Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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More than 5,000 Palestinians have been killed. More than 2,000 Palestinian children are dead. More than 1,000 Palestinian women are dead. More than 15,000 Palestinians have been injured. Almost 2 million Palestinians have been displaced. This is the depressing toll of human suffering inflicted on the people of Gaza over the past two weeks.

The people of Ireland were rightly outraged and condemned the horrific attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas on 7 October. However, there is no justification for the onslaught being rained down on Gaza by Israel's military machine. Israel's bombardment is not defence. The killing of more than 2,000 innocent children is not defensive. We have all seen the pictures of inconsolable parents carrying the broken bodies of their dead children. We have seen the film of a heartbroken little girl crying out in search of her mama following an airstrike. We have seen the footage of a traumatised little boy covered in dust and debris asking a doctor, "Am I still alive?".

Gazan parents are writing names on their children's legs and abdomens so they can be identified after airstrikes. As a mother, I cannot imagine how it feels to write your child's name on their body while they are warm and breathing so that you might know them when they are cold and still. This is not defence; this is a massacre.

Deputies:

Hear, hear

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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It is a brutally violent offensive military campaign. Hundreds of schools in Gaza have been destroyed. Its health infrastructure has been obliterated. The hospitals that remain functioning are quickly running out of fuel to keep generators going. As food runs out, the people of Gaza face starvation. As clean water runs out, they face the prospect of cholera. As they run out of the basics needed to survive, they are trapped with no way out. Now, Israel is assembling hundreds of thousands of troops and tanks on the border in preparation for a ground invasion for more destruction, more slaughter and more Palestinian children dead.

Caithfidh Iosrael stop a chur lena mharú in Gaza. Ní mór do cheannairí Eorpacha sos cogaidh iomlán láithreach a éileamh. The people of Gaza stand at the threshold of annihilation. Nobody can say they did not see. Nobody can say they did not hear. Nobody can say they did not know. This is happening in full sight of the world. Calling for a humanitarian pause is not good enough. Pausing the slaughter to facilitate aid into Gaza only to allow the slaughter resume is a most perverse interpretation of humanitarianism and cannot be the international community's response. The only truly humanitarian action is a full and immediate ceasefire and then aid delivered to Gaza without the threat of attack.

Ireland can and must be to the fore in the context of the call in this regard, as agreed by the Dáil last week. At the meeting of the European Council on Thursday, will the Taoiseach tell European leaders that they must make the call for an unequivocal, full ceasefire? Will he tell them that they must demand that Israel stop its slaughter of the Palestinian people?

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Hear, hear.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I will attend that meeting and I will do the best I can to persuade the European Union and the European Council to adopt a common position. It may not be possible for us to adopt a common position. We do not have a single foreign policy across the European Union. We all have our independent foreign policies, which is something I know that Deputy McDonald supports, but I will certainly do the best I can to persuade our colleagues in other European countries to agree a common European position.

I will not tell them. That is a very particular approach. The approach the Deputy might adopt as Taoiseach would be to attend the meeting, point the finger, tell people off and hold a press conference afterwards. That is not how you do this job. It is not how you get things done in international affairs. You have to build relationships, partnerships, alliances and develop colleagues and try to use your powers of persuasion. This is particularly the case for a small country like Ireland, which is not a major economic or political power. We use the power of persuasion, reputation and contacts. That is how we do things and how we achieve things.

In the past two weeks in Gaza, we have seen a dreadful expression of violence. It has not just been in Gaza but also in Israel, where 1,400 civilians, including Israeli citizens and citizens from other states, were killed. Let us not forget that one of our own citizens was killed by Hamas in Israel. Her family come from County Laois. Since then, terrible violence and aggression have been witnessed in Gaza, where more than 5,000 people have been killed, very many of them children. We have our own citizens there for whom we are particularly concerned. These include a young boy, whom the Deputy may have seen on television last night, who is there on an extended holiday with his family. We are very keen to see if we can get our passport holders out as quickly as possible.

