-----of taxpayers' money.

Cuirimid fáilte roimh an Teachta Ennis agus an Teachta Kyne sa Teach. The Minister for foreign affairs has brought draft legislation to the Cabinet which will ban trade in goods from the occupied Palestinian territories. On the Taoiseach's way into the Cabinet this morning, he made it clear that services are to be excluded, so the Government has taken a wrecking ball to the original occupied territories Bill. The Taoiseach is aware that 70% of trade between Ireland and the occupied territories is in services and th…

Eventually.

The Irish people have always taken a principled and morally ethical stance on the question of Palestine. Of that there is no doubt. Unfortunately, the Irish Government has not followed suit. The truth and the honest position are that the Government has had to be dragged into taking any kind of positive stance, facing down the impunity of Israel and accepting that until there are consequences for Israel and the Netanyahu regime, they will continue to slaughter Palestinians, they will continue to occupy land and they…

It has.

Yes.

Yes.

What about the Attorney General's advice?

I am struck by the Taoiseach's boastful approach regarding the so-called metrics on housing. Those metrics are record and skyrocketing rents, record evictions and record homelessness. Last year, the State spent almost €500 million on emergency accommodation. Over the past decade, almost €5 billion has been spent on managing homelessness. All the while, homelessness continues to rise. Families are in hotel rooms, single people have nowhere to go, pensioners are facing homelessness, children are growing up without ho…

The Taoiseach is so glib about people who have no homes.

The Taoiseach is so glib.

The latest daft.ie rent report was published this morning. The consequences of the Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil rent hike Bill are now laid bare. Rents have hit their highest level in 25 years and are increasing at the fastest rate since records began and evictions are at their highest level since the Famine. This is devastating for renters. The rent rule changes announced by the Government last summer and introduced on 1 March are a disaster. What these massive rent hikes mean in real terms is that in Dublin, renting a t…

The Taoiseach has nowhere to hide today because the consequences of his actions are very clear. The Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil rent hike Bill has meant the highest rent hikes on record and evictions at the highest levels since the Famine. The Government has chosen deliberately to side with corporate landlords and vulture funds. Those are the Taoiseach's choices. It takes a very particular type of slíbhín to stand-----

-----in this House and suggest that it is okay for families to face a rent bill of €30,000 a year in Dublin and €27,000 in Galway.

It is a very special kind of slíbhín politics from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. Shame on you.

A slíbhín is a slíbhín.

A rose by any other name and a slíbhín by any other name. Shame on you, Taoiseach.

That is your record, Taoiseach. Do not dare lecture the rest of us on the Opposition benches.

Fáilte, Austin. Deputy Carthy is telling me that Austin is a Monaghan man. The Ceann Comhairle missed the most important element of the story. Comhghairdeas agus fáilte. Three years on from the financial scandals that rocked RTÉ, the State broadcaster is once again embroiled in controversy. The latest debacle centres on RTÉ revising the list of its top ten highest earning presenters to include Mr. Derek Mooney. It transpires that Mr. Mooney should have been on the list for the last five years, but his salary of alm…

Unfortunately, the Taoiseach is very touchy about the idea that he might be expected to do his job and do it competently. A key function of the Government is to ensure that State agencies, including RTÉ, are accountable and that an agency such as RTÉ, which has been bailed out to the tune of almost three quarters of a billion euro, behaves in a manner that is transparent and appropriate, so we do not see a rerun of the scandals that rocked RTÉ a short time ago. All of us were led to believe that the bargain with RT…