I thank the Deputy. Of course, the Government did not wait. It brought forward, objectively, one of the largest packages of supports in the European Union to assist our citizens. It is either the largest or second largest package in the European Union, depending on how you look at it, and it is around two and a half times larger than the average package in the European Union. While I welcome the European Commission's high-level proposals of yesterday as an important contribution to this discussion, we in Ireland, in this Oireachtas and in the Government, did not wait for the European Commission to come up with a list of ideas. To the Deputy's question, I welcome the high-level proposals published yesterday. They are being discussed today and tomorrow at a meeting of the European Council in Cyprus, where our Taoiseach will represent the country. I hope that meeting provides an opportunity to put a bit of meat on the bones of further areas where the European Union can bring forward opportunities to act. I welcome that the proposals yesterday referenced the ability of countries to go beyond the energy tax directive. The Deputy will remember that I brought a financial resolution into this House in which we went beyond the energy tax directive on diesel. On that occasion, we did so more to get ready to ask for forgiveness than permission. I welcome the recognition from the European Commission that it needs to give member states flexibility in relation to that. I also note that the Commission's proposals say that measures should be targeted income measures. That is why we extended the fuel allowance. I welcome that the Commission said measures should be temporary because I think we have to stay agile and flexible during this crisis. It is hard to predict where the global economy will be in six weeks, let alone in six months. That is why our current measures run to the end of July. The Commission says that taking action on excise duty is an option, which is why we have cut the excise duty on diesel by 32 cent and on petrol by 27 cent. Between the green diesel excise duty cut and the support scheme, the cut for a litre of green diesel is 27.5 cent. The Deputy is right that the Commission said there are options that can be considered in relation to electricity. I note it said it will soon adopt a legal proposal in relation to this, and Ireland will constructively engage on that. There is an interesting question, quite frankly, as to what more we can do around the structural cost of electricity. To give the Deputy an example, and I read the same article today as he did, we want to invest a lot more in upgrading our grid. We want to make sure more electricity is produced from renewables. The question of how much of that will come on to the household bill versus how much of it will come from the resources of the State is an important and legitimate debate. We are already planning on spending €18 billion on upgrading the grid. Is there more that can be done in that space? We will work constructively at a European level in this regard. We have already acted on the VAT rate on electricity. The Deputy will remember that we took the decision to extend the lowest rate of VAT that we can levy on electricity. That 9% rate has been in place since 2022, but it has constantly been rolled over. We took a decision early on to provide certainty that the rate would be in place until 2030. That measure has already come at a cost of about €1 billion. We do not rule out taking further actions - no Government can - but an energy crisis in the summer months is very different from the challenges that people could face in the winter months. We have to make sure that we intervene, as we did with the largest or second largest package in the European Union, but also that we have an ability to intervene further. As the Deputy and all of us know in the context of this crisis, no matter what happens in Iran, the damage done now to the energy infrastructure means it will take a significant time to repair. Therefore, we have to be agile. On the Deputy's point on the surplus, I am very pleased that there is a surplus. It did not come about by accident and did not fall from the sky. The sensible, pro-enterprise policies that this country has implemented mean that we have a fiscal buffer built up. The surplus is not just sitting idle. It is going into infrastructure and climate adaptation, through those funds, and into the Future Ireland Fund to meet, for example, pension requirements. It provides us with options.

Sentiment score: 0.11

Truthfully, it is quite the opposite. We have already brought forward a package of €750 million. That is the opposite of refusing to act; it is acting. It is concrete, meaningful action and people see it at the pump. They know that the diesel price is lower than it was before. It is still too high but people know it is lower. They know the petrol price is lower than it was. Hauliers and their representative body have welcomed the package. Farmers and their representative body have welcomed the package. We continue to work and engage with many stakeholders including the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, the Irish Business and Employers Confederation, IBEC, and many others. The Deputy should also acknowledge that never before in the history of the State have more people been in receipt of a fuel allowance. We made a decision to expand it to 50,000 more low-income, working families. Here is the difference between being in government and opposition; we cannot come in here every Thursday and effectively propose we do another budget. I want to make sure we have options at budget time. We already took a very significant intervention and stand ready to take further interventions. However, we will not have the options we require as a country if we try and have a budget every Thursday.

