Mark Wall
Kildare South · Labour Party · Ireland
“I understand that the Electoral Commission is undertaking research on this, but we really need to see changes in our voting system to ensure that everyone can take part on voting day.”
“We are seeing lower turnouts in our elections and extending postal votes to a wider range of people would be one measure that could help us all address this issue. I appreciate that the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage may be waiting on the research to be received from the Electoral Commission on postal voting.”
“The Minister is 100% correct that we all want to see recruitment to our Defence Forces continue. However the figures she has given far from the 11,500 sought by the Commission on the Defence Forces by 2028. The Minister mentioned 850 a year. Is that the height of the ambition? It is not going to take us near 11,500.”
“They cannot engage in the democratic process like every other ordinary citizen because they work 24-7, 365 days a year, with no break. This Bill is a small but necessary step to ensure that family carers feel that they can use their voice by voting.”
“There is no single issue here. This is about housing, pensions, pay and conditions. Has the Minister dealt though with the representative organisations on the single public service pension scheme? She might confirm that and let us know whether there is any update.”
“I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to entitle certain persons caring for others to be entered in the register of postal voters, for that purpose to amend the Electoral Act 1992, and to provide for related matters.”
The complete record
Every one of 679 lines we hold for Mark Wall, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 11 of 14.
“They have a child poverty reduction Act, which goes across departments and gets reports from every department of government on what they are doing to tackle child poverty. The Minister might come back and let me know if that is something his Department is looking at along with the other Department he serves and also as a cross-government response to the unacceptable rise in those child poverty figures.”
“First, I join the Minister in thanking the staff of the many SICAP groups in the country, across 31 local authority groups. They do tremendous work - there is absolutely no doubt about that - but the figures we have been presented with from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, show that child poverty in this country has almost doubled, from 4.8% to 8.5%. As I said, it is a particular problem in rural Ireland, notwithstanding the work that SICAP does and the fact that we have a lack of services, particularly around transport whereby people are not able to access hospital appointments, job opportunities, etc. That is having a direct effect on child poverty in rural Ireland. What we need to see is what is happening in Scotland. I would be interested in the Minister's thoughts on this.”
“Regrettably, child poverty is on the rise in this country. It is particularly challenging in rural areas but in many of our communities as well. What is the Department's role in addressing child poverty under the six priority areas identified by the child poverty and well-being unit?”
“Those smaller and medium-sized childcare providers need to be protected. These are the issues on which I look forward to dealing with the Minister in the coming weeks and months. I thank her for her engagement tonight.”
“I hope we can work with the Minister to continue rolling out specialist equipment for them and for everybody, and to have inclusive communities so everybody, and all children, can enjoy the playgrounds that are available to them. As I said, I thank the Minister for tonight's briefing note. I look forward to working with her through this brief. It is a very important one for so many people, including those in our childcare services, who have looked for proper funding for years. I have campaigned for a long time, along with a number of people, for a public childcare model. It is something the Minister will hear me speaking about a great deal in the coming weeks and months. It is time that we took this seriously. It is time that we paid staff in childcare services, who have long campaigned for proper pay and conditions.”
“I met with a number of them recently in north Kildare - my colleague, Deputy Farrelly, may take this up a little more - where there is a desire, given the population, that we increase the number of family resource centres there. It is something they will be contacting the Minister about. I welcome the fact that applications have been opened. I am always interested when a Minister states she is getting more money, in this case, for playgrounds. It is a huge area for so many people. I welcome the fact she mentioned inclusivity and specialist playground equipment because that is huge in so many playgrounds. Many of the playgrounds in Kildare and elsewhere are not, unfortunately, fit for purpose for those with a disability, but they are changing. I welcome that the Government is recognising that.”
“I hope that through the additional money we have we can investigate that, work with section 39 organisations and, more importantly, employees, to try to identify ways we can get more people with a disability into employment. It is one of the biggest areas that is raised with me on a weekly basis by people who are asking for assistance in that area. Hopefully, it is something we can work on together into the future. I welcome the fact the Minister plans to extend family resource centres. There is a number of them in south Kildare that do great work, including one in the town of Athy, which does great work, day in and day out.”
