At the heart of these questions lies an opportunity to link the provision of childcare places with the provision of new housing. Childcare needs a big idea that can deliver capacity at scale and value for money. I am not interested in the big chains that can do that already but in public supply and in supporting community crèches and the providers, primarily women, who have been running our smaller, independent, local facilities for years and struggling to do so. The Government is delivering new housing but can we …

There is a lot of good in the programme for Government. It says that the Government will review these guidelines. It also commits to reviewing core funding and to the provision of public supply. I am here today to say that there are opportunities to combine those and come up with a big vision for the delivery of childcare in our communities. At the moment, there are exemptions to the rule on providing 20 childcare places for every 75 new dwellings. For example, one-bedroom apartments are exempt. Also, if developers…

This Government will be judged by its delivery of critical infrastructure, that is, infrastructure needed for social and economic reasons. In that regard, we have not seen significant public investment in childcare infrastructure in our local communities. For reference, €45 million was ring-fenced to expand childcare capacity in the NDP over the past two years, versus €1.4 billion in the education capital budget for 2025 alone. We have planning guidelines that theoretically link new homes to the delivery of private…

For the first time, the programme for Government commits to a public model of childcare. The Taoiseach has confirmed that work is needed to map out how we will do that in a public building programme and how that will harmonise with existing provision. He also confirmed that the new supply and management unit has been established to do forward planning and delivery and to assess demand, plan and expand public supply using CSO figurers childcare committees and GIS systems. It is great we will be working on establishi…

I am asking for an update on the expansion of third level course places for therapies in the disability sector and the Minister's role in the workforce planning of therapists needed in children's disability network teams, CDNTs, primary care teams and schools. There has been much focus this week on assessments of need. The programme for Government and the report of the Joint Committee on Autism are clear in their recommendations.

While there are issues with how our public services are designed, the greatest barrier disabled people face in accessing appropriate services is resourcing and understaffing across assessment of needs, therapeutic and clinical services, medical services and education services, all of which are necessary if our disabled community are to lead full lives with the experiences and opportunities they deserve. We need a pipeline of therapists for the future based on shared projections across health, disability and educati…

I acknowledge the additional places and the work of the Tánaiste and of the former Minister in the Department, Deputy O'Donovan, in this area. However, I am really talking about long-term workforce planning and how it needs to be linked with collaboration and shared data. For instance, the Disability Capacity Review to 2032, published by the HSE, states that 3.5% of the child population require special input from CDNTs. The Joint Committee on Autism's report speaks about the overall need to tackle unmet need. The D…

Hear, hear.

I welcome the opportunity to share time with the Minister, Deputy McEntee, to discuss how the Government is tackling educational disadvantage. I also welcome her openness about challenges that remain to be tackled as we work to ensure no child is left behind on their educational journey. Last month, the Minister and I visited St. Philip the Apostle Junior National School in Mountview, to mark the extension of the hot school meals programme to another 713 schools, meaning more than 550,000 children across the countr…

There is not a week that goes by that I am not contacted by a parent seeking access to childcare. On Monday, 1,500 new childcare places were announced nationally, funded under the building blocks extension grant scheme contained in the national development plan, NDP. These places, at a cost of €25 million, include 18 much-needed places in Dublin West. This Government is delivering but it needs to keep delivering. Given the scale of unmet need, 18 places are a drop in the ocean. The programme for Government commits …

I am the first to say there has been progress, but serious issues remain with capacity, access and core funding that need to be fixed. Today, I am hosting local childcare providers and parents in the audiovisual room. We will focus on a payscale that reflects qualifications and expertise, pressures they are facing with recruitment, making core funding work, especially for small providers and how paperwork and bureaucracy are suffocating the sector. There are major holes for parents and providers in the fee adjustme…

-----as has the Taoiseach when I have raised them, but they want to hear from the Government about now-----

-----not just about the future. They want to get back to building partnerships, starting with really listening.

The Minister for Justice has assured this House that his Department is finalising the regulations necessary for the local community safety partnerships to function. We really need to get them up and running as soon as possible. Dublin West is a big place. Key to the effectiveness of the local community safety partnerships is that they are indeed local. The problems facing Clonsilla are very different from those facing Corduff. Local communities have to be able to identify and solve those problems. I urge the Taoise…

I fear Dublin’s urban and suburban villages are getting left behind. As I raised with the Taoiseach previously, out of 150 new gardaí in March, just four came to the K district. The vast majority went to the city centre. The K district is one of the busiest policing districts in the country. Our Dublin West villages are too small for the Town Centre First policy and too big for the town and village renewal scheme, which is funded by the rural regeneration and development fund, yet places like Castleknock and Blanch…

I too am raising the local community safety partnerships. I believe they have the potential to truly impact community safety if they are implemented in a way that brings the right and relevant local stakeholders around the table and supports specific strategies for specific areas. Too big, and we will not address local problems; too small and it becomes hard to manage. When will see the local community safety partnerships up and running in Dublin West?

Last year, nearly 19,000 vehicles were seized by An Garda Síochána for being uninsured following the introduction of the new Irish motor insurance database. That is a positive development that makes our roads safer. In comparison, gardaí seized approximately 5,000 vehicles from unaccompanied learner drivers even though there are approximately 370,000 learner permits in the State according to the RSA and an Aviva Insurance survey this year found that 28% of motorists had driven unaccompanied on a learner permit whil…

The Good Friday Agreement is now 27 years old. I will resurrect some research conducted around the 25th anniversary by Behaviour and Attitudes for The Sunday Times . It highlighted the attitudes of young people, including the ceasefire babies who grew up in peaceful times although very much still dealing with the legacy of conflict, paramilitarism and divided communities. Half of those 18- to 34-year-olds said they did not fully understand the history of the Troubles, 42% said they did and 8% said they did not know…

When the current Tánaiste was Taoiseach, he visited Castleknock village to hear directly from our local businesses about the cost of doing business. Since then, some of our vacant units have been sold or leased, and we look forward to them all opening. However, last Friday another business closed, which had been operating for more than 20 years. As a community we want our village stores, salons, cafés and restaurants to succeed and thrive. The Tánaiste is delivering on the commitments he made that day by reducing V…

Melo.