Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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One of the most basic functions of a Government is to keep a roof over somebody's head and keep the lights on. Yet, as we speak, after 12 years of the Tánaiste being at Cabinet, there are 10,805 people in emergency accommodation, of whom, shamefully, 3,200 are children. EirGrid's annual generation capacity statement published today raises concern about the State's ability to keep the lights on over the next decade. It highlights that the electricity system will continue to face a shortfall of supply over demand every year over the coming decade. It says the deficit will increase year on year. EirGrid has described the situation as stark and serious. That means more amber alerts and the threat of electricity blackouts remaining for the foreseeable future. IDA Ireland has said that energy shortages threaten inward investment, with businesses facing uncertainty over the State's capacity to ensure security of supply. The Tánaiste mentioned the Secretary General, Dermot McCarthy, has been tasked with preparing a report on how to identify how the Government has got into this situation. When will it be published? Will it be before the end of the month?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I do not think it is appropriate for the Deputy to engage in party political shots when it comes to housing or homelessness. Yes, it is true that the Government is providing 10,000 people with emergency accommodation at the moment. That is not a position we want to be in. Numbers had been falling for quite some time and for many reasons they are now rising again. Let us not forget that in Northern Ireland there is a Sinn Féin housing minister. The Deputy should not roll his eyes. It is true.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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You were already fact-checked on this issue.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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There are 20,000 people homeless in Northern Ireland based on the way it is measured there. If this were a simple problem to solve but, unfortunately, almost all countries in the world face homelessness to a certain extent. We are doing the best we can to resolve it. We are putting unprecedented resources into it.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Does the Tánaiste need another 12 years or 20 years?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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If it was a problem that could be so easily solved by Sinn Féin, surely it would have solved it in the 20 years it has been in government in the North.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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You have been in government for 12 years and the threat that the lights will go out is getting worse.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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What specific action does the Government propose to take to address the key points made in yesterday's OECD and Climate Change Advisory Council report on the Irish transport system? The report showed the need for the Government to prioritise policies to reallocate road space from private cars to ensure that walking and cycling are better accommodated. I ask this knowing that although the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, outlined that he would be launching certain pathfinder projects over the coming weeks, we saw no new initiatives for cycling in particular in the budget. That was really disappointing. The Labour Party has proposed a cycle-to-school scheme, which we have proposed for some years now, where the Government would subsidise the cost of bikes for children in the same way that we have seen the very successful bike-to-work scheme operate. We also called for an old car scrappage scheme where cars over ten years old could be exchanged, essentially subsidised for exchange, for e-bikes or cargo bikes instead to try to encourage to a far greater extent the reallocation of road space for cyclists. We saw no new initiatives for cycling from the Government in the budget. That was really disappointing, particularly in light of yesterday's report.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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The lunatics are running the asylum.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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I do not know what that was about.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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In fairness, in the past two years, nobody can say that there has not been very significant investment in cycling facilities, improvements to footpaths and pedestrian facilities. There has been huge investment, through both the Departments of Transport and Rural and Community Development, in improving facilities for cyclists, footpaths and pedestrian facilities.

Every day more people cross the canals by bike, including people we both know, than was the case in the past, but we acknowledge more needs to be done. We believe electric vehicles are part of the solution and we need much more investment in the charging points in particular. I had not heard the idea of a scrappage scheme where people would replace their car with a bike,a cargo bike or an e-bike. I think that is a really good idea and perhaps one will give some give some thought to.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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I will send details to the Tánaiste. It has been done in France.

Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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Successive governments have not capitalised on the incredible renewable energy potential in our coastal waters. Not only could we take significant climate action, secure energy sovereignty, prevent future crises like this price crisis and threats to blackouts, but we could be selling energy to other jurisdictions. In the past year two major energy companies have withdrawn from the Irish market citing issues with our policy and legislation framework. What is the Government doing to address these issues? There is a strong case for greater public ownership of the wind sector which would secure our energy sovereignty and ensure the profits are for the Irish people not just for international shareholders.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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We are up to the point now where we are producing about 40% of all of our electricity from renewables. Not that long ago it was only a few percent. We are now up to 40% and we intend to get to 80% by 2030. That is hugely ambitious and something that we can achieve. We will do it through the ESB and other State companies and also through the private sector. Having both the State and the private sector doing it means that we can get more done in the round.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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We are in an absolutely dire state with homelessness and evictions. We have record levels of people in emergency accommodation and a massive spike in people being evicted through no fault of their own because of the sale of properties by landlords. I note that even Fianna Fáil backbenchers, somewhat belatedly, are now calling for what we have been calling for some time, which is a ban on evictions at least on an emergency basis to stop more people going into homelessness. Will the Government implement such a ban? Will it embark on an aggressive proactive policy to use some of the windfall revenues now available to the State to buy properties? We should not merely tell local authorities where they can do it but tell them they must buy properties where people are threatened with eviction and homelessness.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Thankfully, evictions in this country are relatively uncommon. They need to be done through courts and judges look very favourably on very difficult situations in that regard. Notices to quit are a bit different but if somebody is given a notice to quit, they have rights and they are given a period of time before they have to leave the property they are in. The difficulty with a blanket ban on any evictions is that it just stores up the problem for when the ban is lifted. That is part of what we are experiencing now. I know some people have proposed a blanket ban over the winter period; what then happens in spring? It does not necessarily solve the problem; it just defers it and that makes it worse a little bit later.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Buy the houses.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy is right that part of the solution is buying some of these properties. He raised this issue with me in the Chamber not too long ago. I raised it with the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and a circular now has issued to local authorities stating that if somebody is served with a notice to quit and there is a risk that they could be evicted into homelessness the local authority is now being encouraged to purchase the property from the landlord. We want to see done in much greater numbers than is the case now.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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Yesterday Thomas Dooley was stabbed to death in a cemetery in Tralee just minutes after a young mother was buried. This was an horrendous murder in a location that should be a sanctuary for people who are grieving for their families. It comes when crime levels in areas such as sexual assaults and domestic violence are increasing significantly. In 2016 after years of austerity we had one of the lowest numbers of police in the EU with just 278 gardaí for every 100,000 people and we have hardly moved a bit. We now have 280 gardaí for every 100,000 people. Ireland is still one of the lowest policed states in the EU. The Government planned to recruit 800 gardaí this year but only 25 were actually recruited in the first eight months. That is three gardaí recruited every month in the country with one of the lowest numbers of police officers at a time when crime is radically increasing. Many people feel the Minister for Justice is distracted by the culture wars and not focusing on the real job of keeping people safe in this country.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I extend my sympathies to the family of the victim following the fatal stabbing at Rathass Cemetery near Tralee in Kerry. As the Deputy will appreciate, a Garda investigation is under way and I am confined in what I can say about it. I absolutely encourage anyone who has any information to contact the Garda and bring the people who carried out this terrible crime to justice.

On the wider point, Ireland is a country with relatively low crime levels. It is still the case that if a murder happens in Ireland, it is on the news which is not the case in most other countries. Thankfully, that is because we have a very low murder rate in Ireland and relatively low crime rates. We have never had more gardaí than is the case under this Government. At the request of the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and she fought for this, last week's budget provides for another 1,000 gardaí to be recruited next year.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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However, this year's gardaí were not recruited.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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The Tánaiste is Minister for business and industry and everything else. Businesses, especially small businesses, were never under as much pressure as they are under now. In Clonmel, a number of them closed this week with more to go. The same is true in villages as well. It is very hard to restart a business or get a new business in. We have a huge issue here. The budget did very little for small businesses. The Government needs to do something with the charges for the gas and electricity. It has piled on more taxes. It has given back credits to people to give back what they paid. One fabulous business which been operating in Clonmel for 62 years is closing next Saturday. I do not want to mention any names. The pressure business people are under is unreal. The Tánaiste is talking about this, that and the other, but there are no meaningful supports them. They are faced with rates, insurance costs and the cost the wages with the price increases spiralling out of control and they cannot continue in business. It is so sad to see them go out of business, some of them after six decades.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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There were actually 15 things in the budget last week that helped businesses. The biggest element was up to €10,000 a month to help small businesses with their energy costs. That will be backdated to September and businesses will receive that money by November. It is true that we have seen an increase in business failures around the country over the past few weeks. I have seen it in my constituency and in this city. I have also heard from Senator Ahearn about businesses closing in Clonmel. That is really sad because a family business failing is almost like a death in the family. People put their heart and soul and lives into their business. When it fails, it is very sad.