Sentiment score: 0.13

We will not be bringing forward a mini budget but we did introduce a €750 million package, the second largest in the European Union and two and a half times the European average, less than two weeks ago. I take some of the points the Deputy made on sectoral interests versus everybody. There is something in that. However, I will make two points regarding that. First, there are some sectors where it simply makes sense when there is a fuel crisis to prioritise an intervention. We are not all the same in terms of our fuel consumption. A haulier or a farm contractor has a very significant fuel bill. It made sense for all of us to keep our supply chains in certain crucial sectors of the Irish economy going. I do not think the Deputy and I disagree on that; he has acknowledged some sectors need help. Beyond that, I make the point that the package we brought forward is one everybody benefits from. I will explain why. The chief economist in the Department of Finance has estimated, and he said this on the day we published the spring forecast, that whatever inflation ends up being - we all want to suppress any increase - will be approximately 0.6% lower each of the months of May, June and July then it would otherwise have been. That person the Deputy quite rightly mentioned, and we all know them, who is in the supermarket and worried about the cost of food going up - by keeping inflation down through the package, we are having a positive impact on what that supermarket bill would have been otherwise. On VAT 9%, and the Deputy got a lot of mileage since the previous budget out of the old burger baron cut, I want to ask him about it. I was in the Deputy's constituency this week. I doubt when he goes into his local café in Drogheda, and we all have a local café in our community, he looks at the man or woman behind the counter and says good afternoon to Mr. or Mrs baron because he knows in his heart of hearts, as a former Minister in the Department of enterprise, that the overwhelming majority of hospitality businesses are small businesses. He knows they are the heartbeat of rural and regional Ireland and they employ four, five or ten people. He knows that whatever the merits or demerits, and I accept we have a full policy difference, of our position on the budget, it is more essential we reduce their cost base. What would the Deputy be saying to me if we had not done anything to support the hospitality sector in the budget? A sector that employs well over 140,000 people directly needs our support. I am not flying any kites but when I am asked a question I try to answer it. I was asked whether there will be a personal income tax package in the budget; yes, there will. I want to make another point as the Deputy has raised this with me many times. The country we saw in recent weeks regarding blockades is not who we are. We all know we are better than that as a people. People are angry and frustrated and there are real issues; I get that. However, we have to have really good structures for engagement in place with democratically constituted national bodies. We had a very good meeting in the past week of the Labour Employer Economic Forum, LEEF, with the ICTU, and others. It made points not too dissimilar to the Deputy’s. There is a need to intensify that engagement in the weeks ahead.

Sentiment score: 0.15

We will not get into it but the Deputy knows Ronald McDonald does not own the McDonald's in Bray. He knows there are franchises in relation to many of these places. It is important to point that out.

Sentiment score: 0.07

Whether it is a franchise or a small independent business, there are hardworking, decent people running these places too. They employ PAYE workers too. I will stand in any of these cafés, restaurants or rural pubs that serve food and say to people that the reduction we have brought about from July on VAT is a reduction in the cost base of that business. At a time of real pressure, reducing costs on business is good. We can disagree on that point and agree on a broader point. There is a need to have broader engagement with wider society and representative groups on how we get ourselves through this moment of challenge. I found, and I certainly do not mean they were not tough on us or that they agree with us on everything, that the engagement we had with ICTU, IBEC and members of the LEEF to be very good. What we need to do is have a much more intensive process now to engage with workers, their representatives and business representative bodies in the weeks ahead.

Sentiment score: 0.24

Cannot mention that.

Sentiment score: 0.00

I thank the Deputy. I remember very well standing at the GPO for what was a very important moment for Dublin with the launch of the Dublin city task force report. I say that because it was a report that had nothing to do with me. I decided that we should have a task force for Dublin but the report is the culmination of an incredible body of work done by many people, including many Members, many people across the political divide, all of the agencies, the city council and its excellent chief executive, Richard Shakespeare, and many other bodies, among them the HSE, An Garda Síochána and business groups, which fed into the vision. I know the Deputy knows that too but I wanted to say that. That was the outworking of that. Since then, we have seen real progress in the implementation of the report. I believe Dublin City Council is this week progressing the establishment of the special purpose vehicle, SPV. The Deputy will be aware of the appointment the Government has made of someone to head that up and drive that in the person of Robert Watt; that Dublin City Council has allocated staff with the technical skills to a programme management unit to drive delivery and it is now working on an integrated area strategy; the changes we made to the living city initiative to make sure more buildings in Dublin, including in his constituency, can qualify for reliefs to bring them back into use as homes, including above the shop, and removing any restriction in relation to that; and the very significant money we have provided through the various renewal funds around Parnell Square culture quarter, the fruit and vegetable market and the plans in relation to the GPO as well. Now we have that SPV to drive delivery too. I am proud, quite frankly, of the vision of the Dublin city centre task force. I think people far away from Dublin can take an interest in this too because we all want to see a capital city that is vibrant and thriving but that does not take away from the point the Deputy made because that point is very valid. Homelessness in our country, but also in our capital city, is still far too high. In certain parts of our country, there is a particularly high number of people as well; I do not like to use the word “concentration”. We know while homelessness is a national problem, it is a problem that disproportionately impacts Dublin. That is why we are providing more funding for the Dublin homeless region and have provided funding of around €400 million in 2026; why we have provided local authorities with statutory discretion around HAP payments above the prescribed maximum rent limit; and why we recently met as a Government with Dublin City Council, its director of housing and its chief executive – that is myself, the Taoiseach, the Minister for housing and the Minister of State with responsibility for housing - to see what more can be done in relation to faster delivery of social housing. I accept it is an area in which we have a huge amount more work to do but both pieces of work are important. Driving implementation of the Dublin city centre task force is key while also, obviously, tackling the homeless emergency in the country.

