Cuirim fáilte rompu go léir. I welcome the students from St. Michael's in Finglas and also students from the City of Dublin Education and Training Board, CDETB, Parnell Square. Ironically, it is lovely to welcome them from Parnell Square on a day when Deputy Marie Sherlock has done so much to secure the future of the Rotunda Hospital in Parnell Square.

It is clearly a day of hyperbole.

Many people in Ireland are now at breaking point from the cost-of-living crisis. This crisis has not just persisted; it has been turbocharged by global instability for sure but also by the Government's policies. Households are struggling on every front, with the price of housing, groceries and energy. Those already in poverty are being pushed even further to the margins and everyone is feeling the squeeze. The costs of everyday essentials have skyrocketed. In five years, butter and milk are 45% more expensive. This is not a statistic. These are the totals that people dread seeing pop up as they check out at the supermarket. People's bills are rising, while salaries stagnate and the Taoiseach is just standing by. The Government stood by while motor insurance crept up, while the biggest health insurers hiked their prices by more than 10%, and now, with Trump and Netanyahu’s warmongering, and the retaliation by Iran and Hezbollah, we are seeing costs being driven even further through the roof.

Home heating oil, notoriously, has jumped 40% in a matter of days. One woman, who emailed me to raise her concerns, had to revise her email before she hit "Send". She said that they had put up the price again in the time it had taken her to type the message to me. This is price-gouging, pure and simple.

Irish energy bills were already inflated, long before this war. Petrol and diesel prices are climbing, but instead of taking on Deputy George Lawlor's proposed price caps, the Government hides behind working groups and task forces, letting the market run riot and making luxuries out of everyday essentials.

People are scared. Morgan McKinley tells us that pay rises have stalled, with wage increases lagging behind inflation, recruitment slowing and living standards slipping. I am helping a man who has taken a second job to try to support his family. He and his wife send their teenager to school with just bread and butter and a banana for lunch, while cutting back themselves. They are not alone in living that hardship.

Let us not even start on housing costs. Unaffordable and unavailable, last month the median price for a home in Dublin broke €500,000 and the Government's new rental rules mean an amnesty on rent hikes and an incentive to evict. There are so many notices to quit in Wexford and around the country.

In 2022, when Russia unleashed war on Ukraine, the Taoiseach told people to wait for inflation to reduce and when he cut temporary cost-of-living measures, he told people to wait and see. Households in Ireland need a government that intervenes when costs spiral, not a bystander government or a government that shrugs.

No one expects the Taoiseach to end world war, but will he act decisively to support people who are up against the wall and will he intervene to support those who are struggling in a cost-of-living crisis?

Of course, we have intervened in the cost of living over the past three to four years. More than any other government in Europe, we intervened with our allocations, both in the once-off cost-of-living interventions that we made for over two years at huge cost, but then with more permanent measures such as the free books scheme, which is a substantial reduction in costs for parents and families of school-going children and the hot school meals in every school across the country, likewise helping families.

We acknowledge families are under pressure. Of course, they are. Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the post-Covid period and the weakening of supply chains, there has been an inflationary spiral. It has eased considerably in Ireland in inflationary terms, but the impact on the cost of living and the elevated prices remains for many households.

We significantly reduced all the medical expenditures that were there five or six years ago in terms of the drugs payment scheme threshold being reduced and getting rid of quite a lot of hospital charges that people had to fork out.

In terms of social protection, we had a €10 increase in the maximum rate of all State pensions from January of this year and likewise, for the jobseeker's allowance. There was the biggest increase ever in child support payments,. For any child over 12, the family gets €16 additional to €78 a week, and for children under 12, plus €8 to €58 a week. Of course, the fuel allowance was increased by €5 per week, but also the numbers of people benefiting went up significantly because we extended it to the working family payment to such an extent that 26% of households are now entitled to the fuel allowance and it is backdated to January. It is not a true story to say that the Government has done nothing or the Government has not intervened.

We have also extended the reduced VAT rate on energy bills, from 13% to 9%, and that will be extended to 2030. We have also taken very substantial measures in terms of retrofitting, which will ultimately reduce the costs for households who benefit from that over the long term, and immediately once it is done. Our interventions have been targeted in many areas and we will continue to support households and families.

Real wages have increased by 3% over the past 12 months. That is the reality and that is a fact. Members can dismiss that easily through rhetoric or something, but that is the reality. That said, there are still pressures on families. We will keep all of this under review in terms of how this unfolds over the next while.

The Taoiseach outlined measures taken. The Labour Party welcomes any measures that will ease pressure for struggling households, but even the Taoiseach acknowledged that families and households are still struggling, and that not enough has been done to help people, who are now desperately fearful as they see the likely prospect of inflation spiralling again and as they see already, as I have said, home heating oil vastly increased in price.

Here is what else the Taoiseach could be doing, because the Labour Party has proposed constructive solutions. The Government could use the powers it has under the Consumer Protection Act 2007 to cap the price of home heating oil, as Labour has urged, instead of just saying it will keep matters under review. The Government could, of course, if it was a government that took climate action seriously, invest heavily in renewables to support people who wish to and, indeed, need to make the transition away from reliance on home heating oil. The Taoiseach speaks about retrofitting, but we have seen simply not enough done to encourage the sort of retrofitting revolution that my colleague Deputy Ahern has called for. Will the Taoiseach take on tangible practical additional measures to support struggling households?

We are investing in renewables to an unprecedented extent. Between 40% and 45% of all electricity generation is through renewables in Ireland today, and approximately 40% through gas. One of the structural problems with this, of course, is across Europe there is a coupling of gas and very often gas dictates the ultimate price. Price caps generally do not work and we would need to consider that very carefully before we would implement such a measure.