We are calling for a de-escalation. There is no military solution to this conflict, which has been going on now for more than 75 years. We fear that what is happening will spread to other parts of the Middle East and, indeed, may express itself on the streets of Europe in terms of violent acts, particularly violent acts of Islamic terrorism. We have already seen two examples of that in Belgium and France. We are calling for a humanitarian ceasefire that will allow aid to get into the Gaza Strip and foreign passport holders and refugees to get out. We are calling for all sides to observe this ceasefire, and I hope we all agree on this. This is the view I will be taking to the European Council later in the week. We are also calling on Hamas to give up all of the hostages. It is not acceptable to take hostages. Hamas should return all of the hostages to their homes and lay down its arms. It is a terrorist organisation, not a state. Again, I hope the Deputy will agree with this call.

While we accept and agree that Israel has the right to defend itself and to go after Hamas, the way it does so matters. It has to do it only in accordance with international humanitarian law. That is important for Israel's future security and its international relations.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Taoiseach's party has been in government for 12 years. He is in his second stint as Taoiseach. Obviously, one can only assume that he has used that time, as he has claimed, to build relationships. He might inform us about who our allies are on this question, what level of persuasion the Taoiseach has exercised and what work he has done outside the European Council to talk to European and international partners concerning the message of a full and complete ceasefire by all parties.

Let us remember that the Israeli onslaught is absolutely ferocious. This is one of the largest military machines in the world. The fact is that Israel is not exercising a right to defence within the boundaries of international law. The Taoiseach correctly identified collective punishment by Israel as a clear breach of international law. When he speaks to our European partners at the European Council, will he also share with them the view and the reality that Israel is acting outside international law?

The answer is, of course, not a military one it is a political and diplomatic one. The Taoiseach may say that we are small and therefore ineffectual but I say that Ireland-----

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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No, he never said that.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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No.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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He did not say that.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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-----may be small but we can have a very, very big influence on this question.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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We are small but we are far from ineffectual. We are a country that punches well above its weight in international relations. I did not say what the Deputy said: the misleader strikes again putting words in other people's mouths and stating things that are not true.

If the Deputy ever has the opportunity to attend a European Council meeting, whether as a Minister or perhaps even as Taoiseach, she will understand that there are 27 different member states and they all have their different perspective. Our attitude to the conflict in Israel and Palestine is very much guided by our own historical experience but the Deputy needs to understand that people's attitudes in other countries might also be guided by their historical experience, particularly in relation to the events in the 1930s and 1940s, and you have to be sensitive to that and not pigheaded about it. It is important the way you conduct yourself in international affairs.

The Tánaiste and I have been extremely active on this with huge numbers of meetings and phone calls. We were instrumental in making sure the European Council statement issued last Sunday was balanced and was not one sided. We were instrumental in that along with a number of other countries in the European Union. We do have friends and we do have allies. We build up those contacts and those relationships all of the time. Among our friends are the Palestinians, by the way. They would recognise that as do all the other Arab countries. My fear is the Deputy's approach if she was Taoiseach would not make friends but would make enemies in the European Union and make enemies with the United States of America. Our country would suffer as a result and the Palestinians would gain nothing.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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I wish to express my renewed sympathies to the families of Aidan Moffitt and Michael Snee as the killer of their loved ones was sentenced last night. Our thoughts are also with Anthony Burke who so bravely spoke out about the attack on him too.

We are all watching the appalling situation and rising death toll in Gaza with increasing distress and horror but today I do want to raise a different issue with the Taoiseach, which is the issue of housing. It is not just in healthcare that we find gaping holes in the Taoiseach's Government budget. There are missing billions in housing too. On budget day in a surprise announcement the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, told us that he would seek Cabinet approval for an additional €6 billion for the Land Development Agency. This was a welcome announcement but a peculiar one because neither the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael McGrath, nor the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, had mentioned it in their budget day speeches. We are now two weeks on and it is not clear where that mystery €6 billion will come from. Is the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, perhaps hoping to find it down the back of a couch? Whatever is going on I hope it will materialise soon because he is fast becoming known as the Minister for initiatives and not for delivery. In a rare twist I agree with him and I hope that he soon finds that €6 billion and that he and his Department get their act together soon. The housing crisis is the civil rights issue for this generation. It is not going to fix itself. Those who are renting, who are stuck with unaffordable rents, and who remain in permanent fear of eviction are at the sharp end of this housing crisis. It is now seven months on from the lifting of the temporary no-fault eviction ban. It is seven months since the announcement of the first refusal scheme that was a half-hearted half measure for contingencies for renters. It is seven months on and we are finally seeing the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, bringing legislation to the Cabinet just today. It is incredible that this measure is taking so long to implement. What kind of message does that send to renters who are at the sharp end of the housing crisis and who are still in fear of eviction?