“As is stated on that page, the Government is committed to supporting and empowering people with disabilities and to providing funding in the area of specialist community-based disability services. I take this opportunity to thank all those working in this area, especially section 39 workers. I note that this Vote will pay the public sector pay deal and the WRC section 39 deal. That is to be welcomed. I thank all those section 39 workers who go above and beyond, day in day out, with disability services. The one area I will ask about, and the Minister's Department may not be directly involved in it, is that of empowering people to gain employment. It is a major issue for the disability community and many of those I deal with.”
“It is to be hoped, as the Minister works through the budget, she will look at getting that cost down for so many parents as quickly as possible. I will also mention many of the rural and smaller childcare providers who are suffering. I have spoken with so many of them. They need help. Many of those providers are in areas where others may not provide childcare. They are doing such a great job that they need to be protected, encouraged and developed. I hope the Minister can take that on board because these small and medium childcare providers are in and for communities. They are allowing so many people to get to work and to have children minded as well. On page 4 of the briefing note, the disability budget is referenced. The increase in that is very much welcome.”
“The school-age childcare division in the Department has €1.39 billion. However, UNICEF has proposed an investment of 1% of GNI, which equates to an investment of €2.7 billion. That is something the Government has to seriously look at in the context of the childcare proposals. Every political party spoke about a public childcare model during their election campaigns. We also spoke about the €200 per month cost. The Minister referenced that over the lifetime of the Government she hopes to bring in cover for this €200 cost for parents. This is a huge issue for areas such as Newbridge, in my area. It is a second mortgage, as I described previously, for so many parents. We need to look at this again. We also need to bring in that childcare measure of €200 per month as quickly as possible.”
“We spoke about this previously, when the Minister informed me that an update of the website was coming. If the Minister has an update on that, I hope she can share it with us because that information is so important to parents and those working in the sector. I agree with my colleague on assessments of need. We had a long debate on that yesterday. There is obviously a need to fund Cara's fund and to get that workplace schedule in place as quickly as possible. I gave some examples yesterday of those on the assessments of need waiting list. I will not go back there again, but safe to say it is a huge issue for so many people in public life, as I am sure it is for the Minister and her office. I note and welcome the increase in childcare expenditure, which is now combined for early learning and care.”
“I welcome the Minister to the House. I also thank her for the briefing note. As Deputy Kerrane said, it has been very helpful to us in preparing our few words tonight. I want us all to go back to the previous debate and our discussion of the accommodation recognition payment. I again put on record our thanks for that payment and state how helpful it has been to the Ukrainian community in helping them integrate into the many communities they are in. I look forward to working with the Minister and the Department of Justice on that. The payment has been extended to 2026. I again raise the matter of the national childcare scheme website. I previously raised it as a priority question. As the Minister knows, the website does not list fees for childcare providers for 2021, which is a key year in which fees are benchmarked against core funding.”
“He said, "I mean, it's difficult to describe in words what's happening here ... [with the] constant sound of bombardment jets overhead. ... If Cambodia was the killing fields, then Gaza now is the slaughterhouse." What we need is a ceasefire now.”
“The Labour Party has continued to call on Government to enact the occupied territories Bill in full and I welcome the update on that this afternoon. We will, as my colleague Deputy Smith says, bring a motion to debate on the floor of this House next week and it is already encouraging to see the support the House is giving that particular motion. I acknowledge the Palestinian ambassador in the Public Gallery, whom we met today. She described the situation in Gaza as being beyond anybody's imagination. It seems Israel is being treated by some in the international community as a state beyond international law while Israel does everything in its power to end the State of Palestine. As my colleague has asked, the question is what the UN is doing in all of this. Last weekend I listened to a British surgeon who is working in Gaza.”
“Night after night on our news channels we see the devastation as bombs rain down on the innocent civilians in Gaza. Aid has only begun to trickle into Gaza after 11 weeks without anything, and we are told today that this is only six aid trucks. It is only a drop in the ocean of what is required and what this state was used to before the bombardment started. As a country that recently commemorated our own Gorta Mór, in the psyche of the Irish people famine now waits for Palestine. It has become a weapon for Israel. It is, as our President has said, forced starvation. We have children who are starving, malnourished, too weak to cry. It is like something from an historical Dickens novel. However, this is no novel; it is genocide by the Israeli state.”
