2026-05-13

Our ambulance workers should not have to strike to be heard by the Taoiseach. They should not have to stand on a picket line to fight for fair pay, recognition and basic respect, but that is what they were forced to do yesterday. They were left with no other option because the Government has failed to deliver improved pay for the incredible work, vital skills and life-saving expertise they bring to work every single day. Paramedics were asked to step up and to take on advanced training to modernise the ambulance service, and they did what was asked of them. In typical Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael style, however, the Taoiseach washed his hands of his obligations and left them hanging - not for a week or a month, but for six long years. The Taoiseach's response to the 24-hour stoppage means that we face escalating stoppages next week and the week after. His failure to intervene has real consequences. He says to use the industrial relations mechanisms of the State, but he knows that there is a deadlock and, without intervention, this could take months to resolve. Yesterday, there was a significant impact on ambulance services, with even longer waiting times. The Taoiseach cannot sit this one out. His inaction risks walking the country into a summer of crisis, with rolling strikes week after week. People do not want that. They are really worried. They want this resolved fast. Paramedics do not want this. They want to be at work saving lives. This is not any regular industrial dispute; this is our ambulance service. It is a service critical to people's well-being, their safety and their health. I do not know what the Taoiseach sees when he looks at a paramedic, but I know what I see. I see someone who shows up, who is there for you, who has your back in your most vulnerable moments and who gets the job done. Yet, they are denied fair pay. They are taken for granted and disrespected by the Government. That is at the root of this crisis. The Taoiseach needs to recognise that reality, he needs to listen and he needs to be active in fixing this. Caithfidh an Taoiseach freagracht a ghlacadh agus teacht ar réiteach don ghéarchéim sa tseirbhís otharcharranna. Seo fadhb a chruthaigh an Rialtas. Caithfidh an Taoiseach gníomhú, idirghabháil a dhéanamh chun cúrsaí a réiteach go tapa agus tuilleadh stailceanna a sheachaint. There is a crisis in our ambulance service. The Taoiseach's complete and utter inaction over six years has deepened that crisis. It is unacceptable for him to now look the other way. Standing on the sidelines simply will not cut it. The Taoiseach is supposed to be in charge, so he should take charge. There is a week before the next strike. I urge him not to waste that time. He should act, intervene, step in and help sort this out.

Hear, hear.

First, I have always acknowledged the critical role that those who work in the National Ambulance Service play in our health service. The Deputy said she does not know what I see when I look at a paramedic. I was critically involved at an earlier time, as Minister for Health, in the professionalisation of the first responder service. I have the greatest and highest of respect for the transformation that has occurred. It has been a good transformation. We have modernised the first responder approach in medicine and in health. That is critical in terms of the acute service, but, more importantly, it is critical in terms of patient outcomes and the outcomes of very serious accidents or developments or cardiac arrests or whatever. The first responder is key. The fact that we have professionalised and modernised that is a good thing. We have always acknowledged and the State has always accepted that pay structures need to be modernised. I refer to the previous engagement at the WRC. I said this to the Deputy yesterday. It is very dishonest of her to say that this has been ignored for six years. That is not the case. Negotiations took place. There was engagement at the WRC. It concluded with significant outcomes, in particular, the State offering pay increases of between 3% to 14% linked to reform. This was on top of the 9.25% increase under the current public service agreement. While union leadership did recommend this proposal to their members, it was rejected by staff following a ballot.

Exactly.

That is not ignoring something for six years.

Yes, it is.

How can the Deputy, with any credibility, come into the House and say that this was ignored for six years, when, clearly, there were negotiations and an outcome? There were negotiations between the unions and the HSE. The unions recommended it. The members voted against it. Dialogue is the only route to resolving this. I am of the view that it will get resolved, but it has to be resolved through dialogue. The 24-hour work stoppage concluded this morning. The HSE and the NAS made every effort to minimise the impact on patients, but we do know that there were significant delays in ambulance response times. That did cause distress and upset to those who were depending on the ambulance service. I also acknowledge the engagement of SIPTU and Unite in contingency planning in advance to assist in reducing the risks to patients. It is recognised and welcome that, on a number of occasions, the National Ambulance Service staff returned to work to support the management of critical cases. I acknowledge that and their desire to ensure patient safety and continuity of emergency care being the overriding priority. The HSE and the Department remain ready and available to re-engage through the WRC or the Labour Court processes. I urge SIPTU and Unite to return to those mechanisms in the interests of patients, staff and the wider public. An tslí is fearr chun é seo a réiteach ná go mbeadh plé idir an HSE, SIPTU agus Unite chun an scéal seo a réiteach agus an tseirbhís a chur ar ais i bhfeidhm go hiomlán. Admhaím go bhfuil bunathruithe tar éis tarlú maidir leis an tseirbhís. Tá an Rialtas sásta glacadh leis sin agus déileáil leis. Rinneamar é sin cheana féin, agus tá súil agam go mbeimid in ann é a réiteach tríd an WRC agus an Labour Court. I urge all involved to get back to the industrial relations machinery and use the WRC and the Labour Court to get this resolved.