We also need to be honest with people. Sometimes businesses are not viable. Many businesses only got through the pandemic period because of the Government supports. When that ended, they tried to make a go of it and were not able to. Unfortunately, some of those businesses will close. However, we are also at a time when many businesses are doing well and they cannot get staff. We also have to bear that in mind.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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It is almost one year since a final settlement was reached between the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, the Minister for Social Protection, and the unions representing community employment, CE, supervisors and assistant supervisors. I submitted a parliamentary question last week asking whether the ex gratiapayment which was agreed upon would be paid to these CE workers. The answer I received stated that discussions regarding this are ongoing. However, I know that some CE workers have already been paid the ex gratiapayment while others are still waiting, a year later. It is not acceptable to have people waiting this long to receive a payment, especially during such a crippling cost-of-living crisis. This demonstrates complete disrespect for CE workers and for the unions that represent them. What is the real reason that many community employment supervisors, including in my constituency of Donegal, have not been paid? Can these people be guaranteed that this payment will be made within the next couple of weeks?

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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Under the terms of the settlement that we agreed with the unions late last year on reaching retirement age, eligible CE supervisors and assistant supervisors will receive a once-off ex gratiapayment in respect of time employed in the CE scheme since 2008.

People who have retired since 2008, who have reached retirement age, are now eligible to apply for the payment. In recent months, an administrative and ICT system to accept applications and process payments has been put in place in the Department. We wrote to approximately 720 ex-supervisors who had retired since 2008 and we received approximately 664 applications. Some 134 are ready to issue and 430 are being processed. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has questioned the timing of the payments. We wrote back to the Department to let it know that we are ready to issue the payments and we await feedback in that regard. I reassure the Deputy that the money is there and it is ready to be issued, but in short a technicality in the administrative process has arisen that we want to iron out as soon as possible.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I wish to speak about funding for a community build on the Tullow Road in Carlow. The council and the Government are working on a jointly funded €2.5 million project. The project comes under Part 8 planning, and it has been approved for a hub. For 35 years there have been many high-density housing developments in the Tullow Road area of Carlow. Unfortunately, little or no social, cultural, green or economic infrastructure has been built to accommodate the increase in the population. This has contributed to isolation, lack of belonging and significant levels of disadvantage. Carlow has the third highest national rate of early school leaving and the Tullow Road area has 42% of Carlow town's population under 24. The lack of community facilities has been highlighted in the community consultation. The development of this hub facility will provide the community with a sense of place and dignity. I have spoken with the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien-----

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I thank the Deputy. We are over time.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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-----on this as it falls within both of their areas.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Murnane O'Connor for raising this important issue relating to Carlow. I am afraid I do not have any information on it to hand. I note that the Deputy has raised it already with the Ministers, Deputy Darragh O'Brien and Deputy Humphreys, and I will make them aware that it was raised again here in the Chamber. I hope we can find a satisfactory solution.

Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael)
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In May of this year the Minister for Transport and the National Transport Authority, NTA, launched a 50% reduction in public transport fares for young people aged between 19 and 23. Issues quickly emerged regarding the scheme, in particular its extension to private operators and on the age limit. The Minister secured additional moneys in the budget to extend the scheme to commercial operators, which is welcome, but there still continues to be an issue with the age limit. The Minister has committed to changing it but when will it be introduced? I am being contacted by students, parents and grandparents asking when the change will happen so that 16 to 18 year olds can benefit from the fare reduction.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The reduction in public transport fares has been a real success, both the general reduction and also the reduction for young people. I know governments in other countries have done more radical things, for example in Germany, but in fact they have had to reverse them. What we have done makes more sense, which is a sustainable reduction in public transport costs. We are facing some difficulty extending the scheme to commercial operators because of the fact that we do not control their fares. We want to make sure that if we give them taxpayers' money that the fares do go down by the amount they are supposed to go down. The Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, and the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, are working on that. It is our intention to make sure that those young people get the discount that we want them to get.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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I raise the decision by Maynooth University not to proceed with the student centre, for which a levy was put on students in recent years. This morning, students in the university staged a walkout in protest, as part of its Where’s my Levy campaign. I have had so much contact from students and parents who paid into the levy and from the wider academic community as well who live around Maynooth. They tell me that what the university is suggesting is just not sufficient. I have written to the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, personally and asked him to launch an investigation into the decision and to publish his findings. Will the Tánaiste demand that the university commits to deliver the student centre, that the levy would be frozen, and the students would have joint oversight of the fund which is ultimately their money?

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I will respond.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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Will the Tánaiste respond to the question?

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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It falls within my remit. I have some information for the Deputy. I assure her that none of the student levy money has in any way been lost. Her colleague, Deputy Conway-Walsh, raised the issue with me yesterday. I spoke with the chair of the governing authority today on the matter. I hope a satisfactory solution can be found. It is an autonomous decision taken by the governing authority. I hope that the student centre can be delivered. The student levy has not been used or lost.

James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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Covid-19 had many knock-on impacts across public services in the country, but the Government will be familiar with one particular area where there was an impact, namely driving tests. Unfortunately, people are waiting an extremely long period to get driving tests across many areas of Munster. In places like Wilton, Mallow and Dungarvan, which are very important centres in my constituency of Cork East, it will be well into December and even January. What proactive measures are being taken by the Government to deal with this issue that, unfortunately, was caused by letting go driving testers who were on temporary contracts in August of this year? Will the Government undertake any action to deal with the issue? As a Deputy in a rural constituency, this is an extremely important issue for rural Ireland and it must be dealt with urgently.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I am very much aware of the problems people are facing. We need to get on top of it as it is impeding people from getting to college if they need to drive to college and getting to work if they need to drive to work and the situation is not at all acceptable. I know the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, is working on the matter with the Road Safety Authority, RSA, which is trying to hire additional staff, which would help us to get through the backlog. We will get through it. A couple of months ago, if I was standing in the Dáil we would have been talking a lot about the backlog of people waiting for passports or work permits but with additional staff and automation we have managed to get on top of those delays and I assure the Deputy we will get on top of this one too.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I raise the student registration fee and the decision that was taken in the budget to reduce it by €1,000 for this academic year. That is something I welcome, but there seems to be some confusion within colleges as to how the reduction is to be applied. I have been contacted by a number of students who make the payment twice over the course of a year. They have been hit with a bill and the colleges are demanding immediate payment of a student registration fee of €1,500 in addition to student levies and charges of €196.75 on top of that. Some students are being told that if it is not paid by this Saturday they will be formally removed from their course. In addition, they are being told that they must pay the remainder of the €1,500 in the new year. There is no application of the reduction of €1,000 in the registration fee. It is not just one college-----