“I hope we can see further action on addressing the recruitment crisis. Failure to do so will only slow down the introduction of that statutory scheme.”
“In 2023, €1.5 billion was spent by the Government on the fair deal scheme, compared to only €723 million on home care. We have a long way to go to scale up investment to ensure that people have the right to be cared for in their community. The ESRI has estimated that the projected demand for a statutory home care scheme could increase from 18.56 million hours in 2019 to nearly 42 million hours following that. When we look at nursing home care, we see that the Government spent €1.5 billion on the fair deal scheme compared to €723 million on home care. Given the projected demand, we clearly need to scale up the amount of investment in home care to ensure we can deliver a statutory home care scheme. Yet it is not just a matter of funding, as we all know. There is a massive recruitment and retention issue in the home care sector.”
“In 2023, the wait time was 16.6 weeks, while in 2022 it was 12.7 weeks. Overall, family carers have seen processing times for their appeals increase by nearly a third since 2022. These are just average, and I am aware that a number of carers are waiting well over a year on their appeals, so the wait times are much higher for so many carers. For a family carer, accessing the payment can be a lifeline. We cannot expect family carers to wait for well up to a year for a decision on their appeal. We are seeing a year-on-year increase in the Department's need to get a handle on this processing time. The motion also highlights statutory home care. This was a Government commitment made back in 2017, and it had a deadline for 2021, when it was set for implementation. It was a deadline the Government missed.”
“The wording in the programme for Government is a weak commitment to family carers and is one they will not buy. I ask that the Government once again makes a commitment to abolishing the means test, not having "a view" to abolishing it. Family carers save the State €20 billion a year, which is close to the annual budget of the HSE, and provide 19 million hours in unpaid care every week. We need to value and recognise the societal good provided by family carers and abolish the means test. We also need to look at the appeals process. I have raised the fact that some family carers are waiting over four months for a decision to access the carer's allowance. Figures show that in 2024, the average wait time for progressing a carer's allowance appeal was 16.9 weeks, or over four months.”
“A further point I will add is that taxation of the carer's allowance is grossly unfair. When we look at other comparable payments such as the jobseeker's or disability allowances, we see that they are not taxed even though the carer's allowance is. This places an undue penalty on family carers and further diminishes the caring allowance. We must reform the carer's allowance. I note that in the programme for Government, there is a commitment to continue to increase the income disregards for the carer's allowance in each budget "with a view to phasing out the means test during the lifetime of the Government". This wording is obviously not what was sold to the electorate because Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are on record as committing to abolishing the means test.”
“We know that caring households face additional costs due to caring. Two in five such households have a household income of less than €30,000 a year, and nearly 70% find it difficult to make ends meet. It is estimated that a household caring for a child with a profound disability has additional costs of €244 a week, while the carer's allowance is only €260. That is only a difference of €16. This rate of payment falls way below the poverty line, and with St. Vincent de Paul estimating that for 2024, €346 was needed, this means that many carers on the payment are €86 below the poverty line. As the means test is based on household income, it leaves many carers who do not receive the payment, the majority of whom are women, financially dependent on their partners. This is another reason we must end the means test.”
“I thank the members of the Independent Technical Group for bringing forward this very important motion. The first motion I brought to this House along with my party regarded young carers, so it is positive to see Members continuing to highlight the issues impacting family carers. During the general election, disability and care were central policy areas. I am glad to see that it continues to be a main policy priority among Members here. I am sure like many Deputies across the House, access to carer's allowance, home care hours and disability services are frequent issues that are raised with my office. The carer's allowance payment needs to be reformed, beginning with the abolition of the means test. The payment itself was designed for people caring for older people and is therefore outdated. The payment itself is entirely inadequate.”
“I am sure the Minister of State and her colleagues are dealing with cases also, but we are not getting the reaction these families deserve. We are not getting the reaction that Cara, her father, Mark, her brothers and everybody else deserves. It is time that the Government moved on this. It is time the Government realised that Cara Darmody is not going anywhere. She will continue her protest.”
