Two weeks on from voting down the Labour Party's plans to address the cost-of-living crisis, the Government will announce some token measures today. The package that is emerging is around €450 million, which is a drop in the ocean compared with what ordinary families are having to grapple with. The official Government advice from Ministers is to shop around for better value but those suffering under record rent prices cannot shop around; they need a rent freeze. Those looking at soaring energy bills that are up by …

What the Tánaiste is engaged in is Bertienomics. He is trying to convince people that the Government can cut their taxes, tinker around with public services and it will all be fine. What the Labour Party has suggested is that there should not be tax cuts. The Tánaiste may think that is an easy thing for an Opposition party to say but it is not. We are telling the people of Ireland straight that if they want to have a proper decrease in their cost of living, the State should provide it and we should not wait for the…

Exactly; childcare. Spending €10,000 a year on childcare. That is the point.

By the Labour Party.

Thank you.

The Labour Party supports this motion. A lot of things come to mind when talking about the national minimum wage. We need to picture how a parent feels who has worked a hard week on the minimum wage and then wonders how he or she can feed and clothe his or her children and keep them warm. There is an element of fear in the motion but there is also an element of humiliation – that people are working so hard but perhaps have to make choices between food or warmth for their children. This motion is important because w…

I thank the Minister of State for his contribution. The Labour Party broadly welcomes this Bill. I am going to illustrate the impact of white-collar crime with a story. I used to teach in an area of acute disadvantage in the north inner city of Dublin. Whenever I told anybody where I used to teach, they used to always make quips, comments or jokes about crime, despite the fact that I was teaching children. There would always be a joke, snide remark or comment about crime somewhere in the conversation when I mention…

Since I have come back into this House I have been raising consistently - as have Deputies in government - the need for a citizen's assembly on drugs. We have tried to approach this in good faith so that all the issues we have in respect of drug policy can be discussed in a robust fashion at a citizens' assembly. We believe we have been mature and responsible in that respect. Last Thursday night, I pleaded in this Chamber with the Minister of State with responsibility for drugs to prioritise the citizens' assembly …

Yesterday, I wrote to the Minister for Education about the leaving certificate, asking her to clarify two matters. The first was what would happen if a student contracted Covid-19 during exam time and what contingencies are in place for that. I also asked her to waive the exam fee, which is €116 for the leaving certificate and €109 for the junior certificate, and I understand there may be some good news in that regard for the thousands of families expected to pay it. Will the Tánaiste confirm it is the intention of…

The Labour Party supports Ireland's opt-in to the 2021-2027 asylum, migration and integration fund. We take issue, however, with some of the on-the-ground reality within the European Union towards refugees. Statistics released by the Greek Government and confirmed by the UNHCR set the total number of arrivals to Greece in 2021 at 8,000, of which roughly half arrived by sea. The Greek ministry for maritime affairs, however, reports more than 29,000 rescues by the Hellenic Coast Guard in the same period, with just 25…

The Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (Covid-19) Act 2020 suspended a worker's right to seek redundancy payments when laid off or put on short-time work due to the pandemic. Deputy Nash of the Labour Party tabled an amendment that would have dealt with this issue at the start of the pandemic and, perhaps, saved the State some share of the burden that may now be necessarily placed upon it. At the time, we agreed not to pursue the amendment as we were assured that the issue would be dealt with and we did not …

It is sometimes very hard to know how to articulate something that I have been campaigning on for almost seven years. Along with others, I have been convinced for a long time of the necessity for Ireland to change its drug policy. I have been working with others in other political parties, movements, lobby groups and community groups to try to get Ireland to change its view of the drug user. In all that, there is now space for us to talk as a country about the treatment we have handed down to those who have used dr…

There is a fantastic opportunity for this Oireachtas to achieve something. In recent years, a justice committee report on decriminalisation of drug users received the support of every political party. We passed radical legislation on the provision of an injecting centre. While it has been objected to, it remains law that we can establish an injecting facility in Ireland. That legislation was passed without a single objection from any Member of in this House. No one in these Houses is standing on a war-on-drugs plat…

I urge the Taoiseach to go down to his local second level school at the next opportunity, to walk into the sixth year class and observe the students all wearing masks, with the windows open, to count the number of teachers and students who are out because of the pandemic, and tell them that everything is going back to normal. The Taoiseach knows that if the schools were closed, the Department would find a mechanism to deliver a hybrid leaving certificate. All of the excuses the Taoiseach is trotting out about the j…

It is absolutely unfair.

I congratulate my colleague Deputy Nash on putting forward the motion. We did not just start talking about the cost of living today or yesterday. In every budget proposal the Labour Party has put forward in recent years, we have chosen direct State intervention instead of tax cuts because we believe in that. The Minister of State, the Government and the Tánaiste in particular will point to the €500 million worth of tax cuts they have put forward as some kind of cost-of-living intervention but they will not make the…

I have been calling for a hybrid leaving certificate for this year's cohort of sixth year students since last July, when I raised the issue with the Minister in the Chamber and in the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, on the basis of what these students missed in fifth year. However, I must say I do not believe the Minister is the problem. In fact, I believe the Minister has always acted correctly when it comes to the leaving certificate. In 2020, when the…

I appreciate the comments that Tánaiste made earlier on the leaving certificate. I understand a meeting is taking place today with the education partners. There have been some very welcome comments from Government sources, including Deputies and Senators, who have been advocating for a hybrid model for the leaving certificate. Does the Tánaiste agree with these comments that have come from his own party? Will he commit that between today and tomorrow we will have finality on this? If the Cabinet is meeting tomorrow…

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Foley. It is fair to say that the sense of partnership between the Department and individual school communities is non-existent. The feeling is that schools are being abandoned, that teachers and special needs assistants, SNAs, are being abandoned and that individual school principals are being abandoned, and what they have had as a source of comfort for more than 18 months has been the mantra from Government that schools are safe. When HEPA filters have been raised for the past 18 mo…

I have to agree.