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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 6 Feb 2025

Vol. 1062 No. 5

Programme for Government: Statements

Before we start, I want to mention the retirement of Tony Maher as an usher. He had a full career in An Garda Síochána and joined the Houses of the Oireachtas as an usher 13 years ago. Tony's charm and helpful personality will be missed around the Houses and by all his colleagues. Tony rides into the sunset to become a full-time grandfather. We wish Tony health, happiness and a very long retirement. Anyone who knows Tony knows that he is always really helpful and a really good guy, so we all wish him very well.

I now call on the Minister, Deputy Chambers, to make his opening statement under Standing Order 55. He is sharing the slot with the Minister, Deputy Heydon, and they have 35 minutes in total.

Before I start, I, too, want to acknowledge and thank Tony for his incredible public service over so many years as an usher and also as a member of An Garda Síochána. I wish him well in his retirement with his family. I appreciate everything he has done in his contribution to the Houses of the Oireachtas over so many years.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the programme for Government. It is an ambitious, detailed and progressive document which recognises the challenges our country faces but also clearly sets out the opportunities we have to transform our economy and society and to fundamentally improve the living standards for the more than five million people in our country. Crucially, it sets out how this Government will deliver for families, businesses and communities all over Ireland through the next five years. The measures contained in the programme give effect to the outcome of the 2024 general election. The American author Simon Sinek once said that leadership is not about the next election; it is about the next generation. That philosophy is clearly at the heart of this document. The measures reflect what the Irish people voted for and the direction in which they want to see our country progress into the future. When fully implemented, the measures in the programme for Government will also set about a step change in how we deliver essential public services to our citizens, how we scale up our public infrastructure investment and how we fully utilise the rapid change in technology to improve living standards, cut costs and decarbonise our society for the decades and generations to come.

This is my first time to address the Thirty-fourth Dáil. I congratulate all Deputies who were elected by their constituents, particularly those who were elected for the first time. It is the greatest honour of my lifetime to continue to represent the people of Dublin West. I have no doubt it is the same for everyone else here in the House. Serving and representing the people who voted for us and those who did not is why we are all here. The people should always be at the centre of all of the decisions we make in this House. Delivering for people is at the centre of this programme, which I am proud to have worked on with colleagues in recent weeks. Election 2024 came about more than 100 years after the first election in the new Irish Free State. Similar to the situation more than a century ago, election 2024 was fought at a time of profound global and economic uncertainty, as well as deep political upheaval, all of which pose significant risks for our people, our communities and our country. The Irish people faced a choice in the election and they chose stable, responsible Government with progress across the key areas that matter: public services, infrastructure delivery, helping workers and families with the cost of living and supporting businesses.

From my own perspective, I travelled across the country engaging with people from all walks of life who outlined their concerns and their hopes for the future - the young couple looking to buy their first home, the business owners trying to expand their operations, the farming families looking to hand over to the next generation, the parents trying to secure affordable childcare and ensuring better access for people with disabilities. These were some of the issues I encountered. Throughout the campaign, the Irish people listened carefully to what they were being told. They considered what the different parties were offering and they gave a mandate for different parties. That is now reflected in the context of the Government that has been formed by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Independents. The programme for Government ensures that we can set about delivering on the policies we set out in the general election. The parties that form this Government took on the responsibility in the context of the mandate we were given. Parties that excelled at diagnosing the problems but were not brave enough to deliver the antidote got their message. As a lead negotiator for my party in the Government formation talks, I want to thank all those involved in the process, which began shortly after the election and concluded last month with the publication of this document. While each party came to the talks with differing perspectives, I want to acknowledge all colleagues' dedication and commitment to delivering the best outcome for the people they represent

This programme for Government sets out an important agenda to protect and grow our economy, transform and scale up delivery of public infrastructure and provide enhanced public services to our people, with ambition and reform at the centre of everything we do. The document runs to more than 160 pages, with more than 40,000 words, and is grouped across 11 key areas of delivery. Everyone will have the opportunity to set out for Ministers and Deputies what they want to see delivered. It is a great honour for me to have been appointed by the Taoiseach as Minister for public expenditure, infrastructure, public service reform and digitalisation and I will outline some of the key area of focus for me shortly.

I also wish to highlight some of the key commitments in other areas which speak to the ambition of this Government to deliver for people, families and businesses across every aspect of life and society. Key commitments such as extending free GP care, supporting carers and protecting core social welfare payments are all contained in the section of the document dedicated to developing a more caring society. The document is incredibly ambitious about transforming our healthcare services and recognises that staffing and workforce are key to that goal. That is why we commit to recruiting additional doctors, nurses, dentists and healthcare professionals, as well as reducing waiting times, massively increasing bed capacity and opening many new elective hospitals and surgical hubs across our country.

We have also placed enhancing supports for people with disabilities front and centre in our commitments in the programme for Government. I believe a society should be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. As a country, while we recognise a lot has been done, we have significantly more to do in the context of supporting people with disabilities. Ambitious proposals to radically transform services and to better support and assist people who care for those with disabilities are included across the document.

In the section addressing investment in our future, we outline our commitments in the areas of education, higher education, children and transport, including reductions in the pupil-teacher ratio and expanding the school transport scheme. We also want to progressively reduce the cost of childcare through the national childcare scheme and explore options to cap costs for larger families, while ensuring childcare providers’ fees are open, transparent, equitable and readily available to all parents. We also commit to the provision of in-school therapies and supports, which I believe can and will bring about an important step change in special education provision in this country and will help to ensure all children can reach their potential in a more caring and nurturing environment.

We outline specific and detailed commitments to support our enterprise economy, unlock opportunities for investment, enhance our competitiveness, cut costs and make it easier for SMEs, which are the backbone of our economy, to trade and operate in our country. This also includes a commitment to create 300,000 extra jobs by 2030, supported by strategic investments, supportive enterprise policies and a focus on fostering a vibrant and competitive economy. We will also publish an action plan for competitiveness and productivity within 12 months in office.

In the area of climate, we have set ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. We must also ensure we have the correct mix of incentives and regulations to deliver those aims across all sectors of the economy while also protecting our energy security. We are also eager to reduce energy costs and we detail a range of measures to support households and businesses, as well as more radical and fundamental structural and systematic changes. This includes ramping up investment in our energy grid to make it more resilient and robust. This is a critical issue, the importance of which has been underscored by the impact of Storm Éowyn on so many households and businesses across the country.

We also want to reform existing legislation relating to the Commission for Regulation of Utilities and fully and finally unlock our country's offshore renewable energy potential.

Housing is the single biggest issue facing so many young people and families throughout our country and the document clearly reflects this across its sections. We face significant challenges relating to housing supply and have outlined a significant response, which includes the retention and enhancement of essential housing initiatives such as the first home scheme and the help-to-buy scheme, on which we will build and take further action. Increasing supply is the key to addressing the housing crisis. The Government will pursue every action possible to ensure we drive home ownership in our country and deliver real progress in housing policy, and increasing the number of social and affordable homes will be central to this.

A strong set of measures is also contained in the safe and secure community section. This includes commitments to increasing safety on public transport through the creation of a new dedicated transport security force, providing funding to recruit at least 5,000 new Garda recruits and Garda staff over the next five years, publishing a new rural safety section and enacting legislation to combat antisocial behaviour.

I have outlined just a selection of the key measures contained within this document and colleagues will outline others. What will be clear from those who contribute to this debate will be the ambition the programme has at its core in setting out a clear agenda of reform and delivery over the next five years. The job now for the Government is to turn these commitments into actions and deliver for our country. This is what I will be doing as Minister for public expenditure, infrastructure, public services, reform and digitalisation, working in collaboration with colleagues, and I am pleased the programme for Government places a specific focus on, and is incredibly ambitious about, infrastructure and embracing the digital revolution to radically overhaul and enhance public services delivery.

In five years, we want this Government to be defined by its ability to deliver, and my ambition is for this to be the Government that truly makes a step change in infrastructure delivery in particular. Infrastructure has been identified as a critical issue facing our country and economy, but we have reasons to be confident and optimistic for our future. We are at full employment and have a highly skilled workforce. Inflation has stabilised and the public finances are strong, and we have invested €10 billion in our two long-term funds and will continue to make these investments in both funds. All of this is in our favour to drive forward economic growth and prosperity for our country.

We know, however, that our economic success and competitiveness is being stifled by infrastructural gaps in critical areas such as water, energy, housing and transport, and if we can properly tackle and address these infrastructural deficits, we can go a huge way towards unlocking the full potential of our enterprise economy. There is clear prioritisation and the ambition given in the programme is to transform infrastructure development. These include structural changes within my Department, with the establishment of a new infrastructure division to co-ordinate delivery across government. It also encompasses a commitment to completely reviewing the national development plan by the summer to map out a revised blueprint for the delivery of major capital investment for towns, cities, regions and communities throughout Ireland in the next decade.

In tandem with transforming infrastructure, the ongoing sensible management of State spending is the primary role of my Department. The Government will submit to the EU a new medium-term fiscal plan, which I and the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, will lead on and which will be published at the same time as the summer economic statement. We know we face potentially significant headwinds from changes in international trade and moves towards a more deglobalised economic approach. This poses significant risks to Ireland as a small, open-trading economy and prudent, sensible management of our economy is critical. We have developed a strong set of principles in the programme for Government to protect our economy, drive further growth, support enterprise and embrace innovation to enhance competitiveness.

I am acutely aware economic growth is essential not only to creating jobs and higher living standards but also to improving public services. This is why we have committed to key principles for managing our economy, including running budget surpluses and funding appropriate levels of current and capital expenditure growth to meet the needs of changing demographics. We have also committed to running progressive budgets through the lifetime of the Government and reducing public debt as a share of national income. Other key economic principles we have adopted include maintaining a broad tax base to guard against the need for countercyclical fiscal policy in the event of a downturn and ensuring we implement progressive changes in taxation while the economy remains strong.

These fundamental principles we have committed to at Government will allow our country to withstand and overcome the headwinds we face and will ensure we are in a strong position to take advantage of opportunities such as the digitalisation of our economy. To overcome any challenges, we need to ensure we protect living standards, as we have seen in the measures taken in previous years with the unprecedented interventions the Government made. We also need to ensure that value for money is at the centre of delivery, and examining how we are spending taxpayers' money and ensuring we get better value for money will be a key mission for me in my role as Minister for public expenditure and in ensuring public money is used efficiently and effectively.

We are also expanding the role of digitalisation in my Department, something that features heavily throughout the programme for Government. It is clear that if we harness digitalisation properly, we can provide a much-enhanced service to our citizens while cutting costs and decarbonising our economy. Strong digital government is also seen by foreign direct investors as representing a forward-thinking, innovative country focused on talent creation, with an openness to co-investment, and we must embrace this opportunity in ensuring we develop a more co-ordinated approach to digital policy in order that we can fully leverage the benefits of utilising the most modern technologies.

We have seen the strength and agility of our public service in responding to numerous shocks in recent years. We will now move forward to build on this and strengthen our public services further to ensure they evolve to meet the needs of a modern Ireland and all our people. The public services of the future will be designed for and with our public, delivering increasingly effective and integrated public services and ensuring value for money. The programme for Government sets out how this will be a Government that protects our country from the challenges ahead and responds to the needs of our people with a reforming zeal at its core. Every measure is a stepping stone to delivering a better, fairer and more prosperous Ireland, not just for today but also for future generations. The job for all of us in government is now to deliver for the people and ensure this programme is implemented in full.

Before we proceed, I welcome Pennsylvania supreme court justice Mr. Kevin Dougherty, who is visiting Leinster House today and is in the Public Gallery.

I too welcome Kevin and say céad míle fáilte. He is very welcome and I hope he will enjoy his visit. I also acknowledge Tony and his years of public service to the State, both here in the Oireachtas and in An Garda Síochána before that. Public service takes many different forms. We thank him very much for his contribution to the State and wish him and his family a long and healthy retirement.

I am particularly proud of the programme for Government because, for the first and only time in my political career, I was asked by our party leader, Simon Harris, to participate in the negotiations for it as part of the Fine Gael team. It is a responsibility I took very seriously and it was a great honour to do so. Over the course of the five or six weeks of negotiating the programme for Government, we set out and charted a course for the country that, we hope, will allow us over the next five years to build a strong, stable Government that can deliver for the country and its people. We hope it will allow us to deliver five budgets over five years to help us reach our potential, as the Minister, Deputy Chambers, mentioned, by addressing the infrastructural deficits and the many challenges we face while enabling us to be as resilient and well prepared as we can be for the many headwinds that are coming our way, both nationally and internationally.

I might first reflect on the programme for Government from the aspect of my new role as Minister at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. The programme for Government recognises the critical role farmers, fishers, foresters and food businesses play in Ireland's society and economy. The sector is responsible for the stewardship of 4.5 million ha of agricultural land and more than 800,000 ha of forestry. It comprises 133,000 farms, 2,000 fishing vessels and aquaculture sites and 2,000 food production and beverage enterprises. It employs more than 170,000 people, or 6.4% of the workforce, and a far greater proportion percentage-wise in our rural and coastal communities.

We know the economic spend and benefit that economic activity has and its importance for that rural economy. It is a sector where collaborative engagement between the State's research infrastructure and commercial enterprises are resulting in remarkable innovation and ingenuity. The small local enterprises this sector spawned have blossomed into world leaders. Their achievements, supported by farmers, are remarkable. This is a sector with a bright future supported by a programme for Government that recognises its critical importance and potential. This Government will continue to support farmers and the agri-food sector using every policy lever available, as well as supporting our fishers and foresters in the vital role they do. We will ensure vital farm payments are protected and expanded. An increased Vote provision of €2.5 billion in 2025 will allow my Department to provide increased targeted supports for our beef, sheep meat and tillage sectors in 2025. We will support a strong and effective CAP, having provided a combined total of €9.8 billion between EU and national financing under the current programme. The CAP underpins the sustainability of the agri-food sector, rural development and environmental stewardship. This Government will continue to work at EU level to ensure we have an adequately funded CAP in the future which can maintain a stable income for farmers, support sustainable food production and contribute to climate and environmental ambitions. My role in this new Government is important in working with colleagues across government as we fight for that fair share of the multi-financial framework that is the overall EU budget. A key part of this reform in the area of CAP will be around delivering a CAP that is better suited to Irish farmers. If I am still in this position in 17 months' time as a member of the AGRIFISH Council of EU agriculture ministers, I will assume the chair when Ireland takes the Presidency in the second half of 2026. That will be a pivotal moment as Europe is agreeing a new CAP. There will be an opportunity over those six months to frame a CAP in the best interests of European farmers and recognises the important strategic goals of Ireland and its farmers. It will be a great opportunity to deliver real simplification for our farmers. I see the next 17 months between now and then as my opportunity to build relations and allegiances across Europe, work with Commissioner Hansen and his team in the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development and make sure we put our best foot forward for Ireland and make the most of the opportunity the EU Presidency will give for our farmers, fishers and foresters.

This Government will also tackle the problem of intergenerational transfer of farms. We already do a lot in this space but we need to do more. As well as examining the generational renewal report due back in the coming months, there are existing supports that effectively have a very low take-up rate. I want to see why they are not being taken up to the same level. We know the stress and strain around generational renewal and succession, whether there is an identified successor in the family or not. Getting more young farmers into our sector is key. At the heart of succession is the point around income. Farmers cannot go green if they are in the red financially. We have to support our farmers in that economic piece, whether that is the environment or succession. At the heart of what we want to do is supporting those incomes to make farming a viable proposition for our rural communities. I am also committed to implementing the national women in agriculture action plan to recognise the role of women in farming. This Government will do everything in its power to build a strong case for the renewal of the nitrates derogation at EU level. Supported across government, there is now unprecedented engagement across the entire agri-food industry to drive improvements in our water quality. The establishment of a Cabinet sub-committee chaired by the Taoiseach, bringing in all sectors, not just agriculture but the EPA, local authorities, Uisce Éireann, is a critical step and pivotal point in our programme for Government. I will work with the new Ministers of State - Deputy Grealish will focus on food promotion, new markets and research and development, building a modern, outward-looking sector for the future. As Minister of State for fisheries and the marine, when Deputy Dooley is appointed, he will develop a strategy for the development of this vitally important sector. Total Government spend across the seafood sector over the five-year period 2020-2024 was in excess €800 million, which includes investment of almost €160 million in State-owned public marine infrastructure. This Government will continue to pursue all avenues to increase fishing opportunities for the Irish fishing sector while maintaining sustainable stock levels based on scientific evidence. We will also maintain support for the inshore fishing, aquaculture and processing sectors, underpinning the vital role fishing and the marine have for our coastal communities.

