Paul McAuliffe
Dublin North-West · Fianna Fáil · Ireland
“In the context of the previous Government, some of our Green Party colleagues were also supportive of this for a range of other reasons relating to delivering the circular economy. From what I hear, one outcome of the review could be the creation of a franchised service.”
“It would allow it to say that in the context of my area of Finglas, it is not appropriate that because an area is more affluent, people living in that road have access to five bin companies and because somewhere else is less affluent, it is stuck with one bin company.”
“I made a commitment to Deputies Gannon and Sherlock in 2019 in an agreement we signed together to pursue the issue of remunicipalisation. It was the right thing to do then and it is the right thing to do now. It is not an accident that there are many Dublin-based Deputies in the House for this debate.”
“If Dublin City Council had been allowed address the housing crisis back in 2012, 2013 or 2014, when it was impacting the city far more than anywhere else, we would have been ahead of the curve.”
“-----to put in place waste solutions that suit their areas. If this means that there is a different solution in Dublin City Council's area than in the other local authority areas across the county, then that is how it should be. Unfortunately, that power rests with the chief executive.”
“To break that down a little, the issues Deputies Gannon and Sherlock are having in the city centre are vastly different from the ones that are relevant in my constituency. We do not have an issue with bags. Nor do we have the same street structures or networks.”
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“The Minister of State is right that this scheme has transformed the scheme but because of that decision not to replace a gas boiler, a very expensive heat pump system is being put in place. That is fantastic for those who avail of this but that transforms the scheme itself and the cost of the scheme. It will mean that fewer people will have access to the scheme if those resources are used. There is a question to be asked: where the boiler is not replaced by SEAI, why they cannot just put in the insulation and leave the boiler as it is? People will be in a better and warmer home with the insulation going into their home and leaving the boiler as it is, or leave them to apply for it through a council grant or replacement parts. They are being excluded from the whole scheme because of the single issue of the boiler.”
“He spent a year waiting for that decision and he was incredibly disappointed. Another lady called Monica is 88 years of age. She was offered a heat pump under the pilot scheme but she really was not sure what a heat pump was and there was no real explanation of how she could be helped. The SEAI needs to get better at putting in place a solution and explaining it to people when it is offered.”
“I appreciate the response. The most important point the Minister of State made is that this is a fully funded scheme. Unlike the other grant schemes available to local authorities under which the responsibility falls on the individual owner to decide how they will replace their boiler, this is a fully funded scheme and it is up to the SEAI to provide the solution. There is difficulty, however, for a number of people I have been dealing with who previously would have been eligible for the full scheme with the wraparound and all the rest of it. Because of this issue with the boilers I am aware that in one case the household ended up getting four LED bulbs and a bit of attic insulation. The SEAI needs to get better at having a solution in place. The example I gave was a gentleman called Bill in Elm Mount.”
“As the Minister of State will know, the better energy warmer homes scheme is an incredibly popular scheme. Now that the Government has expanded eligibility to fuel supplement recipients more and more people are availing of it. The Taoiseach said that 26% of homes are eligible for the fuel supplement. The changes earlier in the year to the European Commission's rulings on state funding of replacement of fossil fuel devices is having an impact on the better energy warmer homes scheme. It is time for the scheme to be reviewed to reflect that.”
“In my constituency between Shanowen Road and Collins Avenue there are proposals to build new apartment developments. While the additional new housing is incredibly welcome, unfortunately the under-utilised industrial estate there is currently occupied by Santry Boxing Club. Would the Taoiseach agree as well as powering ahead with the provision of new housing, Dublin City Council needs to have a more proactive strategy of making land available to sports clubs so they can avail of programmes like the sports capital grant? Santry Boxing Club is an amazing local facility and will be a great facility for those new homes that will be built. As well as enabling new homes, we need to put in place new facilities, and Dublin City Council needs to be more proactive in making land available to sports clubs.”
“I ask that the Minister of State's office keep an eye on this at a micro level, as I know it does on many other projects, because we want to make sure there is no further slippage for this school and that these part-time places can be converted very quickly into regular full-time provision.”
“I thank the Minister of State, and particularly his office, which I have been in touch with many times on this issue. We do not control the planning process and it was unexpected that the additional information would be required. The difficulty is that parents like Marie, Leanne and others who have been in touch with me were effectively offered half a place. They were told they had to take it and they were not sure they would have it again. The building was not in place and even the solution was not there for a full-time place. Their children have gone from having full-time places in preschool and in other schools to part-time places. How they were locked into having to accept those places was unsatisfactory. All that said, we want to now focus on the delivery of the project.”
