Counts are still taking place, so the elections are not quite over. One thing that was made clear to me on the doors is that people out there are not interested in the Punch and Judy show that often takes place in this House.

Hear, hear.

They are not interested in petty, political one-upmanship or politics that values sound bites over substance.

Hear, hear.

The people who voted for candidates who they met at their doors and who they put their trust in want representatives who will work hard, who are clear in what they can deliver and who can offer credible solutions to the many problems we face. We all know what those problems are, namely the housing disaster, the healthcare crisis, the climate emergency and threadbare disability services.

The findings contained in the new report published today by Family Carers Ireland are shocking, but they should not be a surprise to any of us. Nearly two thirds of carers have never received any respite. A similar number say they struggle to make ends meet. Their loved ones do not receive any formal support. Nearly 50% have had to pay privately for products or services that should be publicly available to them. Nearly one in four has missed a mortgage or rent payment in the past year.

The report outlines a litany of failure when it comes to State services and State reports. The problem is not even that there is no support out there - although that is increasingly the case for many families - it is that the State often seems to erect barriers to deny people what little support does exist. People are faced with qualifying criteria for supports that are almost impossible to meet, time-consuming and complicated application forms that they do not have the time and energy to fill out and an attitude of ambivalence and apathy on the part of State institutions that chips away at people's morale and self-belief.

The Taoiseach has repeatedly promised to support carers. People do not buy it, however, because they have heard it all before - the same promises and the same commitments that bear no relationship to the reality experienced by carers. That reality is what is reflected in today's report. I refer here to the daily financial struggle, the anger at the lack of services, the constant anxiety about the absence of supports and the dread about what will happen to loved ones when the carer is no longer around.

There is no bigger gap between rhetoric and reality than the one that exists when it comes to disability and care. Disabled people and older people have a right to live independent lives that the State refuses to vindicate. The Government repeatedly tells carers how much they are valued and then refuses to value them. It is an indictment of this Government that access to respite, which is already in crisis, is deteriorating.

I thank the Deputy.

Carers and their families were promised a lot. When will the Government actually deliver?

I thank the Deputy.

When will carers have access to at least 20 days respite a year? Will the Government abolish the means test for carer's allowance?

I congratulate Deputy Cairns on the election of the councillors from her party. I wish everybody who was elected well. Lots of people voted for my party as well, and for my coalition party colleagues in Fianna Fáil and the Green Party. Her view of how people view the political situation is not always in line with what the people actually decided to do at the ballot box on Friday. More than 53% of council seats went to councillors from Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party. The Deputy should be aware of that. Her party did well in the elections, and I congratulate her on that, but the parties on these benches did better, too. When she says people do not buy it, people had a chance to give their views on lots of issues in a very large democratic exercise. Sometimes, the views expressed in this House are not actually the views that are expressed in villages, towns and cities right across this country.

I thank the Deputy for raising a very important issue concerning respite and care. I, along with the relevant Ministers, intend to meet directly with Family Carers Ireland this month. We need to listen to that organisation and drill down into a number of the findings in the very useful report it has published today. I express my gratitude to the thousands of carers in the country who provide unending care and support for their loved ones. I will tell the House some of the things we intend to do to support them and some of the things we have already done.

I fully understand the importance of respite provision for the families of children and adults with disabilities and, indeed, the positive impact it can have on their lives. That is why we have doubled respite funding since 2018. It is why my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, will, in the next couple of weeks, publish a new respite investment plan. That plan will take the additional money we allocated in the budget and detail how the funding will be used to support respite for children and adults. We need to do better and do more when it comes to respite. I am really looking forward to the plan because it will look at a whole variety of different ways we can help families. It will look at how we can provide day respite, more overnight respite and how we can make sure the residential respite capacity that is in place is being fully utilised.

For context, in 2018, there were 87,177 overnight respite nights provided. That number was 151,123 last year, in addition to 45,424 day respite places. I accept we are not doing enough and there is a need to do more. That is why we will publish a respite investment plan to detail how we intend to do more in the months ahead. By any fair measure, the level of respite provision has very significantly increased. The budget has more than doubled and the number of nights provided has gone from more than 87,000 to over 151,000.

Of course, respite is just one of a number of things that are being done to support carers. We also try to support them from a financial point of view through the carer's support grant, which the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, ensured was provided last week to 132,000 carers. This week, we are increasing the carer's allowance disregard, meaning more carers will qualify for that support and more income can be disregarded. That is a very positive way of helping carers.

Respectfully, I said people did not buy the rhetoric on carers.

In your view.

What the Taoiseach just said is a really good example of how different the rhetoric is versus the reality of what people experience. The problem with what he is saying is that people have heard it all before. Carers have heard the same promises, not just from him but from his predecessor and the taoisigh before them. Instead of things getting better, they are getting worse. Already threadbare services have become even harder to access. That goes for respite, as well as access to therapies through children's disability network teams, CDNTs. The progressing disability services, PDS, programme is a failure. It has become harder to qualify for financial supports. Respite should be regular and routine. In fact, it is basically non-existent for many people.

The contents of the report by Family Carers Ireland are shameful. The system carers rely on is utterly broken and continuing to deteriorate. Trying to access any kind of support, no matter how meagre, involves a fight. Many carers do not have the energy to fight. They cannot take on the State and care for their loved ones, and they should not have to do so. Almost everyone in this House would be supportive of efforts to improve services and supports for carers. Why has there been so little progress? The Taoiseach says he is doing a report. We have all the reports we need on this issue. What we need is action.

I did not say we are doing a report. We do not need any more reports. I said that between now and budget day, we will review the means test. When I talk to carers-----

You mentioned a report on respite.

I referred to the respite investment plan. There are two different issues involved. Let us take them sequentially. In regard to the means test, when I go around the country, there are too many people who find it a bit mean. We want to make the means test more generous and understanding in order that more carers can benefit.

That is why this week - Deputy Cairns can shake her head all she wants; she asks questions and sometimes does not like when I answer them - we are making changes to the income disregard so that more people will benefit from carer's allowance. I am sure the Deputy welcomes that. That is happening this week. No one needs to wait for any report or plan for that. Regarding respite investment, the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, will quite rightly detail to this House and, much more importantly, to people relying on respite services, how the €15 million extra we have allocated will make a real difference and how we will get from the 87,000 nights we were providing to more than 151,000 and beyond. We will do more. Every year this Government has been in office, we have done more for the carer's allowance, the carer's benefit, means test and respite. I agree with the Deputy and I am willing to work on a non-combative way to see how we can do more. I look forward to meeting Family Carers Ireland this month.