This Government will continue to support the forestry sector and provide attractive financial incentives to farmers to plant, given the beneficial environment impact and commercial opportunities. I am certain that my colleague the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, will bring a new focus to this sector and to the development of the horticulture sector. The agri-food sector is a modern, dynamic, future-focused sector with roots in the domestic economy but an economic footprint right across the world. I look forward to working closely with my Minister of State colleagues and with all stakeholders from farm organisations and industry bodies to deliver on the potential of this great sector through the commitments in our programme for Government. This programme for Government also has a keen focus on continuing our investment through the Department of rural affairs in our rural communities. The community and voluntary sector has benefited greatly in our public realm through town and village renewals schemes and beyond and in our sports capital programmes. We see that investment in every community the length and breadth of this country. This programme for Government wants to do that. In my county, Kildare, there are many of the challenges this programme for Government looks to address - issues at the heart of the challenges we face, such as housing with our growing economy and population. County Kildare has doubled in population since 1991, with the growing pains that brings for our transport sector and for those commuting - delivering fairer fares with changes to the short hop zone and delivering for small and medium-sized businesses which employ people and create opportunities. I mentioned commuting but for those who want to work in Kildare, better quality of life and more employment opportunities across our county, particularly in south Kildare, continue to be a key focus of mine. School places and transport and supporting that next generation in the education system and those who work in it is a critical part of this programme for Government, as is supporting families to reduce the cost of childcare and supporting those who work in the childcare sector by building a modern, resilient childcare sector that is a support to parents and children and those who work in the area. Disabilities is an area that is a key focus for all of us as public representatives when we deal with individual cases. Whether assessment of needs or school-leavers coming out of special schools looking to transition into employment opportunities, this programme for Government has a significant focus on those issues. The appointment of a Minister and a Minister of State in this area points to that commitment. I look forward to making significant progress in areas like assessment of needs and beyond.

In County Kildare, we have some key specific issues. I am delighted at the implementation of the conservation management plain for the Curragh Plains. It is a unique resource of 5,000 acres in the heart of County Kildare. It is a jewel in the Irish crown, not just in our county. It is a fantastic resource that needs to be managed better and more proactively for those who live on it, use it for recreational purposes, for tourism opportunities and for the many people whose livelihoods are involved in it such as our military, the racehorse sector, sheep farmers and many more. The conservation management plan and commitment in the programme for Government for it to be implemented was a key priority for me. I am very glad to see it delivered in this programme for Government and it is something I will continue to follow through on during this time.

The programme for Government also refers to infrastructure and the infrastructural deficit we have around the country; seeing projects delivered across a new national development plan will be a key part of that. There is a focus on transport in the programme, with a second bridge in Newbridge an example of a key infrastructural project I want to see delivered in this Dáil term. The programme also mentions supports for businesses, in particular lowering the VAT rate for our hospitality sector and bringing in increased business support for our small and medium-sized businesses due to the pressures they have faced with increased costs in recent years. There is also more investment in our health services in the programme. Naas hospital is a good example of somewhere that suffers those growing pains of a county that has doubled in population in a relatively short period. Our primary care centre network continues to be rolled out and expanded. We want to see more supports in our community, supporting those who work in our health sector and seeing increased investment in this hospital and beyond. This is a programme for Government that I feel has the potential to deliver for our people, the people of Kildare, from my perspective as a TD for that county, our farmers, fishers and foresters. I look forward to working with colleagues across government to see its implementation in the years ahead.

I join with other colleagues in thanking Tony and wishing him the very best in the future. I cannot think of any better job to prepare you for being a grandparent than being an usher in Leinster House and herding the bag of cats that is often the TDs in this place. We wish him all the very best.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

When it comes to housing, the seven threadbare pages of the programme for Government are the very definition of insanity. The Government uses the words "ambition" and "detailed". There is no ambition in these seven pages and there is certainly no detail. What we have got are vague, unclear and, at times, repetitive commitments that tell us one very simple thing, which is this Government will do exactly the same as the previous Government and the one before it with respect to housing. This means the crisis is going to get worse. This is not just my view. Look at the opinion poll in the Sunday Independent at the weekend, which found 52% of people do not believe the Government is even trying to tackle the housing crisis. A total of 82% of people said the Government will not fix the housing crisis. Even if the Government is not willing to listen to us, it should at least pay attention to the wider public.

Let us have a look at this document and see what is lacking. First of all, the targets are wrong. The targets are lower than what every independent body, including the Government's own appointed Housing Commission, is saying what is required. If we start at the top with the wrong targets, then everything below it will be inadequate. Not only are the global targets wrong but the social housing targets are too low. They are well below what the homeless service providers and others tell us we need. There are not even affordable housing targets. The previous Government had no annual affordable housing targets and nor does this one. Nor is there anything to address the fact the so-called affordable homes the Government is delivering, of which there are far too few, are not affordable. This means more of the same.

The most bizarre thing is that the title of the chapter on housing is "Accelerating Housing Supply", yet there is not a single proposal in these pages that will accelerate this supply. In fact, one of the weakest areas after the targets is the delivery. Nowhere does the Government actually explain how it will increase or accelerate the delivery of public housing through reform of procurement or improvement in the Department, or private housing through greater support for the SME sector. The only thing that is clear from this is the Government will continue pushing up house prices. It will do so by extending the controversial first home scheme to second-hand homes, which will mean an extra €90,000 to push up the price of houses, locking out ever more young couples and single people from ever owning their own home.

I know the Government has no interest in listening to, or engaging in, the very large volume of positive alternative proposals we put forward. We know the Government will not do this. What baffles me is that the previous Government appointed a Housing Commission, getting together the country's leading experts in public and private housing delivery who spent two and a half years producing a report of hundreds of pages, but it is not even referenced in the document. Not a single one of its key recommendations is in it. The previous Minister for housing did not even have the courtesy to meet the commission before he disbanded it and then the Government disposed of its work. No wonder members of the commission have publicly said how disappointed they are with this plan and how it will not deal with the crisis. The members of the commission are saying this document is disappointing and will not resolve the problems. Listen to them if you will not listen to us.

Going through the other areas, there is nothing new or serious for renters in terms of rights or protection. The Government has completely ignored the ten key recommendations of the homeless policy group, which were sent to it only two or three weeks before the programme was finalised. It sets out what will be needed to tackle the homelessness crisis. There is nothing new for people struggling with defective blocks in Mayo, Donegal, Clare and elsewhere. There is no indication of any urgency in tackling Celtic tiger-era defects. The funding promised two years ago for fire safety remediation works still has not been provided to a single scheme anywhere in the country. There is nothing new for those in social housing, flat complexes and estates who are in desperate need of urban regeneration and deep retrofit. They will continue to live in some of the poorest quality housing in the State, and this is owned and managed by the Government.

What we have seen in the Minister's remarks is that the gap between rhetoric and reality is growing ever greater. It has become a hallmark of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that it treats these debates with a level of dishonesty. Just as they were caught out claiming 40,000 new-build homes would be delivered last year, they are now repeating another untruth by saying 60,000 new homes were started on site last year when they were not. We will continue to hold the Government to account. We will continue to propose detailed radical realistic alternatives and, eventually, we will have a housing policy that tackles this crisis, but it is not in this programme for Government.

The number of patients on hospital trolleys in the month of January alone was 13,972. This is quite phenomenal and broke all records. It seems the only thing the Government is good at when it comes to health, housing and other areas is breaking records for all the wrong reasons. All of the people left on hospital trolleys, and others sitting in chairs and corridors in emergency departments, are people who are not being treated with dignity and not being treated with respect. It is the same for the staff, who are working in very difficult circumstances. Some of those circumstances have often been described as war zones because of how chaotic they are. I have been in touch with many nurses in December, January and now into February, and they say there has been no let up.

You would imagine, given all of these well-rehearsed crises and all of the debates we have had in the House on health, housing, the cost of living and many of these issues, that the Government would come forward with real plans with ambition and detail in its programme for Government. Of course, we were all bitterly disappointed. Never have I seen a document so vague when it comes to healthcare. We produced a very comprehensive plan. The Government can dismiss our plans all it wants but they were based on what is practical, realistic, deliverable and necessary to transform healthcare, to take patients off trolleys and put them into beds, to make sure people can have timely access to a GP, to make sure children with disabilities get access to the services they need, to make sure children with scoliosis get the care they need in a timely fashion, and to make sure people do not have their procedures cancelled and are not waiting for years on end for basic care.

Community waiting lists have increased, as have mental health waiting lists. Acute hospital waiting lists have remained static. The national children's hospital has still not been built. All there is in the programme for Government on the national children's hospital is laughable. There is one line, "Open the National Children’s Hospital". There is no sense of detail, timescale, urgency or recognition of all of the challenges. It just states "Open the National Children’s Hospital".

There is a long list of measures which I found laughable as somebody who takes my responsibility as health spokesperson very seriously. I set out in detail what needs to be done. For example, on workforce planning we said we would hire 40,000 additional health staff over five years. What was in the programme for Government? There is one line on hiring more doctors, nurses and healthcare specialists. If I produced, that I would be laughed out of the room by the Government and those in the media. "Hire" could mean one, 50 or 100. What we do know, and we can judge the Government on its record, is that it put in place an embargo and a pay and numbers strategy that has now resulted in the potential for industrial action by healthcare trade unions due to the mess the Government has made of it.

The programme for Government references training more healthcare professionals. This is the Government's big workforce plan. There is one line on training more healthcare professionals. We produced very detailed proposals on a 50% increase in training places in some areas and a 100% increase in others where it is necessary, additional measures to support GPs and directly hiring GPs. We provided the numbers, the funding and the detail, again because we take our job seriously and we want to fix the problems in healthcare. The best the Government could come up with was to train more doctors and nurses. In reality, if we are being serious, the new Minister for Health and whoever was negotiating for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael did not write the programme for Government. It was written primarily by civil servants in the Department of Health and the head of the HSE. It is so embarrassing in lacking ambition and detail that in reality what it displays is that the Government has no plan. It has no vision or idea. It depended on civil servants to give it something to put in the programme for Government when, in fact, it had no ideas or vision of its own. This is no surprise to me given the election manifestos the two parties produced on health, which were threadbare when it came to new ideas.

We will not see a change in healthcare. We will not see the trolley crisis dealt with. People are waiting far too long to access healthcare. They are waiting longer than ever to access a GP. Some people, particularly medical card holders, cannot even access a dentist because they have left the scheme due to inadequacies and failures on the Government's part. Children with disabilities and older people cannot get access to care in their home. All of these are real challenges that impact on the people we collectively represent. Unfortunately, the programme for Government has more of the same and more failure instead of what we in Sinn Féin produced, which is a plan that would tackle these problems.

As we make statements in the House on the programme for Government, I am acutely aware of the people throughout the State who have been failed since the Government took office.

We know this has not happened today or yesterday. It has been happening for years, as we can see in the infrastructural deficits, particularly in the west. Mar a dúirt mé inné the response to the disaster of Storm Éowyn has demonstrated what another five years of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will mean for them.

Today, the ESB has confirmed that citizens are still without power in County Mayo. They number 2,000 in Galway, 2,750 in County Roscommon and 2,050 in County Leitrim. It prompts one to ask whether this Government's mantra is "to hell or to Connacht". The Government was completely flatfooted even though the likely damage following the storm was well flagged. I have been contacted by hundreds of businesses following the storm, including farm and fishing enterprises. Many of these businesses were already struggling to stay open. In terms of retail, Mayo is one of the counties with the highest number of vacancies among retail premises. These businesses need help now. Will the Government introduce a scheme to support businesses impacted by the storm? These businesses need to know.

The programme for Government commits to publishing and implementing a new digital strategy to fully realise the economic potential of the digital and AI revolution. I would support the introduction of such a strategy and I look forward to working constructively to deliver it. As the Government is aware, however, far too many people throughout the State remain without broadband. Indeed, the national broadband plan confirms that large parts of rural Ireland still do not have access to high-speed Internet. This is a prerequisite for businesses and must be addressed immediately.

The programme for Government makes further commitments to publish a new whole-of-Government action plan for competitiveness and productivity within 12 months. This is critical but such a plan must be completed on a national basis. I urge the Government to undertake the maximum level of engagement with Ministers in the Executive in the North, especially the finance, economy and infrastructure Ministers, as there is much joined-up work that can be done for the betterment of all. The recently launched ESRI macroeconomic model will be vital and a game-changing tool for the development of economic policy throughout the island. I welcome the innovations that it will bring and I am delighted that IBEC has supported this work as well, but the Government needs to ensure that further research can be leveraged from that. I welcome in the programme for Government the aim that all Departments would be tasked with having a North-South remit in specific areas of their portfolios. I want to see that developed.

Ahead of the general election, the Government committed to lowering the VAT rate on food-based hospitality, entertainment and hairdressing businesses. This does not appear in the programme for Government although media reports have indicated that it will be a part of budget negotiations. That is way too long to wait, particularly in the aftermath of the storm. Reducing the VAT rate has to be brought forward without any further delay. Nobody benefits from businesses going to the wall, least of all the people who are employed by them and the business owners who have worked so hard. These industries need clarity as to which businesses are affected so that the Government must move at pace with the commitment around the VAT rate. I note that the finance Minister in the North, John O'Dowd, has stated his intention to raise this matter with the British Treasury in respect of businesses in the North. Island harmonisation on this measure is important and is something on which I will be seeking progress.

The programme for Government describes the CETA trade agreement as benefiting Irish SMEs. It will do no such thing. It is a bad deal. It is a bad deal for workers' rights, for the environment and for the public purse and it should not be ratified.

In ainneoin go bhfuil Aire sinsearach ann don Ghaeltacht agus don Ghaeilge faoi dheireadh, mar a mhol Sinn Féin agus grúpaí eile thar na blianta - tréaslaím leis an Aire, an Teachta Calleary, as an dualgas nua atá roimhe - is cosúil ón gclár Rialtais nach bhfuil sé i gceist ag an Rialtas go ndéanfaidh sé mórán sa ról sin. Is céim chun cúl ón gclár Rialtais a bhí ann roimhe seo, in 2020, atá sa chlár Rialtais nua. Athrá ar gheallúintí nár baineadh amach iad atá ann den chuid is mó. Mar shampla, gealltar anois treoirlínte pleanála Gaeltachta a thionscnamh, rud a bhí geallta in 2021. Níl siad dréachtaithe agus níl siad feicthe ag aon duine go fóill. Gealltar pleananna speisialta forbartha a thionscnamh do cheantair Ghaeltachta le spriocanna tithíochta ar leith, cé gur vótáil Fianna Fáil agus Fine Gael ina choinne nuair a chuir mise leasú ar an mBille pleanála chun a leithéid a chinntiú. B'fhéidir go bhfuil siad tar éis teacht trasna chuig an méid atá le rá againn. Gealltar sa phlean nua seo freisin toghcháin díreach d'Údarás na Gaeltachta a thabhairt ar ais, toghcháin a bhí in ainm a bheith againn anuraidh agus roimhe ach nár tharla go fóill. Táimid fós ag fanacht air sin. Gealltar tacaíocht do theaghlaigh Ghaeltachta ar nós an gheallúint a thug an tAire, an Teachta O'Donovan, chun scéim labhairt na Gaeilge a thabhairt ar ais. Níor tharla sé sin ach oiread. I gcás Fianna Fáil agus Fine Gael i rialtas, is F, F agus F na torthaí a bheadh acu dá mbeadh gráid á dtabhairt amach maidir le geallúintí don teanga, don Ghaeltacht ná don Ghaeloideachas a chomhlíonadh.