“I understand that there is a short period in terms of planning, building and so on, but where a child is on reduced hours for six or eight months, the impact, including on the parents, is very significant. I urge the Minister of State to make sure this project is completed as soon as possible.”
“I thank the Minister of State. We welcomed the sanction of special classes in the Finglas national school. It is an incredibly historic school and one of the original model schools. The difficulty is that, in the meantime, there is a temporary provision in a local community hall where, only on a part-time basis, education is being provided. The difficulty with that is that many parents moved their children from full-time places either in other schools where they were not in an ASD class or from a preschool where there was dedicated special education. They have gone from a situation of being in full-time education to now being in reduced hours because the local community hall is being used for other purposes.”
“I welcome the support the Minister of State and his Department have given in opening new ASD classes in my own constituency over the last number of years. I also welcome the recent visit he made to St. Michael's House Special National School when it was opening its new building on a great day for that community. I wish to ask the Minister of State about the Finglas Parochial National School and the provision of ASD classes at its location.”
“24 will now service O'Connell Bridge and the quays. This is a really important change. Working with local elected representatives will, I believe, assist the NTA. It is not about answering every query but they will assist them in balancing the changes that need to be made. We need to be including elected representatives far earlier in the roll out of each BusConnects phase.”
“I wish to raise with the Tánaiste the issue of BusConnects. This morning the National Transport Authority, NTA, and Dublin Bus met with elected representatives in my area and they accepted that the roll out of the F spine has been incredibly poor. They have committed to putting in a new timetable, which would reflect congestion, and to having additional drivers in place compared to the number at the beginning. Would the Tánaiste agree that we have to get better at implementing these BusConnects programmes to instil confidence? This involves having a sufficient number of drivers, picking the right time of year for it to be implemented and including local elected representatives who can often help them balance some of the decisions. For example, today they have confirmed that the No. 23 and No.”
“Local post offices in villages right across the northside of Dublin are having viability issues, but it is their rural colleagues who are often talked about. If we do not have a reliable postal service and post office network, we will suffer. I welcome the viability funding that was provided by the Government. That is important. I ask the Tánaiste to assist me in trying to improve the post service in the local Grove Park and Glasnevin areas. He might contact An Post on my behalf. Will he assure me that we will support urban postmasters?”
“An Post is one of our core public services, one that has many fantastic people working within it. Over the past two weeks, I have had the opportunity to engage with two groups of people who have concerns about our post service. The first group relates to post delivery. The Grove Park and Glasnevin areas of my constituency have had significant disruption to their post services as a result of issues around recruitment, rosters and so on. As the Tánaiste knows, people rely on their post services. I have had examples of bank cards arriving late and people missing oncology appointments as a result. It is really important. It is important that An Post is able to respond to that challenge as well. I met with a group of urban postmasters, which is a group that is often forgotten, about the viability of urban post offices.”
“That is the policy we tried in 1977. I urge us to continue to work on this issue because there is a lot of cross-party work on it. I acknowledge former Deputy, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, who worked on it as well.”
“I urge the Minister of State to examine that section as she goes before the Oireachtas joint committee to examine and tease out all of the provisions. The joint committee made clear that it wanted to repeal section 3 but it must be replaced. Members were also clear on the point about removing the criminal justice system from possession itself. The key people that we have to target are those who are selling drugs and who are exploiting people who have experienced trauma or living in poverty or who perhaps tried this on a recreational basis and became addicted because of other factors. Deputy Tóibín stated that it makes it easier for parents to dissuade people from drugs use by it being illegal. If the Deputy were correct, we would not have the drugs problem we have at present.”
“They might decide that they are going to penalise working communities that have high levels of drug sales when there might be the same level of drug use in middle-class communities. We cannot leave an element of discretion in the law. We would not do it in other areas. I have seen it compared, for example, with the decriminalisation of sex workers where we put the criminal sanction on the person procuring the service, not the person selling it. Let us imagine we had said, "but we will leave a discretion so that the person who was selling the service might be prosecuted". It would not work. If we believe that vulnerable person has an addiction, we should not have the criminal justice system involved in that; we should only have health-led approaches.”
