Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the funding for workers in the childcare sector. It is an issue that was constantly brought to my attention. We need to look at the overall model of childcare. This is a start and I welcome it. I also welcome the extension of the national childcare scheme to children aged up to 15 from the end of next year. It is another very important move for families. It is the road we need to take.

The additional teachers for schools will lower classroom sizes and it is very welcome. I also welcome the 1,600 special needs assistants posts in schools. This will make big changes. It is what we need to have. It is another role we need to work on. We need to make sure we have special needs assistants. It is very important. From speaking to families, this is what we need.

The extension of free GP care to children aged six and seven is welcome. I hope it will eventually rise to include children aged up to 12 years. I am sure it is what we are looking at long term. I am looking at it to be extended to 12-year-old children eventually. The €31 million being spent on free contraception for those aged 17 to 25 is really positive. We need to do more. At least it is a step in the right direction. We need to address these types of issues. It is very welcome.

I welcome dental access for medical card holders. The past 18 months during Covid have been very hard for people. We all saw that some dentists were not accepting medical cards from people. This is a huge issue for me. If people have a medical card and they want to go to their dentist why are they not accepted? Some dentists did take them but some did not. While it is welcome that there is more access to the service we need to look at it. The bigger issue is that there must be some communication between dentists and the Department so we can make sure this is accessed properly. Communication will be very important.

The Minister of State, Deputy Burke, spoke about housing. It is great to see we have had the biggest budget for housing, at €4 billion annually. It is very welcome. Housing was one of the big issues in the previous general election. We really need to build housing. We really need to make sure the money invested is to build houses, whether local authority housing or affordable housing in giving people access to a family home. People do not want to be renting. It needs to be a real priority that we build as many houses as we can to make sure people have a home and access to rent a home. The reason rents and housing are so dear is because of a lack of supply. Unless we build there will always be a lack of supply. I know the Government is committed to building houses but we need to make sure we make it an urgent matter.

Another area that keeps coming up in my clinics is broadband. We are encouraging people to work from home, which is very important, and we have provided 30% towards heating. This is very welcome but we need proper broadband facilities. This is another area we need to address. It is very important for rural Ireland. I live in a rural area. We need to make sure rural Ireland is not forgotten and that we have broadband and that we build houses. We have spoken about quality of life. It is so important that people have a quality of life. People have gone through so much during the pandemic. While I welcome the €5 increase in the pension and social welfare, we also need to make sure we look after our most vulnerable. This is what we need to do. It is a start but we really need to do a lot more.

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