It was sent on 17 January. I asked if there was funding available in terms of climate action targets and for health and safety in these flat complexes. I asked what the council could do about them. The council stated that there is no specific Government fund available for window replacement and if additional funding becomes available, it can add more projects to the list. That is just not good enough. Funding needs to be made available, at least through actions to meet climate targets, to deal with this issue. Ther…

I thank the Minister of State and I could say that I am very encouraged by that answer but I am not. I repeat that it is six years since the European court ruled against this State for the way in which local authority tenants are treated and the conditions in which they have to live, specifically around damp and mould, sewage and other problems. When one goes into one of these estates, the problems run deeper. There is rat infestation and playgrounds are not updated and are slippy and dangerous for children. In the…

As Lá Fhéile Bríde is being recognised for the first time by the State today and with the bank holiday next weekend, I can think of no better day to amplify the urgency for action on violence against women and girls. Unfortunately, this is a pandemic of violence and last year was one of the worst years we have seen for the numbers of people affected. Some 15 women were killed nationally and the vast majority of them, about 87% it is estimated, will have known their killers, either through being a partner, a former …

I do not mind repeating some of the things I said the last time I spoke about this. I support this amendment wholeheartedly on the basis that it gives us a meagre opportunity to address the issues on behalf of the 24,000 survivors who were cold-heartedly excluded from the scheme. I do not know if the Minister thinks that way or if he thinks he needs to give them a reason but he has never given an acceptable reason for excluding people who spent six months or less in the homes. Is there a suggestion that six months …

According to Bon Jovi's song: The more things change the more the stay the same ... it's just reality It's the same damn song with a different melody That is what is happening here today. The change of Taoiseach will mean nothing for the majority of people in this country. More than that, the election of the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Varadkar, as Taoiseach will guarantee a doubling down and a continuation of the past policies. Deputy Varadkar has been always the most ideolog…

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018 to provide for abortion on request prior to foetal viability; to abolish the 3 day waiting period for abortion on request; to allow for abortion on grounds of fatal foetal abnormality that are likely to lead to the death of the foetus either before or within a year of birth; to allow for abortion where there is a risk to the life, or of serious harm to the health, of the pregnant w…

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

Correct the record.

First, I want to correct the record which Deputy Mattie McGrath failed to correct. From the get-go, People Before Profit was the most vocal opponent of the carbon tax. On the Joint Committee on Climate Action, and the Minister can be a witness to this, I had a lot of research done. I got the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the Money Advice & Budgeting Service, MABS, in to talk about energy poverty and why it is that taxing people to the hilt will not reduce emissions. We also provided international evidence to t…

People Before Profit wants to respond to a demand that was made yesterday by some Deputies for a reasonable and respectful debate on refugees. It is not the first time we heard that matter raised by those Deputies but we want to respond to it in the way that will give clarity on some of the misinformation that is coming forward. We also want to say that if the Deputies think they are being silenced for wanting real and respectful debate, then they need to check their facts and move sharply away from the hateful and…

When I put this question I reckoned it would give the Government an opportunity to praise itself, but I want to make the following point to the Minister. The Government needs to think twice about the sort of praise it is heaping on itself. Before any refugee crisis happened here, we had a crisis in our health service, our education system, our childcare service and, in particular, with our housing. When other people who live here look around them and blame the refugees because they can and fail to look up and blame…

We all know that the housing shortage is creating a void in respect of the number of workers who are available in essential services like education and health, but this is also true in transport. Thankfully, recently, the Minister for Transport did a U-turn on the insane idea that we need 1 million electric vehicle, EV, cars on the road to replace 1 million petrol cars, with a much greater concentration on public transport. How does the Government propose to deal with the question of recruitment and retention of bu…

In his discussion with the social partners, did the Taoiseach discuss the employment regulation order for the security industry which is being held up because of a court challenge by a number of big security companies? This is pretty pathetic, especially since the Government recently made arrangements to lift the pay limits on very well-paid bankers but security workers who are paid the minimum wage and are entitled to a pay increase and improvement in their terms and conditions are being held back for the last yea…

It is the Government's motion. Hello, it is your motion.

So we have the highest homeless figures ever. That is a great success.

Ten years

I spent half an hour with the Iranian community outside the gates of the Dáil today. It is three months since Mahsa Amini was killed in police custody. The regime made an announcement at the weekend that the morality police had been disbanded. According to those activists, this is utterly untrue. It is propaganda and another young activist was executed by the regime this morning. On behalf of that movement, I ask the Government to express its solidarity with the movement and, in concrete terms, to give a commitment…

It is really hard to think of anything that is as necessary to life as water. Next to food and heat, it is truly essential. When the previous Government attempted to bring in water charges, we were constantly told by various business interests that water would be the new oil in the coming years as the environment globally became threatened by the climate crisis and other crises. When Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party and Fine Gael tried to ram through water charges, they were quick to tell us how precious a resource wa…

I wish to highlight a connected matter that has not yet been raised. I thank the Social Democrats for tabling the motion. I will take the example of a schoolteacher from Pakistan who teaches in Our Lady of Lourdes National School in Goldenbridge, Dublin 8. It is a DEIS school. Members may be familiar with it. The teacher in question came from Pakistan on a 1G graduate visa, trained here as a special needs teacher and started working in Goldenbridge last January. Her visa is now under application for renewal but the…

I totally agree with Deputy McDonald on that point. I want to raise another issue on the Order of Business, and that is a motion we are being asked to pass without debate on the comprehensive agreement in the field of air transport. This deal is aimed at growing a market in transnational flights and climate is mentioned once in the briefing document. At a time when emissions are rising and we are facing the biggest climate catastrophe ever, we are being asked to pass without debate a deal which would without doubt …