There are not 25 TDs in Galway.

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this motion. I cannot tell you how many times I have spoken on this issue. I will come to the housing task force, the minutes of which the Minister was instrumental in getting us. When we talk about empty houses tonight, we are doing so against a background of the highest ever number of homeless people: 15,580, 4,475 of whom are children. This Government is taking pride in its policy, a jigsaw of pieces that adds more confusion, keeps house prices artificially high, and continues to tr…

I have to agree with the previous speaker on this. I looked back to April. This is not a priority. In its 2009 annual report, SIPO "recommends that the Department of Finance should draft new legislation to be based on best practice for dealing with conflicts of interests and ... consolidate". Fast forward to the 2021 annual report, SIPO states "For a number of years, the Commission has called for a comprehensive review of the existing ethics framework...in annual reports" and so on. It says it over and over. It is …

I will stick with what SIPO tells us. I will go back to 2019 and to the submission to public consultation on the regulatory impact analysis. It states that SIPO's "mandate includes oversight of the electoral Act". It then goes on to outline some of the challenges for SIPO in this role and the lack of independence of SIPO in terms of budgets, staffing and reporting to the Oireachtas. It states that SIPO does not have its own Vote, unlike in other jurisdictions and that a dedicated Vote would allow it more independen…

They were outlined by SIPO in 2019.

I am returning to the issue of Palestine and the genocide that is going on there. This morning, we listened to RTÉ's report of what the Palestinian ambassador to the UN said. He spoke of how flames and hunger were devouring Palestinian children. We also listened to an eyewitness account of a doctor on the ground. I will provide a few figures, but how have we reached this point? How have we let this happen? A total of 54,000 Palestinians, including 15,613 children, are dead. The Lancet puts the figure for dead and i…

We all may well be appalled and sickened, but the Government is refusing to face the elephant in the room. Israel has an umbilical cord attachment to America. America, followed by the EU, is the biggest supplier of arms to Israel, and the Irish Government is waiting for a morally corrupt and inept EU to take action. The EU is the second biggest supplier of arms to the genocide. Let us call a spade a spade. We have no difficulty, and the Government has had no difficulty, criticising Russia. The same condemnation has…

He can say a lot of things, and then we watch Shannon being used, an occupied territories Bill that is going nowhere and trade with Europe. Ours is a small country. It is time we led, given our history. It is time we called for an absolute ceasefire, led in the UN, made our words mean something and called out that narrative for what it is. Israel is a rogue state. It is not a democratic state. That narrative allowed a congressman, who said of Palestine, "Go in there and kick the ... [S-H-I-T] out of them", to come …

You stand up-----

-----and account for what we are going to do when you say there are war crimes and a genocide.

I would be delighted.

Palaver?

Now what are you going to do about it?

Good. When?

Before the summer?

I am not throwing brickbats.

I want to share with the Tánaiste a positive letter I got from Galway City Council. It is delightful. I am told the council is incredibly proud of the impact the energy retrofit programme is having in providing warmer and more efficient homes and helping to reduce energy poverty. It is a delightful letter except the family about whom I raised representations has gone on a waiting list and the city council has no money for the energy retrofit programme. It is all used up and that family is gone onto a list for next …

The Minister of State and I have had an engagement on this before. First, the scheme in Galway has not been prevented because of objections or bureaucracy. Second, the catchment flood risk assessment and management was the biggest flood risk assessment and it affected two thirds of the population. It was a brilliant piece of work. It was completed in 2018. Unfortunately, when the consultants were eventually appointed in 2020, they came back with a report that identified that the scale of the flood risk in Galway is…

I understand this question is in a group, such is Deputies' concern about the occupied territories Bill or, to give it its proper name, the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018, which incorporates a ban on imports and services from the occupied areas, supported by the advisory opinion on the illegality of Israel’s occupation and settlements issued on 19 July 2024 by the International Court of Justice. It takes on added meaning with Israel's announcement today that it intends to establish 22…

When questions are grouped, the Deputy with the first question gets 30 seconds and everyone in the group gets the same time, thereafter, one minute. No one is deprived of time.