The Government is a laughing stock. It will not back itself tonight.

The Government is the laughing stock of the country.

I know that rankles. The biggest thing upsetting the Taoiseach now is that he knows I am right.

The Government is a laughing stock. It will not support its own stance tonight inside in the Dáil. It is ridiculous.

I welcome the Garda Síochána (Compensation) Bill 2021. It is only right and proper that we streamline and make more straightforward the issue of gardaí who are genuinely injured in the course of duty receiving adequate compensation. They might be out of work, have loss of earnings or future earnings or have pain and suffering from an injury and it is only right that we streamline the process of dealing with their claims. It would be neglectful if, in the course of this debate, we did not recognise our fallen gardaí…

If there are nuns listening, I would like to say something they have not heard in this Chamber until perhaps right now. Thank you very much. Nobody has said thank you, either in government, out of government or in opposition. All everybody has done is try to pick fault and find everything possible wrong with this because of this anti-religion agenda in Ireland at present. It is absolutely outrageous. I was talking to an extremely intelligent person the other evening. He was watching this whole debate going on over …

The Living Wage Bill is very important. It would be a great Bill if we saw anybody proposing it who was not so hypocritical. A person speaking to this Bill obviously has to look at who is proposing it. One must remember what this same party did when it was in power and had a say. We know what they did to older people. We know the way that they hit and hurt people who were bereaved by doing away with and supporting the abolition of the death grant. We know and saw what they did to women's pensions in particular. We …

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this important matter of the Consumer Rights Bill 2022. At the outset, as I always say in situations like this, I have been a small retailer for many years and I try to always ensure that my customers are happy with the goods and services that I provide. This Bill is important. While the existing legislation on consumer contracts offers consumers necessary protections, it is disjointed and deficient in a number of respects, including the rights and the remedies of consu…

I am glad the Minister's colleagues are here, especially the Minister for Housing, Heritage and Local Government, a person for whom I have high regard. Mr. Michael O'Flynn, the highly-respectable building contractor and developer of more than 40 years' experience, said in an article in The Irish Times by Mr. Ciarán Hancock last week, which should be compulsory reading, that the lack of zoned land was at the heart of the housing crisis. That is down to poor planning. Politicians need to get over the mistakes of the …

I just have this point.

People think that the builder pays the VAT. The builder does not. The VAT is paid for by the end user; the person buying the house.

I would not expect the Minister to agree with me because I am right. Builders small and large and developers large and small are needed to fix the problem. It is not the people in government or in opposition talking and talking who will do anything good. However, we need to make the policies. We need to get the policies right. What we have done is put regulation on regulation and red tape on red tape to make it impossible for people to build and make it sensible to do so. It is like doing away with bedsits. If beds…

-----or to be slow about saying we are talking and engaging, we have to talk to these people who have expertise. We have to listen to and work with them.

The Minister will be welcome and I will send him to the bog for the day.

I will knock a bit of the te-spock out of him.

The weather will be good.

This motion is so important because if history has taught us one thing, it is that war crimes can be dealt with many years after they have been committed. However, the evidence and data that must be collected, collated and kept, in order to deal with these atrocities are important. That is why Eurojust is doing such important work. It also co-operates with the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. National authorities are collecting evidence of the international crimes that may have been committed in Ukra…

I thank the Acting Chair. I declare an interest in this whole matter but I feel I am very well equipped to talk about it because I see the problem as being the demonisation of people who have property to rent out. That is not an answer to the problem. We must try to ensure there is enough availability of the product. If we do not have enough of the product and it is scarce, people will not have the properties to rent. Not every Deputy would be willing to stand in the Dáil and say this because they would nearly be a…

I move: That Dáil Éireann: notes that: — the regressive carbon tax was introduced by the Fianna Fáil/Green Party Government in 2010; — the tax initially applied to liquid and gaseous fuels at the rate of €15 per tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2); — the tax was extended to solid fuels in 2013 under the Fine Gael/Labour Party Government; — there were phased increases of the tax to reach €26 per tonne in 2020; — Budget 2021 further raised the tax to €33.50 per tonne of CO2 on automotive fuels in October 2020, and on all f…

-----and no matter what amendments and messing around with it they pursue, let the message go out from the floor of Dáil Éireann that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have lost rural Ireland in a way they will never be able to get it back and they will never be trusted again.