“It is always important to give the day-to-day experiences of many of the people I deal with. I am dealing with one family at present whose child continues to beat their head off the floor day in, day out. The response from the HSE is group therapy - that the family should talk about their child's needs with their neighbours and strangers. As the mother said to me today, does anyone realise how demeaning that is to her and her family? It is the same for another child who got an assessment in 2012. That child is still waiting for a follow-up assessment. That child is now an adult and will be 21 years of age in February. That is just two cases out of the many cases I deal with on a daily basis, as do many of my colleagues on the Opposition benches.”
“Cara's next step is advocating for her brothers and others like them, as she begins her 50-hour protest at Leinster House today. In my area of County Kildare, we have the second highest number of children who are overdue an assessment of need at nearly 1,700 children. Tens of thousands of children are languishing on waiting lists for essential therapies. More than 20,000 children are waiting on psychology and OT. Nearly 19,000 children are waiting on speech and language therapy while nearly 10,000 are waiting on physio. We know that early intervention is key, yet the average waiting time for the CDNT in my area is more than three years. The CDNT in Kildare is dealing with a massive caseload. We need to seriously consider having two CDNTs to cover this particular area.”
“I want everyone to know that Cara's resolve is unbroken from the 11-year-old I first listened to in 2022. Cara continues to have my support and the support of the entire Labour Party. I will talk about the national emergency she wants declared. Cara has a simple ask for the Government: stop breaking the assessment of needs law and declare that emergency, but it is an ask that the Government has ignored. Many Government leaders and Ministers have met Cara over the past few years and can attest to her determination in advocating for her brothers. However, meetings are not enough. Maybe the Government thought that Cara would disappear but that is another mistake by the Government. Cara is not going anywhere. Families like hers are not going anywhere.”
“I acknowledge the young lady who has brought the entire Opposition together on this very important motion. I met Cara Darmody for the first time in November 2022, when I was a member of the first all-party autism Oireachtas committee. At just 11 years of age, Cara came in to give her testimony. She was the youngest ever person to give testimony at an Oireachtas committee. On the day, just a small number of us were in that committee room, including two members of a local support group from my hometown of Athy. Cara's testimony was powerful and emotional. She spoke about her two brothers, John and Neil, and the challenges they faced on a daily basis. Almost three years later, Cara and her dad, Mark, who I acknowledge in the Public Gallery, are back on the protest again. I joined them earlier today, as I have done numerous times previously.”
“I look forward to mentioning what Cara has done in the battle for her two brothers and also going into some detail of cases I am currently dealing with in my own area of Kildare South.”
“It would have the capacity to see 300 children per week, taking them from the waiting lists I have spoken about in my earlier contribution, but it would also importantly offer much-needed clinical placements and mentoring for the therapists, OTs and other specialists, clinicians and consultants we need in this country. We need to offer them the opportunity to get the placements so many of them are struggling with at the moment. I ask the Minister to urge all in government to get behind this much-needed development in the State. Later this evening we will have the opportunity to discuss this matter further and mention Cara Darmody and her Dad, Mark. I look forward to that.”
“I ask again for clarity on this fund as I have done before. It may go some way towards addressing the long wait times if parents can access private therapies through a temporary Government grant. Not for the first time, I raise the issue of the national child development centre to be operated by Sensational Kids. I am aware that the organisation will submit its proposal to the HSE for capital funding in the coming weeks. It is sad to see this potential state-of-the-art treatment centre lying block-high and unfinished in Kildare town.”
“Parents need to see some light at the end of what can be a very dark tunnel for their children who need help. We need to train more therapists and specialists. We need to see them on the ground working in schools but there seems to be no strategy for this from the Government. We know there is no quick fix but there are many ways in which the Government can provide immediate relief to those children and their families. Short- and medium-term measures need to be considered by the Government, such as the Labour Party proposal to outsource diagnostic assessments for children waiting the longest. Another proposal is to utilise the National Treatment Purchase Fund to reimburse parents who have already paid huge amounts for private therapies. In the programme for Government there is a mention of grant funding for children's therapies.”
