But there is a margin. Who will pay the margin and how much will it be? How much is it likely to be? Why is the State not paying the margin?

I am just going to comment briefly. I would bring the rate down to zero to be honest. I just do not see why these providers should make a profit. We are probably not going to get into this debate, but I cannot understand how a Government committed to universal, single tier healthcare can think it is acceptable these companies are making any profit at all. I cannot see how they are anything other than parasitical on the health service. There is no good reason to have these people, other than the inequity that exists…

Absolutely, and in healthcare more than anything. I am just using this opportunity to say this, because unless there is an intention to get rid of that at some point, the Government is perpetuating a fundamentally iniquitous situation where these companies are, essentially, exploiting people's vulnerability for profit.

Excellent.

I accept that.

I am not talking about them.

I am happy enough to support this extra capital going towards the LDA, but I would rather that the LDA were something other than what it is. We have argued for some time it should be a fully fledged State construction company. That is the only way we will reach the level of output of social and affordable housing necessary to address the absolutely dire housing crisis we are facing. The LDA will probably need a lot more than the Government is currently proposing to put into it. I am interested in hearing the answer…

We are putting all these extra billions into the LDA and it is just to deliver the existing plan. Is that what the Minister of State is telling us? It is for the existing plan. This is not linked to what everybody knows has to happen and which the Government itself knows has to happen, which is a dramatic upscaling of the targets necessary, which inevitably means a dramatic upscaling of the social and affordable housing targets. It is worth mentioning, however, that I think - the Minister of State can correct me if…

Another day, another Israeli massacre in Gaza. Since dawn, another 45 innocents have been slaughtered by this terrorist regime. Almost certainly, the weapons that killed those people came from the United States and possibly travelled through Irish airspace. The US military, which supports all this, is also using our airports. Will the Government give us the debate we asked for about the transport of Israeli weapons to kill people in Gaza and Lebanon? Will it allow that debate and can we include in it an explanation…

I have repeatedly raised the recruitment embargo by another name that the Government has imposed on the health service, the so-called pay and numbers strategy, which is limiting the ability of hospitals and health services to recruit the staff they need to ensure safe staffing and proper patient safety in the hospitals. The Taoiseach is aware health workers are balloting for industrial action because of the Government's failure to address this. On foot of me raising it in here, the Ireland East Hospital Group ackno…

The hospital remains exactly as it was when the workers first raised this issue - chronically understaffed and not safe for patients.

Can the Taoiseach look into it or explain?

I know that.

Not if it is not staffed.

The well-being of many, if not most, of our students is not in a good place. The email that Holly, the student nurse from Athlone, sent to all of us is emblematic of the crisis facing many students. She talks about something on which we put a motion forward during Covid, that is, the failure to pay student nurses on placement. You can add to that those in mental health nursing, early childhood education, medicine, social care and many other areas, where they are being exploited working in our health service and pai…

When we are suffering chronic shortages in so many areas of healthcare, construction and other areas of the economy, why are we not giving these students the support and valuing them in the way they deserve, in the way, for example, they do with student nurses in Scotland and everywhere else in Europe where they do far better for students?

St. Augustine’s in Blackrock is a school for children with additional needs. It caters for children with those needs from as far north of the city as Santry, the many places in between, Wicklow, the Dún Laoghaire area, which is my area, and other areas of south Dublin. The school is still without two buses to take those children to St. Augustine's, those being the one that comes from Santry and the one that comes from Wicklow, the Taoiseach's constituency, because it cannot get bus drivers. I do not know if this is…

At what point does the Taoiseach think Israel's crimes against the Palestinians reach the threshold of horror and unacceptability that mean it deserves the same sort of sanctions as apartheid South Africa? I ask that because the crimes it has committed are way in excess of even that horrific regime. Long before the genocide of last year, many South African representatives, going right back to Mandela and Desmond Tutu, said that this is an obnoxious apartheid regime that is horrific in its treatment of Palestinians.…

War bonds.

Sharon is 66 and has just retired. Her husband John is 66 and will retire in December. They have worked all their lives and paid their taxes and they are both homeless. They were evicted because the Government lifted the eviction ban and were made homeless in August. They are relying on a day-to-day basis on the emergency telephone number and on couchsurfing with different relatives between Lucan and Wexford. Their income is over the threshold for social housing. They are in a desperate state and their story could …