Last weekend, I was delighted to see Irishman Dr. Michael Ryan being given an outstanding lifetime achievement award for being a director of the WHO and what he has accomplished. However, in the past week he also spoke about the life expectancy in parts of Dublin's inner city. I was blown away by what he said about the inner city and Summerhill, where he said the life expectancy is just 61 years of age compared with a national average of 83. If we think about that, just a couple of kilometres from this House, people are dying more than 20 years earlier than others in the same country. It is much more than a health issue. It is poverty, addiction, inter-generational trauma, poor housing, poor mental health supports and isolation and it is all colliding together.

While we speak in this House about social inclusion and community, we often talk about statistics but what he was talking about was generations of people who have been left behind in Dublin's city centre. I have worked in the inner city for over 20 years through the charity Tiglin and the Lighthouse, and I have sat with men and women who never had a real chance from childhood onwards and who experienced neglect, homelessness, violence, prison and hopelessness. I know that when intervention is allowed to happen, it works. Early intervention and recovery works. Education works and there are wonderful community initiatives that work. When housing is done right, that works, but what does not work is allowing the normalisation of deprivation in communities, such as those that Mike Ryan mentioned, so that a life expectancy of 61 no longer shocks us. That should be a headline for us all.

I am asking for a debate in this House on health inequality, life expectancy and the disparities there are in Ireland, particularly in inner cities, as well for an urgent cross-departmental response involving housing, health, addiction and community regeneration. We talked about Fianna Fáil being 100 years old. We have a lot to be proud of but our post codes should never determine how long we live.