The Minister of State's last remark is unwarranted. He compared the roll-out of the vaccination programme to the debacle that we are talking about today. The goals of the NBP are laudable, but on every level, it fails at every metric. It is a disgrace. Most citizens feel that they are being bled, as if they are some kind of gombeens, for more than €3 billion of taxpayers' money through a series of convoluted company and corporate structures that hoodwink us into believing that, somehow, this will be done quickly an…

I asked the Minister of State how he would politically stand over this debacle and the use of the quoted amount of €3 billion of taxpayers' money. Not all of it is necessarily contracted, but there is extra spending, such as on competitive outsourcing, which costs millions of euro. Millions of euro more will probably trip us up. It is interesting that much of the information about corporate structures of this project was not known to us. We now know that there is a network of at least 13 companies across Ireland, L…

The Minister of State's comparison with the electrification of the country is interesting, because I made it in the committee when this was being debated during the previous Dáil. A former Minister had to resign from his position because of an alleged scandal around it. The key difference is the one he just quoted, which is that we did not rely on private, competitive, for-profit enterprise to electrify this country. The State built a State-owned, State-run company called the ESB, which built Ardnacrusha and Table …

Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, for letting me in. I was struggling to make it here in time when the Government missed the last slot. I mentioned some of this earlier, but another Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, is present. The goals of the national broadband plan are laudable and, we in People Before Profit believe, essential for rural Ireland. The provision of the service to more than 500,000 addresses is not only vital for businesses; it is vital for ordinary households and schools, etc., in an evermore online…

Ar dtús, ba mhaith liom ár bhfeall a chur in iúl mar gheall ar dhúnmharú Ashling Murphy agus gealltanas a thabhairt go gcuirfear deireadh le foréigean in aghaidh na mban agus na gcailíní sa tír seo. Déanaim comhbhrón le clann agus cairde Ashling Murphy. The shock waves throughout this country in the aftermath of yet another violent killing of a woman have already been mentioned. It is felt particularly in the wake of the repeal and the “Me Too” movements, where dozens or tens of thousands of young women throughout …

I will respond to the last issue first. The fundamental thing the Bill we introduced four years ago would have done was remove the barrier of ethos in the delivery of the curriculum. The Government is going to have to address that because 92% of our national schools are run according to a Catholic ethos and it is up to the schools to refuse to implement objective sex education if it flies in the face of their ethos. Will the Taoiseach please address that in his next answer? The matter of refuge places is hugely imp…

I understand that this debate is about violence against women in Ireland, but we must acknowledge it is a worldwide experience. UN statistics show that one in three women worldwide experiences some sort of sexual or physical violence. In line with the statistics here, it is mostly by an intimate partner. Fewer than 40% of women who experience violence seek help of any sort and 42% of women experience intimate partner violence and report an injury as a consequence of that violence. Those are the parameters in which …

I thank Deputy Duncan Smith for allowing me to raise this important issue as we hurtle towards Christmas. I think five times this year I have asked the Minister for Transport if and when he will sign the statutory instrument that will allow for an improved pension for CIÉ workers. Currently a CIÉ worker takes home a pension of €130 per week. If the Minister signed the statutory instrument, it would raise that pension to €160. It may not seem much to a Minister or Teachta Dála but it means a huge amount to those wor…

I was told it would be confirmed in September. I have asked about this matter five time this year.

The change would mean €30 a week to a CIÉ worker. It is not a patch on the pension the Minister of State or other Ministers will get. This is not good enough.

We are treating workers with disdain and disgust. That statutory instrument should have been signed off earlier this year and it needs to be done as soon as possible.

I wish to share time with Deputy Barry. I understand what Deputy Cairns meant when she said she had hoped this Bill would not be before the House and that it is not something we wish to face. Given I am a good bit older than her and been through a life of political activism, all I can say is get used to it. Every time you make one step forward, they will try to grab two steps backwards. This is not the first time I have seen women's gains in this country being chipped away at and an attempt made to erode them. I ha…

The last time I raised this issue, the Tánaiste answered by begging more questions than he actually answered. It is on the ownership of the national maternity hospital. I asked about the possibility of placing a compulsory purchase order on the land and the legal advice received from the senior counsel, Stephen Dodd. In his answer the Tánaiste described a situation in the national maternity hospital that would see us integrating the new hospital into St. Vincent's hospital holdings rather than co-locating. The best…

I know nothing about the new appointee, Judge MacCabe, but I think his role should be challenged, not just in respect of what happens in the future but also in how he deals with the legacy of GSOC. The first complainant to GSOC - I cannot remember the year - was Deputy Gino Kenny. He was not a Deputy then. We had RTÉ footage of him being thrown off a bridge in Bellanaboy by six gardaí, illegally and violently, at a Shell to Sea protest. I queued up with him that morning and his complaint was thrown out, investigate…

I wish to ask the Minister of State about the addition of the 2 GW of gas-fired power that will affect Ireland's carbon emissions and reduction targets, and if the policy is driven by the needs of energy-intensive industries such as data centres, as suggested by the CEO of EirGrid in recent comments and if the Minister of State will make a statement on the matter.

I would argue that when we strip away all the rhetoric, the Green Party in government is presiding over the expansion of fossil fuels and our reliance on them in the State. The Government is tying us into another 30 years at least of dependence on gas and facilitating arguments that will be made by proponents of liquefied natural gas by deepening our reliance on gas. Gas is not a bridge to anything. It is a fossil fuel and the expansion of its use and infrastructure is a betrayal of the climate movement the Green P…

The next question concerns why we have an energy-security problem and why we may have blackouts this winter. Already, many have been reported around the country. Part of the answer is related to the dependency on the data industry. At present, it accounts for 11% of our national grid. I am aware that the Minister of State and the Minister would argue that we must move rapidly towards renewables and offshore wind energy, but why do we not have these yet? We do not because those who sat on licences for more than 20 y…

I point out to the Minister of State that in my original question on the extra gas being allowed to fuel the data centres I stated the Minister was opening the door for a proliferation of fossil fuel infrastructure in gas and LNG use, and here we have it. The Deputy from Kerry is advocating for the first application for an LNG terminal. This is exactly what I was talking about. The Government's action of introducing the new gas infrastructure to facilitate data centres is exactly what is leading to the justificatio…

Recently we saw more protests to highlight the ongoing concerns that ordinary farmers have that they are going to have to pick up the tab for the failures of big agrifood corporations. What are the views of the Minister of State on the recently published Teagasc report on farm sustainability which found that greenhouse gas emissions from dairy farming rose in 2020 largely due to an increase in the average herd size? How does the Minister of State plan to address that and will he make a statement on the matter?

I do not know if the Minister of State noticed that there was an article in The Journal reporting from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a non-profit organisation. The article showed that the quite shocking increase in greenhouse gas emissions from the beef and dairy sector expansion was accounted for by two Irish companies, namely, Larry Goodman's ABP Meats, and Dawn Meats, to the tune of 7.5% of all European Union emissions. I contend that the increase in the dairy herd is not sustainable. I ask the…