At the PDFORRA conference this year, it announced it was lodging a complaint with the European Committee of Social Rights. This has led to the legal action about which the Minister spoke. The European Committee of Social Rights found that the Government was in breach of Articles 5 and 6.2 of the European Social Charter. PDFORRA has repeatedly said that the reason it wants to affiliate to ICTU is not to put pickets on barracks or withdraw their services from the roof of the Houses of the Oireachtas; it is because it…

I have always advocated to give soldiers, the Navy and the Air Corps more pay.

Then let PDFORRA be at the ICTU table.

Good.

What are the Minister's plans to increase the services in Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann? I am aware that he was to give me good news and talk about increased services, which are welcome, but it is worth highlighting that even before Covid, we had a national crisis in our bus transport system. There was a significant increase in the numbers using public transport in 2019. We are now running to stand still and only recovering from the austerity years. Added to this is the need for capacity at peak hours, particularly fo…

I thank the Minister. On the ambitious plans to increase the network across the country, it is pretty shameful for the Minister to describe them as such given that the NTA has actively encouraged private competition and run down Bus Éireann as a company. The Minister's lack of concern about the recent announcement that Bus Éireann will cancel three Expressway routes was astonishing. He does not seem to understand the importance of that decision for the company's future. We need to look at what the NTA is doing with…

It is not a question of drivers. I am aware that Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann are recruiting. It is about the number of physical buses we need. Nothing in the Minister's response indicates the sort of radical forward thinking we need, given the Covid crisis and the climate crisis. We do not have to argue with our population about using public transport. They want to use it. The question is whether they can get on it. At the moment, healthcare workers cannot get home from work or travel to work because of the lower ca…

The Debenhams workers have shown incredible determination and courage. Their patience with what has happened to them is astounding. I also think they have shown leadership in trying to push this House to legislate as it should have done many years ago. It is time that the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach stepped up to the plate and showed leadership. This issue has been raised 17 times in the last week in the House - this is the 18th time - by many Deputies across all parties, even on the Government benches. It is time t…

At least try to get a resolution.

I thought my contribution would not be appropriate, in that I am not going to address all the measures in this Bill, but it will be far more specific than the one I have just heard, which went all around the Houses, the world and history. Fair play to Deputy Jim O'Callaghan. He made a fine speech, none of which I agree with. I will start by sounding a note of caution. We in this House need to be more realistic about our friends in Washington and Brussels. Echoed across this House is the mistaken belief that Joe Bid…

It does not matter. That is what he said.

Why does the Minister of State feel he has to interrupt me? He can come back at me later but I am not interrupting anyone. Deputies should be allowed make their speeches.

The Minister of State is obviously caught on this issue or he would not have interrupted me.

I understand, to an extent, the desire to believe we have friends in both the east and the west, given how revolting the political classes in control of Britain are at the moment. There is no doubt that Boris Johnson and the Tories have used the Brexit debate to stoke up xenophobia and anti-migrant racism within a wider project of using the withdrawal from the EU to position a declining British capitalism as a low-wage, low-regulation haven for the worst forms of neoliberal projects. There is an accompanying attack…

I wish to speak to the amendment put forward by Solidarity-People Before Profit. We tabled it because the motion does not adequately address the issues in aviation and the impacts the crisis is having on workers and on climate change. On at least four occasions in recent weeks, representatives from the aviation industry have appeared before either the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response or the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications Networks. I have repeatedly heard their demands for increased state aid …

We have no doubt where this debate is going. The conduct of it is quite shocking. Those on the other side of the House who believe they are debating a Sinn Féin motion, as they repeatedly said, are wrong. We are debating their motion and the outcome of it is clear. After tonight, normal people will look back and say, "He got away with it again". I refer to normal people like a young care worker in a small local hospital who was suspended for seven weeks for daring to put a post on Facebook criticising a management …

In accordance with the Equal Status Act, all children should have equal access to courses and facilities in schools where they are available to others. There are approximately 500 teenagers and children across the country who themselves are healthy but who live with medically very high-risk, VHR, parents or siblings. These VHR forgotten families have been lobbying the Minister, Deputy Norma Foley's Department, looking for that equal access to remote learning for their children. Many children do not want to go to sc…

It must be difficult to try to balance all the factors that must be taken into account when pulling together a budget under the sort of economic, social and political system we live in, but no doubt, the Government is doing it. That is what it does all the time and it makes clear political decisions about where and what it targets in terms of revenue raising. I want to put it into the context of the three crises we are facing across the globe. Obviously, the pandemic and climate change are massive crises and, as a …

Last week the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service, INIS, sent a flood of letters to dozens of immigrants in this country who are being refused leave to remain. It is outrageous to threaten them with deportation in the middle of a pandemic. I am particularly concerned that a number of them are care workers. Today I spoke to one who worked right through the pandemic, looking after elderly people in a care home in Kildare. Her boss spoke of how she gowned up, was at the front line, entered rooms in which peop…

The Minister has the specifics. I thank the Taoiseach.