In 2020, gealladh sa chlár Rialtais go mbeadh dúbailt ar líon na ndaltaí i scoileanna lán-Ghaeilge ach thit an líon sin ó shin. Níl an gheallúint sin sa chlár Rialtais atá againn i mbliana. Gealladh chomh maith polasaí cuimsitheach a chur ar fáil don Ghaeilge ón oideachas réamhscolaíochta go dtí oiliúint múinteoirí, rud nach bhfuil déanta agus nach bhfuil le feiceáil sa chlár Rialtais seo. Gealladh tuilleadh béim a chur ar an nGaeilge labhartha ar scoil ach ní ghealltar sin a thuilleadh. Gealladh lárionaid Ghaeilge a fhorbairt ar fud na tíre, rud eile nár tharla agus nach bhfuil ann a thuilleadh. Is léir nár éist Fianna Fáil ná Fine Gael leis na saineolaithe maidir leis an ngéarchéim teanga atá ann. Tá líon na gcainteoirí laethúla Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht ag titim. Níl daoine Gaeltachta in ann teach a cheannach ná a thógáil. Níl ach teaghlach amháin as gach cúig sa Ghaeltacht ag tógáil a chlainne le Gaeilge. Tá 11 contae gan Ghaelcholáiste. Níl fáil ag tuismitheoirí ar scoileanna lán-Ghaeilge dá n-ógánaigh agus tá líon na ndíolúintí ar scoil tar éis pléascadh mar thoradh ar chritéir an Aire, an Teachta Foley. Tá dalta amháin as gach ochtar anois nach bhfuil ag foghlaim ár dteanga náisiúnta, atá in ainm a bheith mar chroí-ábhar scoile do chách. Ag an am céanna, tá Foras na Gaeilge anois ag fógairt ciorruithe toisc easpa maoinithe agus tá mná tí ag tréigean earnáil na gcoláistí samhraidh.

Tuigeann muidne i Sinn Féin an dúshlán. Leanfaimid ag moladh bealaí uaillmhianacha agus indéanta chun ár dteanga a tharrtháil. Má tá spéis ag an Rialtas ann, b'fhéidir go dtabharfaidh sé éisteacht dúinn agus do na heagrais Ghaeilge agus Ghaeltachta atá ag leagan síos pleananna. B'fhéidir go ndéanfaidh an Rialtas athdhéanamh ar an bplean Rialtais atá aige. Impím ar an Rialtas agus ar an Aire go háirithe, mar tá na pinginí ina sheilbh agus i seilbh an Rialtais seo, a súile a oscailt don ghéarchéim atá ann don teanga agus airgead, maoiniú agus áiseanna a chur i dtreo réiteach na bhfadhbanna atá ann. Ba chóir dóibh gníomhú dá réir, rud nach bhfuil déanta ina iomláine go dtí seo.

As this is my first time speaking in this new Dáil, I want to thank the people in Limerick who elected me for a third time. I thank my family and friends and those who campaigned and supported me in that, whether they gave me their first preference or a different preference. "Go raibh maith agat" to everybody for sending me back here for a third time.

On health, the programme for Government is the same rehash of undelivered old commitments and contains no solutions for the daily crisis we encounter in University Hospital Limerick, UHL. The programme for Government is 161 pages long and has one mention of UHL. To say the people of Limerick are disappointed by that would be an understatement. Considering the consistent level of overcrowding at the hospital and the litany of unfortunate and avoidable deaths arising out of that overcrowding, the programme for Government is an extremely disappointing document.

Should the Government need reminding, UHL is the most overcrowded hospital in the State and is one that is in a daily crisis with hundreds of people being treated on hospital trolleys, chairs and corridors. Already the figures for 2025 are stark. For instance today, there are 103 people on trolleys and 2,551 people so far this year have waited on trolleys or chairs with no bed available for them. It is an utter disgrace.

In January this year, 2,234 people were treated in this manner. This is even higher than the 2,073 people treated in those conditions in January 2024 so it is clearly getting worse. What is often lost when we talk about these numbers is that each of these figures represents a person, sometimes one of our friends or a member of our family who has been deemed to be in need of a hospital bed but no bed is available to them. The programme contains a list of measures previously promised and not delivered. It is a document absent of vision and crucially lacks the funding and efficiencies needed to drive reform.

The people of Limerick and the wider mid-west will be disappointed with the complete absence of detail pertaining to the crisis at our hospital. With the challenges facing staff and patients at UHL, it is shocking that it is almost unmentioned in the programme for Government document. Perhaps it is an indication of the scant commitment Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have to resolving the multitude of challenges in health. In a 161-page document, a one-line vague commitment to increase capacity falls far short of the ambition needed.

Last year, in conjunction with my colleague Deputy David Cullinane, we published a comprehensive plan for addressing the crisis in health in the mid-west region. To address these challenges in the long term we need to at the very least deliver 288 acute inpatient beds at UHL; establish additional emergency department capacity in the region with a review of the closure of Ennis, St. John's and Nenagh hospitals; end the HSE recruitment embargo; bolster out-of-hours GP care and deliver a Pharmacy First minor ailments scheme; and legislate to mandate safe staffing levels in every hospital while engaging directly with workers.

On housing, the programme for Government says again that it acknowledges that “housing is a major social and economic challenge that touches every generation” and goes on to state that "a radical step change to housing supply to rise to that fundamental challenge" is needed. In the last Dáil, these two parties consistently missed their targets, year after year. They did not deliver on housing and I do not believe they can.

In Limerick city house prices remain beyond the reach of many people. The purchase price of a house increased year on year, from 2023 to 2024, by 13% with the cost of the typical home approaching €300,000. It is not any better for renters because the average monthly rent now stands a €2,107 per month, which is a 21% increase year on year. Given these types of costs, is it any wonder that 69% of 25-year-olds - a generation which has been failed by this Government and previous ones - are living with their parents?

I deal daily with people seeking housing assistance. From single men to families, people are desperately in need of housing. Many people have been waiting years for housing. Many workers on low to average incomes have no chance of purchasing and little chance of affording the astronomical private rents. We need to ramp up delivery of new homes. At the same time, local authority homes lie vacant across Limerick due to the Government’s failure to address properly the vacant council-owned properties and release the funds we need to deal properly with the voids issue.

Of course, in the general election these parties told us that completions would hit the 40,000 mark by the end of 2024. They told us that their housing plan was working, but it was not working. Targets were missed and last year there were not 40,000 houses completed. It was actually 10,000 less homes than what the Government was talking about.

The programme for Government outlines some ambitions in the delivery of mental health services and this is to be welcomed. We will not be found wanting in supporting these measures if the ambition outlined in this document is matched by timely action. Unfortunately, our experience of these two Government parties when it comes to mental health is one of false promises and delayed delivery. The programme for Government commits to the enactment of the Mental Health Bill. It acknowledges that this Bill is "essential to modernise our mental health services". I could not agree more with this sentiment but it needs to be delivered. When it comes to the Mental Health Bill, there has been false dawn after false dawn. After two and a half years of delay, the Government will forgive my scepticism that these two parties are now committed to the delivery of this legislation. The programme for Government for the Thirty-third Dáil promised to reform the Mental Health Act, and yet here we are at the start of the Thirty-fourth Dáil with more commitments to deliver the same. Mental health remains an under-resourced area of our health system. Mental health challenges can impact anybody at any time. Early intervention is crucial to managing one’s mental health. We in Limerick are fortunate to have so many fabulous support groups that offer their time and their energy, often voluntarily, to the cause of mental health. The previous Government, made up of the two parties opposite, did not treat mental health issues with the urgency needed and I remain to be convinced that this Government will be any different.

I will start by wishing our usher, Mr. Tony Maher, the very best for the future in his retirement. I thank him for his courtesy to all of us in the House and in the Labour Party down through the years. I also thank him for his constant help and guidance throughout those years. We wish him the best in his retirement. The real work now starts with the grandchildren. He will be wishing he could come back in here in a couple of weeks time, trust me. The very best wishes from all of us.

I am sharing time with my colleague from Limerick, Deputy Conor Sheehan. We will take seven and a half minutes each.

I will commence my discussion of the programme for Government by focusing on how it will be implemented. I will not go through everything in it but I will look at some issues which I feel should be dealt with but which are not in it, or are not in it to a sufficient level.

First, there is a lot of good stuff in the programme for Government. There is much where there can be mutual agreement on the issues involved. There is also loads of stuff which we would totally disagree with and there is also stuff where we believe there is simply not enough emphasis. I will go through some of that later. There is also an issue as to how this is going to be implemented given the three components of this Government and the question of transparency regarding how that is going to happen. That will be my focus over the term of this Government, over the term of the new capital development plan and over the new HSE plan, in relation to which, coincidentally, Ministers cannot under law direct the HSE. The board of the HSE are independent and separate from the Government. A Minister for Health cannot actually direct the HSE on these issues. They can talk and guide, but they cannot direct.

I believe the transparency of decision-making on the capital plan for this country needs to be reviewed. Such a review is always needed from time to time. The way in which that is done and the interaction between the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform and the other Departments and the relevant State agencies needs to be very transparent too. That is an issue on which the Labour Party and I will focus minutely with regard to every State agency and Department.

In the area of justice, we have a crisis in An Garda Síochána. I represent Templemore and I know all about it. It is the worst crisis we have ever had on Garda numbers and it is getting worse. From recent figures, I know that these numbers are decreasing again and people are resigning. I will not rephrase the whole thing about recruitment and retention but we need a whole new plan on how we will have a functioning Garda Síochána. It is not in this programme for Government. It states 5,000 gardaí. There is not a hope or prayer of that. Gardaí are demoralised. They do not feel that they have the support. Their pay, pensions, entitlements and lifestyle are all at rock bottom. Until that is addressed, we will not be able to deal with it the crisis I have mentioned.

There is also statement in the programme for Government looking at other training facilities across the State. A site of over 200 acres out the road in Clonmore was bought a number of years ago. It is beside the Garda College. That is where the expansion should happen, right beside the college.

On health, we have serious issues from a capital point of view on the requirement for elective hospitals, the National Maternity Hospital, the national children's hospital. My colleague Deputy Sheehan and myself will be beating the drum with regard to UHL and the need for another accident and emergency facility in the mid-west. There are some very simple things which can be done. This must be the tenth time I have mentioned one of them in here. I really wish the Minister, Deputy Chambers, was here to hear this because this proposal will save the taxpayer money as well as being good policy. It is this: we need employment orders in healthcare and, for instance, for home help. Every Deputy in here deals with this issue. A person can get as many hours as he or she wants but it is pointless because the workers are not there. The reason they are not there is that people will not do the work because it is not paid well and it is difficult work at times.

However, many people would be willing to do it if the conditions were better. We need an employment order on the rate of pay, travel, meals and other allowances. An employment order would mean more people would work and more people would stay at home so the taxpayer would not get caught for more people going into nursing homes and more people ending up in acute care which can cost €1,600 per night. I received an answer to a parliamentary question which demonstrated that thousands of people end up spending three, six and up to nine months and longer in acute settings at €1,600 per night who should not be there. This is financially the right thing to do and from a healthcare point of view it is the right thing to do.

I will jump into a few more things. The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, needs to be completely gutted. First, it needs to be separated into two bodies. It is not fit for purpose. The Government's document says it is looking into separating the functions because many issues are not being dealt with promptly. We almost need Joe Duffy to raise issues before they end up being dealt with by the commission. It is ridiculous. I have sympathy for the staff though. They simply do not have enough resources. In fact, they have said so.

It really annoyed me that the last Government and the previous one did not progress offshore wind. Offshore wind is our oil. The fact that the designated maritime area plans, DMAPs, have not been progressed to the level required is wrong. I am delighted that a very capable Minister of State is now in charge of it and will focus on it. However, the timelines around which this is planned simply do not meet our requirements as a State and that needs to be re-examined.

These are only the issues I wanted to raise. There are many more. One other issue is rural transport. People often give out about the Green Party. I did when it was in the last Government, but it did not get everything wrong. Progress was made on rural transport. It is important to acknowledge that and to accept, in fairness to the Green Party, it did that. However, we have a real emergency and more of it is required in the area of taxis and rural hackneys. A completely new rural hackney licence is needed for rural Ireland because it is impossible to get taxis across the country, as it is in urban areas.

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and echo the comments of my colleague, Deputy Kelly, about Tony Maher.

This programme for Government contains more reviews than the RTÉ Guide and offers little in the way of hope for renters, people on the housing list or people languishing in hotels, especially in my city, Limerick. It offers more of the same and does not contain anything remotely resembling the radical reset in housing policy called for in the Government's own Housing Commission report. It is difficult to objectively critique the Government's housing policy because it does not have one. Fine Gael's attitude to housing is to leave it to Fianna Fáil and Fianna Fáil in turn has attempted something a little like a David Blaine-style illusion, promising 40,000 homes per year in the run-up to the election when the reality was just 30,350 and that was revealed, of course, after the fact. The Taoiseach and the previous Minister for housing chose to ignore the warnings from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, and the Central Bank that completion figures would be nowhere near 40,000 and continued parroting that figure because it suited them in the run-up to the general election. There is no doubt in my mind but that it benefited them in the election. Not only was this House deceived, but the general public were deceived and that damages trust and integrity in politics. The Taoiseach said yesterday in the Dáil that it was his genuine belief that we would reach 40,000, despite the fact that every available expert was telling him we would not.

The programme for Government commits to delivering 300,000 homes per year by 2030 with scant detail on how this will be achieved. We are just to believe it will happen by osmosis, just as we were to believe that 40,000 homes would be built last year. Within the seven pages dedicated to housing in the programme for Government, there is no stated commitment to examine any of the key recommendations from the Housing Commission, the Government's independent body, which it has effectively decided to pretend does not exist. The Department of housing stated previously it would undertake a full assessment of the report and cost its implementation. With no mention of this in the programme for Government, I will be forgiven for being doubtful.

The Government has committed to a new housing programme which, to all intents and purposes, sounds like Housing for All with a nip, tuck and a bit of botox. As a new Deputy in the House, today feels like Groundhog Day because here we are at the start of a new term with the Government intent on ploughing on with the worst of the previous administration.

In my city of Limerick, the Land Development Agency, LDA, has a number of key strategic sites, such as the Colbert quarter where there is potential for at least 2,800 homes to be built, the gasworks site, the Rosbrien site and so on. Yet, three years on from its launch, all we have seen is the appointment of a design team for one of these sites and nothing but glossy brochures for any of the others. We have a new Minister, but the same tired policies or lack thereof. They are the same tired policies that added more than a quarter to the cost of homes and rent since Housing for All was introduced and have seen homelessness skyrocket, with child homelessness in particular going up by well over 75%. The new Government - if I can even call it new - appears intent on carrying on the previous Government's legacy of failure, and seems to want to try to go one better. There is no ambition in this programme for Government. There is no imagination. There is no radical reset of housing policy as was called for by the Housing Commission. As a young person, I see nothing in the programme for Government to offer young people hope to get on the property ladder or at the very least to be able to move out of their parents' house to rent without forking out more than half their wages to a landlord. There is no commitment to a rent freeze or a ban on eviction and very little in the way of strengthening renters' rights, such as implementing model tenancy agreements, allowing tenants to rent unfurnished properties and not forcing them to pay more than a month's rent as a deposit. That is something the Labour Party introduced in the previous Dáil in 2021. It was the first Bill that Deputy Bacik introduced.

I am also concerned about the creeping privatisation of social housing and I urge the Government to establish a social housing Act to ensure the long-term viability of our social housing stock. We have become far too reliant on social leasing to bump up the numbers. We need to move away from that model and support local authorities and approved housing bodies, AHBs, to build more homes. This Government is wedded and welded to the same inflationary policies as the previous Government. While the help-to-buy and first home schemes sound good on paper, virtually all independent analysis says that these policies are driving up house prices and the Government's proposal to extend them to second-hand homes will put yet another rocket under house prices which are now higher than at the peak of the Celtic tiger. Moreover, we know from Central Bank analysis that these schemes disproportionately benefit people on higher incomes.

The Labour Party believes in an active State because the private sector alone does not have the capacity to deliver the homes we need. The Davy report states we will need 93,000 homes per year if the population hits 6 million as predicted by 2031. The programme for Government commits to 50,000 units per year by 2031 but the Government was only able to deliver 30,000 units last year. It is clear that the Government does not even have the capacity to meet its own targets, not to mind to build the number of homes we actually need. The Government must change tack. The Housing Commission report was clear and we in the Labour Party have been clear that only the Government has deep enough pockets to underwrite the level of housing the country needs.

