This is a jaded Government, a tired Government and it is time for it to go.

This Government is a record-breaking Government for all the wrong reasons. There have been record rents, record house prices and record numbers of people who are homeless. The average price of a residential property sold in 2025 was €426,000. I could not believe the figure when I saw it. It is eight times the average income at the moment. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is now more than €2,000 per month and the availability of homes to rent has halved since pre-Covid-19 pandemic times. Some 16,600 peop…

It is still too slow. It is not meeting the targets.

It is quite incredible that if a farmer is building a slatted shed in Cavan, a person in Cork can submit an objection in respect of it.

We have a Bill that would bring that to an end. There is a massive issue with serviced land and serviced zoned land that has been ignored over the past while. The Government talks about an audit of that land. Is it not startling that the Government does not know how much zoned land there is in the country or how much serviced zoned land there is? The Tánaiste is saying that there is not enough, yet we have people at the head of county councils and local authorities saying that they have enough. It is incredible tha…

There are different voices in the Opposition.

Sarah Costello from Trim in County Meath was treated under the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, in a hospital in Belfast for endometriosis. Her surgery went horribly wrong. She had to have an emergency bypass to save her life. She had a cardiac arrest and needed 15 litres of blood. She was left disastrously injured by the operation. Today, she is in bad health and in pain. When Sarah sought help from the Mater hospital she waited for a year. She was told to go to Belfast to see her primary doctor but, of cou…

That is disgusting and disgraceful. The Deputy is completely misrepresenting the situation.

Name calling again.

I want to raise the serious matter of the death of the Ukrainian child Vadym Davydenko, an unaccompanied minor who was killed in Tusla accommodation. I want to extend my deepest sympathies to his family and friends. It has come to our notice that the suspect in that case may well be an adult. There is documentary evidence to show this. In addition, physical tests are being carried out on the suspect. These may show that he is an adult. Very serious questions arise in relation to international protection and whether…

There is testing available in this area.

There are questions. There is testing available in this area that is not being used.

Does the Taoiseach agree that there is testing available that should be used?

There is.

It is 420 days since I asked the Tánaiste, Deputy Simon Harris, about why Harvey Morrison Sherratt was taken off the waiting list. The Tánaiste has not been able to answer that question in those 420 days. That is an incredible indictment in relation to it. He said in the Dáil that he would immediately ask the HSE and that he would ask the Minister for Health, yet no question has been answered. We saw in The Sunday Times this weekend that a protected disclosure was submitted to the Department of Health. The informat…

Are they refusing to answer what has happened? Why is it that the family only found out through The Sunday Times what happened in relation to their child?

I have great regard for the Minister of State and hope he has the best of luck in this role, but he is nearly a year in it and car drivers are still being significantly financially assaulted in this country. The level of money they have to pay currently is quite incredible. Last year, drivers paid €1.9 billion in VAT and VRT. Last year, car drivers contributed to €4.1 billion in fuel taxes, which is the highest figure in the history of the State. Car drivers are being hammered by tolls. In the last ten years, the M…

One of my first political experiences was canvassing in a block of flats in Dublin. As I walked up the stairwell in the block of flats, I noticed, first, a pair of women's tights on the stairwell. When I got higher, I noticed a discoloured spoon near the top of the stairwell and when I got to the very top, there was a 17-year-old boy lying on the ground, practically unconscious, foaming at the mouth. We did our best to try to help him. It was clear that he had taken heroin and was suffering as a result. A few minut…

Ba mhaith liom ar dtús mo chomhghairdeas ollmhór a ghabháil le Catherine Connolly ar an mbua iontach a bhí aici an tseachtain seo caite. Guím gach rath uirthi. Déanaim comhbhrón le Sr. Stan. Laoch ab ea í a d'oibrigh go díograiseach ar son iad siúd a bhí gan dídean sa tír seo. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam dílis. Déanaim cáineadh orthu siúd a chur an teach IPAS i nDroichead Átha trí thine. Ba bheag nár bhfuair páistí agus tuismitheoirí bás sa teach sin ar an oíche. This morning, commuter traffic on the M3 going to D…

The problem is that if one takes the future tense out of the Minister's statement there is very little the Government can say. The Minister has been in government for so long at this stage and these particular problems in planning, judicial reviews and tendering have not appeared out of nothing. They have been as a result of the Government's implementation. One of the big frustrations that exists among commuters in this country is that, on one level, they are getting the stick of extra costs. Last year, commuters p…