It is important that we are discussing this and I thank the Regional Group for bringing the motion forward. This is a huge issue. It is not discussed enough and it will become an even bigger issue. As the motion notes, there are likely to be well over 300,000 adults in the State who are suffering or have suffered from medical conditions associated with long Covid, based on an extrapolation of research done in the Netherlands. I have seen at first hand people I know who have been affected by long Covid and continue …

I was listening to the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, when I was upstairs in my office. It was like watching "Reeling in the Years". It was all the old hits - all the old propaganda about how the Government is committed to public ownership of water. He reeled out the line that we should not worry as there cannot possibly be any privatisation of Irish Water because it is in the Water Services Act 2014. Of course, he did not mention that the legislation can just be amended without a referendum. After the next elec…

We are here because of a request from the Deputy regarding the need for a referendum on water. We have been told that the Minister, Darragh O'Brien, looks forward to definitively addressing the referendum in the near future. That is great. We are having a debate about the future of water services now. We have had repeated commitments to hold a referendum, yet here we are having a debate about it and there is no commitment. Where is our referendum on water? We have been waiting six years. Six months ago, the Ministe…

It is almost a year since our Workplace Ventilation (Covid-19) Bill 2021 passed through Second Stage. At that time the Minister of State, Deputy English, stated that we wanted to see it speedily and effectively implemented. He was going to call me that afternoon to see how we could have regulations to get this implemented because we do not need legislation. Where are the regulations? What has happened? We are back into winter. The issue of ventilation is going to be central in regard to the spread of Covid-19 again…

The Minister of State said there will be a code of practice. What will be the consequence if a company does not abide by the code of practice? What is the level prescribed in terms of CO2 parts per million in the code of practice? Our Bill did not just relate to Covid, rather, it related to CO2 parts per million. It effectively was a proxy for the likely presence of Covid but it related to the air being of good quality. This is a moment when it is not just in relation to Covid but where we can guarantee workers acc…

Let us see what the code of practice is. I wonder whether there is a need for a primary legislative framework for there to be real, substantial sanctions on employers that do not provide clean air for their workers. Belgium, for example, which has been one of the first movers on this in the EU, is currently introducing something quite similar to our Workplace Ventilation (Covid-19) Bill. Has the Department any idea of how many people who have long Covid were infected in their workplace? Will the Department change i…

The purpose of this question is to ask why the Government has not done what it has promised on several different occasions, namely, to provide a remedy for migrant fishers, or any fishers, who are overworked. They are working long hours in contravention of the EU directive. Currently, they cannot go to the WRC. The Government has promised on multiple occasions that it will introduce amending legislation to enable the fishers to do so, but it keeps failing to do it. It is the migrant workers who are losing out. I wi…

I thank the Minister of State. I do wish to focus on this issue. The consequence of the Government failing to act on the agreement with the International Transport Workers Federation is that workers like Jose Pame Salandron are not able to vindicate their rights in the WRC. This is a guy who was working 80 or 90 hours a week regularly. He went to the WRC and he was awarded, wrongly, €14,000 under the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997. The case then went to the Labour Court and it was stated that this context wa…

The settlement agreement was reached on 30 April 2019. The reply to the parliamentary question was given in January of this year. Do the Minister of State and the Government not feel bad that this failure to act has left extremely vulnerable workers ripe for extreme exploitation? They are being left with no remedy in respect of going to the WRC to deal with being asked to work an illegal number of hours. The Government continues to fail to transpose the working time at sea directive by not giving workers access to …

I want to ask the Tánaiste about the status of his engagement at WTO and EU level with regard to the proposal to not apply the TRIPS Agreement to cover Covid-19 therapeutics and diagnostic tests, as well as the issue of vaccines.

What is Ireland's position? The Minister of State spoke for a long time but he did not say what Ireland's position is. Does Ireland support extending the TRIPS waiver to diagnostics - technology other than vaccines - or does it not? Does it stand with the poorest people in the world who want to get access to the technology to be able to test for Covid, etc., or does it stand with the big pharmaceutical companies that want to keep a monopoly on those technologies in order to maximise their profits? Where does Irelan…

That is not acceptable. We are asking a question. The answer of the Minister of State, repeatedly, was to say we are feeding in to find the best way. I have no idea what this means. Is Ireland at European Council level pushing for the EU to support the extension of the waiver or is it not? We have the right to know what position the Irish Government is taking. The Minister of State does not, or certainly should not, have the right to come in here and talk nonsense and not say anything. He says he supports the intel…

Mostly public.

None of this is natural or inevitable. The scale of the housing crisis and how it affects ordinary people is a consequence of policy. There are almost 11,000 people in emergency accommodation, more than 3,000 of whom are children whose lives will be forever blighted by their experience. Hundreds of thousands of people are stuck living with their parents because they cannot afford to rent. Some 250,000 people are on the social housing waiting list, or are on HAP or RAS precarious private tenancies. Students are aski…

I will bring the Taoiseach back to 29 November 1989. The Taoiseach had been recently elected and was supporting a Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government, led by former Deputy Charles Haughey. The Dáil was debating the Building Control Act, which introduced a regime of self-certification, allowing builders effectively to sign off on projects themselves. Former Deputy Eamon Gilmore, then of the Workers' Party, said: The principle being enshrined in this section is very dangerous. It will expose people who are b…

Stop kicking the can down the road. The Government has the report from July. It is very simple and it sets out the problems and the potential solutions. At the very least, the residents are looking for a commitment from the Taoiseach today that any scheme that will be introduced will be retrospective. Will the Taoiseach answer that question and give a commitment that, regardless of the details of the scheme that is introduced, it will be retrospective? If the Taoiseach does not do that, nothing is going