Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

Let us have a little bit of decorum in how we speak in this House. The Deputy has spoken for three minutes. I am just looking to reply.

The Minister, Helen McEntee, has done more than any Minister in the history of our State in terms of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence with a zero-tolerance strategy. I am very proud of the work of this Government around the issue. We have a lot more to do on what is clearly a societal epidemic.

The Deputy obviously gave us a report card there. I thank him very much for his perspective. We also have record levels of employment. We have an economy that is running budget surpluses. We have had the ability to effectively create two national wealth funds to protect our country from economic shocks. We have been able to take real measures in the here and now, some of which I outlined, to help cares, to help increase the fuel allowance, to help improve the student grants, and to help reduce the cost of books and provide free books in our schools. We have been able to increase social welfare payments, particularly for our older citizens and our pensioners, to help them live with dignity. We have taken major steps towards housing reform, including around planning by taking the planner out of the back garden in terms of exempting a number of things people might want to do from planning. We have introduced and passed a new national planning framework so we will have enough zoned land to build the homes we need. Next week, the Deputy will see a major capital plan that we have all been working tirelessly on for a number of months that will see record levels of investment in key infrastructural areas like water, energy, housing and also the social infrastructure that is needed in our communities. We have established a national education therapy service for the first time in the history of our State to put therapists in our special schools in a co-ordinated, national way. We are undertaking major reforms in terms of how our health service operates, making sure that the rostering for our health service is done in a way that ensures the right people are there at the right times of the week, right throughout the week, including the weekend. We have made HRT free for women. We have taken clear measures to improve and reform our migration system. We have seen a section 39 pay agreement to help the workers working with people with disabilities. We have established a small business unit. We have extended the basic income scheme for artists. We have set up a Cabinet committee on water quality to fight for our farmers and try to protect our nitrates derogation, and we have reformed the way the Government delivers infrastructure, which was a key commitment we made in the election, because it takes too long to deliver key pieces of infrastructure.

This Government, which is seven months in, as the Deputy said, and with five budgets to go, has already undertaken a lot of work and we will continue to do it while he will continue to critique us from over there.

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