Louise O'Reilly

How dare you.

Are you not a bit ashamed?

Are you proud of that figure, Minister?

Excuse me, a Chathaoirligh, the Minister asked me a direct question, and I am asking him one.

Are you proud of your record on child homelessness, Minister? "Yes" or "No".

Are you proud?

Are you proud of your record on child homelessness?

You are proud of your record, are you?

You do not look at those kids in the eye, Minister.

Decisive decisions.

Are there other kinds of decisions?

You should be ashamed of yourself, Minister.

You should be ashamed.

I welcome the opportunity to speak this afternoon about auto-enrolment pensions. I acknowledge my dad in the Public Gallery. Both of us have spent a large chunk of our working lives working hard to improve the situation for workers. I genuinely wish I could support the Government's auto-enrolment proposals. Although I am someone who fundamentally believes in decent pensions, I think this is a miss…

That is fine. I did not want to take any time from my colleagues. That is all.

I am indeed. It is something which is not spoken of often enough.

Yes. I will continue until six minutes are left and my colleagues will take three minutes each, if that is okay.

Yes, but there are nine minutes left so we will have three each. I probably will not even take that. I want to use my words to conclude. I think there might have been too much time put up, but we can only go with what is on the clock. In short, the Government's scheme for auto-enrolment is unfortunately and regrettably a missed opportunity. That it did not take our suggestion to task the NTMA wit…

Nobody is suggesting that we do.

Hear, hear.

It is a pity the Minister could not stay for the debate. However, I have her script in front of me. It says "check against delivery". That is very good advice because the Government is generally very big on sound bites and woefully inadequate when it comes to actual delivery. In her script, the Minister tells us that solutions are being found every single day. Does this not tell us that every sing…

I start by thanking my colleague an Teachta Pa Daly for this motion and for all of his work on this issue. That we continue to put forward constructive solutions to the crisis caused by this Government is a great credit to my colleagues. As the dark evenings draw in and it starts to get colder, it is important that we turn our attention to the reality of what is happening in homes across the Stat…

Not enough is happening.

The Tánaiste did not know how many Covids there had been, though, did he?

There are 7,000 kids who have been waiting for dental treatment for more than a year. It is a damning figure and one the Government should be rightly ashamed of. I am sure the Minister of State is ashamed of it. She might not put it on the record, but I am sure she looks at those figures and feels some shame. Despite the veneer of a public system, the vast majority of dental care is carried out in…