On workers' rights, it is clear from the half page in the programme for Government that this is a coalition of cosy crony capitalism. There is no mention of a living wage in the entire document, no commitment to transpose the EU adequate minimum wage directive and no commitment to a right to flexible work or to improve statutory leave entitlements.

In the time available, I will turn to my constituency, Limerick City, and in particular to University Hospital Limerick, UHL, the most overcrowded hospital in the State, consistently breaking its own records.

It is beyond clear that the people of Limerick and the wider mid-west need at least one additional emergency department. We did not need a HIQA review to tell us that.

The only reference in the programme for Government is a commitment to continue increasing capacity and opening more beds at UHL. That is not acceptable. The Government must expedite the publication of the HIQA review and commit to providing a model 3 hospital in the mid-west with an additional emergency department.

I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach. As it is my first speech in the Dáil, it is customary to thank the voters of Cork South-Central for putting me here and giving me the great honour of representing them in Dáil Éireann. I thank my family for their unstinting support and all of those who supported me throughout the campaign. It is a great honour to be here and I will do my level best to repay the trust they have placed in me.

I only have a few minutes to discuss the programme for Government, which is a document of over 160 pages, so I will touch on some of the key points. I welcome that we have a Government formed, that we have a programme for Government and that we are now up and running as a Government. I believe it is a Government that majority of people voted for - a Government of the centre, one that can promote the values of the vast majority of the Irish people. It is a Government that will continue to promote a sustainable economic model, a pro-enterprise model and a clear message internationally that, as a country, we are open for business, basing our model on strong and prudent management of the public finances, creating high levels of employment and opportunity for our citizens. It is a Government that is pro Europe, playing a central role in European affairs and promoting key European values. Of course, it is a Government that will continue to promote the shared island initiative, which is so critical and based on mutual respect, co-operation and the key principle of consent.

Environmentally, we know the challenges we are facing as a country. They are not challenges of the future; they are challenges that are here and now in the present day. Environmental challenges have to be at the heart of this Government, and the programme for Government provides a strong basis for that. Above all, while we have been successful economically, we need to create a more caring society, a society that supports those who need our support most. That is a challenge that this Government has got to face up to.

On some specific issues, there has been much debate on the housing challenge, which we are all acutely aware of as public representatives. We are in the most acute housing crisis in living memory. It will be a defining issue for this Government and our biggest challenge. We have recently seen the outturn for 2024. It is deeply disappointing, which has to be readily acknowledged. Various estimates as regards what type of housing output we need are put forward but it is clear we need to at least double the output that was produced in 2024. That is going to be a monumental challenge. We need to have an honest debate in this House and across the political spectrum on how we do that. There are no easy options but it is something we have to get right.

A particular cohort of people I want to be a strong voice for are those who are currently receiving very little support, those who have an income level that puts them outside the social housing support bracket but who do not have a sufficient income to be able to gain a mortgage to buy a property or secure adequate rental accommodation. They are simply falling between stools. The affordable housing purchase and cost-rental models are there to support them but we simply do not have enough such housing and we are not providing the levels of support to those people who are working hard, earning modest incomes and doing their best but who are not able to gain secure accommodation for themselves. As a Government, we have to stand up and provide support to them, and as a new TD, I certainly want to be a strong voice for them.

The issue of disability is one that has been debated widely in the House. To be fair, successive Governments have failed on this issue. As a candidate in the recent general election, I listened to many harrowing stories from constituents regarding the complete lack of services they and their families had been provided. It is a fight for everything: to gain assessments; to gain follow-up services and therapies; and for school places. When people secure these, there is a fight for transportation and so on. It is not acceptable that people have to fight for everything, and it was very difficult to listen to many of those stories. I am pleased that this Government has put a Minister of State in Cabinet with responsibility for disabilities. It has to be centre stage in this Government for the coming five years that we have a radical shift and step change in our approach to providing disability services, providing a more caring society that delivers the supports that people need.

Another key issue that came up at the doors is the fundamental right that people have to feel safe in their homes, businesses and communities in towns and villages across the country. We need a strong, visible Garda presence out there. We currently do not have that. It is an enormous challenge for Government, and I know the programme for Government has set out ambitious targets in terms of Garda recruitment, but we have to ask the hard questions about why we are finding it so difficult to meet those targets for recruitment and, more importantly, retention of newly qualified gardaí. It is all very fine to train gardaí but if they do not stay in the workforce and continue to provide a service, then we need to ask the hard questions. I agree with Deputy Kelly on the point he made earlier, namely, that we have to look at the terms and conditions to make sure we recruit sufficient numbers.

If I can, I will touch on a few issues in Cork. We need some key investment in infrastructural projects. There are key capital projects that need to progress in the areas of transportation, housing, health and education. The event centre in Cork is obviously something that needs to progress, and I will try to be a strong voice on that as well as many other issues.

This Government has the potential to deliver. Targets in a programme for Government are all very fine, but it is about delivery. As a new TD, I will be an active and constructive voice to try and promote the priorities the people have asked us to deliver on.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach Gníomhach. I am delighted to see the Minister of State appointed. This programme for Government is an ambitious document. If it is significantly implemented, it will positively transform the lives of people right across the country. The challenge for all of us is in delivery, and the message to the State agencies has to be that they must help in achieving the results we desire in terms of the ambitious targets we have set out.

This programme addresses domestic issues, including housing, which is our greatest national challenge. We are also committed to addressing the climate challenge and the biodiversity crisis. I welcome in particular the strong emphasis on renewable and offshore energy that will be critical for my own constituency of Wicklow-Wexford.

We know we are going to face global challenges. We are at a time when we are seeing much disruption in geopolitics, as well as the transformative power of new technologies, in particular, artificial intelligence. What has been happening in the US presents challenges but also opportunities for Ireland, particularly in the tech space. As the Minister of State knows well, Ireland is home to many of the companies operating in the tech space. They could be in President Trump's firing line in his desire to get them to return to the US. They will also be at the centre of the regulatory debate. What we need to focus on is how Ireland can act as a bridge between the United States and the European Union and how to achieve the right balance between regulation to ensure online safety and, at the same time, encouraging innovation.

It is right, therefore, that the programme for Government devote a significant section to developing those vital partnerships with both Europe and the United States. We want to maximise Ireland's EU Presidency next year but it should also be remembered that, during 2026, Ireland will be hosting a meeting of the European Political Community, the largest ever gathering on this island of Heads of Government and State, with potentially 47 governments being represented. European security is going to be big on the agenda, and it will also be a big security challenge for the State. I welcome the fact that the security theme is woven through the programme for Government and that there is a clear and timelined intention within the programme to review security issues within the State. We saw the attack on the HSE, which has cost the State at least €150 million to date but also impacted on the healthcare of tens of thousands of people. We can only expect a greater number of hybrid attacks on the State. We are undoubtedly going to see more Russian military vessels in the cobalt blue Irish waters, and there will be fringe groups that will continue to seek to undermine of the State through the spread of misinformation and disinformation. Therefore, that the Government is placing an emphasis on homeland security, the programme for Government proposes to establish a new national security committee established by the Taoiseach, and there will be a review of the national security structures within six months of the Government's establishment is particularly welcome.

The Minister of State and I have often spoken about the impact of artificial intelligence and digitalisation.

It is critical that this forms part of the work of the Government. I welcome the fact that my friend and colleague, Deputy Niamh Smyth, has been appointed as Minister of State with responsibility for AI. It is not just her responsibility; digitalisation is the responsibility of all of Government. I am rather concerned by responses I received from Government Departments in the past few days to parliamentary questions on their approach to AI. With the exception of a small number of agencies, it has been quite limited.

I will mention some minor areas in the programme which are very welcome and important. On the arts and in terms of building community, the fact that the Government is committed to establishing an arts capital grant programme, similar to the sports capital grant programme, is welcome. I championed the idea of a young person's culture card, which is included in the programme and is welcome. Under sport, there is tax relief for gym membership. Vital to this country is to address funding our future, the funding mechanism for further and higher education. This is an ambitious programme and we need to deliver on it.

It is with great honour and humility that I rise today to deliver my maiden speech as a Fianna Fáil Deputy. I am deeply grateful to my constituents in Dublin Rathdown for their trust and support. As I stand here, I am acutely aware of the responsibility bestowed upon me and the legacy of public service that has shaped my path. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my campaign team and the countless volunteers who worked tirelessly. Their dedication and belief in our shared vision have made this moment possible. I am also indebted to the party members and supporters who have placed their faith in me. Their encouragement and insights have been invaluable and I pledge to work diligently to repay their trust.

The recently published programme for Government sets forth an ambitious vision for our nation over the next five years. This comprehensive document, agreed on by our coalition, outlines crucial commitments in areas such as housing, healthcare and climate action. I am particularly encouraged by the Government's continued commitment to addressing the housing crisis. It is important to note that significant progress has already been made in this area and this programme for Government is a commitment to finish that crucial work.

Between the last term and this coming term, the Government will have overseen the creation of half a million new homes. This achievement will have a tangible impact on the lives of countless people. The commitment to deliver 300,000 new homes by 2030 represents real progress for families across Ireland. We have seen at first hand the challenges posed by the housing crisis and I am confident that our continued efforts will make a significant difference.

While not explicitly outlined in the programme for Government, I am pleased to highlight a significant and positive change in budget 2025, namely, the reform of inheritance tax. The increase in the group A tax-free threshold from €335,000 to €400,000 is a substantial step forward. This change acknowledges the considerable rise in property values in recent years and aims to ease the financial burden on families passing on their hard-earned assets to the next generation. Moreover, it is crucial that we also address the thresholds for categories B and C. Many individuals inherit from siblings, aunts, uncles or other relatives and these thresholds have not kept pace with the changing economic landscape. Over my time in the Dáil, I will advocate for a comprehensive review of all thresholds to ensure a fairer and more equitable inheritance tax system for all citizens.

Returning to the programme for Government, I am committed to supporting its ambitious healthcare reforms, including the significant increase in hospital bed capacity. This expansion will be crucial in addressing the healthcare needs of our growing population. I will advocate strongly for a fair distribution of these new resources to ensure that all communities have access to the high-quality healthcare they deserve.

In addition, the programme's focus on education, with a pledge to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio to 19:1 in primary schools, will ensure our children receive the focused attention they need to thrive.

I am particularly pleased to note the Government's strong commitment to improving our public transport system. We recognise that efficient and reliable public transport is not just a convenience, but a necessity for a modern and thriving society. The programme for Government outlines significant investments in our transport infrastructure, including the expansion of rail services, the improvement of bus networks and the development of active travel infrastructure. However, I must address the recent problem with bus services in Dublin which need to be rectified urgently. Our constituents rely on the services daily and any disruption significantly impacts their lives and livelihoods. While BusConnects is an ambitious and necessary project, it is crucial that it is implemented correctly. We must ensure that gaps in service, in particular on radial routes, are filled without delay. The success of our public transport system hinges on its reliability and accessibility. It is incumbent on the relevant bodies to address these issues promptly and effectively, ensuring that our citizens have the dependable transport network they deserve.

In conclusion, I look forward to collaborating with colleagues across the Chamber on the promises outlined in the programme for Government, as well as supporting additional measures that benefit all in Ireland. While I recognise and respect the crucial role of the Opposition in holding the Government to account, I also believe that there are times we must come together, setting aside partisan differences for the betterment of Ireland. I call on my colleagues across the floor to engage constructively when the national interest most demands it, just as we in government must be open to good ideas regardless of their source. Together, we can build a stronger, fairer and more prosperous Ireland for all.

As a person who lives on a family farm, I am more than familiar with the struggles that farmers across Ireland are facing. Farming is at the centre of every community across Carlow and Kilkenny. As the recent storms and heavy snowfall showed us, farmers and communities in rural Ireland always step to the fore in supporting one another in times of need and difficulty. The programme for Government was an opportunity to give Irish farmers the support they deserved. Once again, however, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael failed to stand up for farmers across the State. The section on agriculture is riddled with hollow promises. Words like "review" and "examine" dominate the text, but where is the substance? Where are the concrete commitments to protect farm incomes, ensure fair prices or invest in a sustainable future?

We all recognise that there is a group of forgotten farmers who deserve to be compensated, but the Government only offers vague assurances to them, with no clear plan for compensation. These farmers deserve to be shown respect and not more delays. The Mercosur trade deal poses the gravest threat to Irish farmers in a generation. In the programme for Government, we see only lukewarm opposition to the deal. We need to see a complete and utter rejection of the Mercosur deal by the Government. Sinn Féin is utterly opposed to the Mercosur trade deal. It offers nothing positive for Ireland and will have a devastating impact on farmers and communities across rural Ireland.

As a mother raising four young boys on a family farm, I want to see a future where Irish farming is flourishing. I want family farms to be passed on to the next generation of young farmers. I want children to continue the tradition of family farming, knowing their futures in farming are secure. We need to ensure that Irish farming is in a stronger and more vibrant and resilient environment than the one with which we are currently battling.

I received a response to a parliamentary question today. I probably knew the answer, but it does not make for good reading. I asked for the number of families in Dublin and north Leinster who have availed of the pyrite remediation scheme to date. The answer is that almost 3,000 families have availed of the scheme. I asked what contribution they had to make to that scheme, and the answer was none. That is right and proper. They were victims of a scandal, and have been rightly compensated and their homes made safe by the State. In my home county of Donegal, many families will pay over €100,000 to make their homes safe. Those affected do not get redress or justice; instead, they get a grant scheme.

They have to go out and make a square peg fit into a round hole. They have to find contractors and the prices they are being given in the grant never match up to what it will actually cost. They have to replace their own foundations if the house has to be knocked down. They have to navigate all sorts of schemes. What has happened is that the vast majority of affected homeowners are giving up. Many of them are at an older stage of life and they are living in unsafe homes. This is a profound injustice.

Why would you treat victims of a scandal who live in the west of Ireland - Mayo, Sligo, Clare, Limerick or my home county of Donegal - any differently from the victims on the east coast? Is it because of money? Are we in a situation now where you get justice, but only if it costs a certain amount of money? What we have asked for is basic decency for every Irish citizen who was failed by the light-touch regulation or absence of regulation and the close relationship between the State and the construction industry, particularly those who manufactured concrete blocks and concrete products.

There is a plan for a review of the scheme. I am again asking the Government to, please, do justice and give equality to people, no matter where they live. If you are a victim, you should get the same treatment no matter where in Ireland you live.

I wish the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, the very best in her role. I will focus on two aspects of the programme for Government, namely, children and young people. Government parties and some Independents have celebrated the publication of this document as though it heralds some sort of significant societal shift. However, it is impossible to see this as anything other than more of the same. When it comes to the children and young people of Ireland and in our society, we cannot afford more of the same.

The issue of childcare and early years education warrants an emergency policy consideration. In Kildare, we know of families travelling upwards of 60 minutes each way, and that is if they are lucky enough to have a place in childcare. Yesterday, I spoke with a family who have been on waiting lists for seven different childcare facilities since April 2024. They told me there are 400 children on the waiting list for one of the crèches. It impacts on people's quality of life. The issue of workforce development is of critical importance. The Department cannot bury its head in the sand. I wish Deputy Foley and her colleagues the very best in what is to be a challenging brief in reducing the cost of childcare to €200 per month in the lifetime of this Government. If we take the idea of cheaper childcare as the sole ambition, however, we will fail to address the issues of accessibility, capacity and long-term career prospects for professionals who play an integral role in our society.

When it comes to young people in Irish society, we must do better. I am a very proud youth worker and have been for 15 years. I have spent my entire professional life dedicated to working in youth services, supporting, encouraging and empowering young people to play active and critical roles in their society. In doing so, I learned that Ireland is not a society built to encourage young people's active participation or to encourage them to use their voice, question, make mistakes, have equal opportunity or to achieve. For as long as we consider young people to be a problem for the future, we ignore the reality. They are of intrinsic importance today.

This programme for Government lacks ambition and detail when it comes to young people. I highlight the commitment in the programme for Government to a new youth services action plan. It is wrong and requires amendment. In September 2024, a national strategy for youth work and related services entitled Opportunities for Youth was launched by then Minister Roderic O'Gorman. The Government's commitments should align with that strategy and the established framework set out. I will take the matter up directly with the Minister but I would really appreciate it if the Minister of State were to pass on the message that the commitment in question needs to be amended..

