I asked for a guarantee but I did not get it. The Government has made much of the increased payments that will be made to higher paid workers but it has not been so loud about the fact that those on the lowest pay will be worse off. A worker on €400 a week with two years of contributions will be €20 a week worse off under the Government's proposal, a worker on €300 a week with five years of contributions will be €40 a week worse off, and a worker on €250 a week with two years' contributions will be €47.30 a week wo…

I note the fact that the Minister of State has spoken about a floor of €125 per week. Other Ministers have said that what we are doing is catching up with the EU in pulling ourselves up to the EU norm. I do not think that stands up to scrutiny. In France, pay-related benefits last for two years, between 57% and 75% of a person's income is paid, and there is a floor of €212 per week. That is nearly €100 higher than the Government's proposed floor of €125. In Sweden, 80% of income is paid for the first three months b…

Any time I have gone to hospital, the first person to help has been a clerical or administrative worker. Anyone who knows how hospitals work knows their contribution is vital and that the system would collapse in a matter of hours without them. The Government has decided to pick a fight with those workers by freezing recruitment. The Government has called it a "pause" but that is playing with words. It is a recruitment freeze. Vacancies across the country will go unfilled. Stressed-out workers will be put under eve…

"Ireland, we are at war." That was the tweet from Conor McGregor after the conviction of Ashling Murphy's killer. McGregor has 1.7 million followers on X, formerly Twitter, very many of them young men. McGregor has been demanding that immigrants who commit crimes should be deported. If enforced in the United States, by the way, this would lead to the deportation of McGregor himself. In 2018, he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in New York after being filmed throwing a trolley through a window of a bus.

It is a matter of public record. I will move on. What image does McGregor promote to his young male followers? It is an ultra-macho image and an image of toxic masculinity. It is bad news for women, for LGBTQ people and for society. It is also bad news for young men, imprisoning them in a rigid gender stereotype. The multimillionaire tweeter, who told his huge young male following that they were at war, did not go out on the streets to fight himself. Presumably, he stayed at home and tweeted. Many of those young me…

The day before the riots, Deputy Mattie McGrath told the Dáil there was a quiet invasion taking place.

Bríd Smith has given me an extra few seconds.

The day before the riot, Deputy McGrath told the Dáil that a quiet invasion is taking place.

The same day, Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, referring to male asylum seekers in Kerry, said "they have landed now" and that women and girls who used to walk the Muckross Road, morning, noon and night will all stop doing that because they are worried about their safety. There are people of colour who are too afraid to come into town to work after those riots. There are LGBTQ people who are keeping their heads down after those riots. Wild talk exacts a price in human suffering. The Deputies who put forward a motion riddled…

Yesterday, the Taoiseach took umbrage when I said I thought he was washing his hands on the issue of the genocide in Gaza. To be clear, the Government has made strong criticisms of the Israeli Government and it voted the right way at the United Nations but Israel has ignored that United Nations vote so more must now be done. However, the Government is not doing more. Action must be taken but the Government is not taking it. The Taoiseach said yesterday that even the US could not do anything but that is not true. If…

How many of them are democracies?

The budget made no provision for our four new elective hospitals including the new hospital in Cork. People on hospital waiting lists in Cork, and around the country, have waited long enough. Why are they being forced to wait even longer? Dr. Brendan Walsh of the ESRI told us this morning that the State faces an immediate deficit of 1,000 hospital beds. The national development programme has a target of 260 beds per annum, a target which the ESRI says is too low. The Government will claim 261 beds will come on stre…

We do not bring arsonists to a firefighting convention, unless it is COP28. How many fossil fuel lobbyists have access to these climate negotiations? The answer is 2,456. That is four times the number of oil and gas industry representatives who were at COP27, which itself was a record. How many fossil fuel lobbyists are attending in comparison with representatives of indigenous communities and communities who are on the front line of the climate battle? The answer is that there are seven for every one. Who is the p…

There are serious concerns for jobs in Ballincollig, County Cork, after US corporation, Broadcom, acquired the semiconductor company VMWare, which employs 1,000 people in the town. Broadcom moved quickly to implement redundancies across the United States after its $69 billion takeover. It has been in correspondence with the Ballincollig workforce, including stating that it was proposing some organisational changes and possible redundancies. There is a six-week review under way; I understand this will be completed i…

The Israeli army has files on the vast majority of potential targets in Gaza, including homes, which stipulate the number of civilians who are likely to be killed in an attack on a particular target. The magazine +972 ran an article on 30 November based on conversations with seven current and former Israel Defense Forces intelligence operatives. I began with one of the quotes, and here is another: "Nothing happens by accident," said another source. "When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because s…

That is not true. It is not correct.

You are washing your hands.

Object all you like but you are washing your hands.

You are washing your hands.

It is genocide.