I thank Deputy Kenny for all the work he has done on this issue and on the Bill. I also thank those who have gone before him, including Ming Flanagan, who is in the Gallery. I also thank all the campaigners, many of whom are here. They have been pushing on this issue for a long time, trying to get us in the direction of social progress. I have been here almost ten years, incredibly, and I have learned a thing or two about how the establishment politicians react to questions of social changes. There seem to be truis…

Do we go through this section by section?

We will not discuss the sections?

Perfect. I am very happy to do that. These amendments relate to what is effectively new legislation introduced by the Government on Committee Stage, which is extremely poor practice in terms of having any parliamentary oversight. We should have had new legislation. The Government wants to strip rights from Ukrainians and put them on poverty rates as it treats other asylum seekers. It should have the courage to bring forward the heads of a Bill and have pre-legislative scrutiny and debate, as opposed to bringing thi…

There are 600 men on the streets now because they are not Ukrainian.

I did not say the Deputy was doing it.

The Minister was at pains to emphasise how much Ireland has done, how proud we are of the people we have taken in and so on. However, she wants to cut the payments to Ukrainians. She wants people to live on €38.80 a week while living in overcrowded and inadequate emergency accommodation. She thinks that is okay, and so does Sinn Féin. In fact, it is pretty poor. Would the Minister live in conditions like that? Setting aside that people have fled a war to get here, does she think it is acceptable to have anybody liv…

I agree with the point of bringing into line how Ukrainians and other asylum seekers are treated. The question is whether we go down to how asylum seekers are treated with inhumanity or go up to how Ukrainians were treated with basic humanity. Sinn Féin and the Government are saying that we should level down to the level of inhumanity. Sinn Féin's position was for the scrapping of direct provision. It was opposed to direct provision, correctly, because it is an inhumane system. It is a profiteering, privatised syst…

Could the Minister live on €38.80 per week?

So why is the Government ending it?

Do not treat people like that. Reducing the payment to €38.80 a week; the Minister is a disgrace.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle; it is People Before Profit. Sixty people per day are now being prosecuted for not paying the TV licence. More than 13,000 people were brought to court last year and, if convicted, had to pay a fine of €1,000 or face a jail term. This is in the context of what is now a majority of eligible people refusing to pay the TV licence. It is an unjust, regressive tax that costs €160 for the richest family and €160 for the poorest eligible family. It was even reported at the weekend that the Taoi…

For a number of years, the Government has talked the talk when it comes to a health-led approach to drugs but it definitely has not walked the walk. The failed and failing war on drugs has continued. In 2022, 17,321 controlled drug offences were reported. There has not been the investment needed in the front-line drug addiction services and task forces. Investment has basically stagnated. It is now time to walk the walk. The citizens' assembly was very clear on the necessity of an end to criminalisation and a prope…

The housing crisis is still getting worse. Every week, I meet couples who are working, whose combined income puts them over the limit for social housing and who are simply unable to afford a home in the market. They are spending all their money, week to week, on their rent and cannot save up a deposit. Such people are utterly trapped. The market has failed those people. The Taoiseach talked about affordable housing. Let us take the example of cost rental. In my constituency, we now have some cost-rental homes. Howe…

I raise the absolute scandal of how children with additional needs are failed by this State and left languishing on waiting lists for necessary therapies for years. I have figures, which show that almost 9,000 children across the country have been waiting more than 12 months, not for therapies, but for initial contacts from their CDNTs. A campaigner has done a tremendous amount of research in submitting freedom of information after freedom of information request to put this together. The story revealed by the figur…

The Government has set a target of 120,000 homes to be retrofitted by next year and a target of 500,000 by 2030. In 2022 and 2023, only 10,300 of these were fully State funded under the warmer homes schemes. More than twice as many applications were received as were carried out. There is currently a waiting list of two to three years. Given the dire climate emergency we are facing, is it not time for a massive increase in fully State-funded retrofitting?

I hope the Minister is not saying that waiting times of 20 months are in any way acceptable. These are not just green environmental measures we are talking about. They are a perfect example of environmental measures that improve people's lives, reduce carbon emissions and bring down bills. We are talking about some of the poorest households in the country. I refer to working families on poverty wages who get the working family payment, carers, single parent families, people with disabilities and pensioners whose in…

I will tell the Minister how we can do what is necessary. It will not be by means of small incremental increases for a scheme that is excellent but that is completely underfunded. The Minister is saying it is acceptable for people to wait two years when they are living in the cold.

The Minister is saying that this is great and that we should be celebrating. That is not good enough. As an alternative, why do we not hit those who are responsible for the large portion of carbon emissions in this country? Why do we not hit the wealthy? The Minister probably saw the report from Oxfam last week. The richest two billionaires in this country have more wealth than half of the population. How about we hit them with a wealth tax, which would raise about €6 billion, and invest the money we get in the sor…

The Dáil passed a motion before Christmas endorsing the development of a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty and calling on Ireland to join the block of states seeking a negotiating mandate. The Minister has said previously that he is in favour of a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty but what is he doing about it? Is he advocating within Government that Ireland become a lead state promoting the idea of this treaty and does he think it likely that the Government will do this before the next general election? I th…