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social media and everything else but they resonated and it was intergenerational. Our ultimate objective here is to ensure we look after people with dementia and their families. Where do we look after that - at diagnosis level? That is why we need the national dementia register … statutory home care scheme. Deputy Connolly referred to the practical aspect. We have given the HSE funding to recruit 257 additional home support workers. I want them to be recruited and the HSE is doing that. I am having ongoing meetings with the HSE to try to reduce

housing stock should be social and cost rental. Currently, approximately 9% of our housing stock is social and cost rental. I ask the Government to take on this recommendation. I also urge the Minister to introduce a new social housing Act as a matter of urgency. I raised … clear need to specify and protect the social housing sector and remove any threat of privatisation. I support the need to create a State housing infrastructure investment fund to unlock the €160 billion in Irish household savings to invest in social and affordable housing. This is something

First of all, the short-term letting and tourism Bill will provide the statutory basis for the introduction of a register of all short-term lets in Ireland. That will be accompanied by a planning statement from the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Browne, governing … proposed over the last number of years on housing has been opposed by the Social Democrats and others. The Social Democrats oppose any private sector involvement. We have a lot of workers working in Ireland. There are a lot of people out there who would avail of these

register of private providers. There is nothing in this Bill about access and affordability of different levels of care. It is a system designed around private provision. The ambition of the Government should be to build a genuinely public health and social care system accessible … Minister and the HSE to engage with their representatives and get these issues resolved. They are a very important group of workers who deserve to be treated fairly. Finally, I just want to express concern regarding the letters that have been issued to family carers, who do Trojan

services through policy implementation. Further, expenditure on the dental element of the PRSI-based treatment benefit scheme administered by the Department of Social Protection increased by more than €11 million in 2024 compared to 2023, bringing it to €75.4 million. A total of 1.7 million dental claims were … oral health policy academic reference group, consultations with key stakeholders, considerable feedback from a number of consultations with front-line workers, including dentists and auxiliary dental workers, and a comprehensive qualitative research project. This policy constitutes a body of very wide-ranging and transformative reforms. The implementation plan

while we are, in comparison with our EU colleagues, quite below the average as regards road fatalities, I am concerned, as a youth worker and a dad of young people considering entering the roads as drivers, that for the age cohort of 16 to 25 years … missed a trick in some ways. I commend the response with regard to e-scooters over the summer. The Social Democrats had a different proposal, which was to register e-scooters. People would have had to register those vehicles in the same way as a car or anything

behalf of the Social Democrats, I welcome this Bill to finally regulate home care services. The Social Democrats have long advocated for a statutory right to home care and this regulatory framework is an important element of that. As it stands, home care services remain unregulated, despite … oversight. Unlike the nursing home sector, HIQA has no role in regulating services. For instance, it does not set standards, monitor compliance or register providers. This regulatory vacuum has prevailed for far too long despite the potential risk to service users. In reality, there is no barrier whatsoever

effective from tonight until 31 December 2030. This is to help address the viability gap in apartment construction as part of a social policy to deliver more and higher density apartments. I will introduce a financial resolution to give effect to this decision this evening. Residential Zoned Land … charged at a lower rate than this. I intend to bring forward legislation providing for the derelict property tax in 2026. Preliminary registers of dereliction will be published in 2027 and the tax will be implemented as soon as possible after that date. Residential Development Stamp Duty Refund

Roma children have poorer educational outcomes than those of the general population. Additional funding was secured to increase the number of community link workers and as part of the Traveller and Roma strategy, we will work in several schools and focus on fostering greater engagement with Traveller … working or not working and what else we need to do. This brings together my Department, the Departments of children and social protection and many others as well. In my first Dáil contribution as Minister for education, I highlighted the significant increase in absenteeism in our schools, particularly

merely as a result of the modest pay hikes workers expect to experience next year. Department of Finance data suggests this means that workers, for example, on €50,000 will pay half of their expected pay rise in tax, meaning in real terms that they will probably … disincentivising the building of apartments for social use at scale, leading to potentially fewer apartments in total across the market. This flies in the face of what now appears to be a very broadly defined social policy. The term "social policy" had to be deployed in the Bill

country. That parliamentary question showed 85% registered at the International Protection Office in Mount Street. I scratched my head wondering why people were registering for asylum in Mount Street when they were coming through ports and airports. When I went back to the Minister, Deputy McEntee … That has not been done, in the main. There are hundreds of examples of European citizens living in Ireland who are dependent on social welfare and not earning a living, and Jozef Puška was a prime example of that. He did not work in this country from