We will keep everything under review in terms of how this situation unfolds and we appreciate the pressures that are on people.

Again, the CCPC is there to investigate and engage with companies and the market to fundamentally ensure price-gouging does not happen and that unfair advantage is not taken of people.

We will also continue to engage on that issue as a Government, and we will have further meetings today relating to that specific item.

Denise Whitmore was absolutely devastated when she learned at a routine scan in November 2024 that her baby's brain had not developed and that the condition was fatal. After a lot of consideration, Denise and her husband Mark made the heartbreaking decision to terminate the pregnancy but because doctors could not be absolutely certain her baby would die within 28 days, as is required by current legislation, Denise was forced to travel to the UK for treatment.

To say it was not an easy journey is an understatement. Denise was six months pregnant and was bleeding from an additional complication of a low-lying placenta. On the day they were due to travel, their ferry to Holyhead was cancelled. This meant travelling to Pembroke instead, followed by a five-hour car journey to Liverpool. Once they were at the hospital, doctors stopped the baby's heart and Denise prepared to give birth, but she began to haemorrhage. She lost five units of blood, causing her body to go into shock. Doctors were forced to do an emergency C-section, and they had to warn Denise in advance that they may need to do a hysterectomy to stop the bleeding. When Éadha was born, Denise and Mark spent some time with their daughter in the hospital.

As if all of this was not hard enough, they then had to think about the legality of getting home. A consultant in Liverpool warned them to put Éadha's body in the boot of their car and smuggle her back to Ireland, but they could not bring themselves to do that. When they got to the ferry, Mark declared they were bringing their daughter home, and they were gripped by fear that they might be arrested. This legislation is inhumane. If it were not for a kind worker at the ferry terminal allowing them to travel, they would not have been able to bring Éadha home to meet her three-year-old brother and the rest of her family.

Denise's trauma did not end there. Despite having major surgery in the UK, there was zero follow-up care for her in Ireland. Even when she presented to a bereavement midwife to get counselling, she was told it was not available. Denise and her family were on their own. Every year, 240 women have to travel to the UK to access abortion care; each one with their own story of grief, trauma and sheer horror at what they are forced to go through. It is a complete and utter disgrace.

An expert report recommending clarity on the provision of care in cases of foetal abnormality and the end to criminalisation of doctors was published in April 2023. For three years, the Government has ignored these recommendations-----

Thank you, Deputy. The Taoiseach to respond.

-----and the result is hundreds of women like Denise who are forced to travel for care.

My question is simple: is the Government going to continue to ignore these women and make them suffer?

I wish to extend my deepest sympathies to Denise Whitmore, Mark and the entire family on the tragic loss of baby Éadha, and the very difficult and traumatic circumstances of both Denise's pregnancy and what subsequently happened with the travel to the United Kingdom, particularly the journey back.

As the Deputy knows, the legislation came as a result of the constitutional referendum we had in respect of this issue a number of years ago. The legislation was consistent with commitments given in the debate to the Irish people prior to the repeal of the eighth amendment. It was a contested referendum and various arguments were put forward on both sides. Various commitments were given in respect of how subsequent legislation would be formulated and what it would contain. In many respects, one of the key motivations for a lot of people who voted "Yes" to repealing the eighth amendment was the experience of women who had been through fatal foetal abnormality. I met quite a number of women who told me the harrowing journeys they made to the United Kingdom and back. Certainly, I found it a very powerful, motivating factor for a proper humane response to a situation such as this.

Again, there was a lot of contested debate around this; hence what has transpired in the termination of pregnancy Act 2018 and in particular, the section referring to the provision before or within those 28 days of birth. There have been issues out of that as a result of the referendum and Act itself. I do not understand why bereavement counselling was not made available; it should be made available. There should be no excuse for the absence of bereavement counselling in situations such as this. I will pursue that with the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, and the Department, as to what transpired.

As regards the wider issue, the Act itself is consistent with the debate and commitments that were given. Section 11, in particular, puts in that provision.

Deputy Cairns to respond.

This will be reviewed by the Government. I thank Denise Whitmore for speaking out because we need to hear her voice and the voice of women in situations like this.

Ultimately, when we voted on repeal, we voted to take women's healthcare out of the Constitution and put it into the hands of doctors, the Members in this House and women themselves. No legislation is set in stone, and everybody who voted on this knows that.

A review was also baked into that. With all the other things the Taoiseach has spoken about which people voted on, we also voted that there would be a review. It took five years for that review to happen and a lot of people suffered in that time. Then, we finally got the review and the recommendations were clear: the criminalisation of doctors, cases of fatal foetal abnormalities and the three-day mandatory waiting period all needed to go. The Government has had three years to act on that and it has not. I agree with the Taoiseach that many people who voted "Yes" to repeal, voted "Yes" because of women who needed terminations for medical reasons, yet they are still forced to travel.

Inaction on this is cruel. I ask the Taoiseach to act and to act fast. He says the Government is going to review this. Can he elaborate on the timeline for this? Will he will allow a free vote on this in the Dáil?

In our party we have a free vote, and I initiated that well over a decade ago on matters pertaining to life and death. Let us acknowledge that this has been a hugely contested area in our country. It was a major decision by the Irish people, and one I supported, as the Deputy knows, both inside and outside the House, in respect of the change that occurred.

The Government will examine the review, and we will revert to the House once that examination takes place. I will consult with the Minister for Health in that regard. It is important to point out about 575 terminations occurred under section 11 of the Act between 2019 and 2024 but the Deputy instance about 240 women who have had to travel to the United Kingdom. We need to hear from the experiences of those women to inform the governmental and political review.