In her evidence to the Joint Committee on Health on 31 May, Dr. Marie O'Shea, the author of the report of the review of the operation of the termination of pregnancy Act stated, "if nothing is done, it is only a question of time before we see a repeat of Mellet v . Ireland and Whelan v . Ireland and [a future] Taoiseach standing up in the Dáil to make an apology and pay a sum of money to people". I remind everyone that Mellet v . Ireland and Whelan v . Ireland were two cases taken to United Nations human rights bod…

But the law has the review enshrined in it.

The review is part of the law. The Taoiseach does not seem to get it.

Is there a requirement to ignore it?

If you ignore the review, why have it in there?

I want to raise again the question of Covid payments for front-line workers. We recently saw a protest by hospital cleaners, who were contract cleaners and who are being refused the €1,000 Covid payment, despite the fact that they work daily on the front line. Today it has come to my attention that section 39 workers who are personal care workers for people with disabilities have been refused the payment, and refused on appeal. I understand that this was a decision made by the Government because the workers do not …

That is exactly what they were exposed to.

They said it yesterday.

The Minister, Deputy McConalogue, was in the Chamber yesterday when we discussed the culling of the herd under a motion brought before the House. On a few occasions, I mentioned the name of Larry Goodman in relation to agricultural policy and how it is impacting on our environment, particularly on our rivers. His name appears again today, like the proverbial bad penny. Lansdowne Oil and Gas corporation is suing the State for at least €100 million because of the denial of a licence to develop Barryroe, of which Mr. …

I disagree strongly with the Chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Climate Action about the Opposition's position and the idea it is way too harsh and unfair on the Government. It is quite the opposite. It is not harsh enough. What is going on with this Bill is manipulation of the highest order to make it look like there is going to be a tax on the profits and the gains of the recent months but to help them to avoid paying it. When this Bill was discussed at the Oireachtas Committee on Environment an…

I will listen to the Minister of State's answer afterwards. Have we given up on that? I am sure the Minister of State has an answer to that question. Second, the Act covers the activities in the fossil fuel sector "such as production or refining of natural gas, coal, petroleum or manufacture of coke oven products, carried on in the State". Again, I have a question. Does this sufficiently cover or capture all the companies who reaped windfall profits during the crisis and continue to do so? My main alarm and concern…

The definition of "cull" is "a selective slaughter of animals". I am not sure what a "voluntary" cull is, but the motion speaks of 200,000 dairy cows being culled. That would indeed be a shocking sight and policy, if it were true. The problem is it is not true. From what I can see, no amount of anger, conspiracy theories or mixing up the idea of a slaughter with the idea of a reduction over time makes it true. There is much to be angry about, but yet again, these Deputies prefer to get angry about an imaginary poli…

-----that have led to that anger and fear. This motion tells us that the answer is to keep on doing what we are doing, to keep on with the policies that enrich the Goodmans, the Dawn Meats and the large agribusinesses, threaten the future of family farms and sustainable agriculture and add to the climate chaos that we face. As large parts of humanity experience record heatwaves, record temperatures, floods and droughts - and records are broken daily - we are told in this motion that things are grand and should cont…

The Taoiseach recently received a detailed report from Unite the Union on the case of four of its members working for Murphy International Limited at the Rusal Aughinish Alumina plant in Limerick in an action the union described as tantamount to union busting. The plant is owned by UC RUSAL, whose majority shareholder is the billionaire Russian oligarch and Putin supporter Oleg Deripaska. While the Irish Government has been very vocal when Deripaska faced sanctions due to Putin’s war on Ukraine, its silence on work…

I am thankful for the opportunity to say a few words about this report. It is the latest in a trend of reports that highlight serious problems with the country’s water bodies. We know from this report that Ireland will fail to meet the most basic EU targets on restoring water bodies by 2027. We can add to that the list of failures on environmental and climate targets. The overall ecological health of the surface waters has declined across all body types since the last assessment period of 2013-2018 and the number o…

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Planning and Development Act 2000 in order to restrict certain developments in fossil fuels infrastructure and high energy usage data centres, to remove some developments from listing as strategic development infrastructure projects, to revise the procedure for making applications directly to An Bord Pleanála and to ensure that regard be given to the State’s climate targets and commitments and to provide for related matters. I am introdu…

I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

We want to express our full solidarity and support for the workers in Iceland in Coolock who have gone in this morning and occupied their store. The Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, met with Naeem Maniar, the new owner of the Iceland chain of stores in this country, which employs 344 people. We are now seeing a pick-off effect with stores being closed. As it happens, staff in the two stores on the north side, in the Northside Shopping Centre and Coolock, went on strike recently to try to secure moneys and wages …

Will the Minister express solidarity with those workers who were locked out of their jobs today? Having shown respect to the employer by meeting him, will he meet the workers-----

-----and find out what myriad of opaque operations are going to be put in place in another Debenhams-style closure?