2026-06-25

The Tánaiste knows only too well the saga of Children’s Health Ireland, CHI. Children with scoliosis and spina bifida were left waiting years for care. In many cases, they never received it. There were unapproved, non-medical springs implanted in children’s backs, hundreds of unnecessary hip operations and mismanaged waiting lists. These are the so-called Crumlin orphans, children with complex needs who were ignored by the system and left with poor care. Promises were broken time and time again. There has been report after report showing mismanagement, a lack of transparency and our most vulnerable children being failed. Some reports have been published, some have been leaked but more are hidden or buried. Too often, families were the last to know, finding out through the media instead of from CHI. Broken promises have led to preventable deaths, lifelong harm, injury and disability. Trust between families, advocates and the system could not be lower. It is completely shattered. The Tánaiste’s own broken promise that no child would be left waiting more than four months for scoliosis surgery is a very painful memory for these families. There are still 30 children waiting longer than six months for surgery, and the waiting lists are just as long as they were a year ago. It is because of those litanies of failures that families and advocates demanded an independent statutory inquiry, something the Government agreed to. We hoped it would be child centred, that families would be equal partners and there would be no hiding place for wrongdoing. This is what families and advocates say they were promised by the Minister and the Tánaiste. A group representing over 900 families affected by the scandals at CHI has raised serious concerns about the scoping exercise to determine the terms of reference. Despite promises from the Government that the truth and their children would be put first, advocates now say the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, has not remained true to her word and the process thus far has been anything but child centred or based on the needs of the families involved. They say documents are being hidden from them and unpublished reports are to be excluded. They say they are being stonewalled by a Minister who has not responded to their concerns. Families and advocates want one thing: to uncover the truth of what happened to their children and make sure it never happens again. That is something we should all want. There should be no hiding places, no fear of what may come out and no resistance to working with families and advocates. This inquiry must be about truth, accountability and transparency. Any fit-for-purpose inquiry must also fully include families. It must have their faith and confidence. We can have that child-centred inquiry. It is not beyond us to get this right but it means the Government must listen to these advocates who have campaigned tirelessly for over a decade for their children and shown us the way forward. The only way to build trust is to work genuinely and in collaboration, with full openness and no attempt to limit, conceal or control access to information. The only motive should be to support these families and their children to establish the facts. My question today is simple: will the Tánaiste listen to these families? Will he act on their concerns and make sure they can trust that this inquiry will not just become another broken promise?

I thank Deputy Clarke for raising this important issue. At the outset, everyone on all sides of this House recognises the significant challenges, stress and worry that families face when they have a sick child, and the very significant challenges families face in relation to paediatric spinal services. There has been and continues to be ongoing additional investment in this area. A total of €30 million has been allocated to help tackle spinal waiting lists, including a ring-fenced theatre, additional orthopaedic surgeons, improved GP referral pathways and additional outpatient clinics. Indeed, I saw that a total of 556 patients attended Saturday clinics since the beginning of 2025. Opening up access at weekends is an important reform. When it comes to outpatients, we see now that the average wait time has fallen to 4.4 months, compared with 7.7 months in May one year previous. A total of 99.2% of patients are now waiting less than 12 months for their outpatient appointment. When we look at inpatients, 200 inpatient procedures have been completed so far this year and the average wait time has fallen from 5.3 months in May 2025 to 4.6 months in May of this year. The Deputy is entirely correct, however. The Minister and I, as well as everyone in the Government, knows there is a lot more that we want and need to do in this area. There has been a number of concerning revelations over a sustained period of time in relation to CHI. That is why the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, has correctly taken the decision on the direction of travel in terms of replacing and subsuming CHI into the HSE. That is good from a governance point of view. It is an important step to take. The Minister has the full support of all in the Government in that regard. That is an important factor with regard to the issue of trust the Deputy raised. I accept that as well. We have also seen recently the work the Minister and the former CEO of the HSE commissioned, whereby audits are to be carried out on waiting lists and concerns in this regard. We saw that published very recently. One of the things that is most striking when reading those audits is the poor communication time and time again. We agree fully with the Deputy that, often, issues in the health service can be added to or amplified by poor communications and families not feeling that they are at the centre of the information flow. That is why I welcome the Minister’s decision to ask CHI to put in place a patient co-ordinator. So much can be improved when there are good, open and transparent lines of communication. I think the Deputy referenced that in her question. The Minister and I have had sustained engagement with advocate groups. The Government agreed to establish a scoping inquiry. It is important for that work to be carried out. The eminent Mr. Remy Farrell SC has been appointed to do that work. He has been engaging with families, advocacy groups and consultants. I know he wishes to conclude that work shortly. The Government will also want to balance that with making sure that everyone has the opportunity to have their say and engage with him. I encourage everyone to engage. I say that respectfully. We have appointed an eminent and serious senior legal figure, without prejudice, in order for people to engage in that process and have their views heard. That will play an important role in shaping the terms of reference and the next step. We all want the same thing, Deputy. We all want a situation where we have an inquiry that can examine the issues that have arisen and, as the Deputy said, ensure they do not arise again. We all seek to build a health service that can serve the needs of all of our children. We have that structure in place. The Government is committed to it. Mr. Remy Farrell SC is very committed to doing a good job. I encourage everyone to take the opportunity to have their say and input. The Government will respond in kind.

