Ní aontaím leis an Teachta. Mar a dúirt mé inné, tá an Rialtas ag déanamh gach aon iarracht cabhair agus tacaíocht a thabhairt do dhaoine, go háirithe na daoine is boichte agus ar ioncam íseal sa tír seo. Sin a dhein muid inné leis an bpacáiste a d'fhoilsíomar. I disagree fundamentally with the Deputy in her assessment. The bottom line is that Sinn Féin voted against a reduction in diesel of 20 cent per litre last evening. Sinn Féin voted against a 15 cent reduction in petrol and a 3 cent per litre reduction in green diesel, and also voted against the NORA levy, or will, in terms of its commitment.
Sentiment score: -0.09
No, they did vote against it last evening. They voted against the reduction.
Sentiment score: -0.15
If they had won last night, there would be no reductions at all.
Sentiment score: 0.36
That is the logical conclusion of their position. No attempt this morning is going to change that fact. We put forward measures last evening by resolution to reduce the cost of petrol and diesel, and Sinn Féin opposed it and voted against it. That was the wrong thing to do. It sums up their approach. In Northern Ireland, they cannot make up their minds. Two Sinn Féin Ministers are in charge of this area. There is an absolute absence of any decision-making, an absence of any clarity. They cannot make up their minds on how to allocate the money to help people in Northern Ireland. It is pathetic, absolutely pathetic, and they blame somebody else, of course, which they always do. The bottom line is that there is a war which is having enormous implications for energy supply. It is well documented. No government in the world can compensate every single person in society as a result of that war. All of the advice is that you target the resources you are allocating to a crisis of this kind, and that they are temporary measures. It is also to keep in mind that things could get worse over the next number of months, and that we need to hold in reserve our resources, both for the budget for next year and for making sure we maintain investment in services like education and health, but that we do our best now to ease the pressure on people. Extending the fuel allowance by four weeks enables us to reduce the pressure on working families, and up to 470,000 families will benefit from that extension over four weeks of the fuel allowance. Most people will also benefit from the reduction in diesel and petrol that Sinn Féin voted against and opposed, and people will benefit from the NORA levy also. In the broader area, of course, in the last budget, we increased way above inflation the social protection measures, pensions and the household benefits package - quite substantially. Deputy McDonald keeps talking about carbon tax. God knows, over the last number of years, it has been incredibly difficult to find out where Sinn Féin stands on carbon tax. Every year, when we do a budget, Sinn Féin does its alternative budget. What is in its alternative budget? All the revenue from carbon tax. So, when it suits Sinn Féin for performative and demonstrative purposes, such as this crisis, it suddenly wheels out its supposed opposition to the carbon tax. However, when it comes to the budget next October, it will have a budget alternative to ours, and it will include carbon tax revenue. It is so hypocritical about it. That is the damage that it would do. Carbon tax is essential to guarantee ring-fenced funding for the retrofitting of homes, the warmer homes initiative and the retrofitting of local authority housing, all of which will help working people to permanently reduce their bills into the future. This year alone, €173 million will be allocated out of that fund to farmers on environmental farming schemes under the ACRES programme, which is 60% funded by the Government.
Sentiment score: -0.03
Sinn Féin's solution is billions, billions and more billions every month of the year. No matter what crisis arises, throw billions at it. That is its response. It has no substance as a party, absolutely none. Whatever issue arises, it just throws money at it. That is the answer to it. That is the incoherence of its response as a party - hopelessly incoherent, no substance to its policy, no clarity. There is an absence of any decision-making capacity, as demonstrated by the Deputy's party in Northern Ireland, and she controls it all. She has made that very clear. That is exactly what happens. She blames somebody else.
Sentiment score: -0.01
That is the position of Sinn Féin and has been-----
Sentiment score: 0.00
------during the Ukrainian crisis, likewise, where it has a similar destructive approach also.
Sentiment score: -0.84
It will be a long time before Deputy Carthy will ever be leader of Sinn Féin and this is not his moment.
