David Cullinane

I thank the Ceann Comhairle. Personal responsibility is important when it comes to road safety but it is important for us as Oireachtas Members to feed back local projects we are being lobbied on by constituents, officials from local authorities and campaign groups who believe that investments are necessary in road safety improvements. I want to pick up on one of the issues mentioned by Deputy Cl…

I raise a very serious issue, one I would call a crisis, in regard to special educational needs for primary school children in Waterford city and county. Somewhere between 40 and 50 children are still unsure whether they will have a place come September. I have engaged on this, as has Deputy McGuinness, with dozens of parents of children with disabilities who cannot access a place for their child.…

I have to take issue with some of what the Minister of State has said in his response because it is insulting to the parents of those children. He stated, "As schools begin to enrol students and as places become available, the NCSE will advise and support parents to ensure all children have a suitable placement for September." That is not happening and there will not be places for all children bec…

Yesterday, the Taoiseach accepted that 40,000 homes were not delivered last year. The truth is that the two most senior politicians in the Government, namely, the Taoiseach and Tánaiste, were running around the country claiming they would deliver 40,000 homes last year, a claim they knew not to be true. At the same time, data from the ESRI and Central Bank clearly showed that the Government was on…

With respect, what actually collapsed is the figure the Tánaiste gave to the public of 40,000, which was instead 29,000. In fact, what has collapsed is the credibility of the Tánaiste and Taoiseach when it comes to housing matters. Their record speaks for itself. Every single month, we see house prices, rents and homelessness rising on their watch. Worse than that and to top it all off, they misle…

He would not answer any of the questions he was asked, of course. He ignored the questions.

We are not in government, he is.

He does not want to be held to account.

He dodged and dodged and dodged.

He has refused to answer any of the questions and he is dodging responsibility.

Several times over the last number of years I have raised with the Tánaiste the need to fund the runway extension at Waterford Airport. As the Tánaiste knows, there is a reference in the programme for Government to making sure that this happens but the problem is that there is no certainty in relation to the funding and there are no specifics with regard to the timeframe. The people of Waterford, …

The number of patients on hospital trolleys in the month of January alone was 13,972. This is quite phenomenal and broke all records. It seems the only thing the Government is good at when it comes to health, housing and other areas is breaking records for all the wrong reasons. All of the people left on hospital trolleys, and others sitting in chairs and corridors in emergency departments, are pe…

Hear, hear.

Hear, hear.