Can we get this question answered?

My question was not answered.

I am asking for flexibility.

The question was not answered.

I asked for-----

I welcome the joint motion. I asked for clarification as to whether we can respond robustly if anything happens tonight.

It is a fair question.

Can it be answered now? Can we answer that? Can the Oireachtas jointly respond flexibly if the situation deteriorates badly?

There have been eight decades of oppression, occupation and apartheid. Today there are six million Palestinian refugees throughout the Middle East. There are 750,000 Israeli settlers in illegal settlements. These are war crimes under international law. Israel ignored it. Apartheid has been defined by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. It is clearly apartheid and the world ignored it. Again and again, the world turned away. It took a genocide of the scale we are seeing in Gaza for our State to officially …

They are not agreed. Every week when the Business Committee meets, I have raised the issue of defective concrete blocks. A year ago, the Government stated that it would extend the increase in the cap to everybody going through the scheme. How on earth has it not produced the legislation to date? It is cruel. People are struggling to find tens of thousands of euro. I met someone the other day for whom the gap is €200,000. They had a six-year mortgage; they will now have a 19-year mortgage. Their mortgage has doubled…

The people in the west of Ireland have been treated with utter contempt by the Government when it comes to this scheme.

Pyrrhotite.

Not agreed.

Where did it all go wrong? We built up a publicly owned electricity service that was the pride of our people. We built up electrification when we were a poor country and we had some of the cheapest electricity in Europe. Thanks to the policies of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, that all now lies in ruins. Those parties embraced the privatisation agenda from Europe with glee. They sold the family jewels and today we have the most expensive electricity in all of Europe. That happened not by accident but by design. When it…

Not agreed. Energy companies are lining up to fleece customers again. There will be big increases after increases. The Government is steadfastly refusing to introduce an energy credit again in the budget. We need an urgent debate in this house about its failure to get a grip on the energy companies fleecing customers and on the wider cost-of-living crisis. We need an urgent debate on why the Government is refusing to introduce energy credits in the budget. This should happen preferably today, but certainly tomorrow…

My colleagues have summarised the situation well. Plans are well and good, but we need to see fundamental change on the ground. I will share a few personal stories from Donegal where, unfortunately, the failure to recruit a range of professionals has led to appalling outcomes for children with disabilities and their parents. Right now, for children who require psychiatric assistance and medication, it is not available to those who have an intellectual disability. It is just not there. If this child had medication, …

No. Six months on, this really is a do-nothing Government. Hundreds of families in Donegal and the west of Ireland have waited ten months for it to honour its promise to bring in a simple amendment to legislation to ensure the increase in the cap for defective block homeowners applies to people already in the scheme. That means they cannot make the final payments to builders. The Government is now pushing the issue on for two more months. A simple amendment any legislator here could have done in hours is all that i…

It has everything to do with the Order of Business.

That is not correct.

It is there in black and white. The dissent was recorded in black and white.