I implore everybody with an iota of responsibility in their briefs for children or young people to come together now and respect the idea of participation, whether it is in childcare, youth work or education. It must be better and it can be better. It is regrettable we do not see that in this programme for Government.

I am delighted to have this opportunity to speak on the new programme for Government. Having read the document from start to finish, it is my firm view that it fails to provide for transformative change. Over the 162 pages, most of the commitments are vague, notional or regurgitated. There are very few new ideas and it is completely devoid of the promised new energy. Instead, what we get is more of the same.

However, more of the same will not deliver the transformative change that is deeply desired and urgently required. In particular, it will not deliver the change that is needed on housing, healthcare, childcare, disability services and climate action. This is deeply disappointing, particularly in housing where the previous Government's own expert commission called for a radical reset in policy. The new programme for Government continues the failed housing policies of the past. They have left us with record levels of homelessness, soaring rents and unaffordable house prices.

The health section of the programme lacks vision. The very thing that should underpin this entire section, Sláintecare, gets but two passing mentions. So many of the projects, such as the national children's hospital, digital health records or the statutory homecare scheme, should have already been delivered, while other initiatives lack any semblance of ambition. How is it that, almost eight years into Sláintecare, the programme for Government is still only talking about extending free GP care to 12-year-olds? The aim should be free primary care for all within the lifetime of the Government.

There is no doubt that there are some positive elements, but even these have been underpinned by non-committal language. We need to do more than explore the recruitment of HSE-employed GPs; we need to start it. With hundreds of thousands of people waiting for community services and therapies, the best the Government can do is consider measures to attract and retain health and social care professionals.

On social policy, there is a lack of bravery. There is no mention of drug decriminalisation, assisted dying or access to abortion care. We need policies in this area that are evidence-based and grounded in care, compassion and kindness. There is also no mention of collective bargaining or the living wage and the poverty points are wooly at best. While there are some welcome proposals in other areas, such as the abolition of the carer's means test, implementation will be key. The shelves of Government Departments and State agencies are stacked high with dusty reports and unfinished action plans. The State has long suffered from implementation deficit disorder and nothing in this latest plan indicates that things will be significantly different from the past. We need specific, concrete, measurable, time-bound and achievable actions.

As a representative for Cork, I am disappointed the programme for Government fails to address many of the pressing priorities for our city and our county. Ireland's future development depends on Cork being a sizeable counterbalance to the capital. A simple search of the document shows Cork is only mentioned seven times while Dublin is mentioned 29 times. A more in-depth analysis exposes the absence of a number of key infrastructure projects. There is no mention of the long-overdue Luas for Cork, there is only vague mention of light rail where appropriate. There is no commitment to a new public library for Cork city centre, while the promise to work towards the completion of the events centre does not fill me with hope, given that the sod on that project was turned in 2016 by the then Fine Gael-Labour Government.

At a bigger picture level, the new programme for Government lacks a coherent vision for the State. We need to build a republic of equals, one where everyone has access to affordable housing, quality healthcare, a good education, a decent job and a stable future - a country where there is a social floor below which no one is allowed to fall and a country where everybody has an opportunity to thrive and to flourish. To achieve that we need to move in a new direction and take a different approach. Without that, I strongly suspect that in five years' time we will still face the same crises in health and in housing. I fear we will miss our climate targets and that crucial public services will remain threadbare. None of this is inevitable but, unfortunately, this is the path that has been chosen by the parties in government.

I thank the Minister of State for being here. I raise the issue of a long-standing and worsening crisis in my discipline of psychology, and in particular within primary care mental health services for young people, with reference to the programme for Government. There are vague references in the programme for Government to workforce planning and increasing capacity for child and adolescent mental health services but there is no mention of the main roadblock that has been placed in front of the resourcing of these services, namely, the pay and numbers strategy.

The official HSE recruitment embargo was lifted in July 2024. However, the Department of Health then introduced the pay and numbers strategy, which is proving to be, in some cases, just as restrictive to the recruitment of essential staff as the embargo itself. It has been roundly criticised by all the main unions and led to recent industrial action. The pay and numbers strategy is a very crude instrument to address HSE budget overruns that will not only cause harm to patients, but will also greatly reduce staff morale and will likely impact on the retention of staff. In June of last year, the Social Democrats party leader, Deputy Holly Cairns, revealed in the Dáil there were more than 5,000 young people waiting for an appointment with primary care psychology services in the south west regional health area, which is made up of Cork and Kerry.

Of these, 105 young people in Cork were waiting four to five years for an appointment. The primary care psychology services in Cork had been severely under-resourced for many years. Also, the roll-out of the progressing disability services programme meant large volumes of so-called non-complex referrals were redirected at the time to primary care services but there was no commensurate increase in staffing levels in Cork primary care at the time.

Cork's primary care services had a fraction of the required staff long before either the official embargo or the pay and numbers strategy were introduced. Instead of undertaking an extensive recruitment drive to address these shocking waiting lists, the HSE's first priority in July was the creation of a new layer of psychology management through a director of psychology role over all other psychology mangers in Cork and Kerry. This new managerial post could have funded two full-time permanent contract psychologists, each of whom would have had a substantial caseload. It was not until October and then November that front-line psychology recruitment for primary care in Cork was attempted by the HSE, still nowhere near meeting the level of need within those services, and unfortunately some of these posts were temporary contracts and have not been filled.

Recent briefings from the HSE and from our regional health officer, Dr. Andy Phillips, suggest they intend to address crisis waiting lists by redeploying psychologists from services that are in a relatively healthy state; in other words, robbing Peter to pay Paul to adhere to the regressive and nonsensical pay and numbers strategy. A constituent of mine was recently told in a service statement from primary care services in Cork that her child would be offered a service in October 2030, five years and nine months from the issuing of that statement.

Is the Government going to heed the grave warnings from all our main unions on the pay and numbers strategy and abandon it? Will it undertake a comprehensive recruitment drive for primary care services in Cork instead of plucking psychologists from other services where they are needed and potentially undermining those services? How does the Government expect to sustain services when it is keeping the stranglehold on basic recruitment in place?

I wish the Minister the best of luck. She has a hard job ahead of her, as the entire Government does. Unfortunately, I have to raise again the issue of the 40,000 homes that were not built last year. The truth is that this Government was elected on a false claim, that it had turned the corner on housing and that it was fixing the housing crisis. The question is why it ignored the truth that was presented by independent experts, the State agencies that the entire administration of our State relies on to make decisions, namely, the Central Bank, the State research agency - the ESRI, and the Central Statistics Office. Why were the figures of a German bank and Cairn Homes, one of the biggest developers in this country, the figures that were used to claim how many houses were being built instead of those of the independent and State agencies? It is important to say that the Central Bank stated in the third quarter of 2024 that there would be only 32,000 homes completed in 2024. The ESRI quarterly commentary in September 2024 stated there was a worrying development in terms of the declining investment in dwellings given the residential housing deficit, while of course the CSO data that was out in October also showed apartments down 7% and single dwellings down 5%. Instead of putting out and relying on the real data and the real evidence, the Government provided these figures that were unreliable and based on figures by vested interests. The Government's housing plans were not working and it tried to cover up the truth about its own housing policy failure. It tried to hoodwink the Irish people and the Dáil itself. It misled us and the people regarding the housing policy and figures.

I call on this House to have questions and answers with the Ministers who made statements to this Dáil that 40,000 homes were being built last year and to provide the evidence of the basis of those statements. This is vital and we are not letting it go because it is about fairy tales about how many homes are actually being built. The reality and the fundamental problem is that the programme for Government is based on that falsehood of how many homes were going to be built. It continues the same policies that failed to deliver the 40,000 homes that were needed. Why are we not seeing a major policy shift? The Government's housing policy did not work. It did not deliver the 40,000 homes about which it misled the public and misled the Dáil.

Policy has not been about affordable housing. This is the fundamental problem at the heart of the continued housing policies of the programme for Government that are about subsidising the market, developers and institutional funds. The Taoiseach spoke about there being record State intervention. Yes, there is State invention but it is subsidising those who are profiting from the housing crisis rather than actually building affordable housing. What we need is a new plan that builds genuinely affordable housing through the State and through not-for-profit housing bodies such as the Ó Cualann housing body which is trying to deliver homes in Ballymun but is being blocked by our State. Yesterday, the Taoiseach spoke about ideology and fundamentalism. There is a market fundamentalism on the part of the Government that needs to change.

I dtús báire, ba mhaith liom a rá go dtuigim díreach an méid oibre atá i gceist chun clár Rialtais a chur le chéile. Agus an obair sin ar siúl, tá daoine ar fud na tíre ag iarraidh polasaithe a chur isteach sa chlár sin agus na rudaí atá tábhachtach dóibhsean a bheith ann agus i bpolasaithe an Rialtais freisin. It is a big job to put together a policy and a programme for Government like this and huge credit is due to those who were involved in negotiating this plan, putting it together and putting in so many things that are so important to communities throughout this country. I do not underestimate the amount of work that is involved in that and I do not in anyway gainsay how difficult it is to put together something that is on the one hand achievable and realistic but on the other also addresses the concerns so many people have.

That said, I want to address some of the issues that are important within the clár Rialtais. As somebody who practises in the courts as a criminal barrister, crime is something that is front and centre. It is something on which I did a lot of work in the past five years. The targets set for the recruitment of gardaí are hugely important. We cannot possibly hope to address issues of crime, but specifically address issues people have about feeling safe in their communities, if we are not putting in place the gardaí required to deliver on that. Recruitment of gardaí is really important, but so also is putting in place incentives to encourage people, at a time when we are a victim of our own success because of the success of our economy and the extent of employment in the country at the moment, to take the step towards the selfless act that is becoming a member of An Garda Síochána. It is something that is probably more vocation than job but we need to make it easy for people to make that choice. In that regard, I certainly welcome the targets set in the programme but it is also important to put in place additional incentives to achieve those targets.

Some of the difficulties gardaí have in particular relate to housing. I know we have heard a lot about housing but my own constituency of Dún Laoghaire, is probably the most expensive constituency - or one of them - in the country in which to live. It is a really difficult challenge for a probationer garda or a young garda to come to live in the Dún Laoghaire area. I would like to see us putting in place specific supports, including the provision of accommodation where it is appropriate, for young and junior gardaí to allow them to go to work in any station, whether it is in a rural or urban area. Obviously, it is a particularly acute problem for me in Dún Laoghaire.

The other thing is, although the plan does not go into the specifics in this regard, we need to be looking at opening more Garda stations in areas where there is population growth. One of them that occurs to me is Cherrywood. I hope the Minister for Justice, when looking at these issues, will consider the establishment of a new Garda station in Cherrywood to serve the new community. We have spent a lot of time and energy over recent years developing the special development zone in Cherrywood which is now beginning to burgeon and grow. There are many people moving into what will be a wonderful community, but we also need to put in place a Garda station to help to police that area and to serve the wider community.

We also need to put in place a Garda station to help to police that area and to serve the wider community. It is a good location because of the road infrastructure there and the access to the surrounding areas. Equally, in terms of policing, road safety is greatly important. We have not had success in this regard in the past year. We must focus on putting in place facilities to convince people that if they are going to break the law on the road, they will be caught and there will be consequences. That is something I have already raised with the Minister.

Equally, in the area of transport generally, we need to be ambitious. I am glad to see ambition in public transport and a metro for Dublin. We need to progress this sooner rather than later. Every year we delay means it will cost more and more. The other issue in public transport is accessibility. At the moment, we have a preposterous situation where people who are mobility impaired and use a wheelchair or other devices must give notice to the likes of Bus Éireann or Iarnród Éireann that they are going to use public transport. In some cases, it is 24 hours' notice. This is unacceptable and needs to be eradicated. We need to have fully accessible public transport throughout the country.

On the issue of Gaelscoileanna, there are only two in my constituency. One is a DEIS school and the other is Scoil Lorcáin, which is a very well established Gaelscoil. We have two excellent Gaelcholáistí in Coláiste Íosagáin and Coláiste Eoin, but what we also have is a dearth of Gaelcholáistí for people in the surrounding area to graduate to after the bunscoil and Gaelscoil level. There is a real problem with the way the Department of Education assesses the need for them. There is a need and the Department needs to be proactive in establishing where there is a need for Gaelcholáistí to make sure gur féidir le tuismitheoirí gur mhaith leo an Gaeloideachas a chur ar fáil dá bpáistí é sin a dhéanamh.

Cuirim fáilte roimh an deis seo píosa a rá faoi chúpla rud áirithe atá sa chlár Rialtais. Tosóimid ar an bpointe ar chríochnaigh mo chomhghleacaí air maidir leis na Gaelcholáistí agus an gá atá orainn níos mó Gaelcholáistí a chur ar fáil do chuile cheantar, go mór mór in aon cheantar a bhfuil Gaelscoil ar fáil ann. Ba chóir go mbeidh rogha Gaelcholáiste a bheith ann sa cheantar céanna. Is mór an trua é nach bhfuil sé sin ar fáil gach áit, ach ba chóir. Glacaim go bhfuil an sprioc sa chlár Rialtais go mbeidh muid ag tabhairt deis do dhaoine dul go bunscoileanna lán-Ghaeilge agus meánscoileanna lán-Ghaeilge chomh maith.

I welcome many of the measures included in the programme for Government pertaining to primary education. In particular, I welcome the objective to increase capitation for schools to help to meet the elevated day-to-day running costs within schools and to reduce the financial burden on families. In recent years, we have seen several initiatives introduced to schools to reduce the costs associated with education. These include the introduction of the free books scheme and the hot school meals programme. This programme for Government also includes a proposal to extend the free hot school meals programme and it is a great measure to reduce inequality among children. With the programme, all children are ensured a nutritious hot meal while at school. Expanding the programme will be very welcome. I note and recognise that, in recent weeks and months, there has been some concern about the nutritional value of the meals being provided to children under the scheme. From my own professional experience working with the companies providing the meals, they are acutely aware of their responsibilities. I found them to be very approachable and engaging in terms of ensuring they are providing nutritious and good quality meals to children in schools.

I especially welcome the aim to reduce the general pupil-teacher ratio at primary level to 19:1 over the term of the Government and to introduce targeted measures in schools with very large classes. I believe this measure can have a significant impact on classroom activities and pupil learning outcomes. As we move towards the introduction of a new primary school curriculum, which infers a broadened curriculum and a greater curriculum load on teachers, smaller class sizes will be important to ensure its successful implementation. One significant challenge I see in the proposal to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio is to ensure a sufficient supply of teachers. The INTO estimates that nearly 1,000 advertised teaching positions in schools failed to be filled over the course of the past year. I see a continued and, indeed, increasing demand for the establishment of special classes in mainstream primary school settings, thus creating a further demand for additional teachers within the system. We need to start looking at creating additional teacher training spaces. The University of Galway has expressed an interest in commencing a postgraduate qualification in primary school teaching. This should be examined carefully.

I very much welcome the proposal to introduce therapists to the school setting by creating a dedicated national therapy service in education. This will be complemented by a proposal and objective to double the number of college places for those who want to be speech and language therapists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and educational psychologists. We are all aware of the challenges encountered by CAMHS services throughout the country. I welcome that the programme for Government has many commitments in this area, including one to regulate CAMHS and to simplify the referrals process. Between 30% and 50% of CAMHS referrals are referred over concerns regarding ADHD. While CAMHS currently categorises these concerns as routine, I know in some CAMHS centres there are specific ADHD referral pathways, from which children are not included in the same referral process as other children who would be referred to the CAMHS services. This is something we should look at rolling out throughout the country. As I said, 30% to 50% of children referred to CAMHS services are referred over concerns over ADHD. If we had a specific, targeted referral process and interventions for those children, it would reduce the burden on CAMHS and assist the children and their families.

The formation of this Government left people under absolutely no illusion. This was a Government formed to keep the old boys club alive and well. A record number of jobs were given to as many men as possible. For every five seats at Cabinet, one is taken by a woman. They are outnumbered and I would go so far as to say completely overlooked. The Taoiseach then claimed he would sort this out. He was going to sort his mess by using the unprecedented number of Ministers of State he was hoping to have at his fingertips. What message do we think this sends to young women? It is that the senior jobs are for the boys, but do not worry, we will give you a little consolation prize later. The Ministers of State were then announced and the Government did not even manage to do that.