The Taoiseach's Government has failed renters and has failed to fix the housing crisis. The Government has even failed to secure and ensure additional adequate and robust legislative powers for the Land Development Agency, LDA. This is the very body that was supposed to be the vehicle to deliver on the necessary increased housing supply in this chronic housing shortage.

The Taoiseach may be aware that a change in terminology by the Central Statistics Office has meant some provisions in the Act that create compulsory purchase powers for the Land Development Agency, LDA, have now been rendered ineffective. The irony is that the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage was on the working group that decided to make this change in terminology, a change that we in the Labour Party pointed out will result in the need for amending legislation to restore adequate, robust powers to the Land Development Agency.

In the absence of those powers, we might call the LDA the Lame Duck Agency. Where is the additional €6 billion for the Land Development Agency? Can the Taoiseach ensure that the agency will have the robust powers it needs to deliver on housing? What can the Government offer renters who remain in fear of eviction, given the first refusal scheme is still not in place and there is no prospect, it seems, of reintroducing a temporary ban on no-fault evictions this winter?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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At the outset, I join the Deputy in expressing my condolences to the family of Aidan Moffitt, a man I would have met on occasion through his involvement in Fine Gael, and the family of Michael Snee. I particularly thank the Garda for the work it has done in bringing this prosecution successfully through the courts. I also note the bravery of the man who was injured in stepping forward, testifying and giving his witness testimony to the Garda. I extend my admiration to him and my thanks to the Garda in particular.

The housing budget for next year is the biggest housing budget ever. That was confirmed on budget day. That €5.1 billion will allow us to break all records in terms of public housing next year, including social housing, cost-rental and publicly funded affordable housing. That is much needed. We also extended the help to buy scheme to the end of 2025. That helps so many people to get their deposit to be able to be in the market to buy a home. They would not otherwise be able to buy a home and in many cases would spend many more years trying to raise a deposit were it not for that measure. We extended the tax credit for renters to €750 for an individual and €1,500 for a couple renting, which is roughly a month's rent on average in the State. There is funding as well for the tenant in situ scheme. This is really important for renters. We have about 3,000 properties now in the process. These are properties where the landlord is selling up and the tenant is a social housing tenant, probably on HAP or possibly getting the rent supplement, and they are now becoming regular social housing tenants. About 3,000 of those properties are now in process. The right to buy legislation was approved by Cabinet today. I hope to get that through the House as soon as possible. There is also a tax incentive for small landlords to encourage them to stay in the market and reduce the flow of small landlords in particular who are leaving the market.

Regarding the LDA, it is a new Government agency, essentially. It is a public developer and a public builder. It got off to a slow start but now it is producing results, building homes, selling homes and renting homes around the country, including cost rental, affordable and social. We are glad to see that is now finally happening. Announcements on capitalisation do not have to happen in the budget. We are working on that at the moment. What I can guarantee to the Deputy is that the LDA will be adequately capitalised to carry out its work and to build as many new homes as it possibly can, both on public land and on private land.

On the issue of CPOs, I will have to come back to the Deputy or confer with the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, because I am not fully across the detail of it.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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It is just not good enough to give a litany or list of measures seeking to explain the housing crisis away. It is not good enough when we see nearly 13,000 people in emergency accommodation, almost 4,000 of whom are children, and when we see more than two thirds of people aged between 25 and 29 still living in their childhood bedrooms at home with their parents, tens of thousands who are whittling away their savings on rent when they want to be able to afford and buy a home of their own. Those are the figures that matter.

