I thank the Minister for his response. I am a big supporter of AIM. Its objectives are very worthwhile. These parents, however, are facing a cliff edge, and they are not the only ones. There are quite a number of them in my area. They are facing a cliff edge in July. Their children, effectively, will be excluded from access to summer camps, to after-school activities, and to after-school support. The parents are facing a very tough decision. We are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. Having two incomes coming…

I will. I thank the Minister.

I am grateful for the opportunity to make a contribution. This is important legislation. It is a topic on which Sinn Féin has been active for a long time, as the Minister of State will be aware. With that in mind, I will mention my colleagues Deputies Ward, Mitchell and Martin Kenny, who brought forward the Coercion of a Minor (Misuse of Drugs Amendment) Bill 2022. That Bill was without doubt the catalyst for the legislation we have in front of us today. There is no doubt in my mind but that the two Bills are linke…

I thank my colleagues, Deputies Cullinane and Tully, for bringing forward this motion and giving us the opportunity to have this discussion. The disability capacity review shows massive shortcomings. Three quarters of parents caring for an adult or child with an intellectual disability have received no respite whatsoever. Respite is not a luxury. It is not an optional extra. It is what these families need and what these parents - it is usually the parents - need just to be able to keep going and provide care for th…

This is a fairly straightforward issue. I would just like to say in advance that I was not advised that the Minister or a representative from his Department would not be available. I cannot stress enough that I do not mean this to be in any way disrespectful to the Minister of State but my understanding was that, if someone from the Department would not be here, I would be informed.

I am quite happy to hear the reply. I emphasise that this is not meant to be disrespectful because the Minister of State is here. I do not want to be giving out to the person who turned up about the person who did not but I do want it recorded that this is not ideal. I will start by thanking the Financial Services Union, FSU, for the work it is doing in this area and Dr. Michelle O'Sullivan for her research. We all know that surveillance of workers is not new. We have had punching in and punching out since the star…

I want to make it very clear that I also thank the Minister of State for being here. I do not want to give out to the person who did turn up about the people who did not. I thank him very much for being here. I appreciate the explanation about industrial relations and how they work. I have some small knowledge of that myself. As matters stand, however, they cannot deal with this issue. The GDPR protections in place are not enough. This is happening at a frightening pace. The impact it is having on workers was outli…

I want to say a brief word about the workers who are working in the area of children's disability. They trained to help kids. They trained to work with families. They spend their entire day firefighting and saying "No". They know the kids need the services and that, in many cases, they have the skills to deliver those services but their time is entirely taken up with saying "No", telling people they are on a different list, that they should move to a different area, or that maybe something will happen this time nex…

On after-school care for children with additional needs, the norm for most families is that when kids finish in the crèche and go to school, they transfer to a mainstream school with after-school care in a private crèche or other facility. However, many parents in my constituency who have children with additional needs are being advised by a private childcare provider that they cannot keep their kids there unless they can have an SNA. We were advised to go to the special education needs organiser, SENO, which we di…

CHO 9 is my area. The families involved have been sent from pillar to post.

I will say a few words of thanks to those local groups working very hard on the ground to counter misinformation and disinformation. Groups, such as Fingal Communities Against Racism, FCAR, which operate in my constituency, do huge amounts of work in welcoming people to our community and dispelling myths spread by members of the far right who are many and, believe me, FCAR is busy trying to counter their nonsense. People in these local groups are very quick to offer support. In the case of FCAR, it was also quick t…

Ten days ago, Panda Waste introduced yet another charge for my hard-pressed constituents. This time it is €3.80 for the lift of the brown bin. I was contacted by one of my neighbours who said she put her brown bin out for the last time two weeks ago. She simply cannot afford another €100 per year, and that is if she only puts it out once per fortnight. It is the brown bin, so that cannot be left. If people did, their neighbours would not thank them. At this stage, it is acting as a disincentive to recycling. The tr…

The completion of this first sexual violence survey is very welcome. We can never have enough data. Unfortunately, the data show us what we do not want to confront or talk about and what we do not like to say about ourselves. I acknowledge the role of the Rape Crisis Network and the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre in ensuring these data were collated in a very comprehensive way. I also want to say a word of appreciation to the people working in the Aoibhneas support service in my own area. They do absolutely brilliant wo…

That happened before the meeting.

My question is fairly straightforward. It is to ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he is aware of the view expressed by European and international agencies and organisations that corporate profiteering is a real and significant contributor to inflation and if there are any plans to tackle price gouging in food products.

The Minister mentioned wages. It is worth bearing in mind that while corporate profits might be ripping away, wages are not. In real terms, according to Unite Investigates, a division of the Unite trade union, wages are falling by an average of €76 weekly. We can see this from the perspective of consumers who are seeing their wages falling by an average of €76 while also seeing that profits are high. At the beginning of March, the ECB highlighted that corporate profiteering contributes twice as much to price rises …

Is the strong message being sent by the Government that it is not happy? I am not being funny, but is that the strong message the Government is sending? That is what the Minister said. He said the Government had sent a strong message and that it is not happy. Could the message not be something like the Government is going to demand transparency? Could it not be that, if the Government does not see delivery in reductions for consumers, it will act? The Minister just said the Government's message was that it was not …

The question is to ask the Minister for his views on expanding the powers of the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, to police compliance with sectoral employment orders, SEOs, employment regulation orders, EROs, and registered employment agreements, REAs.

A total of €20 million in withheld wages has been recouped through the WRC since 2011. I will take this opportunity to say that if it could do that with the limited resources it has had, imagine what it could do if the Minister of State improved resources and increased the number of inspectors to the number agreed in 2006. We all support SEOs, EROs and REAs, but time and again there are situations where they are being undermined because some employers are refusing to comply with them. That, in effect, gives a compe…

In advance of doing any of this, the Minister of State could choose to spend taxpayers' money only where workers' rights are respected and do business only with those companies that respect the SEOs, EROs and REAs. These agreements not only show the power of trade unions but also ensure better pay and conditions for workers, which is very important. If the agreements are undermined and the rates of pay are not upheld and if those companies get rewarded with contracts from the Government, it sends a very poor messag…