Following a request by the people of Killarney, especially the Muckross Road, about the placing of 77 asylum seekers in 22 rooms in Harmony Inn, I requested that the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, meet with a delegation of the people of Killarney. He responded to me with an email stating he would. However, this meeting has not taken place. Will the Taoiseach ensure the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, meets the delegation because its members are concerned and want to raise their concerns with him. They are also concerned tha…

I too want to pray for the little children who were stabbed, wronged, hurt and brutally injured in O’Connell Street on Thursday evening. I also condemn what happened after. These people are not deserving to be named as some kind of political category by affording them or calling them the far right. I call them thugs and blackguards, which is what they are. This is the worst kind of thuggery and they are the worst kind of blackguards. I have been called out inside in this Chamber tonight and all I will say for now i…

Cut their dole, Minister, and hurt them in their pockets.

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this very important motion this evening. I am very sad and sorry to see this proposal being brought forward by the Tánaiste, Micheál Martin. I cannot understand it. He is undermining all the good works of the Defence Forces and their peacekeeping efforts over the years when we were applauded. The triple lock has served us well and I cannot understand how this can be gone back on. Back in 2013 Fianna Fáil argued with Fine Gael when it wanted to do away with the triple lock. If …

This is a very worrying situation that has affected everyone all over the world. People are outraged at what is going on and what has gone on. We welcome the word that has come through this morning that there is some breakthrough and that peace may be about to happen. We all hope and pray that it does happen. I condemn what has happened here since 7 October. I am neutral in the sense that we cannot go in there. We do not have powers for the Army to intervene. I believe that all this House can do is call for peace a…

I did not interrupt Deputy Murphy. All I will say to this fellow here and to the other fellow who is not here at all, Deputy Barry, is that if there was one shot fired in Youghal, Barry would be gone west, out the western end of Goleen, running like a hare because he is jumping up and down inside here-----

I do not have fancy scarves around my neck but I have the same right.

He does not have a monopoly on peace. I am calling for peace in the entire region, on both sides. I condemn both sides for this wilful loss of life.

Ireland seems to be taking in far more Ukrainian refugees than is any other European country. We seem to be far more generous with our social welfare payments and all the other benefits. There should be a uniform rate of social welfare payment across the European Union. I ask that all refugees and asylum seekers who arrive here without any documentation be asked to provide their original identity details within six or eight weeks after coming here. No Irish people qualify for any payment without providing their det…

I am glad to get the opportunity to talk about this issue because I am very hurt and out of sorts about what is taking place on the Muckross Road in Killarney this evening. Seventy-seven single male asylum seekers have arrived. When we are talking about wars and conflicts we seem to be getting more men, whether they are refugees or asylum seekers. We do not know where the women are. Are they fighting the wars? I am being honest. We are talking about an international consultative policy and some forum. We need to ha…

-----yet we do not know where these are coming from, who they are or what record they have.

This has gone too far. Take it to the rest of them because ye will get it in the neck next year or the year after or whenever it is.

The people are waiting for ye to deal with this because ye have not dealt with it.

Do not anyone call me a disgrace here. I am elected by the people of Kerry and I am every bit as good as you are. You are not entitled to call me a disgrace, today, tomorrow or any other day.

I never interfered with you good, bad or indifferent.

I am glad to have the chance to speak on this important matter. The Bill is regarded as pivotal legislation in the ongoing effort to fine-tune risk equalisation credits and stamp duties within the private health insurance market. It does absolutely nothing, however, to reduce the cost of private health insurance. In fact, it is more about helping insurance companies than it is about doing anything to help people with the challenges of the affordabilty of health insurance or the escalating cost of the public healthc…

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing this motion. This motion is so important because our sick people and people with disabilities have been hurt by this embargo on filling positions, employing more home help workers and even funding the fair deal scheme. I place no blame on the Ministers of State but I blame the Minister for Health and the Government for the way they have behaved. The Government has a legal obligation as an employer and it has let down the health service in a big way. We have had a situation for weeks w…

I would appreciate that. I am not personalising anything but the Minister responsible need not walk out just because we were here. There is only one set of speakers after us and we deserve to be heard. He should listen to us the same as we had to listen to him. He made a speech at the start of the debate more or less saying there is nothing wrong with the health service. Well there is something wrong with it and that was proven when the health service was left €1 billion short, and maybe more. So many weeks after t…

Will the Minister of State do everything possible to defer the new nitrates derogation regime, which is reducing from 250 kg N/ha to 220 kg N/ha? I am asking that it at least be paused or deferred for a period of time. As the Minister of State would know, coming as he does from a country area, farmers get their cows and heifers in calf by July at the latest so that they will be calving from January onwards, through February and March, to meet the new season and catch the first grass that grows, and it was no differ…

I thank the Minister of State. It is unfortunate that, even as we speak, many farmers will go out of business in the next few years because their young fellas are not taking up dairy farming. They find it too difficult and the hours too long. The vilification of farmers and the cow is stopping young fellas from going into it. There is no encouragement. They feel like they are blamed for the rain, the heat and everything else. No other industry or anything else is tackled in the same way as the poor farmer and the c…