“We should have an approach were we decriminalise the person and not legalise the substance and if we did that, we would be able to progress a strong health-led approach. I welcome the wording in the programme for Government, which was also welcome by CityWide, the respected organisation, but there is an expectation that we do exactly what Paul Reid said and remove the criminal justice system from the possession of drugs. Whatever system comes forward on that, we cannot leave any type of discretion with individual gardaí. The reason I say so is that while we could say, "Surely you would leave that to the discretion of the local gardaí", drugs policy will be policed differently in different communities . In some areas, gardaí might penalise people who are sleeping homeless.”
“The Minister of State mentioned the Department's position on this and in some ways, I wish the joint committee engagement had happened in advance of this debate. We can tease things out at the committee. Paul Reid clearly said that the citizens' assembly was clear it wished to remove the possession of drugs from the criminal justice system. The difficulty with not removing the criminal sanction is that if we leave any element of discretion under that principle, we will leave ourselves in a difficult position and we will not move forward on it. If, for example, we give gardaí the ability to have discretion as to whether some type of people would be prosecuted or other types of people would not, we would put an unfairness and an injustice at the heart of our drugs policy.”
“Deputy O'Donoghue's contribution was important as well. We can have a law-and-order approach on this and a compassionate health-led and, I believe, decriminalised approach to the possession of personal drugs because the people who are the problem here are those who are trafficking, selling and manufacturing large quantities of drugs, making millions of euro out of it and exploiting people with an addiction. Something I thought most informative from the Oireachtas joint committee hearings was the Portuguese police contribution stating that more of their time was now available to tackle the drug gangs and the people selling drugs in large numbers as a result of not prosecuting small personal possession.”
“I welcome the debate on this issue as I have on many other occasions and acknowledge Deputy Sherlock for bringing the motion forward. I also acknowledge how appreciative I am of participating in the debate. I remind my Opposition colleagues that they fought tooth and nail to exclude Government backbenchers from participating in Private Members' Bills being brought forward by the Opposition but on the day that is in it, let us be collegiate. The reason I say that is it is important that people from different perspectives contribute to this debate. Deputy Kenny's contribution earlier was important because he talked about going on a journey. There are lots of people that we need to expose to the medical evidence. We need to expose them to the work of the citizens' assembly and the Oireachtas joint committee. There is a huge body of work.”
“Finally, the east Finglas and Glasnevin area now no longer have a connection to places like Na Fianna, Scoil Mobhí and the Glasnevin-Drumcondra area. They are the structural route issues and I can work with the NTA on those, but what we cannot do is roll out a new service and fail to deliver the proposed service or roll out a new service and provide a less frequent or lower capacity service. This is a matter that the NTA will have to address. In asking the Minister of State this question, the NTA will have had to have prepared a response to input into the Department. I hope doing so was a call for action.”
“There is no longer a local connection between west Finglas and south Finglas, with many people living in one area but their children in school in the other. Routes Nos. 23 and 24 no longer serve the north city centre - the O'Connell Street area - so people from the area are now dropped off at George's Street or Merrion Square, which are miles away from the traditional shopping areas that they would have gone to in Henry Street or Mary Street. There is now no bus service operating in the Beneavin Road area, particularly where it interacts with Glasnevin Avenue. The diversion of the former No. 9 bus from a road that has a bus lane onto Ballygall Road East which does not have a bus lane, makes absolutely no sense.”
“I thank the Minister of State. I am reassured that the NTA has said it will monitor frequency because anybody who has seen any of the bus stops or any of the buses being used will see that an increase in frequency is required. I am certain it is going to have to respond because of the level of demand. The difficulty is how long will it take the NTA to take that action. I know BusConnects is controversial in different areas. I have encountered that in some areas and it involves some compromises at times. There are positive elements to the service, such as two new 24-hour bus routes, additional new services, connections to the Luas and so on. However, it is the basic design of the service that many people were very disappointed with.”
“At the very least, if Dublin Bus and the NTA are going to implement new services, the frequency should be appropriate to the demand. There should not be extensive numbers of people at bus stops. There should not be limited space on a bus early in the route and there should not be missing buses. A very basic provision of services is needed.”
