The journey so far on the provision of a national maternity hospital that has got to this point has been long and convoluted. It has become unnecessarily mired in controversy. The existing maternity hospital in Holles Street is not fit for purpose. The decision to relocate to a new site eight years ago that could offer patients improved modern facilities, as well as better care, was not before time. However, since that decision was made, the process has been beset by delays and reasonable concerns over ownership, g…

Ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an mBille seo ó Pháirtí an Lucht Oibre. When we discuss a living wage, we are by extension talking about the conditions of many workers across the State. Hundreds of thousands of workers are on low pay and just about keeping their heads above the poverty line. Families face a daily struggle to make ends meet and many are living from week to week. Some families are a pay packet away from homelessness as they struggle to pay their rents or utility bills, transport to work, food, clo…

The Traveller community faces many challenges and inequalities in employment, in education and in health in particular. Irish Travellers' level of access to healthcare and life expectancy estimates are shocking, with figures suggesting that Irish Travellers die 11 to 15 years earlier than members of the general population. The statistics relating to their mental health are strikingly worse than the equivalent figures for the general population. It is an unfortunate reality that members of the Traveller community fa…

I thank the Minister of State. The Gavin family lives on the site in question. There are 16 in the family. This has been going on for over a year. I have met with everyone in Fingal County Council, including the CEO. They know the situation. They are getting themselves bogged down in a certain legal issue. At this stage, I honestly do not care about that legal issue. This is a matter of health, proper sanitation and the delivery of a basic need, water. This has to be sorted out. The Minister of State has said that …

The definition of dual diagnosis according to the Royal College of Psychiatrists is the coexistence of mental health and substance misuse problems, including both drugs and alcohol. Each of these disorders is both chronic and relapsing and each has an independent course capable of influencing the other disorder. It is recognised by many notable psychiatrists that it is quite unusual for an individual to present to outpatient addiction services with addiction problems only. Many psychiatrists accept that those prese…

For many years, the health services, particularly psychiatric services, have been struggling. Even before the pandemic, they were struggling. We were not recruiting staff although there was a commitment to do so. I have lost count over the years of the number of people who have been turned away from accident and emergency departments because of a dual diagnosis. In many cases, this resulted in fatalities. The Minister of State referred to the specialist teams that have been set up, but this is all too slow. There i…

I am sharing time with my party colleagues Deputies Cronin, Seán Crowe and Mythen. It is essential to have proper childcare services available because of the beneficial impacts they have throughout society. Childcare benefits everyone, even those who do not directly use or have a need for such services. In light of the negative impact a lack of childcare can have on parents, employers, communities and children themselves, we can see how important it is to society as a whole. Childcare services come in many forms an…

Serious concerns have been raised by trade unions and other stakeholders about the right to request remote working Bill. They have argued that the Bill heavily favours the employer in that there are excessive grounds under which an employer may refuse a request from an employee to work remotely. This renders the Bill ineffective from an employee's perspective. Are any of these concerns being taken into account? I ask the Minister to outline when this Bill will be brought before the House.

There has been a significant growth in recent years of managed estates. The Multi-Unit Developments Act 2011, known as the MUD Act, specifies all new developments must have an owners' management company, OMC, in place. The Act provides the legal framework for their operation in managed estates. The OMC is established for three main reasons, namely, to manage and maintain common areas in MUDs, to be the legal owner of the common areas on behalf of the owners of the units and to be the legal owner of the beneficial o…

I thank the Minister of State for the reply. Most new estates have management companies. In many such estates houses are built with large numbers of apartments around them. In the past, local authorities were able to take private estates in charge but that is fairly difficult to do now. As far as I can see, that is not going to happen with most new estates. I am trying to draw attention to the fact that people who own their own homes, who have paid anything from €200,000 to €500,000 for those homes, have to seek pe…

