My main question is about the leak. Who leaked it? The Taoiseach indicated today that he believed it came from NPHET. Is there an investigation to find this out? We will have many more moments in this pandemic where decisions will have to be made by the Minister, the Taoiseach, the CMO and NPHET. Whatever the Minister says about the word "calamity", it felt like that over the course of those few days. It felt like we were not in control and like there was a problem. If there is somebody who is acting in bad faith, …

I am not comforted that something like this could happen and that it could happen again. That is a problem for me and for the Irish people.

This is not the first time I have sat in the Chamber and listened to Deputy Ó Snodaigh speak before me on the arts. His family is steeped in the many different parts of the arts. We have debated the arts on a number of occasions in the short life of this Dáil. It feels like we are going over old ground. It is old ground, however, that is becoming more important and more severe for those who are unemployed and want to work again. These people are looking for hope that there will be light at the end of the tunnel. Th…

This question relates to work being done by the Labour Party sports spokesperson, Senator Wall, as well as by Deputy Ó Ríordáin. Has the Minister had any discussions with the FAI to bring payments to the women’s international team in line with payments made to the men’s international team, given that several countries have brought these payments for appearance fees in line? Does the Minister support such a move?

There is some encouragement to be taken from the reply. Last month, the English Football Association joined associations from Brazil, Australia, Norway and New Zealand in bringing the payments for appearance fees for their women's team in line with their men's team. Players on the Irish men's team get €2,500 as a basic appearance fee before any win bonus or other extras. Our women get €500, 20% of what the men get. The Department gives the FAI €800,000 a year. Will the Minister of State ensure that money comes with…

There is a role for men players and men in the game. They have not shown solidarity with the women over the years. During the 2017 strike, they were noticeably absent through their silence in supporting their women colleagues who were fighting for basics such as tracksuits as well as pay and conditions. We have seen it in other sports with Andy Murray being a strong ally for equality of pay for women in tennis. We have not seen it in football, however. It is absolutely shameful. Footballers are publicly and laudabl…

I would appreciate the Minister giving an up-to-date status report, hopefully a positive one, on the vital MetroLink project, which has been long in gestation. Hopefully, we will see progress on it soon. The Minister, when he was previously in office and held this brief, supported moving the project forward. At that time, it was known as metro north. Any update the Minister can provide will be greatly appreciated.

It is my hope and expectation that the business case presented to the Department will be the strongest one possible. I do not know of any other strategic project in planning that meets such a transport deficit. MetroLink links the third largest town in Ireland by population, Swords, with our capital city, our international airport, Dublin Airport, and Dublin City University through Phibsborough and into the city centre. It is vital infrastructure. Many people have asked me and the Acting Chairman, Deputy Alan Farre…

I am encouraged by the Minister's reply. We have spoken about this outside the Chamber as well. The Minister is consistent in his view on this both behind the scenes and in this House which is very encouraging. The town of Swords, which will benefit from MetroLink, is an example of an area where we can improve active travel, to which the Minister referred in earlier answers. We can improve the cycling infrastructure in order to be able to get people from the west side of Swords to where the MetroLink stations will …

I hope to raise a number of issues tomorrow during oral questions. On that basis, I will confine my brief contribution to those who should be travelling by air and those who use transport on the ground. In the past couple of months, I and others, including Deputy O'Rourke, have spent an awful lot of time in this Chamber and behind the scenes trying to resolve an infuriating social welfare issue for workers in Aer Lingus. This was at a time when we should all have been concentrating our efforts on trying to navigate…

The shambles that has been made of the Covid committee, about which we received a communication in the past two hours, means it is of extra importance that we look at our schedule for the week, particularly in relation to what has been said before. Dublin has gone through two separate levels of regulations over the last week. We have changes to the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP. There are issues in relation to the need for a ban on evictions and the moratorium on mortgage payments. All of these issues need to …

My point of clarification is that the Chair of the Covid-19 committee had already told us that the witnesses were put on notice from last Thursday, which would have been same day as the Business Committee, which is the earliest possible time it could have been told. I believe the Taoiseach would accept that three sets of witnesses pulling out of three sessions the day before the scheduled committee is pretty damaging and unprecedented for any committee,

I would like to echo our support for the motion. It is really good, and could and should have gone unamended. I welcome the Minister to the Chamber. The Minister of State, Deputy Browne, who made the opening statement, referred to the awareness campaign that has been launched. A number of Deputies and Ministers in the Chamber are of my generation or are a few years younger or older than me. The Minister of State and Deputies Gannon and Ward all grew up with awareness campaigns in the newspapers or on television. Gr…

Despite my raising this with the Tánaiste in June and the Taoiseach in July as well as tabling numerous parliamentary questions, there remains absolute anger and frustration among the workforce of Aer Lingus and other companies in the aviation sector in respect of their social welfare entitlements. The replies we are receiving are not reflected in their experiences in Intreo offices. They are not reflected in their experiences with their employer either. The net result is that workers are taking home pay of €40. Th…

I welcome the Minister and wish him the best of luck in his role, which he has had now for a number of weeks. My comrades in Labour Youth produced over the summer a document, entitled Be Radical or Be Redundant, relating to a number of areas, including climate change. If we are to go from being laggards to leaders, as is the Government's aim, and one which we support, we need to be radical or else we risk being redundant. Throughout this pandemic, which has dominated 2020 and dominated an awful lot of our thinking,…

I thank Deputy O'Rourke of Sinn Féin for tabling the motion. I also thank the organisers and participants of the huge demonstration that took place in Dublin yesterday. In an ideal world, it would have matched up on the same day as this motion was taken but alas, for reasons that have been well discussed, it was not to be. It was a powerful demonstration and one that showed the unity of purpose and cohesion that has emerged in the taxi movement during what it has gone through and continues to go through in this pan…

I make an official request of the Ceann Comhairle that he call a special meeting of the Business Committee within seven days. Deputy Carthy said it would meet tonight but all groups need a few days to put their proposals forward. There is no point in having a shortened version of the meeting we had at the end of July. Each group should have a few days to put forward proposals to return to this House. I ask the Ceann Comhairle to call this meeting within a week to discuss this issue on its own.

I am sharing time with Deputy Sherlock. Something quite significant happened at last week's meeting of the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response that we are now seeing play out. When asked about the strategy we would pursue, and whether we would try to eliminate or suppress the virus, the acting Chief Medical Officer said that we would be living with the virus for the foreseeable future. That comment was backed up by the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, at the time and again by the Taoiseach today. We are now…

Speaking on behalf of the Labour Party, which with the vagaries of this proposal from Government would benefit more than the smaller parties, we opposed this at the Dáil reform committee meeting. We spent nearly three hours in the Business Committee coming up with composite proposals, which all came from this side of the House. They were very reasonable proposals. I ask the Government at this very late stage to withdraw this proposal. Not only will it create the rancour we are seeing tonight, but this will happen e…

I did not.