Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

When will it rain? I represent Limerick city. I am sure the same issues come up in the Minister of State's constituency clinics as come up in mine. People cannot access houses. I know for a fact that in Limerick there are roughly 70 council houses that are boarded up and owned by the council. They do not have the funding to do them up. The Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, tells me every time I ask him about this that funding is not an issue, but the council staff - I spoke to some of them again today - are stressed to the gills because they are under pressure from people who see the houses in their local communities boarded up and who have family members and friends in emergency accommodation. If that is not a rainy day, I do not know what is.

The hospital in my constituency, University Hospital Limerick, is home to the most overcrowded emergency department in the State. Almost 12,000 people waited on trolleys last year. Again, I would like to know how the Minister of State would define "rain", given that the Government does not put the money into dealing with this. The Government has not delivered the 96 beds that are critically needed. Funding for third level institutions is also causing people huge concern. I have met representatives of local universities who tell me they are totally underfunded. No proper funding is put into infrastructure. For instance, the Limerick to Cork motorway has not been delivered or progressed as quickly as is needed. We now have 22 Dáil sitting days before we face the calamitous Brexit, whereby the UK will probably crash out of the Union. We see the heads of the Bill the Government produced last week with the policies and solutions it is coming up with in the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation. There is nothing new in those heads, no additional measures, no new proposals. They have recycled a Bill that has been floating around since 2017. We have a loan scheme for business which most businesses say they cannot access.

When would the Government access a rainy day fund? What is it for? The idea of a rainy day fund would be very good if it were not already raining for so many people. It is hard to understand why the Government is putting away money when we have critical situations in housing and health. Deputy Buckley referred to CAMHS. I have a whole list of kids who have been waiting 18 months to get assessed by CAMHS, and I can tell the Minister of State that the issue is a lack of funding. The idea of a national reserve fund would be a good idea if we had solved many of the critical problems we have, but I do not believe we are anywhere near addressing them at present.

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