What I find striking is the letter from the spina bifida and hydrocephalus paediatric advocacy group that states clearly, "We feel we have no other option but to withdraw from this scoping exercise". I find that deeply concerning. Trust is not built on promises; it is built on keeping them. These families were promised a child-centred, codesigned inquiry. Today, they say very clearly that promise has been broken. If the Government has nothing to hide, then let it hide nothing, honour the commitments that were made to these families and publish every unpublished report. Every document and every unanswered letter sends the same message to these families that protection of the system matters more than uncovering the truth. Give families access to all the Children's Health Ireland, CHI, reports so that they can at least engage effectively. Let them see what happened. Let them see the truth and how it is that this came about because otherwise the Tánaiste cannot say that this will never happen again. They want this to never happen again. It is not too late to do the right thing. This is one issue where the Tánaiste needs to hold to his promises.

To be clear, the Government is fulfilling its commitment to this House and the decision that it took to appoint Mr. Remy Farrell SC to carry out a scoping inquiry. There are a number of advocacy groups. There may be eight advocacy groups in this space in relation to children's paediatric spinal care and many are engaging with Mr. Farrell SC. I would encourage genuinely everybody to engage without prejudice to provide information, ask questions and raise concerns that they would like Mr. Farrell SC, as an independent external senior legal figure, to consider and to report back to Government. That is a good way to proceed. We also extended the terms of reference to include the hip dysplasia group. This is not a question of Government. This is a question of getting to the answers in terms of CHI, the legitimate and important issues that people have highlighted so that the Minister is then empowered to take the appropriate decisions that she wishes to take to deliver a world-class children's health service, with a new national children's hospital, with all the additional resources going into children's health and with the reforms that she is leading on and the benefits we are seeing now around those additional resources, such as the Saturday outpatient clinics and the likes. We want everybody to engage here in good faith with Mr. Farrell SC. We want to make progress on this.