“Waiting lists are in the tens of thousands for essential therapies with over 20,000 children waiting on psychology and occupational therapy, 19,000 waiting on speech and language therapy and nearly 10,000 are waiting on physiotherapy. Every expert agrees that early intervention is key. We are all aware of this and many Ministers are on record acknowledging this fact. Yet the average wait time for the CDNT in Kildare is more than three years. The Government is missing the critical point for early intervention for these children. It is simply failing them. The Government needs to provide transparency and accountability on this issue. It should be publishing monthly waiting lists for assessment of need and therapies. We need to know that these figures are going in the right direction.”
“Not a single day goes by on which this Government does not break the law regarding the statutory timeline under the Disability Act for an assessment of need. In a previous Commencement matter with the then Minister of State, she described it as "Groundhog Day" and "as bad as it can get". Unfortunately, it has got worse since then. Now over 15,000 children are waiting on an assessment in my own area of Kildare, where we have the second highest number of children who are overdue an assessment. Nearly 1,700 children are overdue an assessment in Kildare and Wicklow. Even if a child receives an assessment, they are likely to languish on another waiting list with many other children.”
“The Government needs to set a date for the introduction of a public system and provide a clear roadmap that has vision and ambition. We need to give certainty to those working in the sector and help struggling families to reduce their childcare costs.”
“The Labour Party's ambitions for a public model of early education and school-age childcare would guarantee equal access and prioritise the opening of new services where there is a shortage of childcare places. In my area, Kildare, a number of purpose-built premises are lying vacant waiting for the State to roll out a public model. These are the areas that the Government must target first. For many private providers, there are areas that are not profitable to go into, particularly rural towns and villages. This is where the State needs to step in. Doing so would provide an equal start for many young children and reduce the cost burden on ordinary working families. A public learning and childcare system would ensure equality for children, affordability for parents and fairness for professionals.”
“The Government will have spent €350,000 on consultancy fees researching a national agency on childcare, but there is nothing to show for this yet. The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund has invested in an equity firm that made a €10.5 million investment in a private for-profit operator, this being another example of the Government speaking out of both sides of its mouth. How can the Government possibly move towards a public model when it is trying to profit from this crisis? State resources should be invested in building a public model of childcare, not in for-profit providers. I ask the Minister to commit in the House tonight to divesting from this equity firm.”
“As the Minister is aware, €207 million in State funding has been paid to the sector since 2022 to support improved pay. However, the Minister has stated EROs do not absorb the available core funding signalled for staff pay and graduate leaders. We need to know what the Department and the Minister will do to address this. In the Labour Party's vision for a public model, we see educators being brought into line with their colleagues in primary education and integrated fully into the education system. We need to achieve professional wages for our early years educators, with a minimum rate of €15 per hour, and recognise qualifications and experience if we truly want high-quality early years education.”
“We have a long way to go. Staff are leaving in their droves due to low pay, with a survey by SIPTU showing the sector is struggling to retain staff and an average turnover of 25%. The Government recently confirmed an additional €15 million to support providers in meeting the cost of increasing the minimum rates of pay. For 2025, that is €45 million. Despite this, there has been great frustration among unions and educators due to the lack of progress on the new employment regulation order. The sector could be looking at losing €860,000 per week due to continued delays in implementing increased minimum rates of pay. The Minister must confirm what action she is taking to ensure the talks at the joint labour committee do not stall any longer.”
“Funding streams are now inadequate for many smaller providers to sustain their businesses. The Government needs to put its money where its mouth is and ramp up the investment in the childcare sector. Small to medium sized businesses are struggling to make ends meet. Eleven services in Kildare alone have already closed out of 184. This year, over 30 service providers have withdrawn from core funding. In the previous two years, 140 services withdrew. Clearly, the Government does not have the ambition to match what is required in investing in our early years childcare sector. UNICEF has suggested 1% of GNI, which equates to an investment of €2.7 billion. Any country that is serious about investing in high-quality, affordable early-years education needs to consider a proportion between 1% and 2%. Ireland is way behind, at 0.4%.”
“A commitment contained in the current programme for Government is to reduce fees to €200. Most Scandinavian countries operate this model, with a fee cap and additional reductions based on the number of children and means. It is not a model that fits Ireland exactly but the basic values of equality, affordability and fairness must provide the foundation of Ireland's own public model of childcare. A public model cannot operate on its own; it needs to be backed up by increased family leave entitlements to ensure we address the gender care gap between men and women, promote the involvement of more men in caring duties and support women's labour market participation. We have to acknowledge that reducing childcare fees will not bring one additional childcare place. We need to address the workforce challenges facing the sector in tandem.”
