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

I acknowledge, as others have done, the announcement today by Deputies Shortall and Catherine Murphy and I add my voice to those wishing them well. As Deputy McDonald has said, it is rare to see an outbreak of girl power in this House, or women power as I prefer to say. There are far too few women here and it makes their extensive careers in public service all the more noteworthy. I commend them on that and wish them well.

I ask the Taoiseach for a debate on local government and local democracy. In my view, we have seen in the past few days a really inappropriate intervention by a Minister of State seemingly seeking to derail the traffic plan agreed for Dublin City Council by councillors. This raises concerns about local democracy, the appropriateness of Ministers intervening where decisions have been made at local government level. This intervention sounds to me a little like a Fine Gael dog whistle. Our leader on Dublin City Council, Councillor Darragh Moriarty, has described himself as deeply concerned about this. I would like a debate on local government. We have seen international reports noting just how weak our local government system in Ireland is. We should have debate in this House.

The ESRI report published today shows that the Government's housing targets are far too low. The Housing Commission report, which was published last May and is yet to be discussed in the Dáil, showed that the Government's housing targets are far too low, with records rents, record house prices and record numbers of people who are homeless. The dogs in the street know that the housing targets are far too low, so why is the Government dithering and delaying on publishing updated housing targets? Can we have time this week to discuss the Housing Commission report, the ESRI report and the housing targets?

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