I want to start by welcoming Deputy Boyd Barrett back to the House. It is wonderful to see you back healthy and well. You spoke with enormous candour and bravery publicly, which has helped many people who are experiencing cancer in their own lives or their families’ lives. I acknowledge that. It is great to have you back. You are certainly back in action, and I look forward to our engagement later on today. On the local property tax, it is important to speak first about the Future Forty report, which sets out the wider economic and fiscal scenarios and the broader risks and megatrends that could crystallise over the coming decades. We know demographics are changing. Deputy Cullinane’s party leader, Deputy Mary Lou McDonald, previously said that demographics will look after themselves, which shows the short-termist approach of their party when it comes to economic management and its inability to see the strategic long-term risks in our economy. As we see from alternative budget scenarios, the Opposition wants to abolish the property tax, narrow our overall position on taxation and increase expenditure. This presents serious risks for our economy. The local property tax is a key source of funding for many local authorities across our country. It pays for services and amenities in each local area. It is a progressive tax linked directly to the value of properties. Higher-value properties are subject to a higher tax. By law, the local property tax is revalued every five years. There is ongoing work in the context of the local property tax changes from 2026 to 2030. It is important that we have a broad-based taxation system as we plan for dealing with the long-term effects on the economy. All Deputy Cullinane has given is a platitude of negativity and attacks against the Government, but very little in terms of solutions as to how his party plans to pay for what must be paid for in the medium to long term. Sinn Féin must be honest about how it would manage the economy and pay for all the commitments and promises it is making across nearly every area of government. Its statements are not credible and that is why the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, made changes in the context of the local property tax, including the widening of the bands. In the absence of any change to valuation bands or rates, there would have been a much bigger increase in the overall local property tax. That is why a significant number of homeowners will remain in their present bands for 2026 to 2030. The new annual charge for many households could be between €5 and €25 higher. We know there is discretion at local authority level to reduce or amend the local property tax depending on the decision of each local authority. That is why there has been significant work by the Department of Finance in terms of how it manages this self-assessed tax. The bands have been broadened and the Government did take measures in the budget to protect working families. The social protection budget, which the Sinn Féin leader dismissed yesterday, is €2 billion. The Deputy says it is insignificant. It is a significant, progressive and targeted intervention for those most in need in our society. It is not credible to attack every area of taxation and then to attack every area of expenditure for it not being enough. Sinn Féin's position on the economy would seriously undermine the foundations of our State and undermine the future. We all need to be honest-----
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-----about managing demographics and the risks and concerns around global trade.
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That is why this Government has done that in budget 2026.
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We have not taken the popular measures which Sinn Féin presents every week on additional temporary measures that are not sustainable in overall economics.
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I am being very honest with people when it comes to the need to have a broad-based system of taxation to manage the economy. The Deputy is being dishonest when it comes to his approach to managing the economy. Sinn Féin’s alternative budget would have increased net expenditure by up to 14%. That is a reckless approach. It would undermine the foundations of our economy and it would cause serious risk into the long term.
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I will not take lectures from Deputy Cullinane or anyone from Sinn Féin when it comes to economic management. Their party leader has said in recent years that demographics will look after themselves. Has she read any report? Have any of their finance spokespeople read any report on the wider long-term trends for our economy?
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Sinn Féin's approach to everything is providing for a massive increase in expenditure, abolishing and narrowing different areas of taxation, and imposing greater taxation on jobs and enterprise in our economy. It would undermine all opportunities for growth.
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That is why our approach in budget 2026 is progressive, fair, sustainable and targeted for those most in need.
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The report from the Department of Finance is not a projection. It looks at over 2,000 scenarios on a no-change policy basis. The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, was very clear yesterday that we are changing policy on an ongoing basis when it comes to infrastructure and housing, and we have more to do. We have a new housing plan being published in the coming weeks. We will have significant infrastructure reforms being published in the coming weeks, all to enable greater delivery of more homes and more infrastructure right across our economy. That is why it is important that we have that broad examination of the various economic and fiscal scenarios. It helps to set out the broader choices that we have as a Government and, indeed, as an Oireachtas around the risks which will crystallise. We know the trends on deglobalisation and how they will impact our wider long-term economic growth. We know the impacts when it comes to digitalisation and also the upside of that, if we can embrace that in the public service and also across all elements of the economy. When it comes to housing delivery, if you look at the national development plan, you will see that next year we will have over €11 billion between current and capital spending for the Department of housing, which is a significant increase in overall spending to deliver more social and affordable homes. That mix of funding will be set out in the new national housing plan to really drive the delivery of more homes for families and people across our country. It is not just about what the State is spending and allocating to housing. That is why when we bring forward measures, like the Minister, Deputy Browne, did yesterday on enabling private sector input in wastewater treatment plants, for example, what we heard from the Labour Party was total negativity.