The Taoiseach's response reflects his lack of urgency on this question. He is quite happy to simply take a laissez-faire approach and hope that others will sort this out. He knows that for the past six years, throughout this process of modernisation, ambulance workers have been left understaffed to the point that they have very deep safety concerns. Those concerns are well-grounded. He has left them overworked. So many of them are burned out that there is now an issue around recruitment and retention in that very service. He has also left them underpaid. Yesterday, those workers were on the picket line. If the Taoiseach maintains the position he has articulated today, we will face next week, the week after and the week after that an escalating crisis in the service. That is not good enough for the workers concerned and it is certainly good enough for the public and the citizens who rely on these workers for a life-saving service.

Thank you, Deputy. The Taoiseach to respond.

I urge the Taoiseach again to stop being a spectator-----

The Taoiseach to respond. Time is up, Deputy.

----- to intervene and assist in a resolution on this matter.

Again, the Deputy is mischaracterising my approach to this. This is a very serious issue. The Deputy knows in her heart of hearts that this has to be resolved through the industrial relations machinery. She knows that. In every single public service dispute that can occur, taoisigh will not be getting involved. In my case, there is a proper way to do this. You cannot have a situation where we ignore completely the informed, sophisticated and experienced people we have in the Labour Court or in the Workplace Relations Commission. That is how these disputes get resolved. The Deputy knows that. We have also invested very significantly in the ambulance service. Overall funding is up about 41%. That is up €83 million between 2022 and 2025. In three years alone, it went up 41%, to €285 million. Staffing is up - 588 staff.

Jesus, do not. They are completely understaffed.

There has been an investment of €126 million in the ambulance fleet and there is a further investment of €20 million planned-----

So there is not a problem.

-----for 2026.

Thank you, Taoiseach. Your time is up.

There has been substantial investment in our ambulance service and there will be more.

In the run-up to the last general election, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were in panic mode. In an effort to distract voters from the Government's failure to deliver they began splashing the cash, giving nearly everyone in the country a one-off payment which hit bank accounts in the week leading up to the election. Not just that, but a range of cast-iron commitments were made to the electorate. Chief among them was a promise to cap the cost of childcare at €200 a month. We were told that childcare costs were at the top of Fianna Fáil's agenda, while Fine Gael promised to publish a plan to cap costs and deliver a public model of childcare within the first 100 days of office. A full 475 days later, where are we now? Childcare costs have not come down by a single cent. Families with young children are still paying enormous sums for childcare. That is if they are lucky enough to even get a childcare place because it is almost impossible to get one, especially for babies between six and 12 months of age. This means thousands of women all over the country having to take unpaid maternity leave so they can care for their babies. It is stressful, it is a struggle and it is hugely expensive. In an interview with Gavan Reilly on Monday the Taoiseach refused to commit to reducing childcare costs in the next budget. It was extraordinary to witness, given all of the pre-election bluster. The reality is that our childcare system is broken but, instead of reforming it, the Taoiseach wants to continue with business as usual. We have the resources to transform childcare services, rolling out a public model that would be accessible and affordable. It would mean the State treating childcare with the level of seriousness primary and secondary education get, recognising that investment in early years and the first few years of a child's life pays dividends over a lifetime. The Social Democrats was the first party to publish a plan for a public model of childcare. We did that two years ago, detailing how we would set up a public childcare model to acquire private businesses that wanted to sell, because we know there are businesses that want to sell. Just this week, one of Ireland's biggest childcare operators, Tigers Childcare, was acquired by a large UK company, Kids Planet Day Nurseries. That deal was worth €75 million. That is a drop in the ocean of the surpluses available to this Government but the grim reality is that this Government, which is awash with cash, lacks both vision and ambition. The Government is incapable of investing the money wisely and reforming our public services, driving down costs for families, transforming people's lives in the long term for the better. Why will the Taoiseach not commit to reducing childcare fees in the budget and where is the plan to roll out a public model of childcare?

