I take the opportunity to congratulate the Minister of State on his promotion. I welcome some of what he has said on the Corporate Enforcement Authority. If ever there was a place that needed such an entity to be fit for purpose it is obviously this State. Unfortunately, as we get a lesson about 2012, it is a further reminder of the perception of the connectivity certain people have. There are relationships that exist. People have trips and holidays together and have conversations, meaning that at times things can …

I know that. We really need business supports. As much as we need to deal with those who have acted wrongly, which is an absolute understatement, we need to look after businesses that are under severe pressure at this point in time. I understand there is an international and domestic part to this, but we really need to make sure we can deliver.

There will be repetition with many of these questions. A large number of people are under severe pressure whether it is because of the cost of home heating oil, solid fuel or the spike in electricity prices. They will need some detail soon. We cannot wait until the day before the budget to find out what necessary mitigations are proposed for the conditions we have now.

Specific mitigations will need to be introduced. We all hear this in our constituency offices and I have no doubt that the Minister of State does too. People are under incredible pressure. We are dealing with a 38-year high in inflation at 9.1% in June. It has also been the fastest increase. It is incredibly difficult to deal with. People have problems with their bills and in my part of the world, a large number of people rely on solid fuels and home heating oil. We need these measures to be put in place as soon as…

We could keep it to ourselves.

A great deal needs to be done in the budget. It remains to be seen whether it will be but the pressure is on the Government. There is no doubt that people are under significant pressure. I agree with what the Minister of State has said about retrofitting. I would be delighted if people had alternatives that were not only environmentally better but also cheaper. We need to make sure that the schemes we have are changed slightly so that they become more targeted. I understand that does not fall under the Minister of …

The household benefits package looks for the GPRN. Some of the people in communal heating systems do not have a number.

I refer to the GPRN. We need to look at that facility. Anomalies will arise from time to time.

Deputy Andrews, Deputy McGuinness and Deputy Kenny dealt with some of the realities of the world people are living in. It is a matter of the services that are not being dealt with. It is a matter of failures over many years, such as CervicalCheck, thalidomide and women dealing with the mesh issue. It is a matter of disability services and mental health services. We are all dealing with the issues of no psychologists, no psychiatrists, no consultants, no special needs assistants, SNAs, no speech and language therapi…

We are waiting.

Anytime I have ever promised to hand time back I have made a liar of myself so I will not make that promise now. It is around this time that I make my apologies to the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, the Ceann Comhairle and the wider staff of Leinster House and thank them very much for how much they enable me. I have added my apologies for the times when I do possibly test people but these things need to be done. I commend Deputies O'Rourke, Quinlivan, Cronin and Guirke. This Bill is a fine piece of work. I am very glad tha…

I was not present for the beginning of the debate because the transport committee had the news that Aer Lingus was refusing to come before it next week to deal with the issues we are all hearing about left, right and centre regarding cancelled flights. We know they are issues throughout Europe and the world. We need to know the particular issues that relate to Aer Lingus as they impact on family holidays and on business. People to whom I have spoken recently are trying to get whatever flights they can that are not …

We need to raise the roof. I am not the first Deputy to repeat the following figures: a 15% increase in rents, a 22% increase in house prices and a 19% increase in homelessness. We have all probably taken a look at Daft. Across Louth, there are 18 houses for rent. In Dundalk, the corresponding figure is nine. Anecdotally, in relation to issues I try to deal with, a number of my party's councillors on a day-to-day basis are engaging with people and trying to find solutions. Of course, we use everything available, in…

I wish to raise the issue of workforce planning and how we are obviously lacking in certain skill sets. What is the input from the regional skills framework and from departmental heads in relation to filling those spaces? If we are talking about add-on courses for retrofitting and whatever, could we look at apprenticeships from a point of view of fitting them into the actual base apprenticeship, be that in some of the regular skill sets of plumbing, electrical work or whatever else?

The Minister will probably get a great deal of agreement across the House that this process is very rushed. It is lastminute.com. We are dealing with planning. I think we could all accept that we started from a point of having very poor planning regulation in this State. We all know what the impact has been on regular people in that regard. Much of that has been in the public domain for many years. Reference has already been made to some of the tribunals. We also heard from some of the major stakeholders such as Tr…

The Government will have a fair amount of agreement across this House on the absolute necessity of this legislation. It is difficult to think that anybody will get up and speak against it in the sense that what we are dealing with, as Deputy O'Reilly put well, is a situation whereby employers are robbing the wages of workers. That is abhorrent to most, if not all, right-thinking people. It is absolutely necessary that we have legislation that protects and ensures that does not happen. I will add my voice, as many o…

We are all here for the one reason. We want to see the spaces and places provided for some of our citizens, that is, children with disabilities. Up to this time, we have not had the necessary planning to deliver that. We all welcome this legislation and, if it streamlines the section 37A process, then that needs to be done because it seems to be a process that is far too long with far too many steps in delivering these places. We all know, however, there is a wider issue. I welcome what the Minister said, that she …

I agree that a lot of people use dramatic language about the health service. We all know how difficult the work in the health service can be. Sometimes that is down to the weaknesses that exist there but it is not to take away from those who work in it. All of us and our families have received great care there but we also know about the issues with waiting lists and we know about the costs. We all welcome this Bill in the sense that it will reduce some costs but we can go further. We also believe we can have a bett…

-----under severe pressure but the Minister had met-----

-----some of those families and they had spoken about the fact that they needed a mechanism to provide them with the necessary answers. We always look for a public inquiry but the Taoiseach and others have talked about the type of inquiry they do not want. We need to see what sort of inquiry the Government will come up and we need it as soon as possible. I apologise greatly-----