Last week I raised with the Tánaiste serious concerns about breaches of the public-only consultant contract in the Rotunda, Cork University Maternity Hospital and University Hospital Galway. I acknowledge the excellent work done by my colleague, Deputy Rice, exposing these systemic breaches - breaches that pose a risk for public patients. A quarter of all work carried out a Galway University Hospital lab comes from the private hospital, Bon Secours. This extra work is overwhelming the system to the point that samples are being outsourced to private labs. This is done at enormous expense to the taxpayer. Due a service level agreement between Bon Secours and University Hospital Galway, private work is being washed through the public system. The taxpayer picks up the bill. I raised the significant and dangerous delays this is causing for public patients in the Dáil last week. A statement released by hospital management has since confirmed that there is a backlog of 3,449 samples waiting to be tested. These delays are not abstract. They involve people waiting for cancer diagnosis, people whose lives depend upon timely results, people who cannot afford to be pushed down a queue because 25% of the laboratory's workload is taken up by work from a private hospital. These consistent delays resulted in the laboratory losing accreditation from the Irish National Accreditation Board. The lab does not meet nationally set guidelines for turnaround times despite the Trojan work of its dedicated staff. Galway University Hospital lab is one of the biggest in the country and in a major cancer centre and yet it has no official accreditation. The Department of Health and HSE officials we in the Joint Committee on Health yesterday. The CEO of the HSE told my colleague, Deputy Rice, that they were completely unaware of the service level agreement between the hospitals. It is a remarkable statement from the very top of the health service. It raises serious questions about the scale of the issue and how many of these service level agreements are violating the public-only contract. These contracts were signed in 2023 and were meant to be fully enforced by January of this year. Their entire purpose was to put an end to this kind of behaviour. Instead, we are discovering breach after breach and there is no evidence of any proactive monitoring from the Government to enforce this contract. My questions are: why has University Hospital Galway not immediately stopped this breach of the public-only contract? Is this happening in any other labs across the country? What has the Government done to check? What system has been put in place to ensure full implementation of the public-only contract?

I thank Deputy O'Callaghan for the question. I acknowledge this is an issue he has been rightly pursuing in this House for a period of time. The Deputy commended his colleague, Deputy Rice, the Cathaoirleach of the Oireachtas health committee. Deputy O'Callaghan will understand and appreciate I want to commend my colleague, the Minister for Health, because while I agree sometimes with Deputy O'Callaghan's analysis in terms of the destination we want to get to, it would be unfair to say that we have not seen an extraordinarily proactive approach from the Government since the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, took office. The Minister has shown very clearly to anybody down the back who did not hear that when you sign on the dotted line we expect you to do what you signed up to do. The public-only contract holders are not permitted to engage in private practice within public hospitals. This position is unequivocal. There are to be no exemptions, no arrangements or no deviations. We would not accept it from anybody else working in the public service. If you sign a contract and you take the extra salary, you fulfil the terms of your contract. It is as simple as that. If you do not wish to sign the contract, that is also fine but you cannot have this each-way bet, as if to say, "I will sign the contract, take the extra salary, and make me pure but not just yet." That is very simple. It is the Government policy. The Minister intends to implement it in full. It is, largely speaking, the policy of the Oireachtas across parties because, of course, it originated from the work of Sláintecare. I genuinely welcome, as does the Minister, the work being done at the Oireachtas health committee. It is helpful. It was very helpful in relation to the Rotunda. I believe, possibly next week, the committee may be due to see the Rotunda again and the HSE. That is a helpful opportunity for people who work for the public to outline the process that they are undertaking. The Deputy used the word "violating". I can understand why but I would make the point that we are seeing the reform agenda being implemented here. What we are seeing now is getting to the phase of full implementation of the contract. I accept that the Government would have liked to gave seen us at this point earlier. The Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, has prioritised this since taking office. Shortly the Cabinet Committee on Health is meeting with the clinical directors in each of the regions - the top doctors who are paid additional salaries to make sure this happens. The Taoiseach, the Minister and I will want to hear directly what is happening. There are also a number of regional meetings taking place across the country. We are not for turning on this. The Minister made that clear. We are extraordinarily serious about this and health policy set in this building and in Miesian Plaza on Baggot Street, not set anywhere else. I hope everybody now working in the health service understands that fully. In relation to the specific issue in University Hospital Galway, the Deputy is right that there is an issue here. The issue here is there is a histology laboratory in Galway. It processes on average 13,200 samples per month. The lab has been recently experiencing periods where demand exceeded available staffing resources and this resulted in a backlog of samples. The HSE has confirmed that urgent referrals will always be priorities. Samples are processed according to clinical priority but it has also advised now that the long-standing service level agreement that is in place with the local private hospital, the Bon Secours, to provide lab service is due to terminate this year. I think it may be due to terminate in September but it is certainly due to terminate this year. That is also an outworking of the reform agenda that the health service is currently undergoing.