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That is a measure which enables infrastructure and growth to be developed to build more homes across our economy. I ask Deputy Bacik to look at her own party. One of her own councillors is involved in judicial review proceedings against the new apartment guidelines, which will deliver more apartments and more units in our economy.
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We need to complement the State investment in housing with a market that is viable and can work. The Labour Party has attacked builders and developers in relation to the VAT cut. That is all about having viability in the market. If we are serious about delivering housing and more apartments, we must have a viable market to deliver more homes. Many families and workers across our economy want to see the delivery of more supply and we have to be honest around using taxation, regulation and other policy levers - not only more spending - as a means to deliver more homes. We have fronted up to the question of spending when it comes to the national development plan on infrastructure and housing, but we also need to reset a wider policy when it comes to regulation in our economy by examining rules, regulations and structures in terms of infrastructure and housing so we can deliver more homes quicker. That is the focus of the Government when it comes to the challenges set out in the Future Forty report.
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We are absolutely fronting up to our responsibilities. I welcome any constructive suggestions on policy but a lot of the policy that is coming from the Opposition is just for more spending. The State has fronted up to that question when it comes to the national development plan - over €100 billion of spending in the next five years. The strategic focus is on infrastructure, housing, water infrastructure and energy infrastructure, all to enable more homes to be built across our economy. What the Deputy refuses to do is to be honest about proposals to also enable the market to function. We have viability gaps in terms of delivery of apartments. That is why guidelines should change. We have viability gaps in other areas of housing supply. That is why the reforms the Minister, Deputy Browne, has introduced to enable the market to function to complement the State's role in housing delivery is central to delivering the overall level of housing supply required in our economy. The Deputy can attack the Government and talk about failure repeatedly but ultimately her approach would probably impose greater regulation, more stringency and more rules on the market.
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We would have less housing supply. That has been Labour's approach. Its councillor is involved in a judicial review-----
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-----on apartment guidelines. The Labour Party needs to be responsible as a party in stopping such a proposal.
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I share the Deputy's concern, as I know everyone in this House does, about the ongoing climate crisis. The work ongoing at COP at an EU level is all to ensure the European Union continues to show leadership when it comes to domestic policies but also to be responsible internationally when lots of world leaders and countries are backsliding on climate action. The work the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, has done in the context of budget 2026 and the funding he has secured for his Department is all about trying to accelerate Ireland's energy transition and to underpin our journey to a net-zero future. It includes record funding of over €500 million for home energy upgrades and solar PV. This will help make homes warmer, healthier, more comfortable and less expensive to heat. It is the most pressing change in our society. We have seen in the Future Forty report the huge risks that will crystallise if we do not take action now on climate change. That is why it is central in the work we have done as part of the national development plan review. We have prioritised critical sectors in our economy. When it comes to energy, for example, that is why €3.5 billion of an equity injection is being given to ESB and EirGrid, all to accelerate the need to build a grid that can match the renewables that we want to see onshore and offshore. It is also the work we are doing when it comes to reform of infrastructure in our economy. The report will be published in the coming weeks to try to enable much greater acceleration of renewables across the board. We are absolutely committed to addressing the climate crisis. We also need to be resolute in the work the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, is doing in protecting our nature and biodiversity. We need to prepare in terms of climate resilience as well. It is not only action in terms of the emissions profiles but also ensuring our critical infrastructure is protected and is more resilient for extreme and adverse weather events which are happening. The 2024 data from the EPA showed that Ireland's emissions continue to fall for the third year in a row and are at their lowest level in three decades compared with 1990 levels. Ireland's emissions decreased in 2024 and have decreased by 10% from 2021 to 2024. That is against a growing economy. If you take our comparators with many of the European economies that have populations which are relatively flat, or economic growth which is relatively flat, we have had extraordinary economic and population growth and we are still managing to reduce our emissions profile overall. What the Government is focused on is delivering a just transition for communities, enabling opportunities through the action we are taking in terms of climate change and focusing on the huge opportunity that renewable energy represents. I mention the work that is being done to build a grid that can be connected to that renewable energy as it is being advanced through the respective processes.