I did not hear any reassurance from the Taoiseach that the LDA would be adequately capitalised. Indeed, he admitted that it got off to a slow start. There is no doubt about that. When it was first mooted, the Land Development Agency was expected to deliver 150,000 homes in 20 years. That was the announcement. Now that forecast has been reduced to just 10,000 homes in five years. That is the problem with this Government on housing. It keeps moving the goalposts and it refuses, or neglects, to resource adequately the very vehicles that are required to deliver the housing necessary to fix and address this chronic housing shortage. Who is going to take responsibility for capitalising the Land Development Agency? How much money will be given to it? When will we see the focus shift from glossy announcements of new initiatives to actual delivery of real homes for people who so badly need them?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The LDA is delivering real homes. I have been on site. I have been in the completed buildings. I have met the people who were moving into those homes. At long last, we are seeing that on the ground with the LDA, our public builder and developer, producing those homes.

We will make sure the LDA is adequately capitalised to continue that programme and to make sure we can develop places like, for example, the old Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, where we can build the best part of a thousand new homes for people in this city. There are projects in Cork as well and all over the country. This is very much happening on the ground. We will make sure the LDA is adequately capitalised. It is an off-balance sheet transaction that does not need to be done as part of budget day announcements.

While I do not want to get into statistical arguments with the Deputy as I do not think there is much point in either of us doing that, the figure she used of two thirds of people of a certain age group living at home has been discounted. That was a Eurostat figure that was not correct. The CSO figures have come out since then and the figure is closer to a third than two thirds.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I have a simple question for the Taoiseach. How many innocent Palestinian civilians - men, women and children - does Israel have to slaughter, how many war crimes does Israel have to commit, and how much death and destruction does Israel have to visit on the people of Gaza and Palestine before the Taoiseach will call for and impose sanctions on Israel, expel the Israeli ambassador from this country and call for the immediate referral of Israel to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes? In front of the world, by its own admission, Israel is committing war crimes. The Israelis have stated so publicly; this is not a matter of opinion. They declared their intention to force, through the threat of military bombardment, more than a million Palestinians - it is now well more than a million - from their homes in northern Gaza and ethnically cleanse them. It is a crime against humanity. The Israelis have stated publicly the intention to deny water, electricity, medicine and life-saving equipment to 2.2 million people. They said so in front of the eyes of the world and they are doing it. Every minute, children are being slaughtered by their artillery and their relentless bombardment of residential complexes, hospitals, schools and civilian infrastructure. They just go on and on, and the Taoiseach does nothing. There are words of concern but no action to hold them to account.

These are clearly premeditated war crimes and genocide. There are Jewish people in the United States, Canada and around the world, and in Israel, calling this a genocide. Scholars and academics are saying it is genocidal. An Israeli general has said, "Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water, there will only be destruction." Yoav Gallant, an Israeli Minister, said, "We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly." He further stated that he had "removed every restriction" on the IDF. Another Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has stated, "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people." The President of Israel, referring to the people of Gaza, says they are all responsible. Before 7 October, Netanyahu appeared in front of the UN General Assembly with a map of Israel that had removed all references to Palestine. It was a clear declaration of intent to destroy the Palestinian people and steal all their land. A total of 6,000 Palestinians were killed between 2008 and 7 October this year. Thousands of Palestinians are held hostage, without trial, in administrative detention.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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The Deputy is over time.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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When will the Taoiseach move beyond words of concern, impose sanctions and expel the ambassador of this apartheid, murderous state?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I do not want to see any innocent people being killed in the Middle East, nor do I think the Deputy does. He specifically mentioned Palestinian people. I would extend that to Israeli people, whom he did not mention. Innocent Israeli people should not be killed either, by Hamas or by any Palestinian armed group. Nor should any of our own citizens be killed. Let us not forget one of our own citizens, a joint Irish-Israeli whose mother comes from County Laois and whose family I have spoken to, was killed by Hamas two weeks ago.

We have great fears for Palestinian Irish citizens now living in Gaza that they may be victims in what Israel is doing in Gaza at the moment.

When it comes to sanctions, we always act multilaterally. Individually imposed sanctions are not effective. They would have no benefit for Palestinians and they might even do us a degree of harm. Sanctions are only effective when they are imposed multilaterally, by states acting together.

In relation to the ambassador, we do not have any plans to expel any ambassador. We did not expel the Russian ambassador, and I do not think anyone in this House has been as supportive of Ukraine's battle for freedom as I have been. We took a very particular view that it is important to have some line of communications open, and that is why we have ambassadors. If you expel an ambassador or close an embassy, the only line of communication is minister to minister, or secretary general to secretary general, and that is if you can even get a phone call. We have citizens in Palestine, Israel and Russia and it is important we are able to keep those lines of communication open. It serves nothing to close them. Even countries at war with each other have ambassadors, for that obvious reason.

On what is going on in Gaza, let me be clear. The view of the Irish Government is that collective punishment is wrong, and the innocent civilians and people of Gaza should not be subjected to collective punishment. That is wrong. Hostage-taking is wrong and hostages should be released, and it is not acceptable to target civilian infrastructure. We have been very clear about that all along and will continue to be so, and we will use our voice at European and EU level as much as we can.

While I think the Deputy is entirely sincere in his views and I know he has campaigned on these issues for a very long time, let us not forget what Hamas's objective is as well. Hamas's objective is the destruction of Israel. It is ending the existence of a Jewish state which was established by the UN 75 years ago. It is ending that state, from the river to the sea. Is that not genocide as well?

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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First, I am horrified by every single death but, you see, the world is responsible for failing to call out the reality of the Israeli regime. It is an apartheid regime. It was set up on the basis of the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians. It has sustained itself through the ethnic cleansing - ongoing - of Palestinians day in, day out, in East Jerusalem, across the West Bank, everywhere, every where there is Hamas and where there is no Hamas. I lived there at the beginning of the first Palestinian intifada in 1987 and there was no Hamas. Young people rose up because their entire future had been stolen from them. They were suffering ferocious oppression at the hands of the Israeli regime and military and they rose up. There was no Hamas. The Palestinian Liberation Organization, PLO, was not even in the country; it was in Tunis. Israel met them with brutality, murder, administrative tension and ethnic cleansing. It has continued that day in, day out, and yet the Taoiseach's Government refuses even to call it an apartheid regime. It refuses to acknowledge the ethnic cleansing and war crimes for which human rights organisation after human rights organisation has begged and appealed to the Government and other European governments to hold Israel to account and to end its impunity. The world has given it the licence to conduct the savagery it is doing now and it is responsible for the crimes we are witnessing. If we want to end the murder, we have to hold Israel accountable for its crimes.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I believe Ireland has a role to play in trying to bring peace, justice and order to the Middle East and that means working with our colleagues in the European Union, persuading the US and working at UN level to try to push for a new peace initiative to push for a two-state solution. Being absolutist on one side or the other removes our influence. The only influence we have is by trying to build partnerships with the EU, the US, other countries in the Middle East with which we have relationships such as Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, and at the UN to push for a new peace initiative that can do what I believe is still just about possible, namely, the establishment of a two-state solution with a Palestinian state alongside Israel, secure and hopefully in time being able to have normal contacts and normal economic relations.

I appreciate that the Deputy's view is different - he believes there should only be a one-state solution - but I think anyone watching what is going on can see why that would not be viable and would not last.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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It is the two-state solution that has failed.

Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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I too extend my condolences to the families and friends of Aidan Moffitt and Michael Snee. I recognise Anthony Burke whose brave testimony was pivotal. I also thank An Garda Síochána for its untiring work in bringing the perpetrator to justice.

Today I again raise the non-delivery of balanced regional development, particularly in the context of this year's budget. I also raise the submission made by the Northern and Western Regional Assembly, which has drafted a submission asking for three things - a stimulus package of €570 million for the region between now and 2027, a policy of positive discrimination for the region and more regional autonomy. The document clearly sets out the reasons for the three requests. First, regional inequalities are rising in Ireland. In 2010 the gap in disposable income between the northern and western region and the eastern and midland region was ten percentage points. By 2021, that gap had grown to an astonishing 25 percentage points. Second, census 2022 data illustrate that population growth continues to be unsustainably uneven. Third, while employment levels across all regions are high, the northern and western region has a below-average concentration of jobs involved in the knowledge and technology economy, which are the jobs of the future. Fourth, according to the European Commission, the region has been downgraded to lagging, with the Border region described as being in a development trap. In the northern and western region, per capitaGDP is now 17% below the EU average, despite the fact that in 2006 our per capitaGDP was 5% above the EU average. That is a pretty grim picture.

