That does create a difficulty, if a Government is so motivated to deploy troops and it is being asked to evaluate. I understand the arguments the Tánaiste has made about the UN Security Council. It seems to me that it is a sovereign act by a sovereign Parliament to decide that this is the threshold. We have decided that this is the test. The Parliament here sets tests for numerous areas of public policy. Sometimes we ask other organisations to do that. We asked the Low Pay Commission to set tests as to an appropria…

This question relates to issues relating to the safety measures, or lack thereof, that potentially existed in terms of Air Corps aircraft maintenance personnel over the course of recent decades. We spoke about two broad areas during our last discussion. One was the court-related issues. I flag that in response to the points the Minister made last time, several people have told me the engagement with the State Claims Agency is not anything like it should be. Even separate to that, there is the need for a policy-orie…

On that point, while I understand there are restrictions on what the Minister can respond to me on, a former personnel member who was a part of aircraft maintenance said there was no current active engagement between the State Claims Agency and litigants despite what the Minister had claimed in the Dáil the previous week. The former personnel member stated that nobody from the State Claims Agency had talked to any survivors since before the recent settlement of a particular case. I ask the Minister to take that inf…

That is in the area we need to be looking at. There are potentially more things than that, but that is one of the crucial areas. It is not only the case here that other sectors or categories of people have had wrongs inflicted on them and sometimes it is difficult to put them all through the courts for a variety of reasons, but it has also been the case internationally. I have raised previously with the Minister some of the responses in Australia and the Netherlands in the context of aircraft maintenance personnel.…

What is happening in Gaza now is undoubtedly genocide and I welcome the fact the Government is now using that language. This is the position of the Government as articulated by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and it is important to remember that. In my lifetime, I cannot remember such scenes as we are witnessing in Gaza. Children are being left without families and children are being killed in their tens of thousands. People are starving while the Gaza Strip is surrounded by aid convoys that want to get …

We just had statements on the report of the Housing Commission. We hear all sorts of arguments about how this is complicated, we need to do this and how there are multiple factors at play. We are talking about 2,500 apartments and houses that the State already owns. They are there. They are empty. Of all the low-hanging fruit in terms of the housing crisis, surely the 2,500 houses and flats the State already owns should be first and foremost. Other people have given examples of constituents living in overcrowded ac…

I thank Labour Party and Deputy Duncan Smith for bringing this motion forward. I apologise to Deputy Smith that I cannot stay for the conclusion of the debate due to commitments at home. I listened intently to the Tánaiste's contribution and read it. One line reads, "If there is to be a two-state solution there must be two states". I believe in a two-state solution. Not everyone in this Chamber does but there must be two states. It is hard to look at the situation and not wonder what will be left. What will be left…

I want to tell the Taoiseach about a case facing a woman called Victoria. Victoria is renting in Cork at the minute. She has seven children, is a single mother and a survivor of domestic abuse. Two of her children have additional needs. After her landlord went to sell the property, Cork City Council engaged with the landlord under the tenant in situ scheme. On this understanding - the correct understanding, I would have said at the time in terms of funding - Cork City Council went sale agreed on the property in Jan…

No.

The council expected that there would have been enough funding for the rest of the year.

You understand perfectly, though.

Are you serious?

Are you serious now with that response?

That is ridiculous.

You know perfectly well.

I cannot imagine how difficult it is for the O'Farrell family to listen to so much of the detail being repeated, but I think it is a significant step that an apology has been achieved. I commend the O'Farrell family on their campaigning. I had many meetings with Lucia and the family. In my nine years in this place, she is one of the most impressive people I have ever met. I refer to her level of detail and just seeing things that passed other people by. As the Minister stated, there is no question but that we would…

Throughout my life, which is not the shortest or the longest life, there have been conflicts and atrocities but I cannot remember anything like this. In my whole life, the only thing I can imagine that holds anything like this viciousness, senselessness, waste and slaughter is the genocide in Rwanda. I say that because it is. People would have been reluctant to use that word, but what else can we be talking about than the deliberate destruction of a place, a people and a people's right to live there? With the scene…

Is the clock being brought back?

Four and a half minutes, I think; okay. The Taoiseach in his opening speech said that it is difficult to find words for the human suffering. That is true, it is difficult to find words. It is difficult to find words for the scale of it. When before in any international situation could we have ever imagined a UN official talking about 14,000 babies potentially facing starvation within 48 hours? Can we think of any precedent that even casts the tiniest shadow on a statement like that? There is no comparison. There is…

I think many people would have baulked and would have found that word highly charged, but it is difficult to dispute that there is an intent to effectively destroy Gaza and the people of Gaza as a people.