I apologise, but I am glad that we have.

I thank Deputy Doherty. The State's investment in Permanent TSB, PTSB, was made during the financial crisis to safeguard the stability of the banking system and protect depositors. The State has been and continues to be very supportive of PTSB. The Government believes that it is in the long-term interests of PTSB and citizens in general that the bank be returned to full private ownership. I accept that we have differing political views on that. This transaction would mark a successful conclusion after a period of s…

I accept that we have legitimate points of difference in relation to bank ownership and there is a legitimate debate to be had there. The position that we have always taken and the position that the programme for Government takes is to move the State out of the ownership of the banks and to restore them to private ownership. I want to make the point that the circumstances in which Ireland ended up being in the position of bank ownership certainly was not strategic. We did not sit down to plan it out. It was an emer…

That is a fair question. The Government makes a decision annually on the banking levy, as the Deputy knows, as part of the budgetary process. We will do that again because we find it desirable to do it as part of the annual budgetary process, but I do not see a case for not having a bank levy. In relation to the super charge on what are referred to as bankers' bonuses, while every bank in Ireland and anybody doing business in Ireland might have a view, I do not see a case for changing the policy position in relatio…

I am grateful to the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, directors for the publication of their update today. When any report is published, it is very important not just to just cherry-pick one figure in isolation and present it as the reality or, indeed, the totality of the analysis that has been carried out by the RTB because, of course, that is not the case at all. In fact, the report that was published a very short time ago shows that there was a 39% decrease in the number of termination notices issued in the mon…

No, I do not accept it. Of course, Deputy Doherty wants people to give up hope and to give up on this country because his politics thrives on that negativity and divisiveness. However, the people are much more reasonable than him. They know we are building more homes than the EU average. They know that Ireland delivered the strongest rate of new housing completions across 19 countries in the EU in 2024. They can see the homes and the cranes. They can see the figures. They know there are more first-time buyers than …

Whatever way the wind blows, Pearse goes. The problem is it does not add up. He wants to get rid of all the taxes and he wants more spending. He wants a mini-budget every week. Sinn Féin says it wants more affordable and available rental supply, yet Deputies opposite vote against every measure we bring forward. They are not even capable of responsible Opposition, which is why the people have never put them in government.

At the outset, while respecting the rules of the House in relation to by-elections, let me say that I absolutely deplore, condemn and abhor any racism directed towards any candidate in this democracy. I want to be very clear in relation to the comments of the former Taoiseach: they were not appropriate and they were wrong. It absolutely is perfectly legitimate in this country - in fact, I would even go so far as to say it is essential - that we debate migration policy. No one has an issue with that. It is important…

Are there by-elections on, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle? Sorry - I will certainly respect the rules of the House and take that point, but I also take the serious point the Deputy made because it is a serious issue. There are people feeling hurt today and we have to acknowledge that. I feel very strongly that we have to facilitate – the Deputy suggested ways we could do this and it is worth exploring those – ways of being able to debate migration in this country. That is a legitimate and important part of our democracy. …

I thank Deputy O’Callaghan. I will come back at a time when we have longer than three minutes to debate my party’s record in government, but I will debate it anywhere, with anybody, at any time in terms of the state we inherited this country in in 2011, the progress we have collectively made with our coalition colleagues since then, and the progress this country has seen across a whole variety of economic and social issues. Perhaps that is for another day, but I am not going to have a widespread, snide slur made on…

I have loads to say for myself, I can assure the Deputy. I am in a Government and leading a party in a Government that is managing to see emissions fall in this country for three years in a row while growing the economy, creating more jobs, seeing wages rise and seeing more homes built. It is entirely possible to do more than one thing at a time in government. It is not fair to say that we are not making progress when it comes to climate. We objectively are. We are proving that despite the ideology of some, it is p…

I thank Deputy Healy for raising the issue of roads, road maintenance, the quality of roads and, quite rightly, the implications that can have on road safety. The Government has increased the level of funding provided for roads. I will follow up specifically with the Minister on what the Deputy said about Tipperary and the council's submission to the Department. The budget for regional roads is around €718 million, which is higher than in previous budgets, and I think we allocated to Tipperary County Council just o…

I can confirm this morning that we are working our way through the various impacts of the storm damage and we will continue to engage on that. I also acknowledge that the Government has been increasing public funding. I am not directing this at the Deputy but I hear public bodies speaking as though they are speaking at a time of reduction, while public spending has only gone in one direction and that is up. I absolutely assure the Deputy that Tipperary County Council has received more support across a variety of fu…

I thank the Deputy for the question and I genuinely thank him for the positive contribution he is making to this debate. This is what politics is about. He made the point about the different views the Labour Party might have. It is a good thing to have debate on policy. We do not do enough of it in this House. Politics has become far too performative, shouty and headline-grabbing. The fact that the Deputy is coming forward with a Bill, has engaged with us on it and is asking people for their views on it is a good a…

I was trying to pay tribute to Deputy O'Connor for being constructive but----

Nobody in this House is irrelevant and we should all play a constructive role in debating. There are different views on this issue. Everyone brings their view. I said we did not have enough experts. My constituency colleague, Deputy Whitmore, may be much more expert on this, given her professional background, than I am. We should be hearing one another's ideas. That is the point I am making. We do not serve the people well when we shut down debates around issues as crucial as energy security and reduce those debate…

The Deputy says "no oversight, no accountability", but is that not exactly the role of the public accounts committee and is that not exactly why that information is in the public domain? It is because we have oversight.

We have accountability. We have oversight as well. When the Deputy quotes selectively, it leads us to one view. When you look at the thing in the round, we see that many projects come in on time and on budget. Many come in under budget as well. We must continue to call out and highlight those areas where they do not and continue to ensure that they do better. The Deputy likes to create the view that every bit of investment in cycling or somewhere to park a bike is waste.

It is a little bit more complicated than that. It might not work for the old TikTok videos but it deserves a more considered response than Deputy Doherty ever gives here in this House.

If the Deputy wants to talk about wastage, he should get a mirror.