Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is an honour to have the Taoiseach in the Seanad to address Senators and to have an opportunity to raise issues with him.

Ireland has a good story to tell and often it is not being told fairly. As the Taoiseach mentioned, we have one of the longest life expectancies in Europe, education attainment is high and we provide very good opportunities for all the children of this country to reach their full potential. Despite that, we do, as the Taoiseach acknowledged, still have certain challenges and these challenges persist in the areas of housing, crime and policing, health and childcare, as we saw demonstrated outside the gates of this complex this week. Not everybody is feeling the benefits of Ireland’s success story. That is our greatest challenge.

The social contract, as we know, is vulnerable and has to be protected. Everybody has to feel the benefits of Ireland’s success and that is not happening. Housing is the key challenge for many young people. When we look at childcare and the challenges there, while we are making good inroads and progress, I have deep reservations and concerns about Government policy in this area. My fear is that while the policy we have adopted will reduce costs for parents, it will squeeze out the small providers which have been the backbone of our childcare system.It is an issue that I raised with the Minister this week. I hope he listened and will take those views on board. Many of my colleagues also raised the issue.

The Taoiseach also mentioned the pensions issue, which is one that we will be watching in the budget. I say that because often, the accusation that is levelled at Government is that younger people are not prioritised in a budget and those of a more mature age are given priority. I hope we see the commencement of pensions auto-enrolment and a significant plan in place to deal with what we know will be a problem for us in the future. Often, because Governments have five-year terms and slightly less sometimes, we deal with the problems in front of us today and do not make plans for ten and 15 years down the line. That is a challenge for every Government. We owe it to our younger people to address the pensions issue today to make sure they have the supports they need in older years.

I want to acknowledge, as the Taoiseach has, that this Government has faced unprecedented challenges. We were in the midst of a pandemic when this Government took office. We then had an energy crisis and points at which Europe was not sure it could keep the lights on during the winter period. That was a huge challenge which highlighted some of the weaknesses in our energy system. We are now addressing these at a European level. We have had high inflation, which led to higher food prices and prices in general and a cost-of-living crisis for our people. I know this is a top priority and front and centre of negotiations in the lead-up to the budget. We have also had war in Europe, in Ukraine, where we have watched our friends and neighbours deal with an attack on their sovereignty and an illegal invasion by Russia. These challenges are real and any one of them could destabilise a Government. We are dealing with them and I believe we are weathering the storm better than anybody could have anticipated.

When we look at what is happening at European Union level, we see there is now a push for expansion that will bring some challenges in how we organise the EU and additional member states. There is a push for greater centralisation. That will involve us having a challenging conversation here in areas such as taxation and defence, which will always be controversial and topical discussions. We have also seen the recent attempt, at an EU level, to get a greater slice of our corporate tax. I was glad both our Minister for Finance and our Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform pushed back on that on the basis that it was simply unfair.

I will use my remaining time to address the points the Taoiseach made around the child poverty and well-being office he has established, and which formed a significant part of his contribution. I commend him on that. As a society, we will be judged by how we treat our most vulnerable, namely, our children and elderly. That links back to the points I made about our childcare system. There is really no excuse for a First World developed economy, one which is wealthy and has significant resources, having the levels of child poverty that we have, despite the improvements we are making in that area. That points to the challenges we have around homelessness and child homelessness, which have to be addressed as an absolute priority. Even a week spent in homelessness will have a lasting impact on the well-being of a child. I hope that is a priority for the Taoiseach's Department.

Access to therapies is also an ongoing challenge. We are setting limits on children reaching their full potential. It should be top of the agenda and a priority for any Government to tackle those two issues.