For many people living across the length and breadth of the country, this budget has been quite disappointing. It is a disappointment for workers that they see no tax relief whatsoever, except for a very elite few who happen to be building apartments in Dublin that nobody can afford. They seem to be the only people who have been looked after from a taxation point of view. The agricultural sector and farmers in general are also very disappointed. The Minister will probably be aware of that from media reports from th…

Modelling or not, the reality is the number of reactors are going up. That is the problem we have got here.

Therefore, we have a TB eradication programme that is underfunded in the budget. That is the reality of it.

We will see at the end of the year where we are. It has been underfunded in every budget to date.

If we are to go on precedent, we expect it to be the same again. One of the big complaints farmers have is the valuation they are receiving for reactor cattle, which is too low and does not represent the current market value of cattle. I will give an example. James from Sligo sent me a handwritten note only the other day. In May 2025, he lost seven cattle that were valued at 2023 prices. That is the big problem he has. When he goes out to buy like for like to replace those cattle, he is down €6,000 when he goes to …

For the beef sector and a whole lot of sectors, nothing is happening. It is a disappointing budget for the agricultural sector.

First, I commend the Social Democrats on bringing forward this motion. Family carers are a vital part of the health service in this country and they are not recognised or respected for the work they do. We all know from experience that the healthcare service provided by the HSE is in crisis. The home care service across the country cannot get staff and we are in a situation where thousands of people have been allocated home care hours by the HSE but they are not receiving it because there is simply no staff to prov…

It is clear that our current environmental standards are not fit for purpose. The Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 is simply not fit for purpose when it comes to granting licences, amending licences and a whole range of work that needs to be done in that respect. It is causing huge delays in building our infrastructure to meet our energy needs and expansion of businesses, the expansion of our housing and so on. We have huge problems, with delay after delay. Many of these delays are because of the high level…

As the Minister is aware, the week before last there was an "RTÉ Investigates" programme on the death of Liam Farrell, a man in Roosky, County Leitrim, who was found dead on his back door in January 2020. The situation the programme exposed was a very lacklustre investigation by An Garda Síochána. Anyone who saw it - I am sure the Minister did and I know he is aware of the case - was shocked as to what had transpired. The family, Liam Farrell's son and his wife, are here today and they are looking to have a meeting…

That is okay.

The issue of school transport is an annual upheaval we have across the country. As long as I have been here, this problem has come up every September. There is a particular route somewhere that was perfect last year and now it has changed because there are two fewer children on it and the bus has been withdrawn completely, or there is some other place where people thought they had enough children to get on the bus and did not. We have situations where we have people who have concessionary tickets. I have a situatio…

Electricity and energy costs are crippling families across the country. We have seen almost all energy companies announce price increases in recent weeks and we know these companies are amassing massive profits year on year. There are already thousands of families behind on their electricity and energy bills. I know this debt will grow in my constituency for these families while the Government turns its back on them to protect the profits of the massive energy companies. We saw the devastation caused to the electri…

I raise the issue of serious problems in our mental health services, particularly in acute mental health services. I will raise the individual case of a young man in Sligo who was murdered. His name was Jimmy Loughlin. The person who committed the murder was somebody in the care of the mental health services. When incidents like this happen the HSE is meant to carry out what is known as a serious incident report. It was not carried out in this case. It has also not been carried out in other cases, as another family…

I wrote to the Taoiseach three times.

The issue of crime is something that is feared as much as anything else across many parts of rural Ireland in particular and in my constituency. We saw today that three people have pleaded guilty to manslaughter for the desperate attack on Tom Niland, an elderly man living alone in a rural area who was set upon, badly beaten and subsequently passed away. The fear that kind of situation instils in people in rural communities is terrifying. It is important to recognise that for elderly people in rural, isolated areas…

This is a positive step and a step in the right direction after many years of waiting. Like most public representatives, over the years I too have met and spoken with people from my constituency and other places who have been the victim of sexual abuse in schools. Sometimes it was an institution and sometimes it was not. The one thing that certainly strikes me is that the two were not separate. Sexual abuse and violent physical abuse were always together and that is something that needs to be taken into account her…

The amending legislation being introduced this evening is quite ironic in that it is amending legislation that has not yet been commenced. This is one of the key Opposition criticisms. We spent many months last year on planning and development legislation. It was the biggest Bill ever to come before the House and here we are back again amending it. The biggest issue I have with the Bill before us is the narrative it portrays, namely that the housing problem across the country is because of planning permission issue…

I raise with the Minister the situation as regards TB, which is at crisis point across the country. I know the TB forum has set out a number of measures that have yet to be enacted. I would like to get an update on when these are going to happen. Many of these actions are difficult for farmers. When they have a reactor or their farm is locked down as a result of TB, the last thing they need is a more difficult and strenuous situation that will cause them an even greater loss. We need clarity on many of these issues…

To get to the issues that are of most concern to many people in the agricultural community, one of the issues farmers are concerned about is the proposal that a sign be put up at marts where there is a reactor in a herd. This would be there for quite a long time and would restrict farmers in getting a decent price for their animals. That is an issue that needs to be dealt with very sensitively. We do not want farmers to be at a disadvantage because they have had the misfortune of having TB in their herds, something…

I appreciate all of that. To give credit where it is due, something is being done. A crisis has been allowed to evolve over the years. What we need this morning, if we can get it, is a commitment as to when this is going to happen and clarity on those issues I raised regarding the difficulties farmers going to the market are going to have and so on. We need to see that clarity. We also need to see where the budget for this is going to come from. From a departmental point of view, it will obviously cost more to brin…