Cian O'Callaghan

I welcome the northside home care workers in the Public Gallery today. They do incredible work in the local community looking after sick and elderly people and they must be paid a decent and fair wage. Parents and carers from Before We Die visited the Dáil recently to highlight the housing needs of adults with intellectual disabilities. The name of their campaign group sums up the grim reality of…

This is incredibly traumatic and distressing.

This is cruel. There needs to be ring-fenced funding in next year's budget to build enough new residential places for adults with intellectual disabilities.

Taoiseach, will you commit to doing this?

I welcome the fact the Taoiseach recognises this needs to be addressed. Losing your mum or dad, your carer, your advocate, your home and your community at the same time is incredibly traumatic. For people then potentially to be offered a place hundreds of miles away from where they have lived all their life and everything they have ever known is deeply inhumane. That cannot continue and the Taois…

It is nearly a month into this crisis and the Government is finally acting but the measures announced today do not go far enough. A temporary cut to excise duty to provide some relief at the pumps is long overdue but where are the targeted supports for those who need them most? The Government, having spent weeks and weeks reviewing the situation, has come into this House and done the bare minimum…

It is the Parliamentary Budget Office's assessment.

The Taoiseach can disagree with my assessment all he likes but I was quoting the Parliamentary Budget Office, which is independent. Is the Taoiseach saying he does not accept its independent analysis of the budget? The proposal that we have put forward is fully costed - €362 million. It is targeted and affordable, as the Taoiseach says measures need to be. That would leave plenty of room for furth…

20. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his Department's statement of strategy for 2025 to 2028. [18787/26]

On the policy priorities in the Government’s statement of strategy and the priority of children in education, the Taoiseach has told us repeatedly that he is doing everything he can to ensure there is an appropriate school place for every child. Why then does a school that comes forward because it wants to provide additional classes face so many road blocks? I have raised Stapolin Educate Together…

I agree with the points that were made. We need proper notice to be able to do our jobs.

The temporary reduction in excise duty will offer some overdue relief at the pumps, and the extension of the fuel allowance will give some respite to pensioners and people receiving social welfare, but it will not be enough. A figure of €152 misses the mark completely. What the Government is doing here is leaving hundreds of thousands of low-income workers who are facing astronomical increases, pa…

Gach lá agus gach seachtain, feicimid Rialtas atá caillte ar bhealach, Rialtas nach bhfuil cúram gnáthdhaoine air. Ní gá go mbeadh sé ar an mbealach seo. Is féidir é a bheith difriúil. Rinne an Rialtas na roghanna míchearta. Tá na tosaíochtaí míchearta aige. Tá níos mó agus níos mó daoine á mbrú i dtreo na bochtaineachta aige. Tá níos mó agus níos mó daoine go hiomlán bréan den Rialtas seo. Tá ath…

The Government's hands-off approach to the energy crisis is callous and cruel. For weeks now, the Tánaiste has failed to intervene as prices have spiralled. When the Social Democrats asked the Tánaiste to act, he refused. Instead of there being support for people, the Tánaiste has been missing in action. Individuals, families and businesses do not have the luxury of sitting back and monitoring th…

In December there were 320,000 households in arrears on their electricity bills. They need a targeted energy credit and the Tánaiste is saying he cannot do it because we are coming into summer. Is that for real? Then the Tánaiste is saying that he cannot predict the future. We are not asking him to predict the future. We are asking him to recognise the reality people are living in now and that thi…

At least the Tánaiste knows that.

The Government has had plenty of time to put together what it is going to do for the cost-of-living energy crisis we face at the moment. Nothing has come forward. This week the Dáil should be discussing and passing emergency measures to help families and households under huge pressure with rising costs. There is a proposal from the Social Democrats for a €400 targeted energy credit that the Govern…

The war in the Middle East is in its sixth day and the price of oil and gas is continuing to skyrocket. People are now being charged absolutely extortionate prices for home heating oil. The Tánaiste saying he is going to monitor the situation and keep it under review is of absolutely no use to people facing big bills right now. The increases are absolutely outrageous. How are elderly people on pen…

Tá díomá mór orm le freagra an Tánaiste. Tá níos mó agus níos mó daoine nach féidir a gcuid billí a íoc. A total of 320,000 homes are in electricity arrears before these prices increased in the past few days. That is the scale of the problem we are facing in the country. What the Government is doing is not addressing that. With regard to the fines being issued and the CCPC, when was the last time …

Some 320,000 households are in arrears.

7. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the first meeting of the delivery and monitoring committee for the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030, which he chaired on 8 December 2025. [12354/26]

More than 3,000 people signed a petition calling for two new autism classes in Stapolin Educate Together National School. The Department of Education and Youth said it will sanction these classes in terms of staffing but will not provide any classrooms. There are no spare classrooms in the school. The school needs to be able to provide new classes and modular classrooms if the new autism classes a…

25. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach if he will report on implementation of the well-being framework published by his Department. [12356/26]

Let us be very clear. It is not the Opposition that made the claim that the rental income of IRES REIT is going to go up by 25% as a result of the changes the Government has made. It was IRES REIT that made that claim. Does the Tánaiste accept that? His only defence seems to be that not every renter will be affected immediately. Does he not realise that a 25% increase in someone's rent, whether it…

Mick Byrne of the UCD school of social policy, whom the Tánaiste has been quoting, said that what the Government is doing is effectively removing rent regulation. The Tánaiste has been selectively quoting what he has been saying on this.