Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome all the students from Cavan. There was a group in earlier also. I hear some of them will be budding politicians. Niamh and Maeve might be Diarmuid's daughters but I hope they do not take any notice of Daddy and join the right party.

I wish to say farewell to Donal Hickey and thank him for his exceptional work. I wish him well in the future. I apologise in advance as Kerry will be beaten on Sunday by Mayo. I am sure he will get over that.

I commend the report issued this morning by the Joint Committee on Justice and Equality, which is chaired by Deputy Ó Caoláin. I ask the Deputy Leader for a debate on the report's recommendations and outputs. It would be very interesting. I will not get into the details of the report; suffice it to say that some of the content is very good and some of it needs to be expanded in respect of rural crime. I would appreciate it if the debate could be facilitated as soon as possible.

This morning, it was reported that only 7% of women who had repeat smear tests for cervical cancer have received their results. That leaves around 2,370 women still waiting on repeat test results, despite being promised priority testing and results within four to six weeks. IT problems in the laboratory company, Quest Diagnostics, and the unexpected high volume of samples have all been mentioned as reasons for the delay. That is absolutely unacceptable. It shows the system is not working and is broken. I call on the Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, to rectify this immediately. If it were not bad enough that these women have had to go through the harrowing process of getting tested again, they are now forced to wait for unacceptably long periods to find out the results. We recently had statements in the House on this issue and all sides agreed that the highest priority was to ensure those who still needed screening completed would be a priority. Screening works and saves lives, as we know, but the Minister must ensure that such a vital service is properly resourced and fit for purpose. Yesterday's figures show the system is still chaotic.

Yesterday, we saw that the number of people homeless in the State reached over 10,000. Other figures suggest the number is much greater. Three thousand seven hundred and eighty-four children have no home to go to tonight. We have become immune to increasing numbers of people with no place to call home.

I want to nip something in the bud. Homelessness is not an ideological battle with Sinn Féin on one side and the Government on the other. On RTÉ radio last night, my colleague, Deputy Ó Broin, had to remind the programme's host that when it comes to homelessness, there are no sides. We want to offer solutions in opposition and are more than happy for Fine Gael, backed by Fianna Fáil, to implement them. We have a Bill that would make it illegal for a landlord who benefited from a buy-to-let tax break to evict tenants and families in order to sell the property. The landlord would have to sell it with the tenants in situ. Eviction is the main cause of family homelessness. The legislative proposals should be made law urgently but on "Morning Ireland" this morning, the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, showed that he simply does not get it. He said Rebuilding Ireland is working, even if the homelessness figure continues to increase. That is completely contradictory. He refused to answer directly the question on how many homes Dublin City Council built last year. He also could not give a timeline for ending child homelessness. The message from the Government is that the policy response is working, and this is all happening because Deputy Micheál Martin and his party, Fianna Fáil, are facilitating budgets and refusing to express no confidence in the Minister. It is time that action was taken.