I am just stating fact; I am not making-----

I am not; I am stating fact. The announcement was targeted at international protection refugees.

I am stating that the policy was targeted at international protection refugees, who are in the main black and brown men. It has left them very vulnerable on the streets, and we all know the story of the consequences of that. My question to the Minister is how much more the Department can do. Nobody in this House has ever answered the following questions. What about Baggot Street hospital? What about the big empty Jurys Hotel in Ballsbridge? Those questions have never been answered, yet we have heard people such as …

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the repeal victory, a categoric and historic victory of a campaign that was run and led in particular by young women but by men and women throughout this country, the length and breadth, and east to west. That campaign really forced the politicians to sit up, wake up and smell the coffee. What people said at that time was, mostly: give women a choice and do not force them to travel aboard. Five years on, we have the review from Ms Marie O’Shea. Marie O’Shea's review is categoric…

I understand that you do not turn a ship around overnight but, seriously, it took us decades to get to the point where we had a referendum to repeal the eighth. The review was commissioned, it was delayed in being published, and it is categorically clear in its recommendations. For example, the criminalisation of abortion in the law is the only aspect of medicine that is criminalised - the only aspect. That is something that could be dealt with. The three-day wait, which I have read out as forming a barrier to the …

I am not attacking it. My colleague is on the committee.

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." Today marks the fifth anniversary of the magnificent repeal referendum vote. Thankfully, the situation for pregnant people in this country has improved massively since people voted overwhelmingly to trust women and repeal the eighth amendment. Abortion is available on request up to 12 weeks of pregnancy and, beyond that, in very limited circumstances. The numbers travelling abroad or obtaining abortion pills illegally have dropped significantly. That said, we find …

I have to come back on a number of things the Minister said. To say that we are not acknowledging that there has been a service provided for women and girls to seek abortion in this country is not true. My opening remarks acknowledged that we have had massive change since the law was brought in and that abortion has been accessed here and is accessible to a certain cohort in limited circumstances. It is quite coincidental, as the Minister knows, that the Bill has been brought before the House on the fifth anniversa…

It is not agreed. On Wednesday, there is a motion that calls for the extension of the temporary business energy support scheme, TBESS, without debate. We think this is wrong. There needs to be a debate on this extension, considering that there are some very profitable companies availing of this subsidy, including high energy users such as data centres. There are no criteria around the profits that they are making, around labour issues or environmental issues. The only criterion is that there is an increase in their…

I want to ask the Taoiseach about the shocking treatment of the workers in Tesco. This is a hugely profitable firm the great success of which in this country has mainly been achieved on the back of its loyal workforce. However, there has been shameful treatment of workers employed by the company prior to 1996. Effectively, these people have either been driven out of their jobs because of the refusal by the company to pay agreed rates and increases in pay or have been subjected to attempts to try to force them to si…

That is a good way of putting it.

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Irish Aviation Authority Act 1993 to ban the use of private jets in Irish airspace. I noted the Tánaiste's earlier response to Deputy Bacik, when he said that the Government will do anything to help reduce emissions. Here is a good idea for this Government. The Bill is very simple. We have a climate emergency, both globally and nationally. We are failing on all fronts to address it, despite years of the Green Party propping up a Fianna F…

Earlier this year, the Iceland supermarket chain was sold in its entirety but continues to trade. Conditions for workers in those stores have seriously deteriorated. The big issue for them is that many of them have not been consistently paid for the hours they worked. Many of them are owed quite a lot of money. Their trade union, the Independent Workers Union of Ireland, reckons that at least €11,000 is owed in wages, which flies in the face of the Payment of Wages Act 1991. It is illegal to withhold workers' wages…

-----so that when the majority of employees have joined a union, like the Independent Workers Union, they cannot be told "Go to hell, we are not engaging with you". This employer has broken the law by refusing to pay these workers' wages.

This is not industrial peace.

People Before Profit welcomes the publication of this survey. The SAVI report was completed 21 years ago, in 2002, but unfortunately successive governments have been very slow to provide the funding and resources necessary for the desperately needed recommendations in that report. Despite the claims or perceptions that we have progressed in this society or somehow become more liberal or progressive, there remains a deep-seated and deep-rooted crisis in sexual and gender-based violence, mainly against women, childre…

I ask the Minister about education and training board, ETB, adult education tutors. I will join them tomorrow outside the office of the Minister, Deputy Simon Harris, for a protest. In 2020, the Labour Court issued a recommendation to sort out the messy contracts and pay scales and the fact these workers have to sign on during holiday periods. Nothing has been done about it. A month ago at the TUI conference, the Minister said the contract would be with them within days. Since 2020, the Labour Court recommendation …

Great news.

I will raise the question of how a shared island works out when it comes to women's healthcare. When the repeal vote was won almost five years ago, it was famously declared that the North would be next. Now, however, we find that the North is way ahead of the Republic in its delivery of abortion care for women. Women have considerably more abortion rights in the North. There is no three-day wait. They have access up to 24 weeks for pill and surgical abortions, with a multidisciplinary team agreeing on the procedure…

I wish to follow up on my earlier comments and questions to the Taoiseach and his statement at the opening of this session. His vision of a shared island is all about canals and bridges, tourism, enterprise, innovation and research. That is fair enough but we should prioritise health and, in this case, women's health. It must be a source of embarrassment that, having fought a campaign to give women access to full reproductive health, we now find ourselves lagging behind Northern Ireland. I would have thought that t…