The question I am asking here is: what exactly is the system to monitor and ensure full implementation of the public-only contract? Clearly, there is a number of breaches around the country. They are arising one by one. What system has the Government in place to ensure this contract is being enforced? In relation to Galway, the Tánaiste seems to be okay with the situation that this breach will continue for a number of months. The contract was signed. It was put in place in 2023 and meant to be fully enforced and fully implemented by January of this year. That has not happened. The breaches are continuing. Is the Tánaiste okay with them continuing until later this year? Should the public-only contract not be enforced now? Is the situation where the management of the hospital is telling consultants on the public-only contract to continue to do private work where they have a backlog and where people's tests are being delayed? People are not getting the results in a timely fashion. The lab has no longer got national accreditation because it is not meeting the targets. That is not acceptable. Does the Tánaiste agree that is not acceptable and the public-only contract needs to be adhered to now, not later in the year?

I fully agree with the Deputy. Let me be clear that the HSE has confirmed that any additional payments to consultants on that public-only consultant contract, POCC, contract relating to the service level agreement ceased at the start of the year. There are some consultants who do not work on a public-only consultant contract. It is important in winding down a long-standing arrangement and an agreement that that is done in a safe manner and that is the intention. However, it is ending because we are pursuing Sláintecare. We are pursuing the public-only consultant contract. We are creating a public health service. The Minister for Health does not have responsibility for private health. She has a responsibility for delivering a world-class public health service. That is what we all want to do. There is a number of activities under way. We have had the HSE audit from the last year. We have had the Minister putting in her own regional structure, engaging on a three-monthly basis in terms of each region over and over again, and the progress we are making as well. The Minister has also asked everyone in this House for their support. She is working in partnership with the committee, which is a formidable combination and that needs to continue. I and the Taoiseach fully support these efforts, as does all of Government, and we look forward to meeting with the regional clinical directors too. On a positive note, we have seen benefits with the public-only consultant contract already, whether that is the cardiology clinics on a Saturday and Sunday in Connolly Hospital, a Saturday hub in St. Vincent's hospital, weekend consultant cover in Wexford General Hospital, a minimum of 26 consultants now rostered at weekends in University Hospital Waterford, and the progress in Kerry, St. James's and Mullingar hospitals. We are seeing the benefits. This is a reform agenda. It is one the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, is going to drive and it will make a big difference. We want to work in support with everybody across this House to get to where we need to.

"Isolated often at home, [my] child sees me constantly stressed and budgeting/worrying about bills and arrears and going without [the] basics." Those are the words of one parent from the Barnardos cost of living survey published this week. One in five families is cutting back on food due to the cost of living. Nearly half have skipped meals or reduced portions so their children would have enough to eat - in a rich country. Thirty per cent felt that at some point, they did not have enough food to feed their children. Some parents said, "Food for myself, I'm having to go without" and that the "Amount of food we buy had been significantly cut". I could go on. Today, we have more bad news for families up and down the country. The ESRI has warned that food prices will rise even higher because of second-round effects from the Iran war. Families already struggling will be hit again with higher energy bills and higher grocery costs in the autumn and winter. As the Tánaiste will know, electricity bills are rapidly rising, with an 8% hike from Electric Ireland in July, which is an extra €140 a year on average family bills. Flogas plans to increase its prices by 10% and we have already seen PrepayPower up its prices in May. The Government has nothing to offer on energy costs, not since it bought its way in the last election. I could ask the Tánaiste what the Government has done to ensure lower food, energy and grocery prices, but the truth is it is a big fat nothing. There has been lots of talk about competition and the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, but nothing of substance has been done. Looking at last year's budget, we can recall what the Government did not do. There was no indexation of income taxes, no energy credits, no increase in children's allowance and there was a cut to one-off cost-of-living payments. PAYE workers and hard-working families were mogged - mogged by burger barons and the highly profitable hospitality sector. The Tánaiste's Government made the choice to give them a VAT cut, and we know where the Tánaiste's focus has been for much of the past week. It has been on giving the red carpet treatment to influencers who came to the Department to talk to him about his wealth account plans. This contrasts with the carpeting received by PAYE workers in last year's budget. Let us not forget the endless reports and meandering to the media by various Ministers on inheritance tax cuts, when all the while parents are focused on feeding their children and making sure they do not go hungry. Temperatures are rising, but so are prices. What will the Tánaiste do practically to help lower food prices? Next week, the lower VAT rate kicks in and tourists will be arriving from all around the world to eat in our restaurants, which is a good thing. We will have EU diplomats from across member states descending on Dublin and having their takeaway coffees. Families who can afford to might be going out to get a burger this summer, if the good weather continues. Will they be paying lower prices? Will the Tánaiste directly call on the hospitality sector to commit to passing on the VAT cuts he is about to introduce, through lower prices for customers across the country?

