As I do not have a speaking slot on the budget later, I will comment on it briefly. I commend our negotiating team. It looks like a thoughtful budget. We have all known about the cost-of-living crisis for the past 18 months. The budget continues to support people exactly where it needs to, not only through increases in weekly payments to people who have no other income, but also through one-off universal payments to acknowledge that people are still struggling with their ESB bills, the petrol in their tanks and such things. As a parent who has three children in college, I am particularly mindful of the fees reduction and continued support for university fees. The increase in the student universal support Ireland, SUSI, grant is welcome for the hundreds of thousands who go to college every year. I welcome the rental tax credit and continued support for housing, which not only the Government, but the rest of the country knows is the single biggest issue facing the country, the continued investment of billions of euro and the continuation of some of the effective schemes that are helping people, such as first-time buyers - 400 per week, according to the statistics - to buy their homes. These are not just statistics. They are real families and real couples getting their first real house because of the supports provided by the State. I acknowledge the hard work that has been done in recent months and I hope things will get easier for people in the next year. The predictions are that inflation will start coming down. I hope people's wage increases will be larger than the increases in costs and things might get back to a little bit of what we used to think was normal before Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war.

I will touch on what Senator Dooley said. We are in the middle of reacting to the most horrific scenes we all witnessed at the weekend. The gratuitous violence and callous loss of life caused by terrorists is something to behold. I do not think I will ever be able to wrap my head around any reason for it. Despite the fact that many, including colleagues in this House and the other House, have sought to justify the actions of the weekend, there is no justification for violence, needless or not, in any situation. There is a genuine justification for the care of innocent people, including innocent Palestinians who do not support Hamas or any violence in their name, innocent Israelis and international people who are missing and being searched for. It is a horrendous situation. If there was ever a need for the international community to double down and genuinely show a serious intent to provide a solution to a situation that has gone on for far too long, and longer than I am alive, there is now. I welcome the Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin's, statement this morning. We now need to see international leaders walking the walk and not just talking the talk.