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Last January, Ireland hit a really important milestone of hitting 5 GW of installed onshore wind capacity. That is significant progress towards our 2030 target. We were ranked second in the world in 2023 for onshore wind generation.
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A significant amount of auctions have happened for offshore wind generation, as the Deputy is aware. They are working their way through their respective development processes. What we are trying to do is to accelerate that so we can deliver greater offshore renewable energy. Part of the problem with bringing people with us on climate change is reflected in the Deputy's remarks on farmers and agriculture. The Deputy has attacked the nitrates derogation. There was a meeting of 2,000 farmers in Fermoy, Cork earlier this week. They desperately want and need to hold onto that derogation. They are making massive efforts at farm level to make that transition and to build sustainable food systems. I am sure many of the farmers in west Cork would not welcome the Deputy's remarks, which will put them out of a livelihood.
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If we weaponise climate action, as the Deputy has done-----
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-----we will not be able to take the climate action that centrist politics needs.
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You need to work with farmers, with the agricultural community-----
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-----in supporting their transition rather than weaponising the derogation.
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I thank the Deputy and again welcome him back. I welcome the fact he has raised issues relating to cancer services and the national cancer strategy. It is important just to take a step back and look at the progress we have made over many years since the national cancer strategy was introduced. Over 65% of patients live for five years after a cancer diagnosis, compared with 43% in the 1990s. A lot of the difficult reforms that were introduced by Ministers in previous years around the centralisation of particular services and hubs have yielded much greater outcomes for citizens across the country. Like the Deputy, I commend all the workers across our hospital system who provide that daily care, compassion and support for people as they go through their treatment journey. We have tried in recent years to build and resource a public health system that responds to the needs from a workforce perspective. That is why in the past five years we have had nearly 30,000 additional healthcare workers in terms of whole-time equivalents working in our public health system to support and rapidly respond to diagnoses or particular incidents as they arise from cancer and a lot of other health perspectives. Next year, we will have an allocation of over €27 billion in terms of the overall allocation to the Department of Health. The Deputy asked specifically about radiation oncology, which I will respond to. In my negotiations and engagement with the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, we will have over €9 billion of capital in our health system over the next five years. That is a record level. The Minister is now developing a sectoral investment plan, working with the HSE on the capital needs in our system. Some of that will relate to radiation oncology or treatment interventions around replacing existing equipment. Others will obviously relate to new beds and building bed capacity across our system. As a Government, we have prioritised funding our health system, funding more workers and beds in our health system and also funding the technological improvements that I think will yield greater improvements in life expectancy. That is why we are taking digital health seriously and prioritising that from a capital perspective over the next five years. I will ask the Minister to respond in time to the Deputy's specific question and take a note of the work that is happening and the capital plans for the next five years. However, successive Governments have resourced and significantly reformed our health system and its cancer treatment. We are seeing the positive outputs from that due to the great work of the people the Deputy mentioned.
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I share with the Deputy the focus on ensuring that our health infrastructure, including radiation oncology machines or building better bed capacity across our health system, is achieved in the next five years. That is the work we are doing with the sectoral investment plan with the HSE to ensure we replace the equipment that is required and build additional capacity. We are now funding a public health system which should become less reliant on the private health system over the next series of years in terms of outsourcing and some of what the Deputy referenced. I want to commend the enormous work and leadership of many people in our health system who have transformed outcomes. It is important, when we talk about the national cancer strategy, to note it is a strategy that has worked. It is delivering improved outcomes. Looking at the data over two to three decades, we have had a transformational improvement in that area over the last number of years. I will ask the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, to respond to the Deputy's specific question about radiation oncology. I believe there is significant scope over the next five years, through the investment we have put aside in the national development plan, to have a significant replacement programme for a lot of the health equipment which is required.
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