In terms of childcare more generally, there has been very significant progress made in childcare in the last number of years. Again, Deputy Cairns will not acknowledge that, but it is the reality in terms of both reduction of costs and, indeed, the increase in the numbers of children availing of the various programmes we have. In terms of the national childcare scheme, about 277,000 children will be supported this year. That is an increase of 27,000 children in just one year. Income thresholds are rising from September of this year, from €34,000 and €68,000, ensuring more low- and middle-income families qualify for higher levels of support. Some 105,000 children continue to benefit from two years of free preschool under the ECCE programme and the access and inclusion model now supports a record 8,400 children with disabilities, ensuring access to mainstream early learning and childcare. Core funding now exceeds about €420 million. That is a 62% increase since 2022, with 93% of providers signed up. After subsidies, parents in many instances now pay no more than €198.70 per week for a full-day, 45-hour place. We have more to do and we want to reduce the fees even further. We are going to continue to work on that and the forthcoming budget will be an opportunity to improve the situation in terms of the cost of childcare and also, of course, in terms of payments. Regarding human capital and people who work in childcare, we have focused on that in particular in the last number of years, and this year's core funding allocation includes about €45 million ring-fenced to support improved pay for early-years educators and school-age childcare practitioners where new employment regulation orders are agreed. We achieved a milestone in the last Government by agreeing such a regulation order and the most recent employment regulation order delivered an average 10% increase in minimum pay rates, benefitting over two thirds of the workforce. The pay-related negotiations are conducted through the joint labour committee, with Government backing the outcomes financially through the core funding. For the first time ever, the State is now the directly supporting the creation of new childcare capacity through a State-led building, acquisition and delivery programme targeting areas of greatest need, including places for children under three years of age and in rural and disadvantaged communities. There is €135 million in capital investment available over the next five years, with up to eight buildings to be selected for investment in 2026. There has been steady progress made. In terms of the broader issue of State-led childcare provision, childcare has evolved over the last 30-odd years, beginning, actually, in the Department of justice under the new opportunities for women, NOW, programme. It has evolved through both community playschools, private operators and some-----

Thank you, Taoiseach. You will have to come back in.

I will come back in.

The Taoiseach seems to just think it is par for the course to make these big election promises to people and then completely, unashamedly renege on them afterwards.

Hear, hear.

He seems to think that plámásing the electorate and promising things is just part of electioneering. It is not. People believed the Taoiseach when he said there would be a reduction in childcare fees. People believed this Government when it promised to roll out a plan for a public model of childcare. I just hope that people watching will judge this Government not on its empty promises in the lead-up to the next election but on its actions now. The Taoiseach says I will not acknowledge progress and is talking about workers in this sector. Does he acknowledge that workers in the childcare sector have the same level of training and qualifications as other teachers but get paid minimum wage and in the summer months have to sign on? Where is the progress for workers in this sector? Does the Taoiseach acknowledge that without a public model of childcare, without any actual childcare at all for so many families, we will never reach gender equality and that this stifles women's careers? It blocks them from getting back into the workplace. The Taoiseach lists off his script of things there as if that is progress.

I believe in childcare for the development of the child primarily. Anything we do in the area of childcare or early education should be about the child as the primary issue, actually. I know a lot about Montessori and I know all about early education because I was involved in it and I had Green Papers and so on. Maybe people should examine the Social Democrats' proposals and the lack of substance in them, the lack of detail, the lack of flesh on the bone.

I think you should examine them.

Deputy Cairns is now suggesting we can seamlessly move from a model we have developed over years through community-----

I did not say seamlessly. Did you read our proposal?

Deputy Cairns.

You are saying that and you are holding up the prospect that we can, with a click of the fingers, seamlessly move into a-----

You obviously have not read the proposal.

Deputy, the rules are the same for you as everyone else.

I did not interrupt you, Deputy Cairns, in fairness. I never do interrupt you. Every time I say a few home truths, you all get a bit agitated and have to heckle back.

