-----and with disgust by many others. He will also survive thanks to the support of the corporate media, which has refused to frame this scandal as a matter that might require resignation. They recognise the Tánaiste as a skilful and capable representative of the capitalist establishment and as a man who can play an important role for the system when he takes the reins again as Taoiseach and is charged with implementing austerity in a post Covid-19 era. I have no confidence in Leo Varadkar on the leaks issue. He as…

Donald Trump tweeted this morning that "they are trying to STEAL the Election". Of course, the man trying to steal the election is the candidate of the far right, Donald Trump. He now wants to go to the Supreme Court to stop the counting of ballots. I have no faith that Joe Biden or the Democratic Party can stop this election from being stolen. It was their dreadful pro-big business, corporate campaign that let Donald Trump get this close in the first place. I support the call of the Socialist Alternative organisat…

Five homeless people died in the State in the seven days to the end of October. There needs to be a bit of anger and a bit of outrage in this Chamber about what is happening. This is an absolute scandal. There used to be a time when if a homeless person died on the streets it would be national headlines and a national talking point. Now we have a situation, as was rightly said, on the Taoiseach's watch where five homeless people have died on the streets in the space of seven days and it is not a major talking point…

I refer to the proposal in the Bill to tax people who have received the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP. The maximum rate for the PUP was €350 per week. Many people who were on that rate had already taken a big hit to their income. People who were on €600, €700 or €800 per week saw their wages halved. The proposal is to tax them on that. That is wrong. It is particularly wrong when it comes as part of a Finance Bill and budget which is handing out billions in corporate welfare. One law for the rich, one law for …

Do any of the additional staff in the Department have a special focus on vacancies in front-line services? There are currently more than 100 key promotional front-line nursing and midwifery posts vacant in Cork city alone. There are a further 50 staff nursing vacancies in Cork University Hospital alone. To use a phrase that has been bandied about this week, that is not best practice at the best of times and certainly not in the middle of a pandemic. We have a bureaucratic centralisation of recruitment within the HS…

We are debating legislation to give emergency powers to the State regarding gatherings in people's homes. The powers would allow a garda to call to a house, ask the people in the house to leave, and if they refuse to leave, the primary resident can be fined €1,000. A person on the way to the house can be stopped by the Garda and instructed to leave the area and return home. If that person refuses to comply with the instruction, he or she can be deemed to have committed a criminal offence. These are drastic powers. …

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for allowing me to ask my questions now. Question No. 6 is to ask the Minister for Justice the date on which the transfer of functions will take place from her Department of matters relating to discrimination in accessing third level education, public services and employment by minors and young persons who were born here or are long-term residents here but are not Irish, EEA, UK or Swiss citizens and the steps that will be taken following the transfer of functions to ensure access …

I want to focus on a particular issue. Since 2005, following the passage of the racist 2004 citizenship referendum, people born in this State have not been entitled to Irish citizenship unless their parents belong to one of the categories we mentioned earlier and are not from outside the EU or whatever. Those born in 2005 or 2006 are now 14 or 15 years old and are knocking on the door of school-leaving age and the world of employment. The Tánaiste wrote to me to clarify that these people would have to apply for a w…

It is estimated that there are between 15,000 and 17,000 undocumented persons living in this State. I want their voices to be heard in the Chamber. I will read a few quotes from a report by the Migrants Rights Centre Ireland. A chap whose name was "Billy" - that is not his real name - said: To get my papers ... would be a dream come true. I won’t have to worry every time there is a knock at the door. I’ll finally feel safe in my home. A woman called Dottymore said: Sometimes when I am at the bus stop a group have d…

We are debating a proposal to extend the State's emergency powers because of the Covid crisis. There are powerful arguments against extending these powers. I will deal with three. First, there is not adequate discussion and debate on the issue. We are discussing huge curtailment of people's freedoms, including the right to move freely, the right to meet up and the right to have a livelihood. This discussion is being compressed into the space of a few hours. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has said this makes …

We are debating the reintroduction of the eviction ban for a period of six weeks and ten days. I welcome the reintroduction of the ban on evictions but the ban does not go nearly far enough with regard to how long it is proposed to last. The ban is proposed to last for six weeks and ten days. This means it will expire exactly two weeks before Christmas. What is going to happen then? It is a recipe for many tenants around the State receiving notices to quit in the run-up to Christmas and over the Christmas holidays,…

I was watching the debate on a screen on a level below the Chamber and heard the Minister taking my name in vain. I wish to reply to what was said in that regard. I will be brief. The Minister stated that I am forecasting a flood of evictions. He should look at the figures. More than 10,000 people were in emergency accommodation when the eviction ban was introduced in spring. There were fewer than 9,000 people in emergency accommodation when the ban was lifted at the end of July, a difference of in the region of 1,…

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae should correct me if I am wrong. It certainly was the case a few years ago-----

The Deputy declared that he is one of the biggest landlords in the House.

If he indicated that he is one of the biggest landlords in the House, I am quite happy to accept that.

I will finish on this point. The gobbledygook that comes across from Deputy Michael Healy-Rae about landlords being forced out because of criticisms made in the House of their actions, criticisms of landlords who have hiked rents, evicted people and in many cases made a fortune from the misery of others, is an argument against which I will argue on another day when there is more time to so do. I will argue against such points whether they are raised by a Deputy who is not a landlord, is a small landlord or is one o…

There is something seriously wrong in this. The women who went through the abuse of the mother and baby homes experienced many horrors. The one thing they all had in common was that there were other people telling them what was best for them, what was supposedly in their best interests and making decisions for them. These people might have been the parents who drove or brought the young woman to the mother and baby home and decided that was where she should live for the next number of years, the garda who collected…

We want to see, and I suspect we are not the only ones, a real debate on the move to level 5 that is taking place at midnight on Wednesday. There needs to be a place on the agenda this week for a thoroughgoing discussion on that. There is a debate scheduled for Thursday - and I do not know if that is what the Chief Whip was referring to - where there is due to be two 45-minute discussions on the mental health implications and on the renewal of the sunset clause that is proposed. That is not sufficient time to discu…

I propose that the Business Committee meets today to see if a space on today's agenda can be found for that and, failing that, at some stage later in the week.

May I make a proposal, a Cheann Comhairle?