Not alone is there a recruitment embargo but industrial action is under way on foot of that. Those who actually run the health service have confirmed for everybody that there is a recruitment embargo and that is going to have real effects in terms of junior doctors, home help workers and so on. There are also 200,000 people on diagnostics waiting lists, 200,000 people on community waiting lists and 600,000 on the acute waiting lists. That is 1 million people, or just shy of it. I do not know what form of delusion t…

I am asking about health.

So the Minister asked for sufficient funding and got nothing.

I am talking about genuine doctors. We are not talking about managers.

We are talking about front-line workers.

The housing crisis continues, leaving workers, families and young people unable to put an affordable roof over their heads. Budget 2024 does nothing to change that reality. Housing affordability has been shredded on the Government's watch. The Simon Community Locked Out report published today shows that even with assistance payments, renting is completely unaffordable, while the latest CSO figures show house prices are still sky high and far beyond the reach of ordinary people. The housing crisis is now firmly embe…

I am sharing time with Deputy Carthy. This European Council meeting is of grave importance. It is a moment of reckoning for European leaders as the people of Gaza struggle to survive Israel's relentless bombardment. Thousands of Palestinians have been slaughtered and injured, more than a million have been displaced, and their homes, hospitals, schools and vital infrastructure have been decimated. Under siege by one of the world's most powerful military forces, an impoverished refugee population is running out of wa…

More than 5,000 Palestinians have been killed. More than 2,000 Palestinian children are dead. More than 1,000 Palestinian women are dead. More than 15,000 Palestinians have been injured. Almost 2 million Palestinians have been displaced. This is the depressing toll of human suffering inflicted on the people of Gaza over the past two weeks. The people of Ireland were rightly outraged and condemned the horrific attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas on 7 October. However, there is no justification for the onslaught be…

It is a brutally violent offensive military campaign. Hundreds of schools in Gaza have been destroyed. Its health infrastructure has been obliterated. The hospitals that remain functioning are quickly running out of fuel to keep generators going. As food runs out, the people of Gaza face starvation. As clean water runs out, they face the prospect of cholera. As they run out of the basics needed to survive, they are trapped with no way out. Now, Israel is assembling hundreds of thousands of troops and tanks on the b…

The Taoiseach's party has been in government for 12 years. He is in his second stint as Taoiseach. Obviously, one can only assume that he has used that time, as he has claimed, to build relationships. He might inform us about who our allies are on this question, what level of persuasion the Taoiseach has exercised and what work he has done outside the European Council to talk to European and international partners concerning the message of a full and complete ceasefire by all parties. Let us remember that the Israe…

-----may be small but we can have a very, very big influence on this question.

I acknowledge the Irish women's darts team and officials who are in the Public Gallery. They are the current world champions. Comhgairdeas agus fáilte. Sixteen years ago, Fine Gael said it would end the scandal of people waiting on hospital trolleys. Yesterday in University Hospital Limerick, there were 130 patients on trolleys. That is the highest number ever recorded at any hospital in the State and a damning indictment of the Government's health policies. At the health committee today, the leaders of the HSE and…

Israel's carpet bombing decimated Gaza's medical infrastructure, crippling the ability of Palestinians to help the injured, the sick and the dying. The destruction of hospitals is a direct violation of international law, a war crime, yet Israel believes it has the right to bomb hospitals. Last night, Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City was bombed. "Devastation", "carnage" and "a massacre" are just some of the words used by those who witnessed the devastation. Hundreds of innocent men, women and children have been reporte…

Starving people is not defence. Impoverishing and displacing people are not defence. Destruction of their hospitals is not defence. This is in fact an all-out offensive assault on a refugee population trapped in the world's largest open-air prison. The leadership of the international community condemns, deplores and expresses outrage but does not shout "Stop". Humanity now demands we call for a full and immediate ceasefire. Stop the slaughter of the Palestinians. Stop the bombardment of Gaza. End the blockade and c…

I welcome that call. We need ceasefires. We need peace. We need an end to the bombardment and the blockade, and the suffering inflicted mercilessly by Israel on the Gazan population. Let me just say to the Taoiseach what we do know. We know that Israel has bombed hospitals in Gaza before. It is a repeat offender in this regard. We know that Israel ordered the evacuation of hospitals. We know that Israeli spokespersons have defended the targeting of hospitals in urban settings. Above all else, we know that Israel ha…

The Taoiseach was bragging there about the Government's achievement in housing. Meanwhile, a new report published by Morgan McKinley Ireland shows that Ireland faces a brain drain across the economy. Workers in many professions are emigrating because of a housing crisis and sky-high living costs. Accountants are heading off to Australia and Canada and the construction sector has also been badly hit as the lack of availability in housing has seen workers packing their bags for the United States and Canada. The inabi…

Yes. I move amendment No. 2: After "utterly condemns the hospital bombing that occurred last evening;" to insert the following: "— unreservedly condemns Israel's brutal assault on the civilian population of Gaza which has resulted in more than 3,000 deaths including over 1,000 children to date in breach of international law; — condemns the forced displacement of Palestinians by Israel to the south of Wadi Gaza Line in clear breach of international humanitarian law; — condemns the cutting off of water, fuel, food an…

To be clear, is that all of our amendments?

The people of the world are witness to a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Israel has unleashed the weight of its military might upon a beleaguered refugee population. It rains its arsenal of missiles down upon 2 million impoverished people hemmed into an area half the size of County Louth. This indiscriminate mass slaughter of innocent men, women and children is carried out in full sight of the world and in full sight of international leaders who have failed and refused to shout, "Stop." They see clearly the carna…

I remind our Government that the recitation of all our interventions and charitable acts for the Palestinian people does not relieve it of its primary responsibility to hold Israel accountable to the world for its acts of impunity and violation of international law. We in Ireland know all too well the pain and tragedy of colonisation, occupation and dispossession. We have known conflict and suffering. We have known war. We know peace. There is no excuse and no pretence that we do not understand the playbook of the …