The charge has been laid that the Government is out of touch and simply does not understand the lived reality for many people. Writing today in the Irish Examiner , Caitriona Redmond, a food blogger, writes: When you're on a tight budget you juggle your money from one crisis to the next. You allocate set amounts for rent or mortgage, energy, household bills, and then food. People on a tight budget are already juggling. I will talk briefly about Geraldine, a woman who lives in my constituency. That is not her name b…

I join with others in thanking the members of the commission for the work they have undertaken. I want to specifically refer to section 8.4.5. I have not had a chance to read all of the report but I have engaged with that section with which I would be the most familiar. In 2009, when I was a union organiser, my union joined an organisation called the 24-7 Alliance, which was mostly made up of shift workers. Fianna Fáil and the Green Party were in government and as ever, with their usual regard for workers and worke…

I would not do that to the Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

I am grateful for the opportunity to make a contribution on the Bill. Protected disclosures and whistleblowers are often a force for good and an essential component in exposing corruption, illegality, criminality and wrongdoing in public and private bodies. Sometimes they are workers and sometimes they are volunteers and I hope that will get teased out. According to the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, ODCE, whistleblowing is among the most effective means of exposing and remedying corruption, fraud…

There is a cost-of-living crisis and it is hammering low- to middle-income workers. We keep saying it, but the Minister just cannot hear it, or he hears it and does not get it, or he does get it but is not interested in doing anything about it. The Minister needs to listen and to engage with the Opposition when we put forward solutions. In my constituency of Dublin Fingal, workers are paying more than €2,000 a month to rent a three-bedroom property in which they are trying to bring up their families, pay the exorbi…

The question is a fairly straightforward one. I would like an update on the work being done to adopt and ratify labour convention No. 190. It sounds fairly innocuous but as the Tánaiste and I know, a lot comes from it. I ask for an update on the work currently ongoing in his Department. Specifically, is he pushing for ratification of the convention? I seek an understanding of what stage it is at.

I thank the Tánaiste for that update. Ten states have already moved ahead of us but it would be good to provide leadership on this. The update is very welcome. The Tánaiste said that our national law has to be in line before the convention can be ratified. I fully appreciate that. One of the important aspects of this convention is that states would be required to put in place laws and measures to address violence in the workplace, including access to paid leave for victims and survivors of domestic abuse. I am sure…

That might be the mechanism and my legislation might also be the mechanism. We have had a lot of engagement on the floor of the Dáil on the need to take swift action in the area of gender-based violence. This is a fundamental piece of legislation. As a workplace representative, I have seen people - usually women but not always - in this situation. Enacting my Bill would be in line with the Government's objective of making sure all the ducks are in a row prior to signing and ratification. I welcome that a date has b…

The Tánaiste will by now have received the pre-legislative scrutiny report from the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment. The debate on self-certification or medical certification was pretty robust, as the Tánaiste can imagine. I put down this question because I want to hear the Tánaiste's views and hear if he can understand the quandary the committee found itself in, inasmuch as this is a very important public health measure. Access to sick leave is extremely important but there is a financial barri…

The Tánaiste mentioned people who cannot afford to stay off work. It is important that people who are sick have the comfort of knowing they can stay off work, and we all agree on that. However, there are people who cannot afford to go to the doctor. What I am trying to put into the Tánaiste's head and what I am asking him to consider is the case of a worker who cannot access this. They might have €55 or €60 in their pocket but that could be the money they have to do them for the rest of the week. In a situation whe…

Approximately 16% of people who are at work are covered by the medical card, so that would need to be much broader. The committee was grappling with this point. The Tánaiste mentioned that we are an outlier, which we are in terms of not having a statutory sick pay scheme, but we are also an outlier in that the vast majority of people have to pay to go to their GP. In the absence of access to GP care without cost, or without a cost to the individual going there, it is unfair to put that in place. In the countries th…

They have access to a GP without having to pay for it, so it is apples and oranges.

At the top rate-----

No, it is not that.

I move amendment No. 1: To insert the following after "real cost of living": "— produce a roadmap to deliver a living wage within a strict timeframe.". I am sharing time with colleagues. I thank the Deputies who brought this motion to the floor of the Dáil this morning. It is very important. Before I address the substance of the motion, I want to make clear that the best defence a worker has against the right-wing policies of this Government is not just to join a trade union but to be active in that trade union and…

Was the Government not a bit concerned when it was giving an €81,000 pay hike to Robert Watt of the potential for a knock-on consequential claim out of that? Was it happy it could ring-fence it and just do it for one person? The Government was not one bit concerned about the impact that was going to have on wages. In fact, unfettered, the man seems to be granted endless pay rises. We know he has had at least three in the past while. They do not come from nothing as they are granted by the Government. Out of one sid…

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to speak on this legislation. This is comprehensive and complex legislation which transposes an EU directive, while also making additional changes to benefit the national competition authorities, namely, the CCPC and ComReg. The CCPC is the primary enforcement body for competition law in this State. It has the power to play an enormous role in tackling white-collar crime if it is given the correct powers and is resourced properly. The CCPC investigates suspected antic…

For a number of years I have been raising the issue of vacant, now derelict, homes on what was formerly the St. Ita's Hospital campus with the Department of Health. It has now been passed and I have been engaging with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage and Fingal County Council. There appears to be no resistance on the part of any of the entities I am engaging with to redeveloping these houses and bringing them back into use as homes, but there is a fair amount of buck passing taking place. It …

I will text a picture of them to the Tánaiste now.

It is nearly a scandal.