One sector not dealt with by this report, but of crucial importance in the region is tourism. We see that the counties with the highest proportion of their tourism accommodation being used to accommodate refugees are along the Atlantic coastline, with a report last March showing that 82% of Fáilte Ireland-registered tourist beds in County Donegal were being used to accommodate refugees. The figure was 42% in County Sligo and 50% in County Leitrim. The downstream impact is huge, yet the budget was silent and disappointing on the asks from the regional assembly. What will the Taoiseach do to improve the ranking of this region vis-à-visother regions on the European competitiveness index?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I neglected to recall Anthony Burke's name earlier. I pay tribute to him in particular and the fact he went to the gardaí and gave them the crucial information that enabled them to apprehend the man who carried out the terrible murders of Aidan Moffitt and Michael Snee in Sligo. I pay tribute to him and recognise An Garda Síochána and its work.

What we are doing and will continue to do is make balanced regional development happen in Ireland. That is something we are doing under this Government, and which we did under its predecessors. In the last census, for the first time in quite some time, the population in every county increased. We have not seen that for quite some time, and that is of real significance. We have the Department of Rural and Community Development under the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, with a fund of €1 billion to invest in rural areas in particular. Everyone who travels the country can now see the impact of that on the ground in towns and villages all over Ireland. We have seen employment rise in every county, which again is something of real importance and significance.

It is not just the employment rate going down; the number of actual jobs in each county has gone up. We have seen the development of the technological universities, which make a huge difference. The Deputy will be familiar with Atlantic Technological University, ATU, which has a campus in Sligo.

Through the IDA property programme, all over the country we are building advanced factories, so that if we take a potential investor to a regional town, they can see a business park or building ready for them to get into. We see how that has worked in Castlebar, Kilkenny and other places. The national broadband plan is connecting every home, farm and business to fibre, something virtually no other country is doing, and will really make a difference to running a business in rural Ireland or a farm and being able to access online healthcare and education.

Regarding the infrastructure budget, the biggest single investment signed off on this year for any part of the country is the upgrade of the N5, the Tulsk to Scramoge road. That is a €500 million investment in improving access to the west.

Those are the kind of things we are doing. Of course, we need to do much more. It is a challenge for any country to spread development away from the capital and the big cities. Almost all countries struggle with it - look at Copenhagen in Denmark and Vienna in Austria – but we are getting some good results.

Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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The Taoiseach gave a few statistics there but he has been in power since 2011 and the figures I quoted are not my figures. They come from the regional assembly report. The Taoiseach can see the economic gap is increasing. He might not like it and I do not like, but it has to tell him the actions he and his Government are taking are not working. He tells us the population has increased in every county and it has, but the proportionate increase in the counties I am speaking of is much lower. It is still unsustainably uneven. He talks of increasing employment and is absolutely right, but our level of employment in the jobs of the future and high-value jobs is well below the national average. He tells us the TUs are valuable and they are. They are right across the country and we are getting our fair share, I am glad to say. He mentioned the IDA property programme. Will he ring-fence some of that for the region? Will he ring-fence our fair share or look at a bit of positive discrimination? That is needed to ensure we rebalance the imbalance that is there.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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There are many ways to measure things. The Deputy’s focus has been mainly on GDP and relativities. That is a fair argument but when it comes to judging economic success and progress, I would never use GDP as the most important measure.

Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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I used six different ones.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The most important measures are jobs, employment, incomes, businesses and investment. When it comes to the IDA, which the Deputy mentioned, of the 139 new investments made last year, over half were outside of Dublin, which was very significant. Enterprise Ireland works with Irish-owned exporting companies and over two thirds of new jobs created by Enterprise Ireland companies were outside of Dublin.

Our job as Government is to listen to everybody’s case and argument. The Deputy makes a very strong case for the north west, which she should as a Deputy from Sligo. I could hear Deputies from the south east – and I see their heads nodding-----

Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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I am making it for the region.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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-----who could equally make a very strong case for positive discrimination for the south east. I could equally hear people from the Dublin city region who will say what is lost to Dublin is often lost to Ireland because only Dublin can compete with Singapore and San Francisco for certain investments and jobs. It is the Government’s job to balance that and try to get it right.