“The NTA should be able to resolve these issues with the provider, in this case Dublin Bus, but I am really disappointed with the response of the NTA. It has not reacted to what is clearly an issue around service delivery. It has not reacted to the bedding-in problems and tried to address them. From the feedback of the constituents who have been in touch with me, they are very dissatisfied. This is basic stuff. People plan their day around the bus service. This bus service worked for many years but now, as a result of the changes, there are people being late to work and missing connections and there is the core problem of the routes not servicing the areas that were previously serviced. I will cover that in a moment.”
“Instead of the bus service being much more frequent, at 10 or 15 minutes, we are now down to 20 minutes. If one of those buses does not turn up, in the morning times children go out for a 8.10 a.m. bus and are not getting that bus until nearly 8.40 a.m. or 8.45 a.m.. They are late for school despite having been at the bus stop for an hour. I am talking about a 15-minute journey here. This is something that should not occur because there is demand for that service and the frequency should be there to meet it. I am getting reports of bus stops with 15 to 20 people waiting on buses. When the bus arrives, there is no room for people to get on. This is happening very early in the route. It might happen at the second or third stop on the route.”
“However, in the three weeks since the implementation occurred on 19 October, the routes alone are no longer the issue. There has been an absolutely calamitous roll-out of the service over the past three weeks - one of those weeks being the midterm week, when many children were away from school and not using the service. Whatever about people getting used to new routes or trying to find new ways of getting to work or arranging their school runs and so on, the reduced frequency on these routes is now the biggest issue. When you put the failure of certain buses to turn up on top of that, people are waiting, on average, between 30 and 40 minutes, according to the emails I have received. I have received nearly 100 emails in the past three weeks on this issue. For example, the new 23 and 24 routes have a reduced frequency.”
“It is with huge regret that I raise the issue of the organisation of bus routes in my area here in the Dáil Chamber with the Minister of State. It is something that, between the NTA and the operators of those buses, should not come to the floor of the Dáil. We know BusConnects has been controversial in many places where it has rolled out. It has proven so in the latest phase, phase 7, in the areas of Finglas and Glasnevin that it has impacted. From 19 October, the 9, 83, 140, 40 and 40b were replaced with the new bus routes 23, 24, F1, F2 and F3. While the consultation was done over an extended period, there was dissatisfaction with the routes. As in any change process, some people will be happy and others will be unhappy, but there are a number of very simple changes that could have been made to address the issues.”
“We have to make sure the energy companies know that their feet are being held to the fire on the issue of price. I agree with other speakers about the CRU. It needs to do more to make sure consumers are getting the lowest possible price, given the mandate of the CRU. It is incredibly important. When people in our constituency offices say they are afraid to turn their heating on because they are not sure what the impact will be, or when people on a pay-as-you-go scheme cannot shop around to avail of different providers, we know how important the issue of energy prices is. While I welcome the Government's measures on the 9% VAT rate, which is really important, and on the fuel poverty schemes, I believe we need to do more on energy prices. I welcome the Bill.”
“With regard to the budget, there were targeted measures and there were general measures, as there have been in past budgets. The Opposition criticised us for not introducing more targeted measures in previous budgets but they seem to have forgotten that this time around when we made more targeted decisions. The 9% VAT rate was really key in keeping energy prices low. If that not had been done, people right across the country would have been paying significantly more for their ESB bills. That is really important but it does nothing to address the issue around energy prices. Energy prices in Ireland are too high. There are lots of reasons for that, some of them structural and some of them to do with our connectivity to the rest of Europe and so on.”
“The work we have done includes the fuel supplement scheme, which has been massively expanded. If I am right, I think I heard a Minister say this morning that 26% of homes now are included under the fuel supplement scheme. That happened because we significantly expanded eligibility for people over the age of 70. These are people who worked hard all their lives, who bought their home and who own their home. They are now eligible for the fuel supplement. This also makes them eligible for the better energy warmer homes scheme, which allows them to get a full wraparound insulation system. This has a massive impact on their energy bills. There is a lot of connectivity between the different schemes we currently have. The measures in this Bill add to the overall investment.”
“This is the reason I brought forward the Energy Poverty Reduction (Use of Surplus Renewable Energy) Bill 2025. The idea is that we come up with a national strategy for that surplus energy. Energy that is otherwise being wasted or earthed into the ground every evening could be a digital or virtual district heating system right across the country. It could be heating the hot water tanks of many people across the country. It could be charging electric car batteries and so on. Having a national strategy for surplus wind energy is really key. I urge the Government to consider my Bill and to put every effort into bringing forward a strategy in this respect. I know the Ministers are supportive of it and I look forward to progress on this. The idea is that we can use surplus wind energy to tackle fuel poverty.”