Sentiment score: 0.00
Deputy Carthy had his opportunity with his counterpart. We came forward-----
Sentiment score: 0.21
-----with a package last evening which will reduce the cost of petrol and Sinn Féin voted against it.
Sentiment score: 0.00
Sinn Féin voted against the reduction in the price of diesel and petrol, which is quite extraordinary.
Sentiment score: 0.00
I thank the Deputy for raising a very important issue. I met with the Before We Die campaign well over a month ago in Cork and listened intently to what they had to say about their personal situations. Their personal situations could be amplified with many more. There are 1,389 active applications for residential services, with 281 assessed as priority 1. We are investing and there are investment plans in the current budget, with an extra 20% to create additional places in new residential developments and so forth. I have put it on the agenda of the next Cabinet subcommittee on disability because it involves more than just the allocation of funding, though we will have to allocate funding. How this has evolved is unacceptable. The focus is on emergency solutions all the time. Many elderly parents are very distressed and anxious, understandably so, about what will happen to their loved ones if they pass from this life. There needs to be proper co-ordination between section 39 providers, local authorities, the State, the Government and the Departments of disability and health. The Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, and the HSE met with the group last week. The Minister, Deputy Foley, also met with the group. What is happening at the moment is there is a siloed approach to understanding the overall housing needs of adults with intellectual disability. It is not just about what we might traditionally call residential places; there must be a much more holistic approach. In some instances, people are being sent to local authorities to apply for housing in the ordinary way. That is not good enough. With any application for housing from someone with an intellectual disability, there is a continuum. Some will need some levels of support and others will need greater levels of support. It cannot be a siloed approach saying it is a local authority problem or challenge. It is not. It has to be one where the care aspects are integrated with the housing solution. That is where I want to take this. It will take a bit of reorganisation in terms of how Government operates, as well as local government, section 39 providers and everybody involved here. The priority has to be on those waiting. Over the last number of years, there has been a huge investment in decongregation, which has taken up lot of resources. We need to work through the prioritisation of those in need.
Sentiment score: 0.10
In my view, those most in need are those without housing and whose parents are getting older.
Sentiment score: 0.00
Certainly, as I said, this is an issue I am going to deal with personally, as Taoiseach, with the Minister, Deputy Foley, the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, and others, including the Minister for Health. It needs an integrated response, without question. We certainly will provide the necessary funding but, again, we have to get the design and the structures right. In my view, there is funding available within housing in a lot of instances but it cannot be that we just pass it over to the local authority to deal with. It is not a sustainable or proper response to say it is somebody else's problem. There have been capacity issues within section 39 bodies in terms of dealing with this housing and residential issue. We need to engage with the different authorities and bodies responsible and get moving on it. We must engage proactively with local authorities to say we want particular cases dealt with and particular priorities set. That needs to be done in a proactive way as opposed to dealing with an issue when it becomes an emergency.
Sentiment score: 0.14
The HSE has to be involved in that process as well.
Sentiment score: 0.27
I thank the Deputy for raising this very serious issue in the House. I do not have the full background to the case to hand. I have read some reports in the media in respect of it. Clearly, I do not want to prejudice anything that may be in train but it is very difficult to comprehend how somebody against whom these complaints and charges have been made could be promoted. I do not have the full background to the case but it is extremely difficult to comprehend. No woman should have to suffer such harassment or suffer, as in this case, sedation and rape. The Deputy is correct that there absolutely should be a zero-tolerance approach within the ambulance service to misogyny, sexual harassment and the undermining of women in any shape or form in their daily work. I will ask the Minister for Health to apprise me of the background to this case and also, if necessary, to initiate a review into it. Without having the specific details of, or background to, the case, one would expect there to be norms and protocols within an organisation like the National Ambulance Service whereby when allegations of such a severe nature are made, certain actions would automatically follow. These matters are being investigated. It would seem to be highly unusual in the public service that someone would be promoted while such substantive and serious allegations remain to be investigated. Given the gravity of what has been alleged and that it seems, from what the Deputy has said, that others have also suffered at the hands of this individual, promoting a person in that context would, in my view, represent an outlier in terms of how the public service more generally deals with situations like this when they arise. I will ask the Minister to get back to me and to the Deputy in respect of this issue.