“Parents in Kildare pay an average fee of €850 a month, with the highest fee in the county standing at €1,154. Despite core funding promising to reduce costs, working families continue to see their childcare fees increase. It was a blow to many working families that instead of reducing fees, one of the first actions of the new Government was to approve fee increases of nearly 20% for some childcare providers. The Minister has said that getting to the cap of €200 per month per child is a long journey. This is simply another row-back by the Government on its election promises and a blow to families who need to know when the long journey of the second mortgage will end. The Labour Party was the first party to call for childcare fees to be capped at €200, so it is welcome that many other parties followed suit.”
“I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion on behalf of the Labour Party. I thank Deputy Kerrane and her Sinn Féin colleagues for bringing it forward. Like many Deputies, I have been contacted by parents struggling to either find or afford a childcare place. I have also spoken to a number of providers in Kildare who are struggling either due to low funding or an inability to get staff. The current system of early years education and care is not working for anyone. It does not work for parents, providers or staff. Ireland has some of the highest childcare fees in the European Union, with many working families paying a second mortgage in childcare fees. We also have the highest level of private provision of any OECD country. Childcare fees in my county of Kildare far exceed the nationwide average of €790 a month.”
“The Minister is 100% right. One of the main questions I get in my clinics when people come in to fill out applications for a State pension is about the qualifying contributions and so on. It is important that we all broadcast this and put it on our social media and everywhere else we can, as the figures are low. It is a start but we need to encourage more people to avail of it and to get their just reward for what they have done over those 20 years. I look forward to working with the Minister on that promotion and ensuring that people get their reward over the coming period of time.”
“I thank the Minister. We have spoken about this already today, as the Minister rightly said. It is encouraging to see the number of people who have been rewarded. We have spoke about women and their contribution. That is reflected in the numbers the Minister has presented. They are the ones that unfortunately had to stay at home in many cases to look after children. They get their due reward through this 20-year contribution that the Government has made. It is worthwhile and positive that we have the figures now so that we can encourage more people to apply for it. I look forward to more people availing of this contribution, and rightly so, for the work they have done in the home over so many years.”
“I wish to ask the Minister the number of people who have been added to the family carers register under the long-term carers contribution scheme, the number that have been awarded the full-rate State pension, and the number that have been awarded a reduced rate.”
“Too many people are suffering from a lack of supports, particularly now, when we have heard the kite flying from Ministers that there will be no more temporary payments come the budget next year. There are a lot of worried families. We can do some good work on the social protection committee by trying to come up with some solutions for those families.”
“I thank the Minister. Reference has been made to the work programme for the social protection committee. I am sure, along with others in the House, that this is something that we would love to have included in the work programme. It is very important for many people when they are looking at an additional €30,000 that they have to scrape for to find. This is a substantial amount. This is an average that has been outlined in one of the most recent reports that I have seen. I look forward to engaging with the Minister at the social protection committee on this topic. It is important that it forms an early part of our discussions on the work programme.”
“The services he mentioned are very important for families. If they do not get the additional payments, which we are being told will not come in the next budget, we are going to see a lot of families scraping by. They will be in a lot of trouble come the winter months in particular with the cost of disability as it stands at the moment.”
“As part of the work of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Autism, we had a number of presentations on the cost of disability to families. One of the most recent reports I have seen shows there is an additional €30,000 per annum cost for a family with a disability or a loved one with a disability. That is obviously substantial and causes hardship. A lot of that hardship is ongoing. The Minister mentioned temporary payments in the context of how they mask what is really going on behind the doors of those families who are scraping to get by to pay for their loved ones, heating and everything else they must pay. Can the Minister provide a timeframe? While he said he would commit to this throughout the lifetime of this Government, can we get some more dates as to when we can actually see a cost of that?”
“Will the Minister update the House on the work his Department has carried out to date on designing a cost of disability payment, as outlined in the programme for Government, the expected date of such a payment and the amount involved?”