“The interconnectors are really key because while they increase Ireland's electricity security, they also give us an opportunity to export renewable energy, an area where I believe we are going to be world leaders. We have already made great strides. The passing of the Maritime Area Planning Act 2021, which the Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, and I soldiered on at the committee, is having an impact but we need to do more and the Government needs to do more. The provision of renewable energy is something that we could see being implemented very quickly now. One of the issues with the renewable energy system, particularly wind energy, relates to surplus wind energy that happens at night. When energy is not able to be used by the grid, it is effectively earthed into the ground.”
“I welcome the Bill before the House. While it includes technical measures to increase the actual borrowing limit for the ESB and to provide for additional share capital to be issued, in essence it is about making an additional investment in our electricity supply. This is incredibly important in an Ireland that is growing and will have additional demands in the future. Even in today's market, there are communities in my district that are experiencing difficulties because of issues with electricity supply capacity, with appliances being damaged in their homes and so on. I welcome the additional investment. I also welcome the investment in the provision of interconnectors, particularly the North-South Interconnector. The investments here will be an important tool in order to deliver that.”
“We come back to the point on recognising the real cost of disability. When you have a disability, your cost of living is significantly more. Am I sharing time?”
“However, the idea you can earn €52,000 a year as a single person or up to €108,000 a year as a couple and still receive the full carer’s allowance is something I am appreciative of and I appreciate the work the Government has done on that. Having outlined something I am appreciative of, let me move on to the area where I would have liked to have seen more. The Disability Federation of Ireland did a significant amount of work with me in the last three years on trying to identify the real cost of disability and a payment that might be made. The previous Green Paper was rightly pulled because it sought to categorise people by virtue of their disabilities and their economic ability to work. We knew that, first, it would have been very impractical and, second, there was a sense it was echoing a British model that had not worked.”
“While in this budget we incorporated a huge number of people into the carer’s allowance, we have not yet got to the point of dealing with that issue. The abolition of the carer’s means test over five years is an objective of the Government but we have to move quickly on it. It is worth acknowledging, because it has not been acknowledged significantly, that we have done a huge amount of work, especially with regard to couples. The €52,000 figure for single people still seems like a significant amount, but there can be people who, by virtue of part-time work or other income, get caught, so we still have a little work to do for them.”
“In particular, if there are two people in a home and one is working, my understanding of the budget is that the other person can be earning up to €108,000 per year and the person who is caring will be able to receive the full carer’s allowance. There will be many different examples people give, but the vast majority of people who came to me were not earning anything like €108,000 per year. That measure, while not abolishing the means test for carers, has gone a very significant way to meeting the requests of the group who were excluded from the allowance. It does not yet address the first point, which is the principle that they are doing work, so it should not be a social assistance payment but should be a payment for caring.”
“The second area was the principle that many people were excluded from receiving the carer’s allowance, especially because they, either by way of part-time work or by way of their partner’s income, were denied the allowance. It was particularly cruel that somebody’s partner might have a very good job, get overtime, get a bonus or receive a promotion, and when that happens, their partner who is caring for somebody lost their carer’s allowance. Often, it might happen over time and people are in real fear they owe money to the Department. The two issues, namely, the principle that carers are doing a job and should be paid for caring and the exclusion of people from the allowance, were real issues in the general election, so I welcome the measures in the budget that include significantly more people in the carer’s allowance.”
“I will focus on two areas in the budget. One is the carer's allowance, particularly the means test. I was spokesperson on social protection previously and I have done some work with the carers' association. In the previous general election, the issue of the carer's allowance was discussed at some length. Two areas of concern were raised, one of which was the principle that if somebody is caring for somebody else, the payment should not be a social assistance payment but a payment for the care being given for that work. Many carers felt they were providing a real benefit to the State and saving it money and that was not being recognised.”
“While TDs and the citizens' information service can help and support such people, in many cases, people with a profound mental illness can find themselves utterly lost in applying for basic public services. Many civil servants do their very best to guide people through but the advocacy services that are available are very important. I urge the Minister of State to continue with the work she is doing.”
