The time is up. I thank the Taoiseach. I call Deputy Cairns.
TDs / Micheál Martin
Micheál Martin
Taoiseach
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Plus 6,426 contributions in the regular slots, such as Leaders' Questions and Priority Questions. Speech from the chair is not counted.
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I will come back in a minute.
Deputy Cairns has attacked the Institutional Burials Act. She implied it was imposed by this Government. It actually was agreed by the entire Dáil.
By the entire Dáil, including Deputy Cairns's party.
Let us park that for a moment.
It was agreed. When I spoke to Deputy Bacik yesterday, we had a constructive engagement and she asked certain things. Deputy Cairns cannot draw conclusions from yesterday in terms of what the Government's position on this ultimately will be because we said we would reflect on it. That is what I said yesterday and that is what I intend to do. We need to be mindful of all survivors. I think Deputy Cairns has been too d…
There is a very telling phrase in the article.
If I could, I will just finish on this very sensitive issue. Their point is that there was not a blade of grass disturbed on that site.
The way that site was organised, there would have been a burial ground. I accept the point that we have not located it, but there would have been a burial ground there.
That is the issue. It is not where they-----
First, we will use every lever. I accept that housing is the social issue of our time. There is no question about that. We are using every lever but from time to time the Opposition objects to many of the levers that we deploy in respect of housing.
Could I pick the Deputy up on social housing? Between 2020 and 2025, we have delivered 60,000 social homes, through build, acquisition and leasing.
Over 9,000 new-build…
Not least among these is the migration issue, which is having a significant impact. Across the board, we have taken significant initiatives, which have been opposed by the Opposition, to deliver housing. I still think that the Government's programme is more substantive, effective and impactful than any proposals that brought forward by other political parties in the House.
That is not real. On the Labour Party's proposal, namely the idea of setting up a new State-owned construction company-----
-----would take years and would not have any impact on house building right now or over the next five years for that matter. The Labour Party has produced a couple of pages on it, with nothing fleshed out. That is the bottom line. We already have the Land Development Agency-----
-----and that is delivering well, so why create a new one?
It has been ramped up, for God's sake. Billions are going into the Land Development Agency. That is how thin the Labour Party's proposals are. Genuinely, there is no real substance coming from the Opposition on housing in terms of adding to our stock. We did the exemption for back gardens, but those in opposition just dismissed that. We did rural housing and that was also dismissed. The Department also produced guide…
That has helped young people and first-time buyers enormously, so much so that the number of first-time buyer mortgages is way ahead now of any other type of mortgage.
How do we get from 40,000-odd to 50,000?
I thank Deputy Stanley for raising this issue. He mentioned that Ireland is well over 100 years in existence as an independent State. There is a great book by Mark Henry, In Fact: An Optimist’s Guide to Ireland at 100. It contains a great chapter on health that I invite Deputy Stanley to read. If he looks at what people were dying of in 1922 and 1923 and the average lifespan at that time and the position today, he wi…
We have also developed a much-needed revolution in women’s healthcare in terms of see-and-treat gynaecology clinics and-----
-----fertility hubs and specialist menopause services. All that helps to gain greater access for patients.
We can see from the Deputy's demeanour that he is doing very well.
I again thank the Deputy for raising this issue. The biggest movement in the past couple of years has been the GP access card, the GP visit card, more than the medical card. I acknowledge that point. We have, however, reduced the drug threshold payment as well. We are also building up the public health system as per Sláintecare and Government decisions-----
-----which I think are, in many respects, extremely important in terms of the diagnostic hubs and the community-based model that has been evolving over the past number of years. It actually gives people very ready access to diagnostics and treatments in terms of not having to access the acute hospital system all the time.
On growing college and training places, which the Deputy referenced earlier, as he knows, there…
We have had a particularly significant investment in more GP places in our colleges and clinical placements thereafter.