Home spins.

The bottom line is this: the Social Democrats do not do detailed policy propositions.

That is rubbish.

That is the bottom line. They are talking about promises and commitments. The bottom line is a lot of what the Social Democrats say as a party lacks that substance and that detail. You cannot, overnight, move from where we currently are into a full public model. You just cannot do that and you should acknowledge the honesty of that proposition.

Your time is up. Deputy Paul Murphy.

Fianna Fáil's former leader and Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has engaged in disgusting racism in Dublin Central, saying we have “too many” immigrants and saying, "The ones I worry about are the Africans", and that, "We can’t be taking in people from the Congo and all these places." He said he worries about the next generation of Muslims. Bertie Ahern doing it makes the agenda very blatant: scapegoat immigrants and divide ordinary people. Why? So that nobody blames Bertie Ahern, Fianna Fáil and the landlords and developers Fianna Fáil has allowed to profit from the housing crisis. People from the Congo did not take corrupt payments from developers to blow up the property bubble. They were never found by a tribunal to have been untruthful in explaining how €400,000 in today's money passed through their bank accounts. Muslim children did not crash the economy, causing years of misery and austerity for ordinary people. Unlike Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, they never rolled out the red carpet for developers and vulture funds. They are not the ones who sowed the seeds of the current housing disaster and they were not the ones who refused to maintain council flats and then voted to increase council rents. All of this is an act of mass distraction. From what? From the horrendous conditions many people in Dublin Central are forced to face every day. Right across Dublin city there are council tenants living in conditions that nobody should be asked to live in. Yesterday, in Sheridan Court on Dorset Street, we met a single mother with two children with additional needs. She is three months living without usable water because it is scalding hot. She has to bring her children to her mother's house in Fairview to bathe them. Her bedroom is severely damp and mouldy. I am holding up a photo of her bathroom - we can see the mould. Another woman is sleeping in the living room as her bedroom has been rendered uninhabitable due to leakages in the ceilings and walls. This is a photo of the hole in the wall of her bedroom. Another resident's ceiling collapsed in places in January. Her flat is not in a livable condition but she has nowhere else to go. Her ceiling can be seen in this photo. The only work done for the people in Sheridan Court has been superficial. However, it is not just Sheridan Court; it is right across Dublin city. To add insult to injury, Dublin City Council has hiked these people's rents by 30%, an amount that many of them simply cannot afford. Councillors from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour and the Green Party shamefully voted against a budget amendment that would have stopped that rent hike. I have two simple questions for the Taoiseach. I want answers to them. First, will he commit to the residents of Sheridan Court and other flats around Dublin city that this treatment will not continue and that people in 2026 will not be asked to live like this? Second, will he support a reversal of these unfair rent increases in Dublin city and drop his agenda to hike council rents right across the country?

In the first instance, we have a very clear asylum system in this country which is fair and robust. I do not approve of any commentary that would in any way undermine any particular ethnicity or any person with a particular ethnic background. I have been very clear about that. My understanding is that the former Taoiseach, Mr. Ahern, has resiled from those comments and says he has no issue with people who come through our asylum process. I want to be very clear from my perspective and my party's perspective that we do not approve of those specific comments. They were in a conversation which was subsequently published. It was not, therefore, a distraction process by anybody here because no one could anticipate that any commentary of that kind would be in the public domain. Be that as it may, our position is very clear. We have a fair and robust asylum process which has accelerated a lot. The Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, has outlined that. Then we have a broader migration narrative. People come from Europe, the EFTA countries and beyond, who work in our economy and our health service. We have many Irish citizens with different ethnic backgrounds who play a very full and meaningful contribution to Irish life. Regarding the broader issue of housing, this Government, in particular over the last number of years, has substantially step-changed the provision of social housing. This year, up to 9,000 were built, compared with very low numbers four or five years ago. There has been a very substantial step-change in the provision of public housing itself. Significant funding is also made available to local authorities, and particularly Dublin City Council, in respect of regeneration, refurbishment and maintenance. In the first instance it is a matter for Dublin City Council to make sure its housing stock is properly maintained and refurbished. We establish local authorities. We give them powers and remit. Anytime they do anything then, the Dáil - or elements of the Dáil - in a reflex wants to come back in and say that local authority does not have any space or parameters in which it can develop policies itself. These are elected representatives of many parties, including the Deputy's, and they have to organise and run their councils in a sustainable manner. That is a matter for the councils. Government does not dictate every single item of local authority policy. What we have tried to do in the last while is to say to councils that they need to zone more land for housing. I do not know whether the Deputy agrees with that but we believe councils need to do this. We need more space for local authority housing, social and affordable housing, and affordable rental as well. That is the most fundamental-----

I thank the Taoiseach. He will have an opportunity to come back in. I call Deputy Murphy.

