I want to talk about the mother and baby homes and the vaccine trials. According to reports, there were more than 1,000 babies and young children involved in these vaccine trials in total, 1,135 persons. Those babies and young children were taken from six mother and baby homes including Bessborough in Cork city. This happened between 1930 and 1973. There was no parental consent. The babies and young children were tested in these trials for vaccines relating to diphtheria, measles and four-in-one vaccines. Some of t…

Friday week marks the tenth anniversary of the cruel and unnecessary death of Savita Halappanavar. I commend the organisers of the Savita anniversary march for health, equality and bodily autonomy, which will take place on Saturday, 29 October in Dublin. Initiated by ROSA, the socialist feminist organisation, and supported by the National Women's Council, the Union of Students in Ireland and Unite the Union, among others, this march has been organised for two key reasons. The first is in remembrance of Savita and t…

Many maternity hospitals do not provide abortion services. Abortion pills are not provided by 90% of GP services. Hundreds of women are still being forced to travel abroad for abortion care every year and many of these are in cases of foetal anomaly. Pregnant people are still forced to endure a paternalistic three-day wait-----

-----before securing access to the abortion pill. When will the abortion review be complete and will the Taoiseach support the call for a permanent memorial to Savita in this State?

There seems to be a lot of leaking going on in the Dáil today but I will ask my question in any case. I asked the Taoiseach yesterday about the case of, say, a woman who is faced with a choice this winter of heating, eating or paying full rent, and who decides to put the interests of her children first, ahead of the interests of her landlord, and to pay some but not all of the rent. I asked could an eviction be processed under the proposed legislation in such a case. The Taoiseach did not provide an answer. I want …

I have a question on the eviction ban. Let us say that a woman is faced with a choice between not paying some of her family's rent or having her children go cold or hungry this winter. Is she covered by the ban? Can she be evicted? The Tánaiste says that people who do not pay their rent can be evicted. Other Deputies say that people who wilfully do not pay their rent can be evicted. This needs to be clarified and I would like the Taoiseach's view on this question. Last week, we saw the largest cost-of-living protes…

The Taoiseach has not answered my question.

The Taoiseach has not.

That woman will not be evicted.

The Taoiseach needs to clarify that, Chair.

About 25 minutes ago, the Taoiseach told Deputy O'Reilly that the Government was anxious to defend the employment regulation order in the security industry. This ERO would have ensured a minimum rate of pay for security workers of a mere €12.50 per hour but there is an injunction out against it. Is the Taoiseach aware that the Department of Transport recently gave the contract for security work at its head office in Dublin to the company that took out that injunction? Does he believe that a company that went to suc…

These are people who are trying to maintain poverty pay.

It is poverty pay.

I want to voice solidarity with Royal Mail postal workers in Northern Ireland and in Britain. Their employer has announced 10,000 redundancies but plans to recruit new staff at 20% below the current rate, as well as plans to sell off the profitable parcel service. Royal Mail made a £758 million profit last year, paying out more than half of this to shareholders. The workers who are striking are fighting not just for decent pay and condition, but to defend the service. I see they have set up a strike fund, to which …

Privatising the buses.

Did you listen to them opposing your privatisations?

I will kick off. Deputy Boyd Barrett may be here but we will see. Time will tell.

On 29 September, I asked the Tánaiste whether pay-as-you-go customers were included in the winter moratorium on electricity and gas disconnections. Effectively, he said "No". That question and answer opened this controversy and 19 days later the Government has failed to put the issue to bed. The Taoiseach said at first that people should engage with the Department of Social Protection. Ministers then started saying that people should engage with their energy providers. One energy provider, Electric Ireland, came be…

The cost of living crisis is bearing down hard on working people. The pay increase in the public sector is less than the rate of inflation. It constitutes a de facto pay cut. The increase in the national minimum wage due in January is also below the rate of inflation and also constitutes a de facto pay cut. But the situation is worse again for the nation's community and voluntary workers in section 39, section 56, section 10, homeless services and others. The majority of these workers have not had a pay increase no…

When he spoke during this debate on the issue of the need for greater flexibility in the recruitment of bus drivers, Deputy Ó Cathasaigh said that we have to look towards the fishing industry. That statement is incredible, as is the fact that a Government Deputy points towards the fishing industry as an example of anything in this country to do with jobs, recruitment, workers' rights and decent treatment. I will comment on the review of the atypical work permit scheme for non-EEA fishers that was published last nig…