I was asked recently why I thought this was. The question is whether the Government looked at its options. Did Micheál Martin and Simon Harris purposely ignore women of talent or did they simply not have enough women of talent to promote? One of these has to be true. There either are women of talent who are being prevented from coming forward or there are no women of talent. Either way, there is a problem within this Government and that is writ very large all over the programme for Government. Fine Gael leads the way with the greatest number of women councillors elected. You would think that was satire, would you not? You genuinely would. You would think it was something out of Waterford Whispers News, but actually this was a headline from one of the party's press releases issued in June. It went on to say that Fine Gael has demonstrated leadership in female political representation. Some 66 of the Fine Gael councillors elected in June were women. For every three men who sit on a council for Fine Gael, one woman has a seat. This is less than 30% of its candidates who are women. I suppose, though, if the party is comparing itself to Fianna Fáil, it probably thinks it is flying. Fianna Fáil ran the lowest percentage of women and to absolutely nobody's surprise the party elected the lowest share of women. It had 197 men elected and 51 women elected. Women represent 52% of the population, but you would not think it because they only represent about 20% of Fianna Fáil.

My party elected almost 40% women in November and in June. We not only have strong women here in this Chamber and are led by a strong woman but we also have a pipeline of strong women. We have Aoife Masterson and Niamh Whelan, as well as women like Kourtney Kenny, strong, young, Republican women who are building and preparing. When my time in politics comes to an end, I will be proud to step back and know I have not pulled the ladder up behind me and that I have left open a pathway for these strong, capable, talented, Republican women to come forward.

With so many lads promoted by the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Lowry Government, it will come as a surprise to nobody to see that the programme for Government falls well short of what we might expect from a progressive or even a halfway decent Government. There is no timeline to abolish the cruel means test for the carers allowance. Sure why would you? There is no mention of the right to organise for workers. That is someone else's problem and certainly not one this Government is going to be willing to deal with. There is also no mention of the living wage, and this actually did surprise me because, ordinarily, workers on a low income do get some sort of a mention in the programme for Government when the parties of the right come together to compose one.

However, there was not even a very low level of meaningless soundbites regarding the minimum wage. In fact, it is not mentioned in it at all. We know that women are over-represented in caring roles and low-paid employment. The programme for Government confirms for them exactly where the Government's priorities are; ordinary people, and women in particular, can head to the back of the queue. This is what happens when the lads spend all of their time obsessing over who is getting what job, how many high chairs can fit around a reasonably sized Cabinet table, and who is getting the car or the half-car. Just so two more men are not disappointed, we are told there will be some sort of timeshare arrangement for the Leas-Cheann Comhairle role. All the while, carers, workers on low wages and people who cannot afford to rent or buy are left wondering why they are not a priority.

Opposition is about holding the Government to account - it got a lesson in that this week. That is something we fully intend to do.

I will focus on health in the short time I have. I read the programme for Government document with interest. As the area of health is obviously extremely important, I want to focus on that. The programme for Government references a universal healthcare mission but from reading the pages attached to that, it is anything but universal healthcare. It cannot be delivered based on what is on those pages because there is no commitment to it there. It references developing healthcare networks in communities but that cannot be done because we do not have the health centres or primary care centres. Portlaoise town, a town of 40,000 people, does not have a primary care centre or a proper health centre. Smaller towns such as Mountrath, Borris-in-Ossory, Rathdowney and Graiguecullen need new or upgraded health centres.

Physical infrastructure is needed, as are GPs. We do not have the GPs. The programme for Government references increasing the number of GP places, but we must recruit some directly employed GPs to staff primary care centres. Private GPs will do the work. I accept that and they do a good job, but we need a cohort of private GPs if we are to move towards a proper universal healthcare system, as envisaged in Sláintecare, which the Minister's party and every other party in this Chamber signed up to. We need to do that.

We are in the Third World category as regards dental treatment. The programme for Government mentions extending free dental care to more children but in County Laois, children are not being seen. Children who are supposed to be seen in second and third class in primary school are being seen in third and fourth year in secondary school. Some miss out completely and never get to see a dentist during their time in school. The school dental scheme needs to be massively upgraded. On the dental treatment services scheme, DTSS, while there was renegotiation with those providing dental services, I hate to tell the Minister of State that the fact is there is no dentist in County Laois. I do not want to be too local about it, but I am using that example because it is what I know about. There is no dentist in County Laois who will take on a new client under the DTSS scheme for those people who are on medical cards.

There is no commitment to increase the threshold for full medical card cover. It is still €269 for a couple. That is the lowest rate. You would have to be on the side of the road before you would get a medical card at that rate. That needs to be increased. We need to move to Sláintecare and a proper universal healthcare system. That is what we signed up to. I could talk about other things, such as the ambulance service. There is a commitment to improve it, which I welcome, but that needs to be acted on urgently because it is taking up to two hours or more for ambulances to get to some rural areas. In some places, it is three or four hours.

I will stick to one topic, namely, the issue of special education and its provision generally. Two words not in the programme for Government are "teacher shortage". The Government does not seem to realise this is a problem. It is an emergency and a crisis. I do not have time to develop that statement, but it is incredible that it is not mentioned or dealt with.

We have a phenomenon in Ireland, which does not arise in any other EU country, where people have to go out and campaign for a school place and a school building. It is incredible. It afflicts Dublin West in particular because it has such a young population. The Government of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil was forced to set up a task force in Dublin 15 on the issue of special education because parents embarrassed it into doing so through the protests I was involved in helping to organise. The problem is that the schools taking part in this have identified 104 applications, but 111 children have been identified in mainstream education who need help as well. It seems to me this task force will diagnose the problem but has no medicine to treat it. It has no budget, no money and that will not, unfortunately, lead to places. Two parents have contacted me. One has 13 refusal letters from the universal application system that was set up. Places are going to children who are already in the schools that people are applying to. Somebody could be number one on the waiting list and find himself or herself knocked off it. Apparently, the SENOs' phones were not contactable for a week after these letters were sent to parents.

I will also mention special schools in Dublin West. It is an area the size of most cities in Ireland and has one special school that is not properly resourced. The mother of a 13-year-old young fella has contacted me. She is in terrible distress. He was promised a school place in Danu special school last September. He was given bus provision as well. That young boy is still sitting at home. Does the Minister of State think that is acceptable in 2025? That young boy will not be in school this year because not only does he not have a teacher or an SNA; he does not have a building to go into. The building work has not started on that school. Not only do we need to hear answers from the Government about when the building will start for the people who were promised places for 2024-25, another 30 are waiting for places for the next school year.

It seems to me that education is provided on a shoestring in this country but parents are not willing to put up with it any more. Teachers are not willing to stay in it any more. They are leaving in droves. This has to be addressed.

I will home in on one particular aspect of the programme for Government. On page 99, it states: "Give effect to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance ‘Working Definition of Antisemitism’". This is a programme for Government, large parts of which will not be delivered within the five years of this Government's term. The programme for Government had not even been ratified by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, never mind the new Government being elected by the Dáil, by the time the then Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs - now the Taoiseach - was out on 16 January announcing Ireland's endorsement of the non-legally binding Global Guidelines for Countering Antisemitism and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism. Where did this come from? Who was pushing for it? The context is that almost every human rights organisation in the world from Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch and numerous academics, including the person who wrote this definition, are critical of it and are saying that states should not sign up to it.

On the face of it, someone listening in might ask what the problem could possibly be with signing up to a definition of antisemitism. Of course, we need to combat the ongoing scourge of antisemitism but the problem, in particular, are the examples that go with that definition. Seven of the 11 examples are about criticising the state of Israel. The way this definition has been used has been to silence those who want to criticise Israeli policies. I will give some examples and the Minister of State can tell me whether I am being antisemitic. One of the examples is "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor." The existence of the state of Israel is a racist endeavour. Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, proposed a Jewish state in Palestine as an "outpost of civilisation as opposed to barbarism". Israel's first Prime Minister wrote to his son in 1937 saying that Jewish settlers must expel Arabs and take their place. Israel deemed Palestinians who were expelled during the Nakba to be absentees without the right of return. Meanwhile, all Jewish people have the right to emigrate to Israel and become citizens. Palestinian absentee property was allocated to the Jewish National Fund explicitly reserving its land for Jewish lease only. The working definition of antisemitism also states that "Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis" is antisemitism.

The President has been accused of antisemitism because he referenced the genocide in Gaza when giving his Holocaust Memorial speech. Israel's national state law stipulates in its first clause that actualisation of the right to national self-determination is unique to the Jewish people, similar to the first of the Nuremberg laws deeming citizenship a privilege exclusive to those with German blood.

Lies, lies, lies. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael won the election based on a pack of lies about some of the most serious issues facing the country, whether that is housing, the crisis in the health service, looking after the disabled and those who need care-----

-----and the issue of Palestine.

Deputy, we had this issue yesterday-----

I know what you are going to say; we will call it misleading, then.

Thank you Deputy.

They deliberately misled the public about the reasons for the housing crisis and not just about the numbers or targets. They misled the public by saying 40,000 were built when only 30,000 were built. They also misled the public as to why, after more than a decade, they have not solved the housing crisis. The reason is that they are dancing to the tune of people who are making money from it. That is why the Government will not build social housing, ban no-fault evictions or build affordable housing that people can afford. That is why it will not impose rent controls and why families and children are living in squalor in emergency accommodation. Somebody is making money out of it, whether that be investment funds, vulture funds, landlords, property speculators or developers, and the Government will not do anything about it.

In relation to the crisis in the health service, the Government said that it was trying to recruit people but that it is difficult to do so. We have been campaigning for the past six months, prompted by health workers who explained to us last summer that the Government is not trying to recruit people, and we have raised this repeatedly. It is not that it is difficult. The Government is not trying to do it because of pay and numbers, which it never announced publicly. The Government has been rumbled by health workers who are balloting. All grades of health workers have balloted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action because the Government has not been lying but has been misleading the public about its failure to recruit people into the health services. Similarly, when it comes to section 39 workers, the Government says it is difficult to recruit people. It is difficult because a significant number of people who look after the disabled and who provide care for them work for lesser pay and conditions than those who are employed directly by the HSE. They have been forced to ballot for industrial action because the Government will not give them pay parity and proper conditions of employment.

My final point relates to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition. Where did that come from? That was not mentioned. The Government parties said during the election campaign that they were for Palestine, that they would pass the occupied territories Bill and that they cared about the genocide, but then they inserted a definition into the programme for Government that effectively is designed to censor anybody who says the Israeli state project is an apartheid, racist project.

Thank you, Deputy. We will move on now to the Minister of State-----

The Israeli state project is a racist, apartheid project.

Thank you Deputy.

I am not an antisemite.

We will move on to the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan.

I welcome the opportunity to address the Dáil in my capacity as Minister of State with responsibility for special education and inclusion. Over the past number of years, if not decades at this stage, in my time as a public representative, I have been interested in this area. In the past five years I chaired the Joint Committee on Disability Matters which afforded me a major insight into the lived experience and the difficulties faced by parents and students with special educational needs. Prior to that, I chaired the education committee when mainstreaming was in its infancy, as was the bringing on board of special classes in different schools. I have huge experience of that and have dealt with many families, children and communities with additional needs. I have personal experience that I can bring to the table in this Department. In that regard, I am really looking forward to engaging with all of the advocacy groups and other stakeholders in progressing and building on the achievements that have been made in special education in recent years. For example, the number of special classes this year is double what it was in 2020, with over 3,700 classes nationwide accommodating 22,500 children in mainstream settings with their peers. In the same period, 11 special schools have been established, with a further five new schools due to open in the coming school year, one each in counties Cork, Monaghan and Tipperary and two in Dublin. These schools will ensure that children with the most complex needs receive a beneficial education. The expansion of provision has been supported by substantial investment in recent years. Over one quarter of the education budget is now dedicated to special education.

Disability services are a key focus in the new programme for Government. This is only right and proper because when we analyse the recent census data, we find that almost 20% of members of the population report having a disability. It is vital that we keep that at the very core of Government. Commitments such as increasing special education provision, providing specialist services in schools and supporting teachers and others in school communities to provide inclusive environments and custom teaching practices are all assurances which will provide what the Government wants to see, which is a progressive and inclusive education system for all children. As part of the wider whole-of-government approach to addressing the challenges faced by children and adults with disabilities, I am determined that we do more to better support children and young people with disabilities in our schools.

The Taoiseach has openly charged Ministers individually to consider the position of disability services within the remit and scope of their Departments and collectively as a Government. I am determined to make progress quickly across a number of areas within special education. Everyone wants to do their best, but I want to ensure that all stakeholders are moving in the same direction and working towards the same goal, with children at the very centre. I have already met senior Department staff and will shortly be meeting representatives from the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, as part of my new role. I want to engage with special education needs advocacy groups and parents' representative bodies to listen to their concerns and work to address them in a collaborative way with our education stakeholders. Many of our schools do great things in the area of special education. I want to build on this to ensure that schools, voluntary boards of management, school leaders and staff are supported to do even more to provide top-quality teaching and learning experiences for students with special educational needs.

The number of special education needs organisers, SENOs, recruited by the NCSE grew from 65 to 120 at the start of this school year. Over recent months, in collaboration with the Department, the NCSE has completed just over 1,000 school planning visits. These will be key to determining which schools will provide new special classes for the coming school year. These additional SENOs will also ensure that parents will be better supported in making choices in relation to the education of their child with special educational needs. I will be working very closely with the NCSE to ensure that special classes are confirmed as quickly as possible in order that parents and schools will have certainty in the context of planning for the coming school year. My Department and the NCSE will continue to work closely on forward planning of special education provision with a particular focus on expanding post-primary special classes and special school provision in the coming years. We have seen a major shortage of places across the country, but particularly in urban areas, for children going into primary school in the first instance and again when they are going on to second level education. I have met many of these children and their parents over the years. I know their frustration and the difficulties they face at primary level and, more particularly, post-primary level. We must continue to work to ensure that children requiring specialist placements can access them in their local area. While my preference is for the NCSE and my Department to work collaboratively with schools to make sufficient progress for children with special educational needs, we can use legislative provisions to compel schools to make provision for or admit children with special educational needs if required.

The review of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act is expected to be published early this year. This is about ensuring that the views of persons with disabilities are fully considered in policy making. The review will help us to understand what aspects of the law are working and whether aspects of the Act should be amended.

It is important that we look at providing an inclusive system where children with special educational needs can attend their local schools, within their local communities.

The ones that have agreed to take the classes should be funded.

Deputy, please do not interrupt.

I listened and I took note of the Deputy's concerns. I am departing from the script but a number of parents and families have been-----

Unfortunately the Minister is out of time.

Is mór agam labhairt i Seomra na Dála don chéad uair inniu agus is mór an onóir dom í bheith anseo thar ceann an phobail a roghnaigh mé mar Theachta Dála. It is a great honour to speak in this Chamber for the first time as a TD for Dublin Mid-West. I want to thank my family, especially my wife, Teresa, our three boys and my Dad Jimmy. I am thinking especially of my late Mam today. I am eternally grateful to my loyal supporters and, most important, my constituents for placing their trust in me. That trust is not something I take lightly and I will work every day to justify it.

The programme for Government is not just a document, it is a statement of intent. It is a commitment to deliver for the people who sent me here and put my party, Fianna Fáil, in government. For my constituents in Dublin Mid-West, delivery means real action in improving their everyday lives, be it in transport, housing, education or childcare. The policies in this programme for Government will shape the Ireland we leave to the next generation, and we must get them right.

For my part, I will work with my colleagues to ensure that the commitments in this programme comprise an action plan, with a laser focus on delivery. Over the past few years, under the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, significant progress has been made in tackling the housing crisis. More homes have been delivered than at any point in recent decades. New supports for renters have been introduced and major investment is driving housing supply. However, we need to do much more. Too many people are still struggling to find a home they can afford, and too many young families are unsure if they will ever be able to buy. The strong commitments in the programme for Government must be delivered with urgency because housing is not just a policy challenge, it is about people’s lives, security, and futures.

Public transport is a core quality-of-life issue. We need public transport that is reliable and efficient, with responsiveness from the NTA and we need more public transport options in Dublin Mid-West, which provide essential connectivity for communities. For example, we badly need a Luas for Lucan, and we must end the scourge of ghost buses right across Dublin Mid-West. We also need to ensure that rapidly growing communities, in Dublin Mid-West especially, have access to adequate road infrastructure for all modes of transport.

