No one could argue with the need for increased safety in construction and related trades. Next to farming, this sector has consistently recorded the highest levels of injuries and deaths. According to the Health and Safety Authority's figures for last year, seven workers lost their lives in construction. Between 2008 and 2019, 107 fatal incidents took place in the construction sector. Between 1989 and 2016, a total of 1,616 fatal work-related accidents were reported to the Health and Safety Authority, HSA. Over a q…

The Minister has now twice made comments that have held the door open to the building of an LNG facility here in the State. I wish to give the Minister an opportunity to state quite clearly his, the Government's and the Green Party's position concerning the building of an LNG facility. I ask this because this aspect begs another question of whether the Minister accepts the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, and the statements of the International Energy Agency, IEA, in this regard. Inste…

I thank the Minister. I still think the door is being held open. There is still creative ambiguity in the Minister's response. The Business Post reported last week that the Minister had conceded that Ireland needed to build an LNG terminal. This would be a reversal of a key policy of the Green Party because, as the Minister said, the world changed when the Nord Stream gas pipeline was blown up last year. Most people who are concerned about climate change believe that the basic premise we follow is the science, the …

I reiterate that the Minister is not being explicit and is not clearing up the ambiguity. He is saying that we may well need some form of new fossil fuel infrastructure to store gas. He knows as well as I and anybody else in the House who takes any interest in the science does that it does not matter whether it is fracked gas or any other kinds of gas, it still emits methane and far too much CO2 due to storage and use. We do not need any more fossil fuel infrastructure. We do not have a shortage of gas. We need to …

This morning, I attended a press conference of a number of groups concerned about reproductive rights for women in this country in response to the report from Dr. Marie O'Shea. The Irish Family Planning Association said this is a landmark report which draws on extensive public health evidence and expertise. The National Women's Council said it is long-awaited and marks a critical juncture in progress towards realising reproductive rights for all. My question is one that was raised this morning by all the groups, in…

I endorse everything that has been said so far. This Bill has a simple purpose. In fact, it is so simple and so obvious that in most countries, it would not be needed. Its aim is to link rents in the private rental sector to incomes, to link what people pay in rent to what they earn. However, we are so slavish in our devotion to the free market under this and previous Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments, and their helpers in the Labour Party in the past and in the Green Party, that such a common-sense approach is…

People Before Profit-Solidarity has produced a short pamphlet on the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement. For the purpose of this debate, I will read some extracts from it. The 25th anniversary of the agreement has been marked by praise for the negotiators who pieced the text together. However, when the historical record is examined, it will appear that the architects of peace were not just politicians. The demand for an end to all violence came from mobilisations of organised labour. In 1992, tho…

The Leas-Cheann Comhairle definitely needs her glasses.

I did not personalise anything.

May I comment?

I am not looking for a debate; I just want to point something out to the House. It is an important issue.

Yes, exactly. It is welcome that the order is being brought forward but the House should know that by keeping a ceiling on wages in the construction industry-----

-----we are feeding into the lack of staff for building homes and retrofitting. Something needs to be done about it.

I want to raise the question of energy security under the issue of national security. I do so because energy security is central to the number of data centres that are connecting not just to the national grid but now we see to the gas grid. The cables for these data centres that link them with Europe and the US are coming from Ireland and lying under our ocean so it is a question of national security also. I condemn the decision to allow 11 more data centres onto the gas grid, because this may facilitate them to co…

But not reducing our emissions.

In a similar vein, we have been receiving emails regarding a company called Indeed. Indeed.com uses paid-for job ads on its website to make its money. It has announced redundancies and is allegedly in consultation with its workers. Has the Minister been notified by this company and is it complying with the terms of the Redundancy Payment Act because there is suspicion and it appears to us from the emails we received that there have been breaches of the Act? Both cases need to be put in the context of the profits ma…

The news that Panda is hiking up its bin charges will be no surprise to customers who have had to pay hefty bin charges in this country since 2003, when the move to bring in bin charges was imposed. That was 20 years ago. Along with 27 activists, I went to prison over protests to stop bin charges. We did this not because we are miserable and do not want to pay our way in society, but because we predicted at the time, quite rightly, that it would be a disaster, that it would lead to the privatisation of waste collec…

Part of the Tánaiste's statement has made my case for me. If people are incentivised to recycle, they separate their organic waste and their paper, plastic and bottles, they pay for their black-bin waste, and they do not pay for the recycling. Then they are incentivised. That incentive is now being taken from them by this increase announced by Panda followed by another increase announced by City Bin. Given the competitive nature of this market, which was designed to be competitive by a previous Fianna Fáil-led Gove…

If the privatisation of waste has not led to that, what has? We need to take it back into public ownership, control it, and stop it being the mode of profit for these greedy companies. Their profits are going through the roof.

Thorntons Recycling made €5.7 million in pre-tax profits last year. As I said earlier, most of the profits are offshore. Panda's profits have been enormous but its prices are going up. The Tánaiste has not answered that.