The Minister cites Dublin as an example. Dublin certainly is an example that people in Cork need to look at very carefully. What percentage of the routes have been privatised in Dublin? Go-Ahead Ireland has control of 10% of the routes, I think. Fines were announced the other day for falling down on service provision. Dublin Bus was fined €1.5 million and Go-Ahead Ireland was fined €850,000. I would expect that if Go-Ahead Ireland had 10% of the routes it would get 10% of the fines, if its service provision was of …

Why does the Minister link it to privatisation?

The tech industry epitomised cool capitalism's 21st century messaging: “Hi, come on in. Have a job. Pick a desk. Unions? No need for unions here. No need for workers’ organisation. Yes, we are a company, but we are more like a family, so welcome to the family”. Behind hype, there is always a reality. Some of the realities behind this industry’s ruthless billionaire owners’ hype have, unfortunately for the workers concerned, become increasingly clear in recent weeks. In this country, it seems that 350 jobs are to be…

The Tánaiste pointed out that workers in trade unions enjoy better pay, terms and conditions. He argued that the tech sector is non-union and goes higher again. Of course, one of the reasons it goes higher again is precisely to keep out trade unions. The Tánaiste gave various reassurances to tech workers, but he did not give them the reassurance that I asked for. Although we will have legislation next year, as the Tánaiste said, I asked for legislation that provides for mandatory trade union recognition. Of course,…

Grace under pressure.

I support the demand for a referendum to keep water in public ownership. Rank-and-file water workers across the State have been campaigning for this, and I support their campaign. I welcome the fact that the four trade unions with water worker members are now campaigning through the Keep Water Public campaign for a date to be named. A date must be named before the end of the year. If that is not done, there will be strong opposition from rank-and-file water workers to being transferred over to Irish Water, to be kn…

I strongly support the call for a referendum to be held on keeping water services public. There are 3,000 water workers in this State. The feeling runs strong among them that a date must be set for a referendum. I welcome that the four trade unions with membership among the water workers are now campaigning for a date for the referendum to be named in respect of keeping water services public. I also make the point that it would be important that a date for a referendum be set before the end of this year, because 1 …

The Deputy is staying close to home. He is not wandering at all.

Fears are growing with regard to job losses in the tech sector. Last week at Twitter, workers were locked out and people were sacked by email. We saw the real face of capitalism, proving that a tech billionaire with ambitions to colonise Mars-----

-----can be every bit as ruthless as a good old-fashioned exploiter like William Martin Murphy was back in the day. With jobs being lost at Stripe and job losses at Meta on the way, can we arrange for the Minister to come to the House and make a statement and answer questions from Deputies on the situation regarding jobs in the tech sector?

Ireland has the worst healthcare in the entire European Union for transgender people. That is according to Transgender Europe, which is a network of more than 200 trans rights organisations funded by the EU. Waiting times here are longer than in any of the other 26 EU countries. The time it takes from requesting to see a specialist to getting to see one is between two and a half and ten years. In most other EU states, the wait is less than one year. Trans and Intersex Pride is organising a trans day of remembrance …

I add my voice to the calls to pause this process. Major decisions should not be made without the consent of school communities, including parents, teachers and students. Not only is there no consent in this case, there is, in fact, strong and active opposition, as was seen with the march of more than 300 people from the school yard of St. Vincent's Secondary School to Cork city centre last Saturday. To be clear, I am a supporter of mixed education. I believe that for school to be a proper preparation for life, it …

The Minister should not underestimate the strength of feeling on the ground. Parents and teachers have the right to vote. Many students will have the right to vote in the next elections too. There is also the right to protest. Parents, teachers and students alike will use it if the necessary steps are not now taken. The ball is in the Minister's and the Government's court. The people will be watching carefully for what is done next.

Under fierce pressure from below, the Government is implementing a temporary ban on evictions. That is interesting because we were previously told that a ban on evictions would be unconstitutional. Then Covid came and, under pressure, the Government brought in a ban. It said there were exceptional circumstances and, due to the restrictions on movement for public health reasons, it was necessary to bring it in. Now we have another temporary ban on evictions and the Government is saying it can get away with it consti…

Last week, I asked the Taoiseach about the review into the State's abortion legislation, which is a matter of concern for women both north and south. He told me two pieces of research have been conducted, one by Dr. Catherine Conlon of Trinity College into the experience of women who have accessed abortion services here and a second carried out by Manchester Metropolitan University into the views and experiences of abortion providers. The Taoiseach mentioned that the Trinity College research was published in July b…

There are 60,000 political prisoners behind bars in Egypt. One of them, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, whose collection of prison writings was published earlier this year, has been on a 100 calories per day hunger strike since the start of April. The Egyptian dictatorship, having organised a military coup in 2013, now wants to organise a greenwashing publicity coup in 2022 by hosting the United Nations climate change conference, COP27. It is due to start on 6 November. Egyptian NGOs that have criticised the regime's record on…

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. The Government's target is to retrofit 500,000 homes by 2030, or 62,500 homes a year, but so far this year only 681 homes have been approved and only 89 retrofits completed. It is safe to say the Government is about a million miles off target at this point and that is no surprise. If people are asked under the scheme to fork out €10,000, €20,000, €30,000 or €40,000 upfront in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, this is what the Government is going to get. There should be no upfr…

I want to condemn in the strongest terms the vicious attacks on the right to strike being carried out in France by the Macron Government. The notorious CRS riot police have been unleashed against striking workers who have been threatened with six months in prison or €10,000 fines if they do not return to work. These are workers at TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil who dared to strike for 10% wage increases after TotalEnergies gave a €2.6 billion dividend to shareholders and Exxon recorded its largest quarterly profits e…

Will the Taoiseach answer my question?

What about my question on the situation in France?