Second time lucky Taoiseach.

Tá Coimisinéir Teanga nua ceaptha sna Sé Chontae, Pól Deeds. Is coiscéim chun tosaigh é seo i ndiaidh tréimhse an-fhada ag feitheamh dá leithéid. Tá Gaeilge agus pobal na Gaeilge faoi ionsaí sna Sé Chontae faoi láthair. Conas a dhéanfaidh an Taoiseach cosaint ar an bpobal seo, ar lucht labhartha na Gaeilge ó Thuaidh? While I am on my feet, I want to raise the situation of Jordan Devlin, an Irish citizen from County Antrim who is on remand in Britain awaiting charges relating to pro-Palestinian activism there. I see…

You lead the Government.

It is Leaders' Questions, not aspiring leaders' questions.

Go raibh maith agat. I want to raise with the Taoiseach the situation of two households living in Lyre, Mahon Bridge, County Waterford. They live in two adjoining council-built cottages constructed in 1949. At the time, the local authority installed a water supply from an open stream flowing off the Comeragh Mountains, and that is still their only source of water 75 years later. It is untreated and coming from a roadside stream. The water runs black and is full of silt, filth and worse. Each of the men has pulled d…

Tá ár n-iascairí ag dul thar imeall na haille agus beidh na cainteanna cuóta iascaireachta ina nóiméad cinniúnach. Tá na cainteanna nua maidir le cuótaí ag tosú an mhí seo chugainn agus tá ár bpobail chósta ag éileamh toradh atá cóir agus buan. Leis an drochscéal is déanaí faoi pelagic quotas agus titim tubaisteach i stoc cloicheán i Muir Éireann, tá géarghá anois go seasfaidh an Rialtas go daingean ar son na hÉireann agus go n-éileoidh sé go gcuirfear na Hague preferences i bhfeidhm. In recent weeks, our coastal c…

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael sold out the Irish fishing industry and are set now to sell out Irish agriculture. The Government faces a simple but serious choice. Will it stand with Irish farmers, rural communities and our domestic food sector or will it allow the Mercosur trade deal to sell them out? Much was said by the Government in the past year and in the run-up to the general election about opposing the Mercosur deal, but the real test is upon it. Let us call the Mercosur deal what it is. It is a bad deal for our…

Science Week is an important opportunity to highlight the value of research, innovation and STEM education throughout the State. It is also an opportunity to look very honestly at the structural failures in how Government supports science, third level education and regional development. For those of us in Waterford and the south east, these failures are not abstract. They are stark and lived realities. The potential of the South East Technological University, SETU, is extraordinary, yet Government decisions have pl…

This evening, Sinn Féin will move a motion on the cost of motoring and transport. It is a particular issue for rural communities and the communities I represent. We will ask the Government to take action to address the spiralling increase in the cost of insurance and fuel. We also need targeted and sustained investment in our roads infrastructure, in particular in my constituency of Waterford where the N25 has been overlooked for funding. There is no funding for the N25 in the national development plan as it passes…

We already know that there is an overreliance on overtime to deliver routine policing. There has been so little progress in tackling the recruitment and retention crisis in An Garda Síochána that problems are manifest across the State. Sinn Féin has put forward a range of proposals to deal with this, including a significant increase in the Garda training allowance to make it a more attractive prospect for new entrants, service payments for those with 30 or more years of service and increasing the compulsory retirem…

The Government is failing children in Waterford with additional needs over the stagnation in early intervention classes. Five years ago, there were two early intervention classes across Waterford city and county. This year, there are still two. That is despite an increasing need and a demand that is there but unmet. These early interventions are critical for children’s educational and social outcomes. It is something that the Taoiseach’s Government needs to grapple with. Over the last nine or ten months, we have se…

This Government has had every warning and every opportunity to act yet it continues to ignore the depth of poverty and social exclusion growing across communities and the State. The measures in this Bill fall far short of what is needed. After years of record surpluses and headline promises, families are still being left behind and are struggling with food, energy, housing and transport costs while the Government congratulates itself on token increases that barely touch the size of this crisis. Core welfare payment…

20 more years.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion and thank the Labour Party for proposing it. I restate Sinn Féin’s support for the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use. That report was crystal clear. It said Ireland must adopt a comprehensive health-led response to drug use, one that treats addiction and substance misuse not as a criminal issue or set of criminal issues but as a public health issue. We in Sinn Féin support recommendation 17 of the report, which calls for the introduction of a he…

Do you not remember the troika? For God's sake, you crashed the economy.

What a short memory.

Is the Minister speaking from experience?

Ireland's electricity grid is not fit for purpose. It is holding back housing delivery across the State. It is stalling renewable energy projects and limiting development in towns, villages and rural areas. It did not just happen by accident and it did not happen overnight. It is the result of years of underinvestment, poor planning and mismanagement by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments. For too long, they have treated the national grid as something to be managed around rather than something to be bu…

Every year, families across the State face a financial cliff when the school term begins. Parents are being forced into debt. They are dipping into savings and turning to credit unions just to send their children to school. As we have just heard, they are going to money lenders, unscrupulous ones at that, and getting themselves into huge unsustainable debts. One of the biggest drivers of these costs is school uniforms. In Waterford, parents are telling me the same story each August and September. They are stretched…

My question relates to Scoil Garbháin, an Irish-medium school in Dungarvan, County Waterford. I am seeking an update on plans for the extension. The school got word in January this year that the long-awaited and much-needed extension had been approved. It was told in February that it would hear within six weeks from the technical team in the Department. Over nine months later, it has yet to hear despite frequent correspondence from me. I have also raised the matter with the Taoiseach. The school has raised it repea…