Deputy Nash really does not like burgers, but we will get to that in a second. This Government has taken a number of actions in endeavouring to assist people. We should remind ourselves that in the country we live in, there are over 2.8 million people who got up and went to work this morning - the highest number ever. Figures from the CSO show the average weekly wage is now over €1,000. Yes, we are living in a time of huge global uncertainty but, thank God, we have resources as a country to intervene. The Deputy asked what the Government did to assist people with fuel and the likes. We delivered the largest or second largest package in the entire European Union for direct assistance. This did not just help specific sectors, although it helped them too. It helped hauliers, farmers, farm contractors and people working in road transport. It helped everyone going to work who needs to put petrol or diesel in their car but it also, and I have made this point before, reduced inflation by 0.6% per month on what it would have been. The cost of food would have been 0.6% higher, from an inflationary point of view, in Dunnes, Tesco, SuperValu and shops in Louth, were it not for the package the Government put in place. That cannot be overlooked. That is not my view; it is the view of the chief economist and the economic analysis of the package we put in place. We increased the fuel allowance and, next week, something else is happening that is not just VAT being reduced. The carer's allowance is being expanded. There will be thousands of carers receiving the reduced rate of the carer's allowance who might now qualify for the larger rate, and there will be some who do not currently get carer's allowance who will qualify for the first time ever. That is happening next week. As the Deputy knows, we also introduced the largest ever increases in child support payments, with over 330,000 children benefiting from these increases. The national minimum wage has increased since 2020 by 40%, from €10.10 per day to today's rate of €14.15. We have also reduced people's VAT to 9% on gas and electricity bills. We have reduced college fees and brought in free hot school meals, free schoolbooks, free GP care for under-eights, and we have extended the back-to-school footwear and clothing allowance to preschool for the first time ever. This Government has taken several actions to help people. However, the decision to reduce VAT in the hospitality sector is a very important one, and do not forget the hairdressers-----

I did not.

-----with €48 million being the cost for hairdressers - the beard trimming. This will benefit. There are over 150,000 people working in the hospitality sector and, I will be very honest, this is not about reducing the cost of a cup of coffee. I am not going to lie to anybody here; it is not about that at all. This is about supporting employment. It is about saying to the coffee shop owner, restaurant owner and pub that might do a lunch in rural Ireland that we are helping them by reducing their tax bill because they are helping us in providing employment. The Deputy mentioned the old beef barons or burger barons or whatever you call them. CSO data shows that 99% of those working in food catering and accommodation are SMEs, and half of those are microenterprises that have less than ten employees. This is an initiative that will disproportionately benefit rural and regional Ireland, small businesses and microenterprises. It is the right decision. I look forward to standing with coffee shop owners, café owners, hairdressers and restaurateurs to say we took this decision to support jobs.

Hear, hear.

I thank the Tánaiste for going through some of his greatest hits in recent years, but the question is what will be done for working people this year? The Tánaiste has acknowledged that as a result of the untargeted VAT cut for the hospitality sector, PAYE workers had to go without indexation last year, which means more of the money they earn this year - the small increase they get from their pay increase - will by and large go to the taxman. The Tánaiste said earlier in the House that this was wrong and the Government has to make up for that. However, with all the promises made over the past few weeks by various Ministers going through the media rounds, the tax package for this year seems to be already swallowed up. The Tánaiste and I have a difference in opinion on how we can best support the small cafés and restaurants around the country that we need to support. This expensive blunt instrument is not the way to do it. The way to do it is to introduce targeted energy supports and reform the outdated commercial rate system to address some of the structural cost issues in our SMEs across this country. A blunt instrument like this that is costly and will disproportionately benefit franchises and big chains is not the way to do it.

