We now move to the topic of the adjournment of the Dáil. The House must now decide when it will next sit. Accordingly, I call the Government Chief Whip, Deputy Naughton, to make a proposal on the adjournment of the House.

Is that agreed?

It is not agreed, a Cheann Comhairle.

I propose to take one minute from each Deputy who raises their hand.

As the Ceann Comhairle knows, the Whips met last night and the Opposition whips made it clear that we felt the Dáil should reconvene, as is normal after the Christmas recess, on 15 January. That is plenty of time; it is four full weeks from now. It is, therefore, unacceptable to suggest we come back on 22 January. People are crying out for leadership. They are crying out for solutions to their problems. We need to reconvene on 15 January, as is normal, after the Christmas recess. It is four long weeks, five is unacceptable.

The idea that we would break for more than one month and not even discuss the issues when people are going to sleep in emergency accommodation over Christmas and when there are not enough food parcels to go around is not acceptable. We should put pressure to say we have the date of 15 January and that is when we are reconvening. That focuses the minds in terms of the various parties that are engaged in coalition discussions. If they have a coalition and a nomination for Taoiseach to bring at that stage then that is fine, we vote on it. If they do not, we take the time to debate the issues of the day that are pressing. We have been elected here to be messengers of the people, and we need to have a chance to have our voices heard. Vincent Browne tweeted just after the election: "There is no reason why we can’t have a new government next Tuesday. FF/FG need to lock in 8 Independents, which should take an hour and a half." Maybe it will take a little bit longer than an hour and a half, but the idea that we go away for a month is not acceptable.

We, too, believe we should be reconvening on 15 January. So many urgent challenges face our society. Indeed, we have just spent the bulk of this afternoon outlining what those challenges are, and I think there is actually agreement on that. Even the Government acknowledges the immense challenges, particularly on housing and healthcare, and the immense challenges that may indeed arise due to other issues and incidents. I spoke earlier about the Holyhead port closure and the enormous pressure that is putting on so many people and so many businesses over this Christmas period. Therefore, I simply do not believe it would be appropriate for us to delay convening this House again until so late in January. The date of 15 January was actually set by the previous Dáil. It is the date on which we had all anticipated we would be returning, and we frankly do not see a rationale for delaying beyond that.

The date is hard to understand given the election that has just taken place and the pressing issues people raised with us as we have been out campaigning. There is a need for urgent action to address the climate crisis. There is an urgent need to do something about children with disabilities waiting for assessments of need and waiting for services, and to address the crisis in our healthcare and our hospitals. Elderly people are left waiting on chairs for 30 hours when they are sick and unwell and need rest and recuperation. Record numbers of people are without a home going into Christmas. Today, we had the news that house prices have gone up again in the past 12 months by almost 10%. These are huge crises we have now on which we need urgent action, so the idea of delaying the Dáil coming back is utterly unacceptable and sends an incredibly bad message to the electorate who put their faith in electing us to this Dáil.

I have been in business all my life - over 30 years self-employed. We might look at all the SMEs in this country. We are breaking in my business on Friday. We are back on 6 January. Most businesses around this country are working. What is wrong with this Chamber coming back to work? This is the division between real workers and real business and this Chamber. The Government is afraid to come back to work early. Why not come back on 15 January and get the work done? Everyone else in this country is going to be working. Why can we not have this House working? That is what I stand for - the working class people in this country. There is no reward for anyone in this country who works, but all the rewards are coming back into this Chamber where the Government wants to take a break until 22 January. I have no problem coming back in on 15 January because I will be back to work myself on 6 January.