“We must remember to check in on each other during those times. I make particular reference to the older people I spoke about earlier. We have a long way to go. In addition to the interaction I had with that young man in the emergency department, people regularly present to my clinics with a housing or social welfare issue but, after a number of minutes, I become aware that there may be a mental illness issue involved as well. It can often be incredibly difficult to navigate anybody through public service bureaucracy but navigating someone with a mental illness - I am making that distinction between mental illness and mental health - through can be incredibly difficult. There are advocacy services to assist those people.”
“While elements might work, we need mental health legislation that better reflects the current growing needs of those seeking help. I supported the passage of the Mental Health Bill 2024 through the Dáil in July and I welcome its continued passage through the Houses. If I am correct, it is with the Seanad at the moment. We must continue to reduce mental health stigma and promote the broad range of services and supports that are available to people in communities right across the country, which I understand the Minister of State is actively doing. It is often said that there is no health without mental health. That becomes all too true in the winter months. Longer nights and colder evenings mean that people do not have the same freedom to get out and circulate, often leading to a sense of cabin fever or isolation.”
“It not only provides certainty for graduates at the beginning of their careers, it also ensures that patients benefit more from a stable and sustainable workforce. Mental health does not exist in isolation. It can be influenced by housing instability, employment or education. It can also be influenced by trauma. I welcome the investment in trauma-informed communities around the country. We know the impact trauma and adverse childhood experiences, ACEs, have and how that can impact how people engage with public services. I encourage all public services, including front-facing counters in local authorities and so on, to ensure that staff are trauma informed because trauma can often impact how people interact with services. The Mental Health Act has been in place for 25 years.”
“I also compliment the use of apprenticeships in this area and particularly in the area of social care. We can do a lot more on apprenticeships. When we brought in degree-level qualifications for nurses, they spoke about the parity with their colleagues in the nursing profession this provided them. We can do more in the area of social care with regard to that element of apprenticeship, on-the-job training and the availability of skills to the health service that results from it. I encourage the Minister of State to look at applying the apprenticeship model to other social care professions. Some apprenticeships are at master's level. People get a master's level qualification through the apprenticeship model. That is fantastic and we should be doing it more across the health service.”
“Out-of-hours specialist nursing teams in all model 4 hospital emergency departments would make a massive difference to young men like him and to the many other people who present. While many of us might have to wait a little bit longer in an emergency department, someone in a mental health crisis has less resilience to be able to wait for this time. I particularly welcome the provision of those teams. With regard to mental health commitments for 2025, last month, the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, welcomed confirmation from the HSE chief executive, Bernard Gloster, that every mental health nursing graduate in 2025 would be offered a permanent position within the HSE by 19 September. We will now have a direct transition from classroom to practice, ensuring a stable and achievable number of nurses to support our health services.”
“I know the latter in particular is an area the Minister of State has worked on and has made improvements. I want to speak specifically about the specialist nursing teams. I had reason to be in an emergency department earlier this year. As, unfortunately, I was waiting, I had the chance to talk to a young man who was beside me. He had suicidal ideation and felt he was in crisis. While he was there he felt safe. He said he felt safe in the emergency department and that being there was protecting him. He knew the procedure because he had been there before. He knew he had to wait until the morning for someone to make an intervention and do an assessment for him to get treatment.”
“I have seen the impact this has had, in terms of local community groups and support groups. Many older people have not got back out or engaged, and they feel a bit more vulnerable. Much of this has to do with their mental resilience. I was particularly pleased to see in the budget specialist nursing team out-of-hours services in all model 4 hospital emergency departments. I will come back to this because it is a particularly important intervention. There will be three new crisis resolution teams, including the drop-in Solace crisis cafes, to support people in crisis. There is funding to develop a new crisis response pathway for children and young people, with 19 new CAMHS specialist doctors for emergency liaison and out-of-hours services, and an additional specialist CAMHS eating disorder team.”
“I understand there are an unprecedented 300 new staff for mental health services, which will represent 9% of the total growth of 3,300 staff in the health service next year. The total allocation for mental health for 2026 will amount to €1.6 billion. This is record funding and it has increased for the sixth year in a row. Mental health funding was increased by more than 50% in 2020. This was an apt time for it to happen, given what happened with the Covid pandemic. There was not only the virus itself, and we know the subsequent impact on mental health for every generation. Sometimes we focus on younger people alone, and the challenge was immense for them, but I think of many older people who were left more isolated and separated from their connections during the pandemic.”