They have been locked out in that they have not been allowed a full voice at the talks. Pay talks are about to get under way. Are the representative associations going to be not only present at the talks, but given a full voice and full say at them? On the issue of the democratic rights of Defence Forces personnel, in other jurisdictions, including Sweden, defence forces personnel have the right to strike. It is a democratic right and its absence is a key factor as to why we have had so many problems with pay and c…

"The pay could be better...the pay is not the best...the pay may be lower than you expect". Even positive comments posted in April and May on glassdoor.ie by Starbucks and ex-Starbucks workers criticised the low pay. Starbucks pays a bit above the minimum wage but significantly less than the living wage. It has 70 coffee shops in the Republic of Ireland, which is more per head of population than in any other country in Europe. All of the shops are licensed out to Entertainment Enterprises, the same company that run…

The most famous village in Ireland, Blarney, is facing the closure of its post office. It is not alone. More than 200 post offices face the threat of closure in the next 12 months. The root of the problem here is the Government's failure to increase the pay of postmasters and postmistresses and its refusal to switch the provision of some key State services to the post office network. Ulster Bank and KBC Bank are scandalously preparing to exit the Irish market. Has the Government even considered the idea of transfer…

Having listened to the Taoiseach earlier during Leaders' Questions, I put it to him that he is out of touch with the mood of the country on the issue of the national maternity hospital. He has had more than a week to make his case but polling still shows a majority against his plan. People want a State hospital on State land and 100% certainty that procedures opposed by the Catholic Church will be available there. They will be making their views very clear outside the gates of Leinster House at 2 p.m. on Saturday. …

Last week, the psychotherapist, Stella O'Malley, was invited to address an Education and Training Boards Ireland, ETBI, conference for principals and deputy principals on managing gender issues in schools. Ms O'Malley is an extremely controversial figure among the transgender community in Ireland and internationally. Why would that not be the case, when she recently messaged on a gay rights advocacy group, which excludes trans people, that "I don’t think you should have any empathy, and I haven’t asked anybody to h…

Last week, more than 200 parents marched down St. Patrick's Street in Cork chanting, "We are marching through our town 'cos Micheál Martin let us down." They were parents of children with disabilities who are not getting access to disability services, particularly in the schools. Under pressure from the parents’ campaign, the Minister of State responsible for disabilities, Deputy Rabbitte, has committed to restoring therapist allocations to Cork special schools to pre-pandemic levels. According to school principals…

School principals have raised this.

Europe Day saw the conclusion of the Conference on the Future of Europe. There has been very little reportage of this conference in the Irish media. I have had to scan the pages of the international media - The Financial Times , Reuters, France 24, The New York Times and so on - in order to get a full picture of what went on there. I want to make some points about it to the Dáil as they are important. The Conference on the Future of Europe was made up of various European politicians as well as randomly selected peo…

A headline in the Irish Independent last Monday morning read, "Migrants from countries other than Ukraine adding to pressure on homeless supports, housing minister warns". Imagine if a few of the words in that were switched around in order that the headline stated, "Migrants from countries other than Ukraine adding to pressure on homeless supports, Le Pen warns". That would fit perfectly well. The Minister is directly quoted in the article, and the headline does not jar in any way with the content of what he said. …

An overturning of the Roe v . Wade judgment could open the door to abortion bans in half of all American states. The victims of such a counter-revolution would, in the main, be working-class women and poorer women and women of colour in particular. How many will be driven to the backstreets? How many will have their health endangered? How many will die? An overturning of Roe v . Wade could even threaten rights to same-sex marriage and birth control. In the 1960s and 1970s, civil rights for blacks, LGBTQ people and …

Reliable sources working in homelessness services in Cork city tell me a significant influx of people from Cork county is currently in search of emergency accommodation. Bed and breakfast operators that previously catered for people are providing less and less accommodation, seemingly for two reasons. The first is that as we move towards the summer season, these operators are deciding to prioritise tourism and, second, an increasing number of bed and breakfast providers are being booked by the International Protect…

Will the Taoiseach look into the issue that has arisen in Cork?

High rents are driving many families into homelessness. Many of these families are ending up in emergency accommodation, including the family hubs. Some time ago, People Before Profit Councillor Hazel Norton reached out to families in one of these hubs in Dublin and was shocked to be told that residents were only allowed out three nights per month, had to ask in advance to do so and had to be home by 10 p.m. Last weekend, journalist Mr. Martin Beanz Warde, interviewed two young single mothers in a hub elsewhere in …

The first day of the new Dáil term was dominated by the turf wars, not an unimportant issue but, in my view, far from the most important issue in Irish society. An issue of far greater concern to my constituents is the price of rent. There was no surprise this morning when we learned the new figures from the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, with rent up 9% year on year. We do not see Ministers coming to blows on this issue. We do not see Government backbenchers raising the spectre of the fall of the Government on …

More than a third broke the guidelines.

Last Sunday, an extreme right-wing and racist candidate won 42% of the vote for the French presidency. France is a nuclear power and the second most powerful nation in the European Union. There needs to be debate and reflection as to why this was the case. France is often portrayed as a society with a strong tradition of revolution and left-wing politics but it is also a country with a history of imperialism, the racism that goes with that, and right-wing traditions. Le Pen, like her father before her, taps into th…

On Friday week, 6 May, parents and children will take to the streets of Cork, Dublin and Enniscorthy to demand services for children with disabilities. A public meeting in Cork on this issue was recently told by a primary school principal that 60 therapists have been cut from Cork schools since the introduction of the State's seemingly misnamed progressing disability services scheme. The meeting also was told many heartbreaking tales of children who had to wait and wait for assessments of needs, those whose parents…

I note the re-election of a far-right, racist and homophobic Government in Hungary at the weekend. While this will no doubt dismay fighters for social progress, it should be noted that four separate homophobic and transphobic referendums were defeated on the day. The questions were defeated by a spoil the vote campaign, which ensured that the threshold of 50% was not reached. I express solidarity with the LGBTQ community in Hungary. I salute those who successfully fought those referendums but who must now face the …

The Taoiseach would have people believe that all the price increases are down to the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the reality is that quite a few of them are down to profiteering here on the home front. Bord Gáis is increasing gas prices by 39%. Its parent company made a profit of more than €1 billion last year. The price of food goes up and up, but so too do retail profits. Tesco made £1.7 billion in profits in Britain and Ireland the year before last. The landlord class, who may well not have…

It is not rocket fuel for inflation. The Government would be redistributing wealth, not printing money. On the third measure, the Government says it cannot bring in cost-of-living packages every week. That ignores the fact that households are being hit with cost-of-living increases every week. Here is one thing it does not have to bring in at all; it just has to cancel something. Cancel the carbon tax increase planned for 1 May. The Government cannot be on the side of the people in a cost-of-living crisis and at th…