Denise Mitchell

He is not answering them.

There is nothing more disgraceful than knowing we have thousands of families and children homeless or in insecure accommodation while we have thousands of empty council homes around the country boarded up and left to rot. We constantly hear the Government saying that bringing vacant properties back into use is key to tackling the housing crisis and yet we have over 2,600 council houses boarded up …

You are.

The delays relating to driving tests have been going on for far too long. What is happening is causing huge stress for workers and is resulting in some having to turn down jobs or delay their starting dates while others, including college students, have longer commutes each week. When these delays started to become a serious problem a few years back, the excuse was that the backlog was due to Covi…

We all want to see an early years sector that works for society. We want educators to be paid fairly. We want enough capacity to ensure children get places in their local community. We want to see childcare fees that are affordable for families. To do all that, we need the State to take the lead and not just leave it all to private providers. In my constituency of Dublin Bay North, we have seen a…

I move: That, pursuant to Standing Order 205, the Bills which lapsed on the dissolution of the 33rd Dáil and are set out in the Schedule to this motion, shall be restored, at the stage specified in the Schedule below and notice of them shall be published pursuant to Standing Order 37.

The last thing households across this State need, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, is another unfair bill. This proposal by Sinn Féin is very simple. It removes the option of this Government or any future governments to reimpose domestic water charges down the line. It is as simple as that. We all saw reports in the media last month that the Government was examining the possibility of br…

Yes.

I want to be very clear; we need a special school. We have all been contacted by parents who are having to fight for their children to get appropriate places, and I want to make it very clear that we are all on the same page. The compromise solution put forward by Belmayne Educate Together, which will see a special school housed temporarily in its permanent building, makes sense. Nobody wants to s…

I echo what my constituency colleagues said. Will the Minister of State visit the school in order to see the difference between the prefabs to which he refers and what a permanent school building would offer? We need a timeline for the delivery of permanent accommodation. This is not the Minister of State’s brief; it is that of the Minister for Education. We need a timeline for when a permanent sc…

If we want to divert young people from becoming involved in criminality, we need a dual approach. The first is ensuring young people have proper supports, services and amenities in their areas, that they have hope and that they feel they have the opportunity to meet their full potential regardless of their backgrounds. The second is that we need a community approach that steers young people away f…

I welcome the Bill. The move to address a long-standing inequality in the law is positive. It is a pity that it took a court case to force the Government to make these changes. I commend Mr. O'Meara on taking that case. The loss of a loved partner is the same if a partner is married or unmarried. The grief felt by the family is the same and therefore the rights and entitlements should be the same.…

And Opposition.

Hear, hear.

I want to raise the issue of policing. In Dublin Bay North, we have a very fast-growing population and Garda resources are already stretched. In 2019, the then Minister for Justice had a photo op outside Coolock Garda station, during which he announced a new station that would be a regional headquarters and would cover Belmayne, Clongriffin and the surrounding areas. This population is expected to…

The housing and homelessness crisis has been getting worse under successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments, so this decision to further restrict the tenant in situ scheme, which has prevented so many people from becoming homeless, is bizarre. On top of these new restrictions, we also have delays on applications going back months because the Government could not get its act together and agr…

It is a very challenging time, particularly in Dublin, when it comes to policing and justice. We hear stories every week about assaults and violence on our streets, and people simply do not feel safe. The fact is that we do not have enough gardaí. Back in 2009, in my local Garda station in Coolock, for example, there were 123 gardaí. Today, the number is slightly lower. Between 2009 and now, the p…

I might follow up with the Minister of State on the last point.

Labhróidh mé leis an Aire faoi Ghaelcholáiste Reachrann i nDomhnach Míde. Cuirfidh mé ar an taifead go bhfuil Gaelcholáiste Reachrann i measc na nGaelcholáistí is fearr in Éirinn. Is scoil í atá tar éis duaiseanna a fháil sa cheol, sa drámaíocht, sa pheil agus san fhiontar. Téann an chuid is mó dá ndaltaí go dtí an tríú leibhéal. Thosaigh an scoil le 36 dalta. Anois tá 500 ann ach tá siad ag úsáid…

Hear, hear.

Over here, too.

The Government did not.

No, they are not.

They know what it is about.

It is very welcome to see the issue of mental health up for discussion again in this House. However, one thing I have noticed over the years of being in here is that there has been a lot of talk about mental health and very little action. Plenty of people are sick and tired of the talk. They want the Government to provide the services that they need and that should be in place for them, particular…