I join others in wishing everyone a happy and peaceful Christmas and good health throughout 2017.

The issue of housing has been raised. We have a housing crisis, but we also have a crisis in the number of vacant dwelling houses in the country. There are over 190,000 vacant houses, something to which we need to face up. We must determine how to bring these houses back into use. Senator Kevin Humphreys has raised the issue of houses that are vacant because their owners are in nursing homes. We must find ways to incentivise owners to bring these houses back into use, rather than leaving them vacant. If all of the 190,000 vacant houses were used, we would not have a housing crisis. We must address this issue now, as well as building new houses through local authority schemes and the private sector. We have not done anything to date about this very important issue.

As we face into Christmas time, there will be major pressure on emergency departments. The big problem in that context is that 30% of all admissions to such departments are alcohol related. We need to send a strong message about the need to drink in moderation during the Christmas and new year period in order to reduce the numbers of admissions through emergency departments.

It is an extremely important message to send at this time. People can enjoy themselves by drinking in moderation and not ending up inside an emergency department. It is an extremely important issue.