-----way to meet the housing needs of people in Dublin Central, and, indeed, across the country.

On Bertie Ahern, I will just say this. What people say when they do not think they are being recorded is actually more valuable than what they say when they know they are being recorded. It suggests a dirty game used on doorsteps by Fianna Fáil to divide and rule ordinary people, and to have them not blaming the people the Taoiseach represents - the developers, the landlords, the people who get rich from the housing crisis. Instead, it is better to blame the people from Congo or wherever else. Regarding the council flats and the rents issue, the Taoiseach cannot have it both ways. He is the Taoiseach; the leader of a party which has councillors. He has a responsibility and a connection with the votes, for example, to increase council rents. Does he stand over those increases or not? They are not doing that out of nowhere. It is a nationally driven project. We can look at the Government's programme for Government increasing council rents. We can look at this new programme, which has not been published yet, which points to massive increases in council rents. We can look towards the plan to merge cost-rental and social housing.

I thank Deputy Murphy. The Taoiseach to respond.

The other thing is the Department. The Department pulled the plug on Oliver Bond. It is the Department-----

The Taoiseach will now respond.

-----that has pulled the plug on regeneration. The Government cannot wash its hands of it and just say it is the council.

The same as everybody else, the Deputy's time is up. The Taoiseach, please.

First, that was an unacceptable comment the Deputy made. That is not the Fianna Fáil approach and it is not Fianna Fáil policy. By the way, the Deputy is not shy himself in terms of mischaracterising people, spinning and deliberately exaggerating positions of different politicians on an ongoing basis. You are no angel yourself when it comes to politics, and do not pretend that you are.

You will not catch me saying racist things, even if you record me secretly.

Deputy, please.

The other problem is on councils. I have been on a city council. I have always divided the council between those who genuinely want to govern or run a city, as opposed to those who just oppose everything and never voted for a budget in their life. Did the Deputy every vote for a budget in his life on a city council?

No.

I was never on a council.

He probably did not.

They are rhetorical questions.

Yes, but your party, I mean. Those you represent. They never do.

They never do.

You want more and more, and more services. Services here, services there, but when it comes to the annual budget, you guys never vote for them.

Never.

However, other politicians have to step up with a bit of guts and courage to vote to make sure a city runs. That is the difference between the Deputy's politics and the politics of the majority-----

It takes a lot of courage to increase rents on council tenants.

Time is up Taoiseach. I call Deputy Gogarty.

That is the fundamental point I would make. By the way, the city council did not pull funding-----

Taoiseach, your time is up. Thank you.

-----from Oliver Bond flats. That will be sorted out very quickly.

We have talked a lot about energy security, which is a very important issue, but I want to raise another issue that affects every household in this country and that is our food security or, more accurately, our lack of it. The Minister for agriculture describes the Government's Food Vision 2030 as strategy for a world-leading sustainable food system, but it is not a food security plan. In fact, the evidence shows that Ireland will not be able to sustain itself indefinitely without major agriculture and dietary change. We can do this the hard way or the easy way. At the moment, we are 233% self-sufficient in meat and 300% in dairy. Teagasc tells us we produce enough protein for 30 million to 36 million people, but that does not mean Irish families would have access to the food they need if imports were to be disrupted by a war or pandemic. What people buy every week is bread, cereals, pasta, fruit, vegetables, oils and all kinds of food that is largely imported. Only 10% of our land grows crops in this country. Some 90% of it is grass. Modern Irish beef and dairy farming depends on imported fertiliser, feed, fuel and machinery parts. What would this mean for ordinary families? After a two-week scenario, supermarkets would begin to show gaps in fresh fruit and vegetables. Bread would become harder to source because we import most of the milling wheat. Prices would rise. Choice would collapse. The weekly shop would suddenly cost more and people would buy less. After two months, pig and poultry products would become scarce because they rely almost wholly on imported feed. Dairy output would begin to get tighter. There would be more empty shelves. Families on lower incomes would be hit more because, as prices rise, the better-off would use their relative purchasing power to get what is available. After 12 months, fertiliser shortage would reduce grass growth and silage yields. Farmers would cull lower yield animals. Milk and beef output would fall. Ireland would still have all this calorific meat-based protein but not a balanced healthy and affordable diet. The Taoiseach is someone who is into healthy eating, and I am a vegan so I have to be, but households would have to shift to whatever is available. Grow your own might increase massively in gardens but it would not have the scale, so after five years we would have had to adapt massively. As I said at the start, we can do this the easy way or the hard way and expand our horticulture and tillage now, reduce our livestock intensity and have a national food security plan. We have a massive opportunity to expand plant protein production. Fava beans, for example, will fix nitrogen in the soil. We can produce our own plant protein and our own plant milks but also make the soil healthier for other forms of agriculture. The Teagasc tillage initiative scheme and the protein aid scheme have shown that farmers will grow more crops if the incentives are right. We need an actual food security strategy. I do not believe we have one.

