Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-20
============================================================

Ivana Bacik (LAB), Dublin Bay South

Last Tuesday, I raised with the Taoiseach the serious threat posed by US President Trump to Europe and to international law with his proposed annexation of Greenland. Over the weekend we have seen the threats from Trump become ever more serious. He has ratcheted up his language. He is essentially looking to blackmail his European allies with yet more tariffs. With these latest Oval Office outbursts, we are seeing dysfunction in D.C. wreaking havoc across the world. This is cause for huge concern. Not content with tanking his own country's economy, Trump's actions seem set on everyone else's too. Following his perceived Nobel Peace Prize snub, he has publicly acknowledged that his sights are set on imperialist action. We know the enormous threat to Europe posed from the east by Putin's barbaric authoritarian regime in Russia, but now we are seeing a threat of annexation of European territory from the west, from our so-called ally in the US. Trump is ripping up the rulebook when it comes to international diplomacy. After just a year in office, the uncertainty he is causing is doing enormous damage with his territory grabs, his tariffs and now the real likelihood of a Trump slump.
Today I ask the Taoiseach about the potential impact of such a slump on Ireland and what we can do about it. Economic shocks do not just impact spreadsheets nationally. They hit kitchen cupboards, homes and communities across the country. When governments fail to prepare, ordinary people pay the price for failure. We all know how exposed our public finances are due to our disproportionate over-reliance on corporation tax from a small number of large US multinationals. Behind every export figure are workers, families, mortgages, rents and household bills that have to be paid. A great many people and households across the country are already living payslip to payslip in a cost-of-living crisis. The question we are hearing from people is: what happens if the work dries up? The uncomfortable truth is that this vulnerability to a global slump is no accident. It reflects choices made by the Government parties over many years. First is its failure to diversify our economic base, as the unions have pointed out. Second is its failure to use a historic boom to build resilience. Irish society is generally cash rich but asset poor with weak infrastructure, unaffordable housing, overstretched public transport and creaking healthcare.
When the shock hits, these failures become dangerous. That is why the risk of a global Trump slump matters so much here at home. Fear alone is already destabilising investment decisions across Ireland and Europe. We know the EU must respond robustly and strategically to Trump's threats, but we must also work here at home to control the controllables and protect people.
Labour has argued for a State-backed short-time working scheme to protect families and households against this potential shock. Will the Taoiseach consider this now and will he respond to Trump's tantrums with real action and a robust responses?

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-20/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:31+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-20