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I thank Deputy Brady and call on the Tánaiste to respond.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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-----I have heard it from a number of colleges. There are serious concerns as to how thisis going to be implemented.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I am very happy to get information on any specific cases the Deputy has come across. From the Government's perspective, the situation is very straightforward. If a student is levied with an undergraduate registration fee of €3,000, the fee has now fallen to €2,000. If the fee was paid in full, which approximately 20% of students have done, they get a €1,000 rebate. For those who have not paid the fee in full, €1,000 will be knocked off the outstanding amount. If there are any issues the Deputy wants to bring to my attention, I am very happy to pursue them.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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In recent years there has been a seachange in support for childcare, which is a credit to both the current Minister and his predecessors. We used to have just three hours per day in term time for just two years and now we have 45 hours for up to 14 years and it is year round. It is worth up to €63 per week. That is very important. However, our policy lab has done extensive work and there is still a long distance to go in meeting a situation where we truly value the importance of giving children a good start in their lives. In particular, there are too many gaps in the service. There needs to be a policy shift to inform all Departments, in particular those responsible for local development planning and the national development plan, of the importance of investing in children. We should throw open State facilities that often lie idle from 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. in the afternoon. I ask that we push ahead with reform in this very important area.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I agree that it must be a principle of this Government that every child gets a fair start in life and the best start in life that is possible. I am familiar with the work of the Fine Gael policy lab and also the care of the child document, which sets out a roadmap as to how we can improve services and supports for children. The reduction in childcare fees of approximately 25% next year is part of that, and we must pursue many of the points mentioned by Deputy Bruton as well, including making better use of schools in the afternoon for after-school activities and other things as well.

Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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After 28 years Gaelscoil Pheig Sayers got the good news this year it will get a new school building, but then it was shocked to find out that the new school hall would be 195 sq. m, which is too small.

It is a disgrace. It turns out that it is now Department of Education policy to build school halls of this size for primary schools. When the school approached the Department, it was told to fundraise the additional €100,000. This is a Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, DEIS, band 1 school. We are talking about getting kids involved in sport and PE, yet we are not building halls that are fit for purpose.

Will the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, ask the Minister for Education to instruct her Department to build school halls like we did 15 or 20 years ago? It seems this was an austerity cut that is still in place.

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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My understanding is that approximately €4 billion is going into the building of schools through the planning and building unit in the Department of Education. If the Deputy wants to bring his query to me, I will have a conversation with the Minister for Education about it.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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We have heard today that demand for electricity will outstrip supply. Why would it not do so, given that the Government gave in to the Green Party when it closed two Bord na Móna power stations in the middle of the country? Surely the Government will not cave in to the proposal to decommission the Kinsale gas terminal, where we could store gas during the summer months and have it at the ready for the winter. Surely it will not concede on that proposal and exacerbate people's position. The cost of electricity has increased every day since the two power-generating plants in the middle of the country were closed.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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That is just not accurate. Those power plants in the midlands were closed on foot of a court order in a planning decision. It was not an evil plot by the Green Party or the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications. That is just not true.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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They were not supposed to close for seven months.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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They were closed on foot of a court decision. We are going to use the infrastructure there for battery storage, which will be helpful for dealing with our energy needs and energy security.

The reasons the demand for electricity has increased so much in Ireland are simple: our population is growing rapidly, our economy is growing fast and we are moving away from fossil fuels to electric vehicles, heat pumps and so on. The solution is more supply. We need more generating capacity and it is coming on stream. It is going to be gas and renewables, and we have a plan to catch up on this backlog and give us headroom to expand further.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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What about Kinsale? The Tánaiste never answered that.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I am sorry but I did not get the question.

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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Recent proposals regarding changes to benefit-in-kind are counter to what we as a Government should strive for. The current system rewards people for driving more miles, while we as a society are being told to change our habits and protect the environment. In January, the benefit-in-kind rate is due to increase from 6% to 9%, which means certain car owners will pay thousands of euro more to do their job and go about their business. The percentage paid is calculated on the price of a new vehicle and does not take the trade value of another vehicle into consideration. Will the Tánaiste look into this matter urgently and revert to me in the coming weeks regarding the current benefit-in-kind model and whether it is fit for purpose?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I might ask the Minister for Finance to come back to the Deputy on this, given that it falls under his remit. My understanding is that this was well flagged a number of years ago and is designed to align the benefit-in-kind system with environmental objectives. It was designed to encourage company cars to be electric or low emission and it was well flagged a number of years ago. That is my understanding of it, but I will ask the Minister to get back to the Deputy on it directly.