I said to the Deputy earlier, and I am happy to say it again, that I do not doubt his bona fides or that of his party in wanting to support small businesses. I do not doubt that at all. We just have a different policy approach to this. I also made this point, and I will make it again, that we had an election. In that election, I stood in coffee shops, restaurants, pubs that served food and hotels, and I said to people that if they voted my party back into Government, and the Fianna Fáil party did the equivalent, we would reduce their VAT rate. It was a promise we made to people right across this country and is a promise we are delivering on - promise made, promise kept, promise delivered. It is a permanent reduction in costs and taxes on employment that specifically impacts regional and rural Ireland, small businesses and microenterprises. The Deputy knows well what we are thinking of doing in the next budget. We will have the summer economic statement next month, which will outline the amount we will have for additional spending and will allocate the amount we will have for a tax package. There will also be a personal income tax package. I believe we need to look at the budget in the round. Tax can do some things, which it should. There are too many people paying the higher rate of tax at too low an entry point, but there are other things we can do on the spending side to structurally reduce costs families face, including workers. The Deputy referenced childcare, which would be an obvious area too. We will be going through the budget and looking at that. The summer economic statement will be the next chance we will have to take stock next month.

I thank the Tánaiste for that. I wish to welcome a group of students from Trinity going into their third year, who are accompanied by a very special member of Senator Sharon Keogan's family. I wish them well in their day here in Leinster House.

I am sure the Tánaiste will join me by offering his sympathies and the sympathies of the Government on the passing of Sr. Colette Hickey, who passed away at the age of 108. She was the founder of Edel House Cork and the first winner of the 1993 Cork Person of the Year Award for the tremendous work she did for our city. This week, we have reports in the press of 265 people aged 65 or older living in emergency accommodation. A total of 146 of them live in Dublin alone. These are men and women who should be well settled into their retirements, not sleeping in hostels and hubs. It is not long ago that I brought up in this House a case in Mallow in my constituency, where we have a lady approaching 80 years of age who has been placed in homeless accommodation far from her network, neighbours and everybody who she associated with through her lifetime. Unfortunately, that is not an isolated case. This is just one of the human faces of the figures that I have given this House. It is not the first warning that this Government has received. In January, the Simon Communities of Ireland, working with the Simon Community Galway, published a report a report on homelessness in later life. It found that old age homelessness had doubled in the past five years. It found that the assumption of older people owning their own homes or being in secure tenancies was no longer a reflection of the reality of the State. More often, it struck me that many of these people are in private rented accommodation with rapidly rising rents, watching their own security that they spent a lifetime building disappear in front of their eyes. Uachtarán Connolly attended the launch of that report in Galway. She said it shines a spotlight on the growing number of older people experiencing homelessness, and particular attention should be given to the recommendations. When the President of Ireland says that this needs to be looked at, surely the Government and this House should pay attention to that. The report sets out six clear costings in its policy recommendations, namely, stronger national leadership, better legal protections, increasing resources for homeless services, and a targeted strategy for expanding age-friendly housing. In fairness to it, that is not a radical ask. They are basic and achievable steps by any Government, I would have assumed. The report's authors said that Ireland has a window of opportunity to act before it becomes entrenched. Five months have passed since its launch and the numbers have not improved, as I laid out. The lady in Mallow is not the only one in homeless services, living at a homeless hub at the moment. This is not being treated as a priority by the Government. We seem to have a problem in this State where we look at elderly people and think it is someone else's problem. How many of the six recommendations in that report has the Government adopted? Will it publish a timeline? Is the Minister for housing delivering on them? Has the report been welcomed by the Government publicly but shelved privately?