Sentiment score: 0.24

It was May 2024. I became Taoiseach in April 2024 so it was May 2024 that we announced the plan to put this in place. Now, in 2026, we are already seeing delivery on that. The Deputy is actually right about the living city initiative. There was a rigidity around the living city initiative that, quite frankly, was making it too hard for people to benefit from. That is why we made a number of changes to it. I genuinely hope we see the benefits of that, most particularly to the changes relating to above-the-shop development. There has been some funding, though, through the urban regeneration fund already. I welcome the support of the Deputy’s party, I think, and most parties in this House in terms of other ways we can look at Dublin City Council having potentially ring-fenced funding whether that is a tourism levy or the likes - I am very eager to explore that – on the understanding that the funding goes directly into issues in Dublin city. We have seen other areas. The Minister for justice is present. We have seen a real focus on and progress in Garda numbers in the city and that has been widely acknowledged by people when I visit the Deputy’s constituency as well.

Sentiment score: 0.25

A memo is due to go to the Government around the next two weeks specifically on the next steps for the GPO.

Sentiment score: 0.00

I thank the Deputy for raising last night's programme. It is a programme which has been extraordinarily difficult for people across the country to watch. First and foremost, I thank the young people who came forward and shared their experience of the care system. It takes a lot of courage and bravery to do so and to do so in such a public manner. I commend "RTÉ Investigates" on the work it did on this. It highlighted a number of very challenging cases and indeed upsetting cases about vulnerable children who the State should support and protect. Of that, there is no doubt. Listening to some of the negative experiences, although frankly that phrase does not capture it, so I should say listening to some of the horrors that some very vulnerable children have endured while entrusted to the care of our State raises significant questions. Many fine people are working in Tusla. I do not think the Deputy is taking from that fact. They are working in extraordinarily difficult circumstances and often with very complex cases. I acknowledge them because they are doing good work, which is important to say. On the specific issue the Deputy raised about the use of special emergency arrangements, this is effectively where the State becomes reliant on a private operator to provide accommodation in an emergency situation. It is good to see that the reliance on that is being reduced, although it is still too high. I think it has been reduced from around 170 children in special emergency arrangements last year to 70 but Tusla is now working to reduce that further in the coming months. I spoke to the chief executive officer of Tusla this morning and I understand that there are around 69 of these centres. Nineteen of those centres are due to be registered from 1 May. There is a further plan regarding another 19 of them too. I genuinely believe Tusla is working its way through this with a real sense of urgency. It has closed six centres and stopped working with them, and there have been five Garda referrals over a period of time. The Deputy mentioned some absolute horrors, as is his right in this House. I do not want anyone to think that any part of this country, service in this country or any individual in this country is beyond the reproach of An Garda Síochána or the law in this land. I think the CEO said connections with six centres have been ceased and there have been five Garda referrals. There are also internal monitoring teams in Tusla, which have carried out 300 visits. It is also true that there has been an increase in the number of children requiring care, as the Deputy knows. We have seen an increase in the number of separated children seeking international protection. That reduced a lot compared with what it was a year or 18 months ago. Tusla is having to deal in real time with these pressures. It is very serious.

Sentiment score: 0.07

I need to be very careful here. There are extraordinarily harrowing cases that deserve and require a full investigation. I know that, over time, there have been five referrals to An Garda Síochána. The gardaí do their job very well but we should also acknowledge that Tusla is not the problem here. Tusla is working with children in very vulnerable and complex situations. It is not acceptable for any child to have an adverse or bad experience but it is important to say that-----

Sentiment score: 0.03

It is important to say that there are around 6,000 children in our care system, living with foster parents and in registered centres. The vast majority are in education and training. It is also true, in fairness to the Minister, Deputy Foley, who is working hard on this matter, that she secured an increase in the Tusla budget of €177 million this year on top of an additional €53 million in additional capital funding. The use of these centres is decreasing and Tusla is determined to continue to decrease it.

Sentiment score: 0.44