I wish colleagues a happy new year and hope we will have a productive Seanad session. I also wish a happy new year to colleague, Senator Jimmy Harte, and his family.

I hope he will be back with us soon this year. I know that he remains seriously ill. I ask the Leader to pass on our best wishes to him.

I congratulate the Fine Gael and Labour Party councillors on Dublin City Council who last night managed to block a reduction in funding and in fact managed to secure a small increase in funding for homeless services. We have seen a doubling in the number of people presenting as homeless in the greater Dublin area. There is a change in the category of people presenting as homeless. Now, we are seeing more people presenting as homeless because they cannot afford to secure housing. Given that the Government did not reduce funding for homeless services in the budget, I am at a loss to understand how the issue would have arisen in Dublin City Council.

It is because the local property tax is not going the local authorities.

Senator Aideen Hayden should be allowed to speak, without interruption.

I reiterate my call to the Leader for a debate as soon as possible on homelessness.

I also call on the Leader to provide for a debate on home repossessions. A recent Department of Justice and Equality expert group report on repossessions has advocated improving the structure to make it easier to secure repossessions of homes. I have sincere reservations about how repossessions are conducted, who determines whether a mortgage is unsustainable and who is acting as judge and jury on repossessions. I ask that we would have a debate on repossessions with the Minister for Finance and another debate with the Minister for Justice and Equality on the operation of the insolvency service. It is time to review the operation of the service at this stage.