I welcome that Uisce Éireann will now be audited. It is about time. Its 2023 accounts will probably not go to the public accounts committee until next year, however, as it will not produce its report until the end of 2024. I am putting on record the issues that are happening within Irish Water. The Minister of State made the point it is not a publicly owned regulated utility. That is quite correct. Workers will not go to Irish Water until it is because that is what they want. They are demanding that the referendum …

I welcome this motion and I commend the Social Democrats for bringing it forward. Adopting a zero-tolerance approach to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence is absolutely crucial in the context of what we have seen in recent times. Every week there seems to be another issue of violence against women or undermining of women in their sporting careers, their workplace, or when they are socialising in our society. In this country, 52% of women have experienced sexual violence. This is the majority of women in thi…

I have raised this issue before but I want to raise it again before the recess. Workers in community and voluntary sector posts not in receipt of funding through HSE channels are not technically section 39 organisation workers. I refer to workers in organisations such as local drugs and alcohol task force groups. Such workers have been excluded from pay restoration and WRC processes. In nominal terms, many earn less now than they did in 2008. For example, a regeneration worker in a local community project now earns…

That would be appreciated.

Last month, we saw the "RTÉ Investigates" programme on the horrific and illegal conditions at the Shannonside Foods Limited abattoir in Straffan, County Kildare. The plant has now shut down, which I welcome. Having looked through the record of the committee on agriculture meeting on the matter, I was left with serious concerns as to how this situation was allowed to arise. These concerns were further heightened by the news that the Department of agriculture essentially will be investigating itself with regard to ho…

I welcome the motion and thank the Labour Party for bringing it to the floor of the Dáil. It links in well with the statements on gender-based violence we will have this afternoon. It is clear that the State provides a level of services and supports that actively endangers women. Successive Governments have not funded domestic and gender-based violence services properly and they have not provided the infrastructure we need. These are political decisions that make Ireland a less safe place for women. As has been sai…

On 18 April, I asked the Minister of State, Deputy Butler about the lack of public health nurses across the Dublin 8 and Dublin 12 areas, especially regarding childhood development checks. The reply given to me by the Minister of State was that it was not a funding issue or a moratorium issue, but that it is due to a lack of public health nurses for that area. She said she would bring my concern back. I also followed up for details in a written question and was then told it was a HSE service matter. That is not the…

You said you would intervene.

There has to be an interim solution.

People cannot afford them.

In May, there was a report on the two-tier system for cancer treatment, the issue being the two-year difference in the approval times for reimbursement of new cancer drugs of the public and private systems. As I said at the time, there should be no differences in people's ability to gain access to life-saving treatment based on how much money they have. I am sure the Minister of State agrees. Professor Michaela Higgins, president of the Irish Society for Medical Oncology, has stated: It means we know we are prescri…

I thank Deputy Harkin for bringing this Private Members' motion to the House today. I want to highlight the great work that has been done to campaign for adequate funding for primary education. The work by the primary school principal representatives is a great resource for all of us, as well as the constant work by the INTO in fighting for better funding and conditions for teachers and students. The motion reflects that work very well. There was a meeting in the audiovisual room last week. I am happy to support th…

In reply to a question I submitted recently regarding the lack of suitable accommodation for people with disabilities in LDA cost-rental developments, the Department of housing stated that the tenant is responsible for the financial cost of adaptation and recommended the housing adaptation grant for people with a disability. As one must earn below €66,000 but above the social housing threshold, and the rent must not exceed 35% of one's net income, those who qualify for cost rental would only be entitled to a maximu…

They cannot even build a door wide enough.

I will not support the pact. It writes a broken system into law. It disregards the humanity of people fleeing war and persecution. It weakens our humanity by treating people who need help with detention and punishment. It reinforces the false idea we have a refugee crisis and not a crisis in how we run our economies, societies and international system. We do not have refugee crisis. We have a crisis in how we run and fund our State. This crisis is seen in housing, the rental sector, homelessness, healthcare, mental…

In the context of the motion, we need to go further. However, I will support it. I thank Sinn Féin for bringing it forward for debate. It gives us an opportunity to discuss our whole energy system. That system is broken. The cost of heating homes and keeping the lights on has surpassed what many people can afford. We have giant fossil fuel and other energy companies making billions in profit while more and more people are forced into energy poverty. The ESRI has estimated that 29% of people are in energy poverty no…

No one was surprised by the failures of the Government's housing policy that were laid out in last week's report from the Housing Commission. I see those failures every day in my constituency office when I meet people struggling to pay rent or find a home, stuck on housing lists for 16 to 18 years and stuck in homelessness. The desperation out there is a direct result of the housing policies implemented by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, supported by the Labour Party and the Green Party, for decades. We are not just tal…

Not according to the commission.

I thank the Tánaiste for his reply but it does not answer my question. The situation in Ireland is that 5,000 people have entered emergency accommodation since the ban on no-fault evictions was lifted last year. Terminations of tenancies rose by 20% after the ban was lifted, with more than 19,000 households issued with eviction notices last year. We have record homelessness. More than 100 families became homeless in the last three months of 2023 due to no-fault evictions. In the case of 63% of eviction notices last…

It is recommending stopping them.