I welcome the continued progress on childcare. Parents should not have to choose between work and affordability and childcare workers deserve fair pay for the vital role they play. This Government has committed to lowering costs, improving accessibility, reducing the administrative burden on providers, which is important, and supporting the childcare sector in developing its capacity. This will likely need a partnership approach with providers, as we are all united by the one objective of providing children with the best possible start in life. That start in life needs to continue in our education system. I will fight to ensure that the necessary investment in our local school buildings is delivered, but also that sufficient capacity exists for rapidly growing communities right across Dublin Mid-West. I support the improved approach to special education in this programme for Government but now we need to see follow through on delivery, especially in terms of provision of the appropriate supports for all children with special needs in the education system. Fundamental to the delivery of the investment we need is a strong, resilient, and knowledge-based economy, as committed to in the programme for Government. Support for our SMEs is crucial, as well as ensuring that lreland is a competitive and attractive place to do business for international companies. Maintaining and enhancing a culture of innovation and lifelong learning is core to this, as set out in the programme for Government, especially as we respond to the digital and green transformations brought on by the advent of Al technologies and the need for climate action.

The world of work is changing rapidly. The jobs that our children will do have not been invented yet. Our greatest asset has been the talent of our people. We need to ensure that they are set up for success.

Cuirim fáilte faoi leith roimh an leathnú amach de Ghaeilge 365, cur chuige nuálaíoch i leith labhairt na Gaeilge a chruthóidh dúshlán dearfach d'údaráis áitiúla ar fud na tíre, ach a léireoidh bealach dearfach do pholasaí labhartha na Gaeilge amach anseo.

My message today is simple. I am here to work and I am here to fight for the people who put me here and I am here to ensure that this programme for Government delivers for them.

This is my first time speaking in the Thirty-fourth Dáil. I want to thank friends, family, supporters and everyone who worked on my campaign. I particularly thank the people of Meath East for their support and encouragement and for giving me the real privilege, honour and opportunity to continue to represent them. I will do my very best to repay their trust.

I welcome the opportunity to comment on the programme for Government as TD for Meath East and as my party's spokesperson in the Dáil on education and youth. The programme for Government does not contain the ambition or step change that is needed in any of the areas that matter most to the people of Meath East. In the area of housing, for example, the Government is intent on following its failed policy. We know the targets are too low and we know that the Government fails to meet the targets. We know that rents are too high and house prices are unaffordable, supply is too short and homelessness is at a record level and rising. County Meath is in the eye of the housing crisis storm and this crisis, most regrettably, looks set to continue.

In public transport, there is no firm commitment to advance the Navan rail line in the quickest possible timeframe. For that to happen, we need increased investment in the national development plan before 2030. We will see where that goes and we look forward to the review but it does need increased investment before 2030. The plan for our public bus network in the programme for Government will give no one, especially those regular users of the 103, 105 and 109 services, confidence that services will improve, which they really need to do.

In the area of community safety, the programme for Government sets out a lofty ambition to recruit at least 5,000 new Garda and additional Garda staff over the next five years. However, we have heard similar lofty targets in the past and they have all been missed. Meath has the lowest number of gardaí in the State and there is nothing in the programme for Government to suggest that will change because there is no indication that the root causes of the recruitment and retention crisis in the service will be addressed.

Similarly, in the area of children's disability services, primary care and CDNTs the lack of commitment and detailed planning and focus to address the crisis in these services is shocking. By way of example, since April 2022, 1.5 wholetime equivalent occupational therapist posts based in south Meath are vacant. This means that there is no occupational therapist serving that huge population. Based on the lack of new thinking in the programme for Government, this looks set to continue. Children are being failed. They are being left behind, particularly those children who cannot afford access to private therapies. It is an awful shame that occupational therapists were not treated with the same type of focus and investment that junior Ministers were by this Government in its first days. It truly is shameful.

In the area of youth policy, I do not see a commitment to fund and ensure the implementation of the opportunities for the national strategy for youth work and related services. This was launched last September. It is a glaring omission that has been raised by other Deputies as well. I hope it is just an oversight but I would appreciate if the Minister of State could look at that and perhaps respond in his closing comments. I have submitted questions to get clarification on it because it is a concern.

In the area of education, the programme for Government does not set out the step change required to address the staffing emergency in our schools, to cut the cost of education and to ensure that our children have equal access to education and equal opportunities to reach their potential. This is in terms of children with additional needs and in terms of educational disadvantage. The programme for Government does not contain the step change to: improve our school buildings; reduce wasteful spending on prefabs; improve school transport; improve Irish language education or, importantly, make sure that the senior cycle reform is managed and not rushed.

Yesterday, the Minister announced that she was doubling down on the previous Minister's acceleration of senior cycle reform.

This is a mistake and I urge the Minister to reconsider. Time is of the essence in this regard. It is clear the necessary preparatory work has not been done. Teachers have been left in the dark. They and their representatives are not being listened to. They have spelled out in black and white their concerns and, importantly, detailed the resources and time needed to ensure the successful roll-out of senior cycle reforms. The Minister is on the wrong track and it is a recipe for disaster. The people who will suffer most are young students. This is not right or fair and I implore the Minister to reconsider and re-engage.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the programme for Government. I am a new, young TD and I am eager to get to work and deliver for my constituency and this great country, but I am very disappointed with the length of time it has taken to produce this programme for Government and form a Government. The Dáil has sat only five of the past 70 days since my election on 29 November. The culture of breaks and holidays in this House needs to end. This House needs to show the urgency that the Government and the party of the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, showed over the election campaign. I was shocked to learn that this House closes on the Tuesday following a bank holiday weekend, as well as on the Monday itself.

I welcome many aspects of the programme for Government but it is very weak and vague. Some of the detail is just not there. The word "review", for example, appears 126 times in the 160-page document. Dublin is mentioned 29 times, while Mayo is not mentioned at all. The word "east" is mentioned 23 times, while the word "west" appears just nine times, and some of those refer to the West Bank and west Dublin. The programme for Government neglects the west. We see this also in the geographical spread of the Cabinet, with 60% of Ministers located in the greater Dublin area, while Connacht and Ulster have just one senior Minister between them. It struck me last week, the week of power outages, while examining the power outage map and the ministerial geographical spread, that on every front there was no power in the west. The power has been confined to Dublin. This needs to change. We need to see a serious commitment from the Government to addressing the east-west divide in this country.

Getting back to the vagueness of the document, on disabilities, for example, it is clear its authors found the easiest ways to cut corners to make it look like the Government was doing something. It is going to, for example, work to end the practice of placing young people with disabilities in nursing homes. The authors do not explain how or set targets. The Government is also going to examine the criteria for inclusion in the travel assistance scheme but does not pledge to change the scheme, just to look at it.

There is little concrete action in the document. In regard to the EU-Mercosur deal, for example, the Government promises to work with like-minded EU countries to oppose it. Setting aside the fact Fine Gael voted for the deal in 2019, will the Minister of State tell me what countries she has contacted or canvassed to oppose it? The deal will cause untold damage throughout rural Ireland and have huge consequences for small family farms in my constituency and elsewhere across the west. Where are the Greens in this debate? The deal will encourage forest fires, deforestation and overgrazing in South America, not to mention the significant carbon cost of transporting poor-quality beef over such distances.

In respect of the EU restoration law, I welcome the fact the programme for Government states that this will be voluntary, but will the Minister of State explain how the Government is going to ensure this? I do not see how we can do so unless we are, in fact, going to mount a legal challenge to the deal.

As for housing, I welcome the Government's proposal to build 300,000 houses over its lifetime, but there is no detail about how this is going to be achieved. In recent weeks, it emerged that the Government failed to meet its own modest target of 30,000, so how are we going to move from a target of 30,000 to 60,000? How is that going to be achieved? In the run-up to the general election, the Government misled the public about its targets by indicating, in the weeks leading up to it, that it would deliver 40,000, when the truth is it did not even deliver the target of 30,000 or thereabouts.

This programme for Government is aspirational but very weak on detail and how it is going to be achieved. How can we believe anything in it, especially in light of the electioneering that went on regarding the housing targets in recent weeks?

Where do we start? I will point to a few sections of the document. On housing, there are a lot of aspirations but nothing tangible or deliverable, and given that the previous targets were not met, we have no faith that these ones will be.

I mentioned climate earlier in the context of Storm Éowyn. The programme is equally woolly in this regard. We are talking about meeting our 2030 targets but not about how we are going to do it or the step-by-step approach that is required.

On healthcare, the people of Ireland are dealing with a crisis at the moment and it is evident the HSE needs ongoing support and proper management structures. I was surprised to find out recently, for example, that a lot of agency staff are now being appointed in the area of management, not just in terms of nursing support. We are dealing with backlogs and long waiting lists for patients, some of whom cannot obtain appointments in local clinics or find a space on the patient lists of their local GPs. I know that GPs are private operators but we do not have the incentives to get them operating. There are many other issues relating to hormone replacement therapy, HRT, as I mentioned previously. Other women's health issues also need to be addressed, such as free contraception and breast cancer screenings.

There are many other issues in the area of health but I am going to skip them because this programme is a scattergun document, and while we could pick flaws everywhere, I want to get to different areas. On education, the population at primary level is stabilising throughout the country but in Dublin Mid-West, the constituency I share with the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, and Deputy Shane Moynihan - it is great to see them here in the Chamber - we have the opposite. We still have rapidly growing areas, such as Newcastle, where the population shows there is a need for at least a 500-pupil second level school. Newcastle is a public transport desert. People have been campaigning for it but there is no movement at Government level for a school for Newcastle. In areas such as Adamstown and Clonburris, the strategic development zones, SDZs, there is the same issue and children cannot get a place close to where they need one, and the problem is even more pressing at second level. Again, I will challenge the Government on this over the coming years.

We have staffing shortages, in both the healthcare service and education. I have mentioned previously that we could do with a Dublin allowance to encourage back the many people who have travelled abroad. They might have travelled as a rite of passage to work for a year or two, but they do not come back. In healthcare, for example, if it were not for the great efforts put in by staff from countries such as the Philippines or Nigeria, we would not have a healthcare service. Equally, however, from an investment point of view, if we are looking at pure economics as opposed to at people and society, we should keep our best and brightest at home and encourage them to return. They cannot afford to rent in Dublin, let alone get a mortgage. They need a Dublin allowance to encourage them to come back here, work and contribute to our society.

We have issues with the school transport scheme. Again, there is little on this in the document. Taxi drivers over the age of 70 can carry members of the public but Bus Éireann will not allow these taxi drivers to supplement the shortage of drivers required to bring kids to and from school. The Minister of State is nodding and I have faith in her delivering on at least this aspect of the programme for Government.

Freisin, maidir leis an éileamh a thagann nuair a labhraítear faoin easpa tacaíochta agus cúnaimh a thugtar dár nGaelscoileanna agus Gaelcholáistí, is léir go bhfuil an-chuid den phobal ag lorg níos mó scoileanna, go mór mór i Leamhcán, mar shampla. Tá an clár Rialtais comhtháite maidir leis an éileamh agus soláthar do Ghaelscoileanna agus Gaelcholáistí Gaeilge. Tá éileamh ard ann ag na scoileanna seo nach bhfuil an Rialtas ag cur ar fáil dúinn. We need to put more investment into Gaelscoileanna. There is a demand in our constituency and across the country.

On transport, I reference what Deputy Shane Moynihan said. He is a great person for highlighting the deficiencies in our transport system in Dublin Mid-West. A lot of what Deputy Moynihan spoke about was stuff that is not in the programme for Government, which is not a good omen for the five years to come. I mentioned in my bus users survey that the bus system is not fit for purposes. More than 2,700 people filled in this survey. I have had a nightmare trying to get the NTA to engage. There are issues with ghost buses and Dublin Bus used to be able to put a service on halfway along the route and catch up for the overspill. There are buses that do not turn up and buses that are full but the NTA does not engage. Is it arrogance or incompetence? I found in this survey that a lot of people have faith in a directly elected mayor with political accountability to take over our transport system. I will come back to this issue.

We also need to do more to incentivise the take up of EVs, replace older, polluting vehicles and make EVs more affordable. EVs are a panacea for rural Ireland because with all the space on roofs and battery storage technology, people should be able to charge their cars at home and have cheap and almost free electricity at different times of the year to get from A to B in rural communities and reduce carbon emissions. There is not enough in the programme to push this at the pace required. We saw in the issue about the electricity grid that we need to have more locally produced electricity added into the grid as part of an overall regional hub system.

A brief but important aspect that is not in the legislation at all is the consequences for those who commit violent assaults. The Minister for Justice said that those who have a history of coercive control and abuse would require a Private Members' Bill but there is no Jennie's law. I would like to see a Jennie's law over the next 12 months.

If it is agreeable, I will share time with Deputy Geoghegan - half and half. May I make a personal embarrassing comment to say how brilliant it is to share time with Deputy Geoghegan? We have been personal friends for more than 20 years. To be sitting on the same Government bench as him is really good and really cool. What is seldom is wonderful but as the Ceann Comhairle knows, we are all friends here, particularly when we disagree. That is the attitude but we will split time - eight and seven minutes. He may be a friend but he is not getting a minute more than me.

I would like to touch on three points. The first is a more general point and then two points in respect of my new brief in the Department of Foreign Affairs. In relation to the programme for Government, it is my clear belief that this is an ambitious programme for Government brought together by three entities - two political parties and a grouping of TDs - that can deliver for Ireland. We do so with our eyes wide open to the clear challenges that face our society and economy at the moment. I take on board the comments by other Deputies including Deputy Gogarty and the very clear requests and demands of the Government that are not just from him as an elected representative but of the people he represents in Dublin Mid-West, similar to Deputy Paul Lawless in Mayo and Deputy Martin Kenny in Sligo-Leitrim, and Donegal. He lost a bit of Roscommon but he has all the rest.

The challenges are stark, which we know. We do not hide from the starkness when it comes to housing, disability services, assessment in our special schools or providing a transport system, as the Ceann Comhairle well knows, that is fit for purpose and for the evolving challenges that face our country, be they economic, societal or the clear challenges of the climate emergency. We face into those challenges in a strong position. We are one of the few European Union states that find themselves at this time with a continually growing economy, falling interest rates, effective full employment, a massive surplus and the ability to put money away in funds for more difficult times but also to invest more carefully in the infrastructure a growing state needs. The Ireland of today is very different to the Ireland of my youth. This is an Ireland people want to come to and they are extremely welcome here. They are welcome to play a full part not just in our economic growth or in terms of meeting the needs of our society but in their own personal development. They can be people fleeing war and persecution or coming here for many other reasons. That was not the Ireland in which many of us grew up. For may of us, the Ireland we grew up in was one you had to leave. Two weeks after I handed in my dissertation in university, I got on a plane to Brussels and did not know if I was ever going to come back simply because the financial crash was looming. That was the situation in which so many people found themselves. We have a strong basis on which not only to address clear domestic challenges, from which no one is hiding, as I said, but equally to allow us to continue to play a role in the wider world.

It is a huge honour to be reappointed as a Minister of State but it is a double honour to be appointed a Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs with responsibility for international development and our diaspora. I look forward to working closely with our Tánaiste and the Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, in making sure the services Irish people abroad, travelling abroad and, crucially, the reputation of this country abroad, are maintained to the highest possible level. We see this laced throughout the programme for Government, specifically in references from page 132 on in relation to Ireland's place in the world. We are an outward-looking country. We are a small island but we are a small island at the heart of Europe and the centre of the world. That is not just a catchphrase; it simply has to be reflected in our actions and in the delivery of this programme for Government.

A few of measures are very pertinent. Ireland to date has contributed more than €38 million to the work of UNRWA in Gaza and the Palestinian territories. This is important and vital. When other administrations were looking to cut funding or remove it, Ireland increased the level of funding and support we have given to the poor people of Palestine who have had a reign of terror fall on them for the last number of months. We will continue our support in Ukraine to build peace, allowing the people of Ukraine to continue to live in their country despite the daily onslaught of the brutal Russian war regime.

