In anguish and despair the world watches the terrible violence and devastation in Israel and Gaza. Seared on our minds are scenes of civilians killed, wounded and taken hostage. There have been scenes of homes destroyed and entire neighbourhoods wiped out by military bombardment. Lives have been lost and shattered beneath the rubble. The scale of human suffering and the depth of grief is unimaginable. The killing of civilians in Israel by Hamas was unjustifiable and was condemned. Israel's siege of Gaza, which cont…

The Taoiseach correctly stated last week that the targeting of Palestinian civilians, cutting off water, food and medicines and the destruction of civilian infrastructure are grave breaches of international law. He described Israel's bombardment of Gaza as collective punishment and he was right. More than 3,000 Palestinians, including 1,000 children, have been killed so far. Thousands more have been injured and 600,000 people have been displaced. The people of Gaza, a refugee population, are running out of food, wa…

The Taoiseach will attend an emergency meeting of European leaders. At this meeting, will he call for ceasefires? Will he call for an end to the bombardment of Gaza, for dialogue and for the imposition of international law?

It is abundantly clear that Israel is not abiding by international law, humanitarian law or the law of wars, as the Taoiseach put it. There have been 3,000 Palestinian deaths. Many more people are missing under the rubble. We have witnessed with our own eyes collective punishment and the targeting of civilian infrastructure resulting in no water, no medicines, no food and an increased level of desperation. We have seen, and Israel openly called for, forced transfer of the population, another violation of internatio…

The answer to this is peace. The answer to this is a ceasefire, not a humanitarian pause or de-escalation but a ceasefire. I ask the Taoiseach again to make that call and take that message to the European Union.

These are not defensive actions.

The proposal to have a motion on the situation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories taken without debate is not acceptable. We have had a tradition in the Dáil of working collectively and in a collegiate fashion to arrive at consensus positions when it comes to Palestine. I believe that we should maintain that. There is enough common ground, some of which the Taoiseach recited, such as condemnation of the attacks and the taking of Israeli hostages, condemnation of breaches of international law by Isra…

He has not.

I hope the proposal arising from the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, will see health and social care workers in the community and voluntary sector achieve the pay parity they have demanded for so long. The announcement of last week's budget was the moment the Government officially walked away from fixing healthcare. Last night I met organisations that deliver services to people with disabilities and they said the budget has failed these citizens. They feel left out. There was serious concern about the lack of …

For 12 long years, Lucia and Jim O'Farrell have lived every parent's worst nightmare. In the summer of 2011, their beloved son, Shane, was left to die on the side of a Carrickmacross road. He had been blown off his bicycle in a hit-and-run incident. A life full of love, promise and potential was cut short. All Shane's tomorrows were wiped out in the blink of an eye. He was only 23 years of age. It is hard for any of us to imagine what life is like for Jim and Lucia without their son or for his four sisters without …

Once again, the conflict in the Middle East has reached the edge of a dangerous and frightening precipice. The attacks by Hamas on Israel at the weekend have rightly been met with outrage in Ireland and internationally and I join in that condemnation unreservedly. There is no justification for targeting civilians and taking civilians hostage, and all hostages should be released immediately. Our thoughts are with everyone hurt and harmed and we hope for the safety of Irish citizen Kim Damti, who is missing. These at…

I very much welcome the Taoiseach's confirmation of the fact that aid will continue to the Palestinian people and his insistence, quite correctly, that the rule of law be applied equally, without fear or favour, that the Israeli state is not exempt from the rules that apply to all others, and that the Palestinian people have rights that are inalienable and that must be vindicated, not just now in a time of acute conflict but always. Here is the problem: for far too long, day in and day out, week in and week out, mo…

It will come as no surprise to anyone who takes an interest in Irish political life that the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach spent a disproportionate amount of their time ráméising about Sinn Féin. Had they any confidence in their own actual budget and performance in government, they would have structured their remarks rather differently. It is small wonder because the budget comes at a time where we have a major crisis in housing, we have a crisis in health services and the soaring cost of living is writ large, impacti…

The gloves need to come off now when it comes to tackling and ending the housing crisis, but once again this Government has failed to land a punch. In this budget, the Government has confirmed beyond doubt that Fianna Fáil- and Fine Gael-led Governments are bad for the health of ordinary workers and families. They certainly threw the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, under the bus, did they not? It is astonishing that there was not one mention of health in the Taoiseach’s very long, very expansive speec…

It will be felt by the hundreds of thousands of people who are waiting to get a hospital appointment, by the children living in agony as they wait and wait for life-changing spinal procedures and by the older people and sick people being left on trolleys in overcrowded and unsafe hospital corridors. One would not think that we have a recruitment and retention crisis across the health service, spanning GPs, doctors, nurses, speech and language therapists and all forms of specialists. We have to ask ourselves where t…

Thousands of students are marching in protest from the Garden of Remembrance to the Dáil today to protest the Government's failure to tackle student accommodation crisis and the soaring cost of going to college. Students tell us that they are drowning in costs as they struggle to afford third-level education. So many cannot find an affordable home near to their college, so they couch surf, commute exceptionally long distances or, if they are lucky, they are forced to pay rip-off rent. This is having a terrible impa…

My eyes are wide open. Listening to the Taoiseach, one would imagine there is no problem at all. One would scratch one's head and wonder why thousands of our young brightest and best are mobilising on the streets today because according to the Taoiseach, there is no problem. According to him, it is not a problem that students commute for hours and hours to the extent that their social lives are totally broken and their mental and physical well-being is compromised. According to the Taoiseach, it is not a problem th…

They come here to ask questions of the Taoiseach and the Government as to what they will do, and it seems the Taoiseach is coming up blank for them.

That is not good enough. What will the Taoiseach do in next week's budget to make a real difference in these young people's lives?

I want to raise with the Taoiseach his Government's handling of the nitrates derogation, which has caused a huge amount of anger and stress for farmers. The issue originates in the Government's decision to sign up to a flawed review mechanism in the first place. As the Taoiseach will be aware, farmers acted on and implemented measures to improve water quality but time has not been allowed to see the effect of those actions. Instead they feel the rug has been pulled from under them. The map outlining areas facing a …