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The emergency department at Mayo University Hospital remains under significant pressure. The hospital is postponing a number of elective day cases and inpatient procedures due to high admission rates and pressure on the site. The signs for the winter ahead at Mayo University Hospital in Castlebar are not promising due to these issues. Given that the hospital and the HSE are aware of significant demands on the Mayo University Hospital emergency department and past failings in terms of treating patients in a timely manner, I cannot accept it will take another four years for a project to extend the emergency department to be progressed from design and procurement to delivery. I appreciate that the delivery of public projects takes time, but this is just excessive.

Will the Tánaiste examine how this project can be delivered more quickly, speak to the Minister for Health and address the structural issues within the HSE capital and estates team?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I am aware of the increase in overcrowding in our emergency departments in recent weeks. We are concerned going into winter, with Covid cases rising again and the risk of a flu season, that our hospitals could be extremely busy. With that in mind, the Minister for Health and the HSE have developed a winter plan and there will be bespoke plans for particular hospitals and regions. That is due to be discussed next week, I believe. I will make a point of raising Castlebar and Mayo University Hospital with the Minister as part of that meeting, and if we can speed up that project, we should do so. I share the Deputy's frustration about how long it takes to get some projects done. I will not even mention the University Hospital Galway emergency, paediatric and maternity facility, which is going on for far too long. On the other hand, other projects have been completed much more quickly, including those in Clonmel, Waterford and Drogheda, so it must be possible to do these things more quickly.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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At 11.11 a.m. next Thursday, students from all over this State will walk out of their lectures. They have a list of well-justified demands, including adequate funding for the sector to address a legacy of chronic underfunding, reform of Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, and a living wage including decent pay for PhD researchers who are denied worker status. Three of their demands centre around the crisis in student accommodation, yet this year's budget is the third consecutive budget from the Government with no allocation for student accommodation. Students have had to defer their courses, sleep in cars and travel long distances. Will the Government look again at student accommodation and stop avoiding the inevitability of investing in such accommodation? Will it listen to these students?

Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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While the one-off measures contained within the budget are welcome, they do little to hide the fact family carers are still undervalued by the Government. Pension entitlements are still an issue, and whatever increases in money that carers will see are likely to be offset by their having to continue to pay to go private for various therapies because State provision cannot keep up. The HSE recently told me, in regard to a family whose occupational therapist is advocating for respite, that it was not possible to provide a specific timeframe for when respite would be scheduled because there are not enough places available in the south east to meet the demand. Families are getting into debt to go private to address the needs their loved ones have, and the Government thinks one-off payments are going to hide that from us all. What is it going to do to get those services staffed and rolled out?

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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As Deputy Conway-Walsh knows, we are pursuing a new policy in regard to student accommodation. For the first time as a State, we are going to invest in getting under way projects that have been stuck and building college-owned affordable accommodation. We will update the Cabinet committee on housing on this next week. I am meeting representatives of the Union of Students in Ireland, USI, this afternoon on it. As the Deputy will know, we took a number of cost-of-living measures in the budget, such as the first reduction in the contribution fee in more than two decades. I think I put the same amount of new funding into core funding that Sinn Féin proposed in its alternative budget.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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To respond to Deputy Martin Browne, the budget provides for a €500 payment for carers, not means-tested, which they will receive before Christmas, and a €12 increase in the carer's allowance and the carer's benefit from the new year. There is additional funding for respite too. I fully appreciate how important it is that carers be able to get a break from caring. That is important in order that they can continue to do the work they do. The funding will be there. Recruitment of staff is a challenge, as the Deputy knows. That is certainly not a problem unique to us but we will do our best in that regard. One thing that is significant is that the Minister for Social Protection will bring through legislation next year to recognise the contributions that carers have made during years of caring towards eligibility for a State pension, not means-tested, which is a big step forward.