I join Deputy O'Flynn in extending my sympathy to the friends, family and fellow sisters of Sr. Colette Hickey. What an incredible age and, indeed, an incredible life of service and impact on people, particularly in Cork. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam dílis. I thank the Deputy for extending his sympathy to her in the House. I thank Deputy O'Flynn for raising this issue. I do not dispute that it is serious. One reason we decided that for the very first time the Minister of State with responsibility for older people should be based in both the Department of Health and the Department of housing is the recognition that we cannot just have conversations about older people from a policy perspective in the Department of Health. We also need to have conversations about health and well-being in the context of housing. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, is committed to this agenda and working extraordinarily hard on this. Compared with the previous one, the last census showed the scale of the challenge here. The Deputy is right to highlight that the number of people over the age of 65 renting had increased by a very significant amount. There is a real policy issue here, which I do not doubt. That is why this year we will be producing a specific housing plan for older people. I will give the Deputy a flavour of some of the issues that we believe need to be addressed. Rightsizing is an important issue and the Department of Finance, with the Central Bank, has put in place a change to the bridging finance rules regarding access to mortgages, which is important for older people who need to rightsize for their own quality of life and health, and want to live in their own community. Not being prohibited by rigid mortgage rules is a positive development. It is why some of the tenancy protections are important, being able to provide six-year tenancies for people rather the uncertainty we have had in our country before. That is why we also need to work specifically with older people on social housing targets for every local authority, and in the new plan, we will be. I do not say this to be critical of Cork. In fact, it is a positive. A city like Cork could really help to lead the way here by becoming a local authority that decides to set targets. There is nothing to stop any local authority from doing this today but we will be mandating it as part of our plan for every local authority to set targets for the number of older people's homes they will deliver each year. Any of us who have been involved in public life have seen what used to happen in the past, where small clusters or estates of homes used to be developed for older people and-or people with a disability. I am not being critical of anyone but that stopped for a while and we need to really revamp and rebuild that. We need better data collection processes regarding older people. We need our local authorities to enhance delivery through improved site identification, working closer with the approved housing bodies too. We need to and will recognise in the plan the increasing number of older people renting in the private rented sector and examine those affordability challenges for older people approaching retirement in the sector and how we, as a Government, need to help to address those challenges. We will be back as soon as possible this year, with our housing plan for older people. We will encompass these issues in that.

I am looking forward to meeting Valerie O'Sullivan, our city chief executive, and informing her that the Government will make moneys available for housing plans for older people. There is another elephant in the room which I want to make the Government aware of, that is, people who lost their houses back in the 2008 to 2009 period. They are now in rented accommodation and back on their feet. Some of them have restarted businesses. Some of them are back working but they are renting. A number of these people are rapidly approaching 65 now. I predict that there will be a tremendous increase in people approaching local authorities throughout the country, saying they can no longer afford the €2,300 rent and need to be on a local authority housing list. I predict that will be a huge problem facing this country. I do not think we are accounting for it, thinking about it, or planning for it. Losing your home in your 70s is not just a housing problem. It is a health, mobility and routine problem, and people certainly lose their dignity when they lose their home at that age.

I largely agree with the Deputy's analysis. We are still seeing the scars of that financial crash, where people who lost their home at a certain age are now ageing. We have to be prepared. That is one of reasons we are doing a specific body of work led by the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, which will come to Government shortly. Alongside the reasons the Deputy pointed out, we are also seeing a significant increase in life expectancy, which is largely a good thing for society, but also a change in our demographics. We are expecting that the population aged over 85 will increase by over 140% in Ireland by 2040. There is very significant demographic churn. We are still one of the youngest populations in Europe but we are ageing fast. We are very committed to acting on this. We allocate a lot of money to local authorities. I would say respectfully that all of them need to start showing creativity with regard to the type of housing they are delivering, including homes for people with disabilities and homes for older people. Social housing is used as a kind of umbrella term. We need to start looking at the types of social housing that are required and that mixed tenure. I would be happy to meet Cork City Council about that at any time.