He should have asked CHI directly about this particular issue, so I hope he has answers for us today.

I had a look at the Fine Gael website, which is not something I normally do. The party has an ad running with the title "Fine Gael supported carers and people with disabilities in Budget 2026". Sometimes you need to check in case it is AI or whatever, but how exactly did Fine Gael support carers and people with disabilities? Could the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, explain that? I am going to go with disabled organisations and individuals rather than Fine Gael on this one. If we learned anything in the last fe…

I too welcome my socialist colleague Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett back into action. I welcome also the election of a socialist in New York, the belly of the beast of capitalism, Zohran Mamdani. I welcome the Fastway Couriers workers to the Public Gallery today. Perhaps it will be third time lucky because two TDs have already asked the Minister about this. I ask him to look them in the eye and tell them what they are to do for the next 30 days. They have been blindsided by their company. They were told they were maki…

Will the Ministers for Social Protection and employment please meet these workers to sort this out?

I am being honest.

Why are none of them here? It is very poor.

Why are we having this debate? That is the first question I want to ask. A child was horrifically sexually assaulted. We are not discussing gender-based violence. I have just come from a committee that the rape crisis centre set up. Four TDs showed up. Nobody from Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael was there. They do not care about that issue. A racist riot followed the assault. Massive harm was done to gardaí. We have seen the attempted murder of families in Drogheda. Then we hear the Minister of State on the radio scapegoa…

I want to send my solidarity with the girl who apparently was sexual assaulted and to her family. I hope she gets the care as well. I wish to ask the Taoiseach something related to gender-based violence. There was a report by Village magazine and The Ditch yesterday that a garda, who was corrupt and violent towards his wife and another woman, was awarded a medal of bravery from An Garda Síochána in 2021. I do not know why this was not widely reported at the time but it is being reported now. How is it that a disgra…

Gardaí who are corrupt, who pervert the course of justice over and over and over again, should not be awarded a medal of bravery for one act. There was no need. He could have been excluded from the award and the other gardaí could have been presented with their awards. What happened to zero tolerance for gender-based violence when the gardaí who are meant to deal with it are guilty of it themselves? There is a high rate, unfortunately, of intimate partner violence among the police and armies internationally. That i…

The Deputy is such a notorious feminist himself.

An honest debate about what? I did not hear the Deputy.

A document was produced by Fingal County Council which identifies land banks, including one in Dublin 15 which could accommodate 20,000 homes. Today, I received a reply from Fingal County Council. It has 105 families with termination notices or notices of eviction in Dublin 15 alone. I am coming to the Taoiseach as a TD from that area reporting a humanitarian crisis. I want to highlight some of the cases that our councillors are dealing with due to these notices of termination. One person has a child with cerebral …

They do not have the money for that, though.

There is a social crisis, an eviction epidemic, in Dublin 15, up the road from the Minister. The Minister knows it well. It relates to the decisions taken in the budget to give huge VAT cuts to developers rather than finance local authorities to build. There is a document from Fingal County Council about section 28 guidelines and housing growth requirements in Fingal County Council. It mentions a land bank, which the Minister knows well, in Dunsink, Elm Green and Scribblestown that could house 20,000 people. It is …

I want to ask about the cost of going to college, particularly following the budget. In effect, people are now paying €500 more in third level fees. We have a cost-of-living crisis and this is impacting the ability of students and families to afford these costs. The poverty rate has actually increased after the budget by all of the metrics the ESRI has used. People are 2% worse off and it is inhibiting people from going to college.

We can all do what we will with figures but the reality is that families and students now are paying €500 more than they were for the last two years. That is the reality because of the removal of the once-off measures and when we take into account the increase in costs, in rents in particular. The average cost of going to college in Dublin, for example, increased this year to €20,777 a year, a 3% increase on last year. The main reason is the huge amount of money people have to pay in rent. On average, in Dublin, th…

The Minister is suggesting he might take away the free third level education with his comment there. Yes, there are a couple of issues. It is a bad situation when Young Fine Gael was asking for a €1,500 reduction in fees and only a €500 reduction was given. The union of students in Ireland, AMLÉ, asked for a lot more and has expressed huge disappointment at what the Government has done. The dropout rate in college has increased by 15% in two years and 23% for students who are on the lower income levels. As I said, …

Does a woman or person abused by someone in the Army have the same rights as other victims? The victims of crime Act 2017 does not apply to the Army. It applies to the Garda but not to the Army. In June, I raised a case here with the Tánaiste about a woman who was stalked, abused and assaulted by an Army officer. He used Army equipment, even an Army grenade, as part of that harassment. She made a complaint in November 2022. We are nearly three years on and she has heard nothing further about how that case is being …

I got an acknowledgement.

This is an issue not just for Donegal but for the entire country. A precedent is being set by the way the Government is dealing with this issue. I want to send solidarity to all the homeowners and people affected by this issue in Donegal. There are often attempts in this House and outside it to divide and rule between people from so-called urban areas and rural areas. The reality is that I live in a pyrite-affected estate, but the pyrite remediation scheme has been extended to Limerick and other places. It is actua…