-----and then they are statute-barred.

It is a joke.

The question is very simple. Is the Government going to propose an emergency budget to deal with the cost-of-living crisis? The cost-of-living crisis is hitting people at every single level. It is hitting them in terms of rents, accommodation, energy prices and the cost of normal consumer goods. The value of people's pay and income is also falling commensurately with the rise in inflation. We cannot wait until October for the Government to seriously address all these issues. We need an emergency budget to do that.

We have just received another report about new rents going up by 9%. That is on top of rents that have effectively doubled in recent years. They are going out of control. We need measures to address that, including rent controls, because that leads directly to people being homeless. The VAT reductions the Government has provided are pathetic, given the increased energy costs people are facing, particularly people with disabilities, single mothers, the vulnerable, the sick and so on who are disproportionately impact…

Dún Laoghaire is higher.

I was contacted by a local catering company in my area which says it has been informed that, without any tendering process, Aramark has been given all the contracts to provide catering to the refugee hubs for Ukrainians. This company is pretty disgusted about that. As the Minister will know, Aramark has been a very controversial company. It has been criticised for the poor quality of its catering in US prisons and for the poor quality of some of the catering it provides people in the abhorrent direct provision syst…

So local caterers are cut out of it completely. That is bad.

Local caterers can get better quality food.

It is not good and it is not fair.

The Taoiseach suggested the Government's Housing for All policy is working. I would like him to try to explain that to three people in the Gallery. They are Tony, Radoslaw and Seán, who are three of the five remaining tenants in the St. Helen's Court complex in Dún Laoghaire. This Friday they will be at the Four Courts, where a vulture fund will seek an enforcement order to evict them from their homes. They have never done anything wrong and have always paid their rent. Once upon a time they were part of a communit…

That is all very interesting. Will the Taoiseach guarantee that Tony, Radoslaw, Seán and the other two households remaining in St. Helen's Court will not be thrown into emergency accommodation after Friday's court proceedings? That is what they want to hear. That is the commitment they need. Beyond that, why are the vulture funds allowed to do this for nothing other than greed? Why are they allowed to evict people who have done nothing wrong and sit for two years on 15 empty properties when there are people crying …

The Government can change the law.

What about the rest of them?

The Government spent I do not know how long telling us it did not have the flexibility to reduce VAT because it would impact on the derogation. Then we discovered it could do so, as we had said. Europe was happy to move heaven and earth in some respects in response to the war in Ukraine but not in other respects, particularly in respect of trying to protect working people from the economic and financial impacts of the war in Ukraine. By the way, as a little aside, not only did the EU state it would give a little bi…

I wrote to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, last week on foot of his request for suggestions on how we should deal with the ongoing housing emergency while at the same time providing the accommodation needed for Ukrainian refugees. I outlined detailed proposals and asked that we discuss the issue this week. We now have a housing emergency on top of a housing emergency; it is a matter of vital urgency. If the Minister is asking for opinions — I have certainly furnished…

On the Deputy's last point, a general strike across the country to address the cost-of-living crisis would be a good idea at the moment, and would be a good example of unity on a shared-island basis, but that is not the point I wanted to make. The Taoiseach referred to the role of women on an all-island basis. Notwithstanding the Government's commitments on the new national maternity hospital, which we are very sceptical about, I wonder whether all procedures that should be available to women, and are legally avail…

We were always on about that.

I have raised on several occasions the issue of a low-paid, front-line group of people who worked all during Covid-19. Without them, many of our shops, hospitals, public transport services and many public and private corporate entities could not have functioned. I refer to private security workers. Rank-and-file security officers recently set up a new campaign, Security Officers United, and some of its members will be outside the Dáil at 1 o'clock tomorrow campaigning for decent pay. The employment regulation order…

-----outside to Kildare Street at 1 p.m. tomorrow to meet some of these private security workers and have a social dialogue with them.

I also offer my thanks and best wishes to Teresa Doolan, and my best wishes to Liam and Noel in their new jobs. The Government has committed to supporting artists, in particular after Covid-19. I am glad the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media is in the Chamber. I wrote to her on Tuesday about the plight of 20 artists in a studio on Richmond Road near Drumcondra. They have been there for about 20 years and to their shock, on 8 February bailiffs from a receiver came to the studios and tol…