I acknowledge and thank all the staff involved in dealing with the storm and its aftermath, including in county councils, the ESB, the Civil Defence, Irish Water, the Garda, fire brigades, ambulance services, mountain rescue, local committees meeting in community halls and sports centres, local shops and the many individuals who helped out. The State was clearly unprepared for the storm and particularly for its aftermath. We still have some 18,000 ESB customers without electricity. To deal with events like this in …

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward the motion. I compliment and thank all those individuals and organisations throughout the country that are supporting the Palestinian cause, including Clonmel Friends of Palestine in my home town, who have been raising awareness, holding vigils and raising funds for the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, as well as other groups in the constituency in Carrick-on-Suir, Cashel and Tipperary town. The situation in the occupied Palestinian territories is unsustainable. It is an il…

This programme for Government continues the failed policies of the previous Government. It lacks ambition. It is deliberately vague and has no costings and no timelines. That means a continuation of the housing and homelessness crisis, the cost-of-living crisis, hospital overcrowding, huge health waiting lists, a broken disability service and the health recruitment embargo, known as "pay and numbers". The housing and homelessness crisis is the most fundamental issue facing this country. This programme continues the…

I wish to share time with Deputies Coppinger and Boyd Barrett.

The housing and homelessness crisis is the most fundamental issue facing this country and the outgoing Government has failed to deal with it. In the Thirty-second Dáil, I introduced the Housing Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Bill and it is my intention to reintroduce that Bill at the earliest opportunity. I salute the young disability rights campaigner, Cara Darmody, from Ardfinnan, County Tipperary, who has done Trojan work in this area. However, Cara would be the first to acknowledge that a lot more ne…

South Tipperary urgently needs and demands the construction, as promised, of a 20-bed inpatient mental health unit at Tipperary University Hospital, the reopening of St. Brigid's Hospital in Carrick-on-Suir and the construction of the long-awaited bypasses for Tipperary town, Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir.