Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It does refer to the debate about what needs to be discussed as a matter of priority on 22 March. That is a challenge to those who are talking about democracy, making this House relevant to people who are alienated from politics and that they live up to their pledges. There should be no attempt to slither out of pledges made in pursuit of votes in the election that has just gone. There is an incontrovertible message which must be acted upon and that water charges have to go.

An urgency was expressed about the situations in housing and homelessness and in our health service. These are challenges to which all of us must respond urgently. The situation regarding them is not acceptable. All of us have to put up our hands and say they have not been addressed over the past five years but must be addressed as a matter of urgency. I met a man I happen to know outside on the street who informed me that his daughter, who is in a wheelchair, went to accident and emergency in St. Vincent's hospital today. He was told by a consultant that she might be four days on a trolley before she gets treated there. That is not acceptable. We need a Government to be formed. We need the issue of how the business of this House will be done to be addressed as a matter of urgency, so we can move quickly to address the intolerable situation in our hospitals and the unacceptable situation of homelessness in the State.

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