Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

We have a record-breaking Government but for all the wrong reasons. We have record housing prices. Some 15 years after Fianna Fáil generated the last property bubble, we have the same Celtic tiger house prices. The price of a three-bedroom home is increasing by €100 every day in this State. We have record rents. Rents are more than €254 per month higher than they were during the Celtic tiger era. People in their twenties and thirties are paying a record share of their income on accommodation. In real terms, their spending power is falling.

We also have record homelessness. More than 10,000 people are in emergency accommodation, 3,000 of whom are children. We have record hospital waiting lists. Some 1.3 million people are on health waiting lists in the State, 100,000 of whom are children. We have record overcrowding in emergency departments, with patients in some hospitals waiting for 24 hours on average. GP services are collapsing throughout the country.

So far this year, 400 GPs have emigrated to Australia, which is incredible. A constituent of mine rang a doctor for an appointment and was given a date in September. At the same time we have the Government cutting emergency department and ICU capacities. There are more than 600 patients on trolleys in the middle of summer. University Hospital Limerick is like a war zone and senior management in the heath service are in open revolt against the Minister for Health. He has paused the closure of the Navan emergency department but they are proceeding with it right now.

We have record fuel prices in this State. Incredibly, the Government is taking more in fuel taxes today than it did before the cost-of-living crisis. We have an incredible situation where 29% of the population is in fuel poverty and it is estimated 40% will be by the time autumn comes. Semi-State companies such as Electric Ireland are gouging citizens by increasing prices for electricity and gas while making profits of €679 million.

It is not the only semi-State company gouging citizens. The Dublin Airport Authority, DAA, is charging the highest airport car parking prices in Europe at the moment. In the airport we have people waiting for their luggage longer than the duration of their flights. Donna O'Connor arrived into Dublin Airport and could not locate her suitcase upon arrival. Her heart is broken as her luggage contained her parents' ashes.

We have a spiralling cost-of-living crisis. Ireland is one of the most expensive places to live in Europe and people are lying awake at night-time wondering what bill they are going to be able to pay.

We also had one of the longest, most severe and costly lockdowns in Europe. It cost the citizens of the State more than €30 billion. The national debt, which no Member has discussed so far, is one of the highest in the world. It stands at €237 billion at a time interest rates internationally are about to take off.

We have also got phenomenal Government nepotism. We should not forget the selection of Katherine Zappone for an appointment that was supposed to be critical, though a year later it is still open. Dr. Tony Holohan was selected for a secondment worth more than €20 million in direct contravention of the Government's own rules and Government Teachtaí Dála have enjoyed all-expenses-paid races gifted by the gambling lobby. We had the leaking of a confidential document by the Tánaiste, the leaking of the mother and baby homes report, the plucking of Robert Watt's salary out of the air, the refusal to publish details on the selection of Martin Fraser for the job of ambassador to the UK, the mushrooming of the capital costs of projects such as the children's hospital, the glacial roll-out of broadband and Government parties pretending to be charities while selling national draw tickets. We have the refusal to investigate 10,000 people who were moved from hospitals to nursing homes during Covid, many of whom were not tested, and we have nearly 300 women forced through the courts to get justice on CervicalCheck after a promise from the Tánaiste this would not happen.

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