My constituency of Dublin North-West has a substantial number of houses and housing estates that were built from the 1950s onwards. These older buildings are difficult and expensive to heat. Much of the heat escapes through the walls, roofs and chimneys. There are thousands of such homes across the State that need to be fully insulated to be energy efficient. This would help to lower household spend on fuel to heat a house and will make houses more energy efficient. This can be done by insulating attics, fitting he…

It is unfortunate people must borrow money to make ends meet. They might need to replace a broken utility such as a washing machine or fridge, get their car fixed or cover the cost of family events like communions and confirmations or expenses at Christmas. For the most part, people mostly take out relatively small loans with moneylenders. These are then charged at a very high interest rate. Research carried out in 2019 by the Social Finance Foundation found there are an estimated 330,000 customers of moneylenders …

First, I welcome everybody who has come to the Visitors Gallery today from the various organisations. It is great that everyone is here. I also welcome this comprehensive report on the Traveller community. Senator Flynn, as chairperson of the committee, has done a marvellous job in the committee. She has been outstanding. In addition, the members of the committee have been very good across the board. The commitment to make this report possible has been massive and everybody has had a major input into it. I thank al…

When I spoke about hospital waiting lists in the Dáil in 2018 they were the longest on record with 707,000 patients waiting for treatment. Deputy Harris was the Minister for Health then. He stated that reduced waiting times for patients was a key priority for himself and the Government. He gave reasons the lists were so long and outlined a series of measures to reduce them over time. However, four years later there are 879,000 individuals on waiting lists of which 96,000 are children. Some 40,600 were added to the …

Táim buíoch go bhfuil mé ábalta labhairt ar an ngá atá le hacmhainní breise Garda i bhFionnghlas. As the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, might be aware, I represent the constituency of Dublin North-West, which encompasses Finglas, Ballymun, Santry, Whitehall, Meakstown, Glasnevin and parts of Beaumont. Part of my constituency lies within the Garda divisional area known as the K district, which comprises Finglas, Cabra and Blanchardstown. This Garda divisional area covers a district with a population of about 160,…

It took two years for a community garda to be appointed in Finglas, and that individual has only recently been appointed. While I welcome the appointment, it is unacceptable that this should have happened. It is also unacceptable that between 90 and 98 gardaí are in the Finglas area on three different shifts. In effect, there are only a certain number of gardaí on each shift. Unfortunately, when people ring the Garda station they are told that there are no cars available. This is happening all the time and it is un…

Whenever there is an economic crisis, the burden of pain falls on the shoulders of those least likely to withstand the strain. There is always a disproportionate impact on the standard of living for low-income households. They are a particularly vulnerable group, living on a knife-edge from pay packet to pay packet. Anything that disturbs that sensitive balance can cause a cascade of hardship for the family, painting a picture of deepening crisis that can result in housing instability, job loss, food and medicine i…

Like many urban constituencies, particularly in Dublin, mine, Dublin North-West, has a mixture of modern and newly built housing in addition to old stock built decades ago. Areas such as Ballymun, Santry, Whitehall, Glasnevin and Finglas have seen a huge growth in population and corresponding growth in the number of housing estates. A substantial number of these estates were built in the period up to the 1970s and 1980s, having started in the 1950s. This was a time of great expansion in these areas. Houses of this …

The Government's failure to adequately address the housing crisis, one of its own making, has meant that unsavoury actors have entered the housing market and they act with impunity. A classic example are the aptly named "vulture funds" which swoop into our distressed housing market to buy up housing stocks and portfolios. Investment funds have the advantage of not being subject to the same constraints as the banks. They have little or no concern about the backlash or negative consequences of their actions on their …

As the Minister knows, thousands of homes throughout the country are in urgent need of proper insulation to bring them up to an acceptable energy rating standard. Dublin City Council has been involved in an extensive programme to retrofit its housing stock and bring those homes to a reasonable energy rating. This has entailed insulating attics, fitting heat pumps, doing wrap-around insulation or pumping insulation into walls, and changing windows and doors where necessary. This has proved to be very successful, par…