Moving on from that sideshow, the cost of living is dramatically increasing and as the Tánaiste can appreciate, it is going to hit electricity and gas prices pretty hard. This will also have major consequences for renters and on food prices. In August, inflation hit a three-year high of 3%, which is the highest it has been since 2008, and according to all economists it is only going in one direction. The Government is genuinely facing a winter of discontent unless it acts on these issues, which affect people's ever…

Is it ever going to stop, a Cheann Comhairle? Every single day - are you ever going to do anything about mobile phones?

It is just continuous.

The two caricatures again. Enough. Social welfare rates have not increased for two years and tens of thousands of people are out of work. We have multiple warnings about electricity blackouts due to rising demand from data centres and two gas plants are closed for maintenance. As the Tánaiste is aware, we recently had amber alerts in this area. Gas prices are soaring across Europe and we are worried about investment opportunities now, particularly the Intel issue. While the fuel allowance payment starts next week, …

Respectfully, the Tánaiste was being open enough but I did not get much comfort from his answer. In the context of our energy supplies, brownouts and blackouts, what contingency plans are being put in place? I understand this is a real fear, particularly if we have a very harsh winter. We cannot predict anything with climate change. Can the Tánaiste confirm to the House whether EirGrid has issued a number of stop requests to heavy industries in the past few weeks, perhaps numbering more in that period than in the w…

The Tánaiste was Taoiseach when I raised the issue of a €1,000 bonus for front-line workers last year. He will be aware that the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, has also looked for a bonus or annual leave. We do not need to rehearse why the people who worked on the front line deserve this bonus. The Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, could not be engaged by the HSE last year because the Government refused to sign off on anything. We all know that other European countries, including the UK and France…

It has been a turbulent summer for the Taoiseach and his Government, so I am glad to see they actually made it back here. There is a sense of some normality as we finally come back into this Chamber. That is what I want to ask the Taoiseach about. I have a direct question: What has changed since we left this Chamber last year? What has changed for the Taoiseach and his Government in how they will deal with things? We in the Labour Party believe that everything has changed in that year - how we think about things an…

I deliberately asked the Taoiseach this question today because I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt that there is a learning here for his Government as regards all the areas and how it does its work. It is also important that, as I stand here and ask the Taoiseach that question, I say quite clearly that short-termism has to end. We need to deliver on Sláintecare over the next four to five years. Within five years, I want to see a national childcare service and change in respect of balanced and regional dev…

I ask the Taoiseach about the comments of Judge Elizabeth McGrath in one of my local papers today relating to secure mental health facilities across the State. She has called it a scandal. The issue relates to a young man whose mother I spoke to today. She lives in fear. Her son spent four and a half months in jail because, as a State, we could not find a place for him in a secure mental health unit. They would not take him in Dundrum or in Cork so he spent four and a half months in jail. In the last 24 hours he ha…

That is nothing to do with the issue I raised.

It is a very serious situation.

I did it for two years.

As the Taoiseach knows, I have two young children, Aoibhe and Senan, aged ten and 11. I committed to asking the Taoiseach a question today on their behalf following a conversation I had with them. What is the public health advice that says it is okay for them to go into a pub next week but they cannot attend their indoor summer camps? I would like to know what it is and how scientific it is. Over the summer, the children of people who are staying in hotels where there is a summer camp can attend it but children liv…

There is a range of activities.

My constituency colleague, Deputy Cahill, received an answer in June stating they would go ahead.

Will the Taoiseach please reconsider this?

I raise the issue of racism and abuse online and the need for new thinking regarding it. There has been much publicity recently about the abuse three English footballers got after losing on penalties in the European championship. That came just days after a Dublin team, Dynamo Ridgewood FC, was forced to walk off the pitch on Saturday when two of its players were racially abused. Ian Wright was also abused online by a teenager from County Kerry. In February of this year, the UK put pressure on social media platform…

This legislation has changed everything. There has been a great deal of solidarity during Covid and the motto that we have all adopted as a society is that we are all in this together, but that ends tonight. That is my view and the Labour Party's view. When Covid began, there was considerable co-operation with the Opposition. We always worked together. Sometimes that was below the radar and was not anything that we had to come in here and shout about. I have been knocking around the Oireachtas nearly the same lengt…

I welcome my colleague, Deputy Ivana Bacik, into Dáil Éireann and congratulate her on her achievement. We are very proud of her in the Labour Party. She is an incredible legislator and I thank the Taoiseach and the leader of Sinn Féin for their kind words. I assure the Taoiseach that Deputy Bacik is someone who will hold him and his Government to account over the coming days, weeks and years. He will find that out relatively quickly. I want to ask about an issue that has come to the fore because an tUachtarán, Mich…

I thank the Taoiseach for the positive reply and for his comments on taking an all-party approach. Establishing a regulator is taking too long. I have serious issues with regard to what the regulator should be doing about how betting companies and establishments such as casinos behave. Gambling companies are totally unscrupulous. If people have a problem with gambling and they search "gambling" online, they will be flooded with advertisements for gambling. The Labour Party had a campaign to ban these ads and afterw…