The Taoiseach is absolutely right to condemn the barbaric character of Russia's actions in Ukraine. The almost certain missile attack against a children's hospital is an absolute outrage. The kidnapping of children and the illegal and unjustifiable invasion are barbaric. There is no question about it. Really, Putin is sort of reminiscent of Stalin in his barbarism. There is no doubt, therefore, that we should all join together in condemning it. What I also find sort of incredible is the Orwellian doublethink of man…

The Bill is welcome in that it addresses the scandalous problem of student accommodation providers charging for 51 weeks when the students' term is only 41 weeks. It is positive that will be prevented and that students cannot be required to pay more than a month's rent and deposit in advance, other than their fees, if they happen to be paying their fees, to the provider. Those are welcome measures, as is the ability to take to the RTB a landlord who is behaving improperly. Those are positive developments for which …

My question follows on from the previous one. If we take housing as an example, the Housing Commission states that need to almost double the number of houses we deliver each year. If I understand what the Minister says in the summer economic statement, there is only going to be €1.4 billion in additional capital spending. Last year's housing package was €5 billion. How on earth are we going to get up to the level of housing output necessary to meet what the Housing Commission expects the housing needs of this count…

That is a nice rhetorical flourish-----

-----but it does not answer the question. The Housing For All targets were for 33,000 houses a year. The Government does not want to debate what the Housing Commission has said, although it promised weeks ago that it would debate it. There is reason it does not want to debate it before the end of term. Including the deficit of 250,000 houses and future demand, the Housing Commission states that we need 60,000 houses a year. That is almost a doubling of current housing output. The commission also states that a very …

Absolutely.

The step-by-step approach to addressing the housing crisis has left us with a deficit of 250,000 houses and record numbers of people who are homeless. Those numbers are growing every month. Approximately 100,000 households on housing lists have been waiting for ten, 15 or 20 years. There is a great deal of mystery. It is not us but the Housing Commission which says that a radical reset is necessary. Nobody is saying it can be done in a year. It is saying it could be done over ten years but that it has to start now …

There are housing crises all over the world.

They are all neoliberals like you. That is the problem.

So because it has never been done we cannot do it. We cannot do something new.

A new idea.

God forbid.

It is a tiny one.

Many areas of important public services such as mental health, disability, special needs, the health service and schools have chronic problems in recruiting and retaining enough people. We have staff shortages and this leads to a lot of hardship for many people who need those public services. Has the Minister any plans, especially in the context of the upcoming budget, to address this problem?

In my opinion that is not enough. It is not working. The child and disability network teams are chronically understaffed. They cannot recruit and retain people. CAMHS teams have half the staff they need. We had school principals in the Houses last week saying they and teachers are burnt out and stressed and they cannot recruit people. They are actually relying on people who are unqualified in teaching because they cannot actually get teachers. It is a similar picture in the health service. The consequences of cours…

It is true the public service has grown. After the disastrous austerity cuts, the Government had to go into reverse-----

-----because of the damage it did after the economic crash. However, in key areas I have mentioned - CAMHS, CDNTs, teachers, nurses, allied health professionals - we have a serious problem. This is causing immense hardship for the service users. There are long waiting lists and double whammies for people with special needs and disability. The kids and parents get hit in education, and then in the services supposed to be provided by the HSE. That is compounded by things we will be dealing with in the next question a…

Okay, well-----

Every single one of what?

They are not enough.