As my colleagues said, it is a genuine honour to be here to share our work in the European Parliament with Senators and to be back in the Oireachtas. I ran for the European Parliament inspired in some way because of the racist riot that took place in November 2023 on the streets of Dublin. I was extremely worried about the rise of the far right and convinced that the prioritisation of Dublin in the political sphere was not being taken seriously enough. On my first day in the European Parliament, I told my colleague…

I will do my absolute best to respond to Senators. I thank them for their warm comments, which are genuinely appreciated. Housing was mentioned by a number who asked what we have done. We have changed the state aid rules so that individual local authorities now have a greater capacity to borrow. When I met the CEO of Dublin City Council last year, he said that the collective borrowing capacity of the 31 local authorities in Ireland is €118 million. That is it. That is all they could borrow in the morning if they co…

I will touch on as many issues as I possibly can. In terms of trade agreements, they must be on the basis of human rights and international law. They must be on the basis of consumer rights, protecting consumer rights, workers' rights and environmental protections and we need trade agreements in order for the European Union to survive. We are in a very hostile environment with the United States of America openly waging a trade war and a tariff war against us. Agreements are important but they have to be on the basi…

A Chathaoirligh, Ministers, my fellow newly elected MEPs and, in particular, Noreen Kehoe from our office, who is watching from the Gallery, if you get the privilege of being elected to Dáil Éireann, you enter probably the most famous room in Ireland. When my Labour Party colleagues and I were elected to here in 2011, we were so conscious that every word we uttered in here would be recorded forever and that in generations to come, our descendants would be able to read what we said. It made every early intervention …

I thank the Social Democrats for tabling this motion. We in the Labour Party had a similar motion last week. As others have mentioned, Natasha O’Brien is here. It would be unfair for anybody in the Opposition to suggest that the Minister has not been active in this area since her appointment as Minister for Justice. I ask her to continue to do so. However, it is true that there are nine counties without domestic violence refuges. In fact, more than half of the refuges we have are full, and that has to be addressed.…

This is probably the last interaction the Taoiseach and I will have for a while as I have got a new job.

Bonjour . When the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance do not remember the 1990 World Cup, you realise you are a total aul' fella and need to get out. The important point I want to make today, in what is probably the last interaction I will have with the Taoiseach for a while, is on an issue I have raised a number of times in recent years. It is the reason I got involved in politics in the first place. It is about disadvantaged education, DEIS schools and DEIS plus. DEIS plus is a proposal for three areas in Dub…

Research has shown that a three-year-old from a middle-class advantaged background will have 1,200 words in their vocabulary, while a three-year-old from a disadvantaged background will have 400 words in their vocabulary. Even by the time children are three years old, there is a massive gap in their capability to reach their full potential. This is before we bring in issues such as addiction, housing and intergenerational trauma. We do not have time to waste because we are losing the potential of these incredible c…

I was privileged on Monday to visit the SAOL Hub-----

I want to talk about disabilities-----

-----if people would give me the opportunity. On Monday, with our local Labour representative Patrick Dempsey, I was privileged to visit the SAOL Hub in Ballyfermot Community Civic Centre run by Stewarts Care. We heard first-hand the challenges facing young adults with disabilities - the under-resourcing and lack of opportunities. As the Taoiseach knows, disabled people are at a much higher risk of poverty and social exclusion. They are more likely to be out of work and to leave education early. In 2015, I was prou…

The Taoiseach has accepted some of the Government's failures but I would not put them at the feet of just the Department. The Minister stood here and said 33% of schools would have a disadvantage in their allocation of hours under the model that was suggested and there was no adequate consultation but the Taoiseach is working to correct that. On the rates of people with disabilities in employment, a person with a disability is more likely to be at risk of poverty, be socially excluded or fall into addiction. Our ra…

I congratulate the Government on taking this decision. It is of some historic significance and I know the Government will have come under pressure not to do so. Ireland once sought international recognition and so we are proud today to stand with Palestine to help it take its place among the nations of the world. I commend the Tánaiste, in particular, on the manner in which he has represented the views of the Irish people in recent months. We do not have to agree on every point to appreciate the sincerity with whic…

I am not sure if the Tánaiste saw the Fine Gael video posted online yesterday about their 15 ways to help business. I saw it; I watch little else these days. The Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, starts to speak at point No. 12. He writes the words "Sick Pay" on a flip chart. He then goes on to say, "We are going to pause further changes in this area and ask the Economic and Social Research Institute to evaluate the impact of any further policy d…

I do not know what question the Tánaiste was answering but he was not answering mine. In the Fine Gael video, they did not have the courage to say "sick pay" out loud. The Tánaiste did not say it out loud either in his answer to me. If he and I are too sick to come to work, we get paid anyway, but low-paid workers in insecure, low-paid jobs, who are predominantly young people, migrants and women, are unlikely to get paid if sick. Why should these vulnerable workers have that right paused?

The next phase. It is a substantial issue that I am raising. The Tánaiste did not answer-----

Fine Gael has made a decision.

The Tánaiste should talk to the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform about it.

These are rights taken for granted right across the European Union.

I raise again the issue of DEIS plus. The proposal for DEIS plus comes from a number of school principals in Ballymun, Tallaght and Dublin 17 which is in my constituency. They suggest that we need extra trauma-based supports for the most acutely disadvantaged schools in the country. Approximately 100 such schools have been identified nationwide. I know the Government often says to me that not every disadvantaged child goes to a DEIS school, and that is fine and correct. However, these are the most profoundly disadv…