Micheál Martin

I attended a meeting of the European Council on 19 March in Brussels. Once again, leaders dealt with a very full and important agenda against the backdrop of a very challenging and volatile international environment. The substantial items discussed included Ukraine, the situation in the Middle East and European competitiveness. There was also a Euro Summit, which assessed the state of the European…

I do not agree with the Deputy's analysis. The Government understands fully the pressure people are under as a result of the various cost shocks over recent years from Covid to the invasion of Ukraine, when inflation was at its peak of 10%. We understand that. Prices are at an elevated high and now the war in the Middle East has again created a significant shock in terms of fossil fuel supply glob…

Retrofitting is not a failure. Two hundred and fifty thousand houses have been retrofitted. That is a success, and all of those families can enjoy lower bills as a result of that retrofitting.

The Government did not wait. The Deputy has to be honest that over the last number of years, we have brought in very significant schemes that permanently reduce the cost of living for people. The free primary and second level school books scheme has reduced costs for families with children going to school. We also have the free hot school meals, a very recent innovation, which also helps families.…

In the budget, we took very concrete measures. A new baby grant of €280 is paid in addition to the first month of child benefit for children born or adopted on or after 1 December 2024. We have all of those measures. We have extended the free travel pass, and also the medical card for the over-70s. There are lots of things we have done. We are going to do more, and we will do more in the time ahea…

I appreciate very much the Deputy's sincerity in wanting to look after people under pressure. We have a similar position but I think we need an honest debate as well. The Deputy cannot just come in here and say we have no vision for investment in the grid. Where has she been in the last number of months when we announced an investment of up to €19 billion in the grid? I refer to the PR6, where we …

Let us have an honest debate where we can agree and disagree on the facts and let us not make up stuff that does not have any basis from a factual point of view. In terms of the surplus, I repeat that is going into the funds, such as the Future Ireland Fund and the infrastructure and nature fund. The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, manages that and it is being invested in a whole range o…

We have put billions into the funds.

We then have an Exchequer deficit of €1.1 billion. That is what we have after the moneys is allocated to the funds. We do not have billions of surplus, if the Deputy accepts that the moneys should go to the funds, and she accepts that they should. When they are in the funds, they are being invested and so on under ISIF. We take the Deputy's point in terms of pressures that people are under. On the…

The Deputy looks at the world through one prism when it comes to housing; we look at it through another. In my vision for young people, housing is number one and it means a relentless focus on supply. The Social Democrats have opposed all supply measures in this House for the last number of years and they keep on criticising every single initiative that we have undertaken. If we do not get supply …

We will keep it under review. We will look at every single way we can ease pressure on people, ease pressure on the private rental market and also give opportunities to people. We will follow up with guidelines for rural housing. We have a crisis with housing but we will never solve it if we criticise every single measure that a Government introduces, which the Social Democrats have been doing for…

I am solution driven in terms of housing and the Deputy is not.

Sorry, I am answering the question. The Social Democrats, for example, voted against all residential zoning proposals on Fingal County Council. Two weeks ago, when the council agreed development plans to zone for 5,000 additional homes, the Social Democrats opposed them.

They opposed the project in Ballymastone as well. People are now living in those houses. The Social Democrats cannot just keep opposing everything and claim they are serious about housing. That is the point I am making. Choices have to be made. As regards the planning in terms of the exemptions and so on, it is a major package of exempted development regulations to reduce planning bureaucracy. Pla…

All of that will happen.

No, it is not.

I am very clear: we will reduce the pressure on the-----

I was out in Dublin Central last evening with Councillor John Stephens, and it was a very pleasant evening indeed. There was good feedback and a lot of issues raised, of course, on the doorsteps. Yes, approval has been given to the expected appointment of Robert Watt as CEO, seconded to the special purpose vehicle. The SPV is a key legal vehicle to ensure not only the implementation of the task f…

It is not as if we are not investing right now, as the Deputy knows. About €132 million from the urban regeneration and development fund, URDF, has already been already allocated for the north inner city concept area 1 proposal. This involves the regeneration and redevelopment of several areas of the north city that have suffered from dereliction and decline. Some €60 million of URDF funding has b…

I introduced the whole concept of special needs assistants to education back in 1998. The numbers have grown expediently since. We are now at 25,000 SNAs. In any honest way, how can the Deputy suggest there are cuts in the number of SNAs when it is the opposite direction? In fact, the Government today approved further investment in education, which will mean more special needs assistants above the…

The campaign is a flawed campaign. It is a false one.

We do not need to save SNAs because we are expanding the number of SNAs. We actually have more SNAs.

We have more investment. The Deputy is searching for votes. I understand that.

We are actually investing more. The Government has approved more investment in SNAs today.

There comes a time when one has to accept the bona fides of the Government on this. We have worked with Keir Starmer's Government on this.