I welcome the reporting yesterday of the construction of new homes for the first quarter of this year. Housing construction is up 20% on the same time last year, with a record high of almost 7,000 new homes being built. This is an incredibly positive and encouraging report for anyone who wants to buy their own home and anyone who cares about our citizens having a secure and affordable home. I also welcome the Government's decision this week to increase the grants for vacant and derelict homes. Since this Government was first formed, this is an issue that I, as Fianna Fáil spokesperson in the Seanad, and my colleagues, on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party, have pushed hard on to ensure the State basically tackles the scourge of vacancy and dereliction which exists in every town and village across the country. We have successfully and reasonably argued that the fastest and most sustainable way to increase our housing and affordable housing supply is to reuse existing vacant properties on every street in every town and village in the country. These are properties that are already connected to water, sewerage and electricity, are on public transport routes and are close to shops, villages and schools. The grants that have been announced include a grant of €50,000 from the State for properties that have been vacant for two years or more and those built before 2007, and a grant of €70,000 for derelict properties. These grants are helping young people to achieve homeownership and they are very welcome. They are the fastest and most sustainable way to increase our housing, and I congratulate everybody who worked on making it happen.

I concur with the comments made by Senator Fitzpatrick. It is not just Fianna Fáil that has been pushing it; our colleagues in Fine Gael have been involved too. There is a housing policy group within our party that has been pushing these issues. Indeed, our colleague, Senator Cummins, has been very proactive in putting forward the whole issue of dereliction and supporting those grants.

Are we seeking a debate on housing? We are.

I want to put that on the record. I also want to thank the Cathaoirleach and other colleagues for attending yesterday's event with AsIAm on autism awareness. I welcome the Houses of the Oireachtas initiative that involves all of the parliamentary community taking up autism training. I ask all Members of the Seanad and their staff to take up that training over the next number of months. We want to be one of the first autism-friendly parliaments in the world by the end of December 2023. That includes all 1,500 staff taking part in that training. I urge colleagues to support the initiative.

I also want to raise a few points about carer's allowance. I would like a discussion with the Minister for Social Protection ahead of the budget. Through its work, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Autism has produced evidence and studies which show that as a State, we are not meeting the significant cost to families associated with paying for services in this area. There is no income disregard for those expenses when it comes to applications for carer's allowance. There are families where one parent may have to give up work, yet he or she is not entitled to carer's allowance because his or her partner is working. There is no income disregard for the expenses of €10,000, €15,000 and up to €20,000 that families have on a yearly basis. They are not entitled to carer's allowance. I would like a discussion with the Minister for Social Protection. It needs to be looked at and a change needs to be made in the budget.

We have discussed the issue of the building of housing. There are numerous people in my own area that travel to and from Dublin to work in construction, whether it is roofing, plastering or bricklaying. There is an issue with the changes in the vehicle registration tax, VRT, charges for vans or caddys. I was chatting to representatives of a company yesterday that is looking to bring six lads to Dublin and provide a van for them. The company has to pay €30,000 in VRT to purchase the van. If the business owner bought two small vans that carry three people, he would pay €200 in VRT. We want to reduce the number of vehicles on our roads, especially where those vehicles are for the building industry. They are not being used for social purposes or for bringing kids to school; they are being used to bring workers to Dublin.

I commend the Senator on his work on the initiative that was launched yesterday, and on his leadership in the area of autism and creating autism awareness. As Cathaoirleach, I will be writing to all Members to encourage them to accept that we need to make our Parliament autism-friendly by December 2023. That requires all of us collectively to do that together. I thank Senator Carrigy and the members of the committee for all of the work they have done thus far. We certainly all need to support the next challenge. The Ceann Comhairle spoke on the issue yesterday. I look forward to us all working together on the initiative.