I thank the Deputy very much for raising this very important issue. We probably need to situate this in a European and global context rather than just in a narrow national context, although I take the Deputy's point that there are vulnerabilities in terms of the importation of a range of foodstuffs and that we need a plan regarding food security on the island. Our dairy and meat industries are probably more carbon efficient than others across the globe. We export to about 170 countries, so we feed a lot of people by means of the dairy, beef, lamb and pig industries. That is a factor which speaks to European food security and food security in Britain, where a lot of Irish produce is consumed. Globally, we use a lot of our technology and expertise to help sub-Saharan African countries with climate-resilient crops and so on. I accept the Deputy's basic premise that we need to do more in the context of horticulture and tillage. We need to look at incentives to give us greater security and capacity in that respect. The Minister for enterprise recently announced a scheme to bring flour milling back into being here. Schemes that can guarantee farmers a market or an outcome in respect of a product are important. I do not mean to digress, but I was at a Diageo facility earlier in the week. I was interested to learn that 10% of the barley grown in the country is used by Diageo. That is quite extraordinary. About 5% of Irish dairy is used to produce Baileys, which is exported all over the world. We are part of a global food supply chain. The Deputy has highlighted a weakness when it comes to tillage and horticulture. The dominance of meat and dairy is, to a certain extent, related to global supply chains, markets and the returns achieved. We have to work on ring-fencing good returns for tillage and horticulture into the future. Land pricing is a factor in that regard. We need to systematically identify potential weaknesses that would cause problems if global events were to restrict the supply of vital imported foodstuffs or general foodstuffs we currently import. We have seen that in the Ukrainian war, which could have had impacts on Africa as a result of the blockade in the Black Sea. Türkiye and other countries had to intervene in that regard. We see it now in an energy context in the Middle East. I accept the Deputy's general proposition that we need to be very alert to the issue of food security because we are vulnerable to global events.

I am not trying to cause panic, but we need to be prepared. We have seen the virus on the boat in the Canary Islands. What if it was a more resilient and transmissible virus? What if the Iranian war or other conflicts prevented us from getting as many boats to this country? That is the issue. Food Vision 2030 is based on exports and farm income diversification. It is not about having a national food security plan. My understanding is that there is such a plan in the Netherlands. Even within an EU context, we need a contingency plan in case something happens. That is why we need a strategic food reserve as well as our strategic oil reserve. That means giving grant aid to farmers to allow them to engage in diversification. As the Taoiseach said, a lot of this produce could be turned into animal feed if we do not need it. However, we need some homegrown food stability. I would like to see an actual food security plan.

That is fair. I will engage with the Minister for agriculture on the Deputy's overall point regarding a national food security plan. There is merit in that. In recent years, the former Minister of State, Pippa Hackett, and the then Minister, Deputy McConalogue, were very involved in supporting organic farmers. In that context, €256 million was allocated to support organic farmers. That resulted in significant five-year growth and a 5.5% increase in organic production up to 2025. About 5,500 farmers are now engaged in the organic farming scheme. That is up 223%. We have made a lot of progress on the organics side, which is related to this issue in terms of capacity. I take the Deputy's overall point and appreciate the constructive manner in which he put it forward.