Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I, too, would appreciate being allowed to speak without interruption.

The Minister of State said there would be 800,000 more hours delivered than in 2018. Later he stated that between January and April, the additionality was actually 144,000 hours. That leaves a figure of 342,000 hours for the year. I am multiplying the figure for four months by three. That leaves us very short of the 800,000 hours target. It is less than half. On the basis that there is a freeze, regardless of how we want to word it and from where the instruction came, there are no hours being added and people are being told that they will have to wait. There will be nothing extra until November. Is it the plan that hundreds of thousands of hours - 458,000 hours - will be delivered between November and December? How does the Minister of State plan on hitting the target of 800,000?

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