The Deputy is right. I always learn a lot, when I come in here on a Thursday, if a multitude of colleagues across the House are bringing up the same issue. I have to be blunt. We are increasing the number of teachers and SNAs working in our schools, we are increasing the number of schools that we have and we have a redeployment scheme in place. Obviously, we have to have criteria for the teaching allocations. That is all just true. We have seen the need to provide additional funding to the Department of education t…

I thank Deputy Doherty for his question and I thank the Oireachtas committee on housing for its work. The committee report published this morning makes 14 recommendations. Of course, we will work our way through the report and consider all of the recommendations, as we do with all committee reports. Page 5 of the report states that these committee recommendations arise from hearings held on 16 December last year. A number of decisions and actions have been taken by Government since then. As I look through the recom…

While Deputy Doherty can speak for Sinn Féin, he certainly does not speak for Fine Gael backbench TDs or Senators.

I speak for the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party.

It is not helpful for the people at home or those in the Gallery for people to shout me down. The reality is that I speak for the Government in his House today and, as its leader, I speak for the Fine Gael Party. We will follow our policy agenda, which is clearly published, while the Deputy will come into this House and continue to oppose and object every positive measure that we bring forward. Of course, the comments that I have made in relation to no-fault evictions apply to tenancies in place since the legislati…

-----to be true. We have also taken a number of other measures, including this week, with more than €800 million through the housing, activation and infrastructure office to help counties right across this country to put in place key enabling pieces of infrastructure that are required to deliver more homes. Housing is an emergency in this country. Housing is a real challenge. The cross-party committee has done good work. Do not misrepresent what it has said, though. It has not said to bring in a no-fault eviction b…

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. At the outset, I agree with him on the importance of the public-only consultant contract. It is something that arose from one of the better days or better periods of time in this House where the Government and Opposition worked together on a vision for the future of the health service called Sláintecare. I was the Minister at the time. The Deputy's former party leader, Róisín Shortall, chaired that committee. It has produced a good blueprint that we are all working our way …

I assure the Deputy that there are few more proactive Ministers than Deputy Carroll MacNeill. She is fully committed to the implementation and enforcement of the public-only consultant contact. We have already seen strong national uptake of the contract, with 3,416 consultants signed up as of the end of May, including 1,220 new entrants. There are over 2,000 consultants who switched from the older contract as well. We now have a health service where 69% of all consultants working in our hospitals are now on the pub…

I know. I will get those. Consultant numbers have also increased significantly. Regarding any breaches, the Minister for Health and the wider Government have shown that they simply will not be tolerated. There is a process under way - I have briefed on this at the Cabinet subcommittee on health - within the HSE and led by the chief executive, regional health area by regional health area and hospital by hospital, to make sure there is full compliance. The Minister is very eager to keep engaging with the Deputy's col…

I agree with a variety of things the Deputy said but I fundamentally disagree with the baloney and spin coming from some local authority officials in relation to dereliction. Deputy Sheehan represents a county and city with an excellent record in tackling dereliction. Last time I checked this country has one national set of laws. It is quite simple; I am not buying into this idea that all local authorities are performing equally well when it is simply untrue. Eleven did not bother collecting a cent. I can find more…

I am really confused with the Deputy's position on dereliction because he is defending the system rather than the people the system is meant to represent. People are being let down by inactivity on the derelict sites levy. I gave the Deputy an open goal and said his own council is doing a great job. Limerick is one of the best. It has no superpowers the rest of the country does not have except maybe on the GAA pitch. There are 11 local authorities that did not collect anything. It is not good enough. Deputies can c…

I thank Deputy Stanley. Firstly can I say, because fair is fair, that Laois is a good performer when it comes to housing. I have my sheet here. There is nowhere to hide here, by the way. The data is there. It shows who is doing a good job and who is not doing a good job. Laois has actually done quite a good job in relation to dereliction. I think there were 13 derelict sites levied during the year 2024. Laois has performed pretty well when it comes to housing delivery. It has done very well on the housing delivery …

I think my friends in the Labour Party are suggesting they were not in government then.

Yes. Neither Ged nor I were born so we cannot be held responsible for that one.

There are a couple of serious points there. This is the first time I have ever been in this House while somebody seems to be bemoaning so many Ministers coming to Laois. Deputy Stanley obviously has not met Deputy Willie Aird. It is easier to go to Laois and try to deliver. We intend to continue to visit. Deputy Stanley is right that there is no election for quite a number of years, be assured of that, but there is a hell of a lot of work to do. We intend to be out and about on the ground in communities, including …

I thank Deputy Maxwell for raising this issue on behalf of people in Cavan and Monaghan where he sees it as an issue on the ground, and it has been brought to his attention. The programme for Government and the Government's new housing plan, Delivering Homes, Building Communities, commit to maintaining the right of social housing tenants to purchase their home. The aim of the tenant incremental purchase scheme was to try to strike that balance but balance is always a subjective term that requires constant monitorin…

That is a very fair way to put it. As housing supply begins to rise in Cavan, Monaghan and across the country, should we then go back and ask, "Hang on, do the balances we had in place at a time of more constrained supply merit being looked at again?". That is a logical thing to do. I thank the Deputy for his words in relation to the work of the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, who has been a real reformer with the Minister, Deputy Browne, in trying to find practical ways of increasing housing supply. The changes…

It is not that crude at all. I thought that we were going through a Thursday where the Deputy was not going to call on me to abolish a tax or a charge or spend loads more money but I should have known that it is Thursday, and it happens every Thursday. The reality of the situation is that public service broadcasting matters. Public service broadcasting needs to be funded. I encourage the Deputy to support public service broadcasting. There have been a range of scandals and crises in RTÉ but there are also really go…

I thank Deputy Cummins for raising the issue, and I respect and accept the sincerity in which she does so. The first thing I suggest is that in general we should be having earlier engagements and conversations in this House, in committees and, of course, with the school communities. I take that point. I suggest that perhaps at an earlier time post this summer, we have the conversation about next summer because there are always learnings. I take that point. I am going to balance that by saying that since 2019, the s…

No, I do not. I thank Deputy Nash for raising this issue. I accept the importance of it. I will follow up on the matter with the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, and the HSE and will ask that they engage with Deputy Nash today on it in the context of seeing what more can be done. I take the point that it is an expansion of capacity that we need. Let me engage further on this with the Deputy today.