseach has been asked effectively the same question. I am going to ask it again. It is not clear to me if the Taoiseach does not understand his Government's proposal, he is misleading the House about his Government's proposal or the press statement issued by the Minister, Deputy Browne's Department is inaccurate. The Taoiseach needs to clarify for us which it is, because not just once or twice but about five or six times now he has said existing tenants will be capped at 2%, new tenancies wil…

It is what it says in the press statement. It states: "All landlords". What the Government is therefore saying to existing and new tenants - all of them - is they get the limited protection of the 2% or CPI if it is new, for six years. At six years it is a free for all. Landlords get to reset to market rate. There will be six 2% increases and then 40%, 30% or an unimaginable level that is simply not affordable. That is what the press statement-----

It is. I will read it again. It does say that. As part of this master of the spin, it also says "Tenancies of unlimited duration to be enhanced by introduction of rolling-six year tenancies ...". That is some enhancement, Taoiseach. You are getting rid of tenancies of unlimited duration and going back to the old system of rolling six-year tenancies. What you are presenting is Orwellian. The logic of this is the Government wants rents to rise. It is not enough that they have doubled over the past ten years. It is no…

-----people who are trying to buy a house, people who are locked out and who are going to be locked out even further-----

-----are going to be on the streets-----

-----next Tuesday at 6 p.m. in front of the Dáil as part of-----

-----a major Raise the Roof mobilisation to stop this Government and its landlord agenda.

Yes.

The housing crisis is not new, Taoiseach.

It is not me suggesting it. The Government's own press statement refers to a right to reset. It is not just in a written press statement; it is also what the Minister, Deputy Browne, told the media. At the press conference earlier he said what happens is that at the end of the six years, the rate-setting piece - effectively the rent - could be put back to the market in line with what the press statement says.