Children with special educational needs were among those who suffered most during the first lockdown. Despite the best efforts of everyone, including staff, parents and the children and young people themselves, there was regression. The disruption to routine and lack of social contact is very traumatic for them. The parents of children with special educational needs were distraught and disappointed with the Government's failure to plan for the closure of schools because that led to there being no plan for their chi…

Tá mo chuid smaointe inniu leo siúd a chaith am i dtithe na máthar agus na leanaí. Inniu, cuimhnímid orthu go léir. Is córas drochíde agus díghrádaithe a bhí ann. Tá an Taoiseach tar éis leithscéal a ghabháil ar son an Stát, ach tá na chéad chéimeanna eile ríthábhachtach. Yesterday was a day of mixed emotions for the survivors of mother and baby homes. After five years, the report of the commission was finally published and it was a very long process from which many survivors and their advocates felt excluded and i…

The lack of affordable and secure homes is the biggest problem facing our people for the past decade. We have a generation whose lives have been defined by this housing crisis. When the Taoiseach came to power six months ago, he said that his Government would be the Government to sort out housing, but that promise has fallen flat. Rents remain sky-high, houses remain unaffordable and the council waiting lists still heave with applicants waiting for years on end. At the sharpest end of this crisis, the number of peo…

The Taoiseach is indulging in the tried and tested strategy of his predecessors. Not only is he trying to explain away the housing crisis, he is trying to live in an extraordinary world of make-believe where there is no crisis. However, the crisis is real. I have rehearsed previously with the Taoiseach the fact that average rents in Dublin are now above €2,000. The average rent nationwide is now above €1,400. I have said to the Taoiseach very directly that his idea of an affordable price for a modest family home do…

I wish to raise the Debenhams workers again. Last night, they received proposals from the chairman of the Labour Court. Those proposals are massively disappointing for the workers and will be very little comfort to them. Many of the workers spent years working for Debenhams and they have protested for 251 days to get a fair and reasonable redundancy settlement. They are worn out, exhausted and heartbroken. The manner in which this dispute has been handled by Debenhams and also by KPMG and the Government does none o…

When will the Taoiseach bring forward legislation to ensure that this sorry scenario does not play out again? We have had Clerys and Debenhams.

The fact is that workers have been left cruelly exposed by this Government and the previous Fine Gael and Fine Gael and Labour Party Governments. All of them have let these workers down.

The Government can change the law.

We have previously discussed the increased number of people experiencing homeless who have died on our streets this year. The Taoiseach has stated by way of response that unprecedented levels of resources are being targeted at the issue of homelessness. I suggest that it is the level of homelessness itself that is unprecedented. The State still does not fully recognise or record the scale of this issue. We know that the number of people experiencing homelessness is at least 20% higher than the number recorded by th…

I wish to raise the case of Shane O'Farrell. This December will be the tenth Christmas for the O'Farrell family without Shane. As the Taoiseach will know, the circumstances that led to his death have been very well voiced in the Dáil and Seanad in recent years. In 2018, the Dáil voted in favour of the immediate establishment of a public inquiry into the death of Shane O'Farrell and this was followed by a unanimous vote to the same effect in the Seanad in early 2019. Instead of acting on the instruction of both Hous…

I reiterate the call for preparation for an orderly constitutional transition. Next year, we will mark a century of the partition of our island. My God, we know the heavy cost that has been carried by our people, North and South, for that disastrous, catastrophic event. We have an opportunity now to heal and rebuild and we need to plan for that. I encourage the Taoiseach to raise again the issue of an all-island approach to Covid-19. Like everyone else, when I saw the ambulances lined up I was shocked and worried a…

I am sharing time with Deputy Brady. It has been said many times in this House that we have reached crunch time or the endgame in Brexit negotiations. All of those moments were indeed critical and they were important junctures in Britain's Tory-induced withdrawal from the European Union. However, here we are, in the final days of 2020, on the final straight. While there has been a great deal of pessimism recently, it now seems there is a growing sense of optimism that a trade deal can, in fact, be done. We need a f…

On several occasions now, I have raised with the Taoiseach his refusal to pay student nurses and midwives. His decision has been met with understandable anger, not just from the students themselves but also from the public. Last Thursday, I met online with student nurses and midwives from all over the country. They shared with me their experiences and recounted the very real work they do in our hospitals. Their kindness, professionalism and dedication to nursing is in sharp contrast to the shoddy way they are being…

What is at the core of this, in reality, is a health service and a hospital system that is creaking at the seams. What is at the core of this is the fact that student nurses and midwives are very often the glue that keeps that system together and keeps the show on the road. What is also at the core of this, put very plainly, is a group of professionals in training working 13-hour shifts and not getting paid. It is as simple as that. The Taoiseach can deflect, divert and point the finger wherever he wishes but he is…

I know what is happening in our hospitals and it seems the Taoiseach does not, which is shocking.

They are not supernumerary. They are working on the wards.

They are.

You should be paying them.

Disgraceful.

It is very simple. They are doing the work and the Government is not paying them.