I would rather not.

I add my voice to the condemnation of the outrageous treatment of the events that occurred for Tori Towey and call on the UAE Government to immediately drop the charges and allow her to come home. This is the last week the Dáil is sitting before the summer recess and the last opportunity I will have to ask a question during Leaders' Questions. For six weeks now, we and many others in the Opposition have been calling on the Government for a discussion of the Housing Commission report, which was published in May and …

-----is a fraction of what the Housing Commission stated is necessary to address it.

The Taoiseach did not answer the question. Is there more house building? Yes. Is there a bit more social housing? Yes. However, the Housing Commission has said we need to double the Government's targets. I know damn well that the LDA and the HFA are not included in the €5 billion figure, but that total figure was meant to deliver 33,000 houses, including approximately 16,000 social and affordable ones. If we are to do what the Housing Commission has said, we have to double the housing delivered by all sources. Priv…

-----but it is right about the level of housing delivery. Why will the Government not allocate the money? It cannot say it does not have the money. It has it in the budget surplus and the infrastructure funds-----

-----and it could impose a wealth tax, like the one the French people are asking for-----

-----after the recent French election with the Popular Front in France.

You did not do it.

That is what the Government said.

On the same issue, the despised Tories have been driven out of power. The great fear that I and, I think, many people in England have is that, the more things change, the more things will stay exactly the same with Sir Keir Starmer. I find it grimly amusing that the leader of a supposedly left-wing party is referred to as Sir Keir Starmer. I suspect that indicates where his agenda will lie. It will not be a particularly radical one. We need to address issues like the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and the refusal of …

The European Union makes clear its determination to stand against Putin's barbaric actions in Ukraine. I fundamentally disagree with the alliance that they wish to advance with NATO but we all are horrified about what Putin is doing. Then we look at what is happening today or in the last few days in Gaza. Four schools were attacked with 29 people killed in just one attack on a school. As we speak, Israel is issuing evacuation orders for the whole of Gaza City again. Everybody has been told to get out. In front of t…

We are a long way from where we need to be when it comes to supporting children with special needs and disabilities, to put it very mildly.

As we are in the last week of this Dáil session, just let me give the Taoiseach an instance of that. In April, Greg and his wife, Celine, and Greg is an SNA by the way, were in the Public Gallery here when we debated the issue of special needs. We raised the case of his son, Lewis, who is 13, who has autism and an intellectual disability, because he has no school place. Subsequent to that debate, he met with officials from the Department of Education, the NCSE, as did Nicola who was with him and who is also an SNA.…

It is completely untenable and does not provide for the needs of this family. The parents are supposed to drive up and back to County Louth for a place that is not even suitable.

These parents have had to go to court to try to vindicate the rights of their children and still there are no placements for their children. We have to do better than this.

The Government should drop the fees for them as well.

The European Union should hang its head in shame for its failure to sanction Israel in respect of the genocidal massacre it has been carrying out in Gaza for the past nine months. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil should hang their heads in shame for supporting as the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, who has continued to provide Israel with impunity and allow the flow of arms and continuing trade with the regime that is guilty of this genocidal attack and massacre, which continues as we speak. The…

I want to ask about the consequences of the defeated care referendum. I think the Taoiseach knows and we all know that a significant part of why that was defeated was the anger of people with disabilities, special needs, carers, and so on, about the failure of the Government to include real rights for carers and people with disability in the Constitution. I do not anticipate that the Government will have another referendum of that sort in the term of this Government but it seems to me that it has an obligation to h…

The quality is so poor, people would rather sleep at the canal. That is the truth.

Sadly, one of the things we share on this island, North and South, is a very severe housing crisis affecting tens of thousands of people who are on council housing waiting lists. Down here it is 57,000 officially but actually nearer to 100,000 when one takes into account the HAP and RAS transfer lists. In the North 47,000 people are waiting for social housing, 35,000 of whom are considered to be in serious housing stress. The new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, has just announced - Keir Starmer does not…