Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for being with us today. We see measures worth close to €106 billion to support families. In my area, namely Roscommon–Galway, and in the west, there have been challenges owing to the cost of living. It is these that we see addressed in the budget. The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, acknowledged in the Dáil that there has been a 19% increase in the cost of living from 2021 until now. Families see this every time they go out to do their shopping. However, the measures put in place are to support affected families. We see one of the largest budgets ever, with €2.6 billion in social protection to help households.

In my area, I have worked so much with families crying out for home help and increases to home help hours. These ensure people can live independently for as long as they wish at home. Six hundred thousand more home help hours have been allocated, bringing the total to 24 million. There are more staff. We need more doctors and nurses to deliver the services, and we know there has been an increase. We have funded that increase. There are 30,000 more people working in our health service, bringing the number to 133,000.

As my party's education spokesperson in the Seanad, I am delighted to see the school meals programme. I hear about it, have advocated it and have encouraged our schools to apply for the pilots. So many schools have joined, and now all schools will have the opportunity to do so. I know what this means for parents. Never mind that they do not have the extra task of preparing school meals in the morning; they know their children get great school meals during the day. These are really positive measures that make such an impact on families' pockets and headspace.

There are now to be free schoolbooks up to leaving certificate level.

I have heard it mentioned here that nothing is being done in respect of special education. If the provision of 760 additional special education teachers and 1,600 more SNAs is doing nothing about special education, then I am left aghast. Five years ago, we had a couple of thousand SNAs, but we now have over 20,000 of them in our schools every single day. I meet people working as special needs assistants and know people doing the course in UCD to obtain a level 5 qualification. That is happening. There 20,000 more people working. The challenge is that we do not have enough. You cannot get people to work in certain roles. In hospitality, there is a struggle to get workers because there is now so much opportunity and choice.

One hundred and eighty thousand are now benefiting from childcare. Again, it is a question of capacity. I want to see what will happen regarding infrastructure and development through the building blocks grant. The Minister of State might be able to speak about when the building blocks grant will come out, because the funds have been allocated to support it.

Let me refer briefly to cost-of-living supports and the warmer homes scheme. I acknowledge that funding for the warmer homes scheme and for retrofitting is ten times greater than it was in 2019. The Acting Chairman will know very well that the housing profile in our area, in the west, is one of the worst, with only 85% of houses having attained a B2 rating. We need the warmer homes scheme and we need it to target areas under pressure. How are we going to have people living longer and independently in their homes if they are not insulated or retrofitted to allow them to do so? I welcome the measure in this regard.