Deputies, respect the House.

Respect the House.

Deputy, please.

As no other Members wish to speak, I will ask the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, to make his concluding remarks.

In accordance with Standing Order 85(2), the division is postponed until the weekly division time on Wednesday, 3 December 2025.

It is not a back and forth.

The Minister will have an opportunity to wrap up at the end.

The Minister of State wandered in here with a script and banged on about established facts and realities. The fact and reality are that if anything Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael had done over the last number of years worked, we would not be standing here. Motorists would not be carrying this disproportionate level of financial burden. Government Members act as commentators while the cost of relying on a car soars. They may try to wash their hands of this but it is simply untrue to put the myth out there that there is n…

The Minister said earlier that the tillage sector was an integral part of Irish farming. I happen to agree with him; it truly is. It is the backbone of farming in many of our communities. It contributes almost €1.9 billion annually to the economy and supports up to 11,000 jobs. That is something we need to take seriously. Despite that, our local tillage sector is under severe pressure. I know that from speaking with tillage farmers in my area. There has been a 42% reduction in tillage area since 1980 and a 50% redu…

Budget 2026 was a serious step backwards for people with disabilities. They are angry and rightly so. The Indecon report commissioned by the Government in 2021 put the financial cost of disability in the region of €12,000 per year. An ESRI study showed that households with a disabled member face significant financial burdens ad are at a very high risk of poverty. For people who are unable to work due to a disability the 2024 Central Statistics Office, CSO, poverty figures showed that one in five lives in consistent…

Tomorrow is World Mental Health Day. I acknowledge everyone who has experienced mental health difficulties or illnesses, those experiencing them right now, the families and friends who have stood beside them and those who have lost a loved one. Every one of us knows someone who has struggled; many of us have been that someone. When talking about mental health, we cannot only talk about statistics. We must talk about the people - that young person who dropped out of school because their anxiety became too much, the …

Tullamore is in County Offaly.

It was a joint effort.

What is happening in Gaza is not a natural disaster, it is a man-made catastrophe. Entire families are buried under rubble, hospitals have been turned into graveyards, and children are starving not because food does not exist, but because it is deliberately withheld. Yet some so-called guardians of international law stand idle. They issue statements dripping with empty concern while continuing to arm and fund the very machinery of the Palestinian people's destruction. For too long the international community has ch…

Before I begin, I will give credit to Erica Stoll, who conducted herself with immense dignity, poise and grace during the Ryder Cup in the face of the abuse she experienced while her husband, Rory McIlroy, was playing. That abuse has no place in any sport whatsoever. It would be remiss of us not to acknowledge that here today. It was wholly inappropriate and those responsible for it need to take a long hard look at themselves in the mirror and figure out what exactly they were trying to achieve. Decent sports facil…

I want to return to the attacks on the global summit flotilla that occurred last night. This was actually the second attack on this flotilla. It includes more than 20 Irish citizens, including my colleague, Senator Chris Andrews, who told me this morning that his boat was attacked four times last night. Those attacks are a wilful intimidation and an act of aggression against a humanitarian mission. This was a direct assault on boats carrying baby food and rice, aid that can and should reach those who are in absolut…

The cost of children returning to school is an annual issue. Year in, year out a consistent theme from my constituency of Longford-Westmeath is the cost of uniforms, but never so much as this year as families grapple with the cost of living. The current system, as Deputy O'Rourke said, embeds avoidable expenses. The CCPC's recent investigation urging generic uniforms and a competitive tender process is significant and we need to listen. This Bill would mandate schools to adopt cost-conscious, common-sense policies …

Families across the country are at breaking point and people are being hammered with sky-high costs every which way they turn, from rent, to food, to fuel and to insurance, and now they will be forced to pay hundreds of euro more on energy bills. We already have the highest energy prices in Europe and families are paying on average €500 more than households anywhere else - money they simply do not have. Tonight, in homes across this country, there are people who are asking themselves how they will keep the lights o…

I want to ask in particular about the schools in which these works are ongoing but yet to be completed and by which a letter of suppression has been received.

I cannot accept what the Minister of State has said to me. I know what he has said to be untrue. I am happy to share information with him after this session. I have stood in a school in Athlone - Scoil na gCeithre Máistrí - that was approached by the NCSE to open a second autism spectrum disorder, ASD, class. I stood in the classroom. The plaster was drying on the wall when the letter of suppression came in from the NCSE. That class had three enrolments already. I am not saying the Minister of State is the reason b…