Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time. On a personal level, I offer my congratulations and good wishes to the new Taoiseach, the new Ministers and the not-so-new Ministers. It is a proud day for you and your families. We do know, however, that these are only very temporary appointments, with less than a year to go until a general election. Even in that short time, I am sorry we have not seen more women elevated to Cabinet. For all the talk of a laser focus, fitting when we hear of “Star Wars: a new energy”, it is hard to see how anything substantive will really change in the lifetime of this Government. I very much welcome the Tánaiste's announcement just now of recognition of the state of Palestine. In the spirit of constructive and serious Opposition, I am proposing five areas where the Taoiseach could achieve real change, even within the next ten or 11 months.

First, on housing, the civil rights issue of this generation, as I said this morning, there are several radical changes the Taoiseach could implement now to end no-fault evictions, regulate short-term lets, transform the Land Development Agency and move to deliver for the real level of need there, with 50,000 new homes and 50,000 deep retrofits each year.

Second, the Taoiseach could make radical change on disability rights. On Saturday, he said the backlog in assessments of need has to be unblocked. We agree. In May 2023, we put forward a Labour Party Dáil motion on autism, calling for action to tackle that backlog. In response, the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, committed to ensuring parents would be reimbursed for private assessments where the State had failed to provide these. In June 2023, the Taoiseach met the amazing young autism advocate, Cara Darmody, whose family have worked so hard to ensure children would get access to timely assessments, but we have not seen any real follow-up since then. Sixteen thousand children are still waiting. Yesterday, I spoke again to Cara's family. They are deeply frustrated by the lack of action and have important new information for the Taoiseach. I ask him to take urgent action, to meet Cara Darmody to hear directly from her and to fulfil that Government commitment provided by the Minister of State to ensure no child should languish for months or years without an assessment.

Third, the Taoiseach could take meaningful action to address child poverty. When we last met to elect a Taoiseach, a mere 16 months ago, his predecessor outlined his commitment to tackling child poverty, yet now nearly 60,000 children are living in poverty and 4,000 children are homeless. The Taoiseach's Government should listen to Focus Ireland. He could enact our Labour Party Bill to end child homelessness.

There is a fourth way the Taoiseach could make radical change for families, by tackling the cost of living for households and strengthening consumer rights, because people are still being fleeced with increased food and energy prices. In Ireland, we have the highest electricity prices for households in the EU. If prices fell to the EU average, it would save households up to €700 a year. I am asking the Taoiseach to take up our Labour Party proposal to ensure this saving can be made for households, a just transition on climate change.

Fifth, the Taoiseach should commit to lifting the recruitment embargo in the HSE and passing a budget that properly funds our health service. He said earlier this can be done. We need to see it happen this year in this budget.

Before I finish, I have two specific asks for the two new Ministers. First, to the new Minister for enterprise, wages for far too many workers are too low. I am calling on him not to give in to the business lobbyists who seek to undermine the gains that have been made for workers' rights. Instead, he should move to introduce a living wage and to tackle the scourge of low pay, adopt our Labour Party Bill on leave for early miscarriage and not delay the introduction of the promised seven-day statutory sick leave. He must transpose the EU directive on minimum wages, which would promote collective bargaining and ensure workers have the right to organise, because that is how we will see real and strong rights for workers.

Finally, to the new Minister for further and higher education, I hope he can address the shortcomings, if I may say, of his predecessor's time. In particular, he must ensure apprentices are paid the minimum wage. I welcomed the Taoiseach's reference to labour force planning, but we must see from that Department a fully resourced plan to recruit and train the construction workers we need. That, again, is key to unlocking the housing crisis.

I was glad to hear the Taoiseach call himself an optimist earlier. I am an optimist too. Indeed, the measures and changes I have proposed to him are the sorts of measures an optimist would wish to adopt in the short time available to him in the office of Taoiseach. I hope he has the courage to take up these proposals. We will certainly work constructively with him if he does.

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