I certainly do not need a lecture on the vile history of child sexual abuse and State and church cover-up in this country. I represented survivors of abuse in the 1990s before the Residential Institutions Redress Board. I recall the flaws in that scheme, which I have spoken about before. I also recall the 2002 agreement, the shameful Michael Woods agreement, which capped the contribution of religious orders at a fraction of that €1.5 billion cost the Taoiseach rightly pointed out. Of course, religious orders should…

I commend the makers of the RTÉ Documentary on One, "Pirate Predator", for their chilling investigation into the prolific and powerful Dublin sexual predator and paedophile, Eamon Cooke, the owner of the pirate radio station, Radio Dublin. Cooke has been compared with Jimmy Savile, whom he knew and met on many occasions. The true number of children abused by Cooke is now thought to run potentially to hundreds. I pay tribute to the extraordinary bravery of the women who did come forward, two of whose testimony at la…

I commend my colleague and our climate spokesperson, Deputy Ahern, on proposing this motion, which I am delighted to second on behalf of the Labour Party. In my constituency of Dublin Bay South, we saw the largest mobilisation of young people in the first school strike for climate in 2019. My constituency is also home to a great many people working in the tech sector. However, it is also a constituency where many households are now struggling to make ends meet, in part due to the outrageously high cost of energy. I…

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. No woman who lived under the shadow of the eighth amendment will ever forget its impact. Many of us will recall the X case, the A, B and C case, the PP case and the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar. We all know that there are thousands of other women who were harmed and whose lives were deeply impacted by Ireland’s constitutional ban on abortion between 1983 and 2018. Thousands had to travel abroad for necessary healthcare. In later years, many self-medicated with pills p…

It is a residual, insulting, patriarchal mistrust of women that forms the basis of the mandatory three-day wait and the Government's unwillingness to engage with the evidence that other change is needed. I welcome the Taoiseach's confirmation that he will vote in support of the Private Members' Bill to remove the three-day wait on Second Stage tonight, but even if that reform is introduced, it will not be enough. It will not be enough, in particular, for women who receive a devastating diagnosis of fatal foetal abn…

I absolutely acknowledge the progress that has been made since 2018 and since the legislation commenced in 2019, but we still have to acknowledge we are failing far too many women.

Fifteen hundred women is not a small number, and in each situation, there are really difficult circumstances. I am glad that we are seeing a change of heart from the Government on the three-day waiting period after years of insisting that, because it was inserted into draft legislation late in the campaign just prior to the vote, the Government was prevented from looking to abolish it. I welcome the Taoiseach's change of heart on this but supporting this modest measure through the first stage of a multi-phase legis…

I renew a request I previously made to the Taoiseach relating to the campaign by Ms Lisa Phillips, who is a courageous survivor of sex abuse by Jeffrey Epstein. She and other survivors are engaged in a quest for truth and justice. Since the initial batch of files relating to Epstein's depraved international paedophile network was released, we have seen a further drip feed of allegations about his connections, which have implicated many people in public life, including former European Commissioners. Troublingly, the…

I thank the Taoiseach.

The Minister for housing has declared a "war on dereliction"; fighting talk and a striking turn of phrase. This is the Government's tactic. It is to flood the airwaves with repeated announcements, deflect responsibility and spin its failures to save face. This week, the Tánaiste sought to pin responsibility for vacancy and dereliction on councils alone, a convenient distraction from years of Government failure. Who has been in charge of national housing policy for the past decade? It is the Taoiseach and the Tánais…

We all know the arrangement.

I have listened carefully and the Taoiseach's answer is again a textbook response by Government. People like the young mother in my constituency are sick of central government looking to claim ownership for any win but absolutely looking to absolve itself of responsibility for any failure. It is buck-passing to local authorities and it is utterly shameless and meaningless to people who are looking for action. Yes, of course we acknowledge that one third of local authorities collected no derelict sites tax revenue i…

Who says?

I want to raise the very serious issue of road safety with the Taoiseach. Ireland is now one of the few European countries where road deaths are increasing despite an official target to halve fatalities by 2030. Behind the figures of fatalities and injuries are lives lost, families devastated and communities traumatised. The Crowe report on roads policing was clear about the need for stronger enforcement but there has been a fall in the number of checkpoints and breath tests for motorists and there are nearly 400 f…

Before I begin, my thoughts are with the man who remains seriously injured in hospital, and with his family, following Monday's brutal knife attack in north Belfast. I also condemn the appalling violence perpetrated against Northern Ireland's migrant communities overnight and commend the work of the emergency services in response. We must all condemn those who seek to exploit any awful incident in order to target ethnic minority and immigrant communities. We saw it here during the Dublin riots in November 2023. All…

I thank the Taoiseach for his considered response. Like him, I commend the judge, Michael White, on all his work and for taking on this report and giving us such a comprehensive picture. I agree that we need a debate in this House once we have had time to digest the full findings of the report. Unfortunately, however, there have been so many of these situations where we have seen paedophilia covered up and even facilitated by State agencies, and where we have seen failures to support and protect victims and survivo…

This is another step in ensuring survivors and victims are supported and protected and the justice system responds.

The cost-of-living perma-crisis is hurting all our communities, worst of all people on low and middle incomes. Spiralling costs in housing, health, energy and groceries are forcing people to spend more and more of their pay on bare necessities. This is causing real suffering. In this context, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council has again issued warnings about the Government's spending. Five out of every six euro collected in corporation tax is being spent, but not in a sustainable way and not to deliver quality publi…

It is how it is spent.

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