Ireland's contribution in overseas development aid is at one of its highest levels, at over €800 million a year in contributions. We are set to move ever closer to achieving 0.7%. Those of us who have been around will remember when we hit 0.7% before but that was when our economy was in such dire straits and the measurement of GNI was much different. We will see Ireland continue to contribute to the fund for loss and damage, a vital fund to support the global south, particularly as the ravages of climate change force them to change. Ireland will keep attention on the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan. Ireland is committed to an increased focus on Sudan. We all know a lot is happening in this world of ours at the moment. There is a lot of fear out there, a lot of danger and a lot of changing opinions in administrations across the world but now is not the time for Ireland to turn its back on the world. Now is the time for Ireland to increase.

I wish to speak about the second part of my brief before handing over to Deputy Geoghegan, which is the work of our diaspora. This element was added to this portfolio by Enda Kenny as Taoiseach when he gave the first Minister of State position with responsibility for the diaspora to Jimmy Deenihan. It is clear that our diaspora strategy needs to be revamped. We have committed in the programme for Government to developing a new diaspora strategy. That work has already commenced. The profile of the diaspora is changing. The profile of the 20-year-old Irish person who had to hop on a plane to America never to come back again has changed. Our diaspora is evolving; people are moving for many reasons. We know the public criticism that some people are going to some places and some people are making a choice. We look at the profile of the Irish-American diaspora in particular and how we have to evolve our strategy to make sure the focus is on so much more than it was before. The previous strategy has worked for us but we now need to maximise the potential of our diaspora in the United States to make sure that complements the work of Enterprise Ireland and the IDA and that we continue to increase our diplomatic presence and pursue our political ambitions when it comes to global issues and the plight of the undocumented.

We also look at other jurisdictions, for example, at the Irish in Australia, who may be diaspora for six months, a year, two years or longer. Why are they going? As Deputy Gogarty alluded to, we must make sure we have a situation whereby they can come back. One of the last acts I was able to do as a Minister of State at the Department of Finance was to launch a new insurance company specifically targeting returning drivers who had not been able to get quotes for car insurance. We will make sure that there is recognition of driver licences and that records and insurance, including health insurance, are checked. I am excited for the role I have taken on. I am excited and undaunted by the challenges that lie ahead of the new Government. I have absolute faith that, under the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste, we will deliver for the Irish people because that is our responsibility.

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, for his kind remarks. I wish him well in his new role as Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs.

I commend each of the negotiators in the three groupings of Fine Gael, which is my own party, Fianna Fáil and the regional Independents for coming together and developing this programme for Government. It is an ambitious programme focused on delivery. In particular, I want to highlight the package of supports for small and medium-sized businesses, including a reduction in VAT, reduced childcare costs of €200 per family over the lifetime of the Government and better access to disability services, with a senior Minister focused on driving a better system. Only an hour ago I was with the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, in Wanderers rugby club in my constituency to see the extraordinary work the Together Academy does in providing training for Down's syndrome adults and ensuring Down's syndrome children and adults have the same opportunities in life as everybody else. I also want to highlight more homes and home ownership, the retention of the help-to-buy scheme and delivering better infrastructure faster.

Some of the key priorities I ran on in the general election were supporting local businesses, tackling crime, supporting our neurodiverse communities and helping working families. These are all areas included in the programme for Government and that I hope, as a Government TD, to advance during the lifetime of this Dáil. As a recent Lord Mayor of Dublin, I especially welcome the programme for Government's commitment to implementing the recommendations of the Dublin city task force through the Department of the Taoiseach. Very often in this House, derisory remarks are made about the people in Dublin, what is going on in Dublin and that everything is about Dublin, but Dublin is for everybody. Dublin is our capital city. It is for the whole country. It is in the interests of the entire country that Dublin thrives. Everyone in the House would acknowledge there are challenges in our city centre that need the type of focus this task force has provided. It is not only Government TDs who wish to have the Dublin city task force recommendations implemented. Every TD who represents Dublin supported the task force when it emerged and every councillor on Dublin City Council supported the recommendations, so I sincerely hope the implementation of these recommendations is something the whole House can get behind in a non-partisan way and we can deliver the type of city we all want our capital to be.

The task force report is laden with constructive recommendations, but one issue the voters of Dublin Bay South raised consistently with me during the general election was safety in our city. All stakeholder groups consulted by the task force cited safety concerns as essential to the future success of Dublin. Perhaps the headline recommendation to improve safety in Dublin is the commitment to fund a minimum of 1,000 additional gardaí for Dublin city over the next three years. Achieving this target will significantly increase Garda visibility, which we know will enhance both perceived and actual safety in our capital city. I am sure Deputies on all sides of the House will support this initiative. That is why I was delighted last week to attend the launch of the Government's Garda recruitment campaign for 2025 with the Minister for Justice in Irishtown Garda station, which plays a crucial role in keeping the people of my constituency safe. I am confident the launch marked a continuation of the outgoing Government's commitment to increase Garda numbers in our capital city.

However, I am acutely aware we cannot simply police our way to a safer Dublin. The causes of crime in our capital are complex and deep-rooted. To make Dublin safer, we must also pursue policies that get at the root the problem. The programme offers a wide and holistic range of commitments that do just this. One example is the emphasis placed on increasing the number of people living in our city centre. Evidence from around the world shows that having more people and thriving communities in city centres improves safety through a self-policing effect. The programme for Government's new towns and cities infrastructure fund will help to rejuvenate Dublin and the north Georgian core while other vacancy and dereliction grants will be extended. Further living-above-the-shop incentives will also be rolled out. Local authority powers to bring vacant properties back into use will be strengthened and our retrofitting programmes will be enhanced, including for group retrofit projects that reduce costs for people living in denser settings. This is especially promising, given that social housing complexes in Dublin city are among the most energy inefficient in the country. These policies will combine to make far better use of our existing housing stock as well as aligning with our climate targets and the national development plan's preference for more transport-oriented development. These policies will enliven Dublin. This is not to mention the programme's other commitments to improve cleanliness, empower community decision-makers, collaborate and review the concentration of services in the city centre.

All of these plans require funding and not only from central government. Dublin City Council must have independent control of more money if it is to effectively deliver the reforms to which we aspire. One immediate step the Government could take is to increase the level of independent funds available to Dublin City Council and require all Departments occupying buildings in Dublin to pay commercial rates. According to replies to parliamentary questions I have submitted, more than 100 buildings in Dublin city pay no commercial rates to Dublin City Council. I hope that, working with the Minister for housing and local government as a Government TD, I can advocate for the change recommended by the Dublin city task force that would see these buildings pay rates just like every other building in our city. This would go towards funding all of the necessary changes we need in order to make Dublin a safe city, a clean city and a city of which we can all be proud.

With a focused effort from all of us in the House, particularly those of us representing Dublin constituencies, more people in Dublin can live in warm safe homes situated in safer and more bustling communities. This is what is pledged in the programme for Government. I look forward to working with all sides of the House to achieve the recommendations as set out by the task force.

I congratulate all of the Ministers on their appointments. We certainly feel there are too many Ministers and we would not like to see the Government's replication of what was there in the past because we have seen many failures in it.

As I rise to speak on the programme for Government, it strikes me that, in my part of the world, we have seen everything on which people depend shook to its very core by the storm. Thousands of people are still without power. We still have schools closed and major problems. People are very frustrated. My office is inundated with calls, messages and text messages from all kinds of people who are pulling their hair out. Nobody seems to be listening. We have thousands of people with no power. Elderly people who need equipment at home cannot manage. People have not been able to eat at home. They have not had food at home for days because they do not have power in the house. They have to eat out even though they cannot afford to do that. The Minister for Social Protection introduced the humanitarian assistance scheme whereby people could get some assistance but it is not working. In Carrick-on-Shannon today, there was a queue around the corner of people coming in with forms. The forms were just being taken off them and they were being told someone would get back to them. That is no good to people. The scheme has been an utter failure. It is a reflection of how the Government has failed the people in the west and north west of the country. It is obnoxious and wrong. Many people feel let down and abandoned because of what has happened. They are still like this. The Government does not recognise or understand the absolute rage out there because of this in so many communities.

The vast majority of the problems are due to afforestation, with power lines going through forestry and trees falling on top of them because the trees are planted 10 m from the lines and they grow 30 m tall. One does not need to be a genius to know they will fall on the lines when the wind comes. Today, there is work being done on mounting for plantations in County Longford where the trees will be 10 m from the lines. In 20 years' time, those trees will fall on the lines.

What is happening is preposterous. I have seen six ESB crews going into forestry to try to resolve the situation, pulling wires in and trying to carry equipment in. There was no sign of the Defence Forces. The Ministers here last night thanked the Defence Forces. If members of the Defence Forces assisted with this, at least we could split those into two groups and get double the amount of work done. Nothing is happening for so many people out there. We are talking about a programme for Government but as far as I can see it is a programme for disaster that this Government is presiding over. We need urgent action. We need to get the Defence Forces on the ground in counties Sligo, Leitrim and Mayo, in these areas that have been so badly affected. We absolutely need to get them now, but it should have happened two weeks ago. It has been totally ignored. We need to see action by the Government in respect of this. If we do not see this action, I do not know where people are going to turn. So many people are so disappointed, disillusioned, annoyed and frustrated with everything that has happened around the response to this storm. I know the workers from the ESB, from the local authorities and from all the other agencies have been doing their best. For example, Leitrim County Council was giving vouchers for food. That was stopped today. Sligo County Council is still doing it. Why is there this absence of co-ordination, absence of joined-up thinking from anywhere? People do not know what is going on.

I have no power in my house. This morning we got a text from the ESB network telling us our power was restored last night at 8.57 p.m. If the power was restored last night, I would bloody well know about it. It is not back. Thousands of people are getting the same messages telling them that the power is back, when they are sitting in the dark. Thousands of people are getting messages telling them their power will be back next Wednesday. When Tuesday evening or Wednesday comes, they are told it will be another three or four days. This is going on and on.

I have walked around where this forestry is and it will be weeks before people will see their power restored, probably three or four weeks in some cases, because there are hundreds of trees on top of power lines and hundreds of trees on top of those trees. Yet, we do not see any sense of urgency from Government to put in place any kind of emergency response. If this happened in any other part of the country, the Army and the Civil Defence would be out, everyone would be out, but they have not been sent to the west or the north west. I want to know why. Why is this Government letting down the people of my constituency and the parts of the country that have been worst affected by this storm? Why are they being left behind?

The other important issue is that people are being charged standard charges for ESB and for power when they do not have any power. Are they going to continue to pay those charges? It is absolutely ridiculous.

Go raibh maith ag an gCeann Comhairle. Táim fíorbhuíoch do mo chairde, mo chlann agus do mhuintir Chontae na Mí as a dtacaíocht dom le mo bheith anseo i nDáil Éireann. I am also very grateful to the team here in Leinster House and indeed my new colleagues here in Dáil Éireann. There was a slight baptism of fire over the past two months. However, that is how we learn best.

To go on with the business in hand, we have an abundance of data and evidence and, most importantly, we have heard the lived experiences and the needs of the people we represent. This programme for Government includes many solutions that can be implemented in the coming months. I believe some of them will address many of these needs in the short term, expressed by people in rural and urban Ireland. The first example I will give is easier access to healthcare. Community pharmacies are available in every town and village or within a short commute. They are open without an appointment for an average of 54 hours per week. Pharmacy teams continuously network with general practitioners, public health nurses, carers, hospital and allied health care teams. Regular medicines usage reviews and minor ailments schemes will improve patient safety and drug budgeting.

Another example is investment in education and training boards and colleges of further education and training. For example, close to me, Dunboyne College of Further Education serves students from five counties. This will ensure the training of students in speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, special education assistance and care assistance apprentices, all of whom are urgently required to support the youngest to the oldest in our communities.

A third example is expanded Local Link transport services. They require NTA community funding to be restored as soon as possible to connect individuals and their communities. That will alleviate isolation and loneliness and reduce carbon emissions. To deliver these few examples from the programme for Government and to mitigate future natural or man-made crises, and we have heard plenty of that in the aftermath of Storm Éowyn, there must be action. We are probably unified across the Chamber in relation to that. There must be inter- and intra-government, local government, State and semi-State corporates. They must all collaborate and co-operate. Silo thinking and silo management styles must end as a matter of urgency and if legislation is required, so be it.

Most of us here are no strangers to acronyms, so I will throw my own two new ones into the mix for good measure - ACE, accountability, cost-consciousness and efficiency, in tandem with FGP, future-proofing, gratitude and praise, for the people who deliver all of these services. As Gaeilge arís, is féidir linn.

Save the best for last. Go raibh míle maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. Táim thar a bheith buíoch go bhfuil mé ag seasamh arís anseo i nDáil Éireann.

As an Independent Teachta Dála for Dublin Bay North, I am honoured to address this Chamber today regarding the recent programme for Government. It has been a great experience for me and the great colleagues I have had over the past few weeks, getting down and getting to work. This comprehensive plan outlines our nation's path forward. While it presents several commendable initiatives, it is essential to critically assess its provisions to ensure that they align with our todhchaí.

In regard to the programme's ambitious target of the construction of 300,000 homes by 2030, this is a great and positive step but we have to outline our past failures. In 2024, we only saw 30,330 homes built, which is a 6.7% decrease. To bridge this gap we need to explore innovative solutions that have worked elsewhere, such as modular homes, and implement increased taxes on vacant property sites to stimulate supply.

As Members will be aware, I am a passionate climate activist. This Government’s pledge to reduce greenhouse gases by 51% by 2030 and to achieve net zero by 2050 is ambitious. However, to get to these goals we need to invest in renewable energy. Unlike how we dealt with fossil fuels in the past, let us invest. Ireland has a nine-times potential of our land mass in seabed. If any other European country had that potential, it would utilise it to benefit the State.

I will not go on about private wires because I spoke about the issue yesterday. However, the recent storm has highlighted it, leaving thousands without power, underscoring the urgency to enhance our grid’s resilience. On education and employment, throughout the campaign I met thousands of parents who are struggling. The programme for Government outlines various initiatives. There is a need for robust focus on education and employment opportunities for young people. We need to invest in skills and innovation and create pathways that lead to meaningful careers for teachers, special needs assistants and carers. Let our country be a place where our youth are equipped to thrive and adapt.

I want to highlight that, in Dublin Bay North the lack of investment is ridiculous. I am fed up with it. That is why I got involved in politics. For example, in Belmayne there is a clear place where there could be a library and there could be a development on the l-shaped land. I urge that this be developed.

Mental health is a huge issue. We have one of the highest rates of mental ill health in Europe. Some 18.5% of the population is affected. Nearly half of that number do not seek help. We need to expand access to mental health services. I was lucky that I went to a college that provided a free mental health service. Everyone is experiencing this. Please develop it. The young people of Ireland are screaming out for this. One in four young people in Ireland experiences anxiety or depression. With social media nowadays, we are not doing ourselves any favours.

Disability is a huge issue. I am delighted to see that there are key steps in the programme, but there are not the targets. We need to have targets for respite, overnights and personalised projects for people with disabilities. We must not just tackle barriers but remove them so that everyone has the right to thrive.

Another issue that is close to my heart and that has been neglected on the northside of Dublin is Beaumont Hospital. It has been neglected. I can see that there are ambitions to improve healthcare. Beaumont Hospital is the beating heart for healthcare for people on the northside. It serves thousands of people but is operating under immense strain. The front-line staff are heroes working in impossible conditions, stretched beyond their limits. Please, can we see this included in the HSE capital plan? The radiation oncology unit, the emergency department and the 100-bed ward are stuck at the final design phase. We need these to be put into the northside. If all of these projects were expedited for rapid construction, we would be in a much stronger position not just for today but for the future of healthcare on the northside. If we continue down this path of delay, red tape and indifference, we will set ourselves up for failure.

To the Government and decision-makers who I have chosen to support, please make sure this gets done. We cannot ignore the northside anymore. I will not stand by while it is left behind. I will fight for this and demand action. The time for talk is over; the time for action is now. I am supporting the programme for Government. I do so with cautious optimism. It lays a foundation but the true measure of success will be its implementation and its impact on the citizens of Ireland. Let us work together, collaboratively, and hold ourselves accountable to ensure that in the next five years we not only meet our targets but we foster a society in which Ireland can envision and achieve a prosperous future.

Cuireadh an Dáil ar athló ar 4.51 p.m. go dtí 2 p.m., Dé Máirt, an 11 Feabhra 2025.
The Dáil adjourned at 4.51 p.m. until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 11 February 2025.
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