I thank the Social Democrats for tabling the motion. This is a massively important issue, one that has been playing on the minds of parents, teachers and students across the country for several years. I am a parent of four young children who are in school. Their school is excellent and does wonderful work in giving the children the skills they will need for the future. However, schools have been struggling significantly and consistently in recent years. Many principals are spending all their time trying to get teac…

There is a life-and-death catastrophe unfolding in the hospitals, especially in my own region at the moment. Eleven ambulances were stuck outside of Drogheda hospital last Saturday because there was not a bed, a chair or a trolley available for them. Seventeen consultants in Drogheda hospital wrote a letter to the Minister stating that it is a threat to the life and health of patients in the region if the Government proceeds with the closure of the accident and emergency unit in Navan. It is an incredible situation…

I welcome the fact that the Minister for Health has said that the bypass will not proceed in its entirety, although I am still significantly concerned that a bypass will happen. This is an amazing situation. On two occasions this year, the HSE has issued press statements saying that it will do things and saying that it has had the authority of the Minister when it did not. The Minister has had to rap the HSE on the knuckles and stop what it is doing. It is out of control. My worry, as the chair the Save Navan Hospi…

Only 390 applications have been made to the Croí Cónaithe initiative so far, according to a reply to parliamentary question I received only in the past week.

I am not looking to ask this particular question in a combative manner because there is a crisis and the Minister has an interest in trying to fix it, but I still believe we are not focusing on the builder-level reason homes are not being built. When I talk to dozens of builders in my constituency, they tell me they are not building and they have not built in years. We have to get to the reason builders are not building in a housing crisis.

With all the figures, plans and language, if we are to boil this down we have record house prices, record rents and record homelessness. We are at the worst point so far of the housing crisis over the past ten years. Last year the Government missed its target by 5,000. It had a target of 28,000 builds and it built 23,000. This year's target is smaller than last year's target of 28,000 builds. We now have a situation whereby the number of commencements, which are the likely houses for the coming years, is down. We a…

The Minister is the fifth holder of the office to read roughly the same script into the Chamber-----

The language is a single transferable speech over a decade at this stage.

The key issue is that a construction company in Navan that was building for the council went bust very recently. We need to know why builders cannot build and make a profit. They are scared of the risk that exists in the market and, therefore, they are not getting involved in it. The costs are not being mitigated at some level by the Government, such as through a reduction of taxation on building materials. We need accessible contracts for which smaller builders can tender. We also need to get rid of some of the bu…

I do not want to get into the rhetoric.

The issue of rapid building technology in dealing with the housing crisis was raised several years ago and has been raised again recently in the context of how we deal with the pressures on the system as a result of the refugee crisis in the country at present. Many Ministers have said the technology will be part of the plan to house refugees and it will be part of the plan to build homes for people who are homeless or have been on the housing list for a long period. Will the Minister to give specific details on th…

In relation to refugees and asylum seekers, most people want to be generous and to be the Good Samaritan. The way the Government has handled this, with the lack of consultation with communities, has created division in large number of areas. Consultation is very important, for example, in the building of wind turbines, pylons, hotels and such things. People should have a role in the future of their community, and the lack of consultation has caused difficulty. Many Ministers have spoken about the need for modular h…

We support safe harbour. It is a moral and international responsibility when people are fleeing war, violence or famine to stand up and give them shelter when it is needed. Nobody is arguing that point. We are simply saying there must be equality in the delivery of services in this State. The only baseline we are asking for in this situation is one from which everybody who is resident in this State is simply treated equally. I asked the Minister what the targets were. All I am looking for is a figure for how many m…

Other places have.

They have.

Thus, modular homes will not be used for housing.

It is estimated that every year in this State, there are 360 excess deaths as a result of accident and emergency department overcrowding. That is to say double the population of this Dáil die every year as a result of overcrowding in accident and emergency departments. However, new research in Britain has shown that this is likely to be an underestimate. The Emergency Medicine Journal found that there was a significant increase in the death rate for patients who had to spend more than five hours in an accident and …

Does the Taoiseach not think overcrowding affects it?

Medical technology and medical science.

Nobody is arguing against it.