Sentiment score: -0.02
Fundamentally, in any organisation, it is about the culture. In all of the work that has been done within the Defence Forces, the one word that kept emerging in terms of all the analysis, inquiries and so on was "culture". There are numerous policies in respect of these issues but the biggest difficulty and challenge is around culture. Changes are occurring in the Defence Forces, which should be acknowledged given what has happened, and also within An Garda Síochána. Interestingly, there was a lot of resistance from those organisations to utilisation of the word "culture" and to highlighting the fact there is a problem with the culture. There was a lot of resistance at times to even articulating that in any documents pertaining to the Defence Forces. That has been my experience. To me, however, culture is the fundamental issue that underpins behaviour like this occurring on a regular basis. It is something that has to be worked on on a consistent, constant basis to change the culture of organisations. I will revert to the Deputy.
Sentiment score: 0.05
The Deputy’s assessment is not correct in the sense that he ignored the extension of the fuel allowance for four weeks, which will help about 470,000 people to deal with the rise in the price of home heating oil. There is no doubt that there is huge pressure on families and people across the country. The price of home heating oil has increased very significantly because of the war, not because of what the Government did. The price shock that is occurring because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz as well as the bombing of gas and oil installations in Iran and in the Gulf states. That is the fundamental cause of the current crisis. It still has not reached the levels that we reached at the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine when we also had an oil price and energy crisis. Government has to act. This is March and we have another winter to come. We do not quite know what is around the corner and what measures might be required from Government in response to potentially a further deterioration in the future. Hopefully this war ends very quickly; it should end very quickly. That is what we want but we do not know what might happen in respect of that. We also have to prepare for a budget and keep our resources in reserve. I know the Deputy is against the carbon tax; I think he would abolish it in total.
Sentiment score: -0.14
Yes, he would. Honesty is what we want here because the Government would then need to find €1 billion to do what the Deputy wants us to do. That means taking money from farmers. It means taking money from the retrofitting programme because we would not be able to do the retrofitting programme without it. The retrofitting programme helps people to reduce their costs over time and is a far more effective energy-efficient approach to the allocation of resources. About €173 million this year will come from that fund and go to farmers across the country. The Opposition will say, “Don’t do that. Find the money elsewhere.” We also have to try to invest in education, health, children and disability for the next budget. We want to maintain existing levels of public service but also increase them. This morning, we announced the DEIS plus scheme, which allocated further resources to the schools most in need and with huge challenges. It affects about 120 schools and also provides more home-school liaison. We want to make a reserve to make sure we improve services for everybody in the country. Yesterday’s allocation of about €250 million is probably the largest package across Europe. The fuel allowance is a good, targeted measure that helps about 470,000 families, which will help them with their home heating oil expenses. The general reduction in petrol and diesel prices will definitely help families across the length and breadth of the country. We also have the reduction in the NORA levy. The Deputy cannot just isolate one from the other; they will all help to some degree.
Sentiment score: 0.30
The Deputy is wrong in his assessment of the Government’s increase in revenue.
Sentiment score: -0.20
That is absolutely wrong. The Deputy is raising the general issue of taxation overall. He cannot have both ways. What he is really advocating for is a cut in public services.
Sentiment score: -0.20
Of course he is because if you reduce taxes on one front, you are reducing your revenue and resources to pay for public services in education, health-----
Sentiment score: -0.10
However, they are a revenue source. The Deputy would either increase income tax or increase taxes elsewhere – he should tell us what he would do - to offset-----
Sentiment score: 0.28
------the significant reduction in excise duty that he is proposing because he would have to find the money from somewhere. We cannot have everything we want. We cannot have our cake and eat it, which seems to be the Deputy’s response. The Government is targeting its resources and 50,000 extra families on the working family payment are in receipt of the fuel allowance. We introduced that in the latest budget and they will gain from the extension of the fuel allowance. He is wrong in saying that working families will not benefit from that.
Sentiment score: 0.02