They are not. The Minister should look at-----

To achieve compliance.

The Minister said he is in favour of an open, competitive and transparent system to appoint the board. That is great. However, in the next breath he said he will vote against an amendment which would make sure he has to bring forward a proposal for the establishment of an open, competitive and transparent system. The Minister is against an amendment which will ensure he does the thing he said he would do in any case. Forgive us if we are, therefore, a little bit doubtful as to his intentions. Forgive us if we look …

The Deputy does not know what it is going to be but it will be all right.

Did the Government discuss the issue of redress for the 100,000 apartments and duplexes affected by defects at the Cabinet meeting this morning? I know that the Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, had a webinar last night with many apartment and duplex owners. They were not satisfied with that, certainly the ones I spoke to, because there was not a clear commitment to 100% redress, nor was there a clear timeline for having a redress scheme in place, nor was there a clear commitment to retrospection. The Not Our Fault…

Last week Archbishop Eamon Martin, the most senior Catholic archbishop in Ireland, backed protests outside maternity hospitals by anti-choice activists. He claimed it was "perfectly reasonable" to intercept pregnant people on their way into medical appointments. He said that to have safe zones would be "tantamount to enforcing a ban on pro-life activities, including prayer and respectful witness". Of course, it would do no such thing. Those who oppose abortion are still free to campaign against it. People are obvio…

Currently, more than 3,000 civilian staff work with An Garda Síochána. These are people who applied for civil servant roles and were allocated, under the Department of Justice, to work in An Garda Síochána. At the moment, they can transfer out to work in another civil servant role. They are 100% civil servants like any other civil servant. However, the Government's new policing Bill would have a dramatic impact on their employment conditions. It would effectively cordon them off and make their employer An Garda Sío…

The Government votes it down every single time.

Thousands died. It is not funny.

Build houses for the people.

It is not.

The market is not-----

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry. We have a crisis in our health service, as the motion states. According to the INMO, more than 12,600 people were without beds in Irish hospitals in November. It was the worst November on record for hospital overcrowding, and there were only two days in that month when fewer than 500 people were admitted to hospital without an inpatient bed. For the first time, there was a month in which more than 560 children were admitted without a bed in our hospitals. In my constituency, Tal…

It is now a year and a half since our Bill on provisions in respect of pension entitlements for retired workers passed Second Stage in the Dáil. The Bill states that retired workers cannot be ignored and have their pension pots raided without consultation. It passed Second Stage, but the Government put a 12-month stay on its progress in order to have a consultation period. We are now 18 months down the line and the Government has proposed nothing, brought forward no alternative, nor signalled whether it will suppor…

There have been campaigns for years by groups that represent more than 500,000 retired workers. It is 18 months since the Bill passed Second Stage in the House, but the Minister of State is just saying that we will have a consultation. Does he accept it is a problem that six months after a person who has paid into an occupational pension scheme for all his or her working life retires, that person has no say in any proposed changes, has no access to an effective mechanism to air issues or seek redress and that, in e…

I definitely did listen.

I heard exactly what the Minister of State said earlier. He just repeated it. The essence of it is that the Department is going to explore the matter to see if we can help. That is great. Some 18 months after this was brought very firmly to his attention, the Minister of State has indicated that the Department must see if there is anything it can do. The Minister of State indicated that the consultation process has taken place. Does he accept that there is a fundamental problem here, and that it is fundamentally un…

It is coming.

I want the Minister of State to have an answer. The problem is he does not even intend to have an answer.

This question is about the corporate sustainability due diligence directive. It is potentially very important European legislation that would make corporations responsible for human rights abuses, labour rights abuses, environmental abuses and consumer rights abuses throughout their supply chain. Unfortunately, it is being subject to intense lobbying by big corporations to try to water it down and make it ineffective. Most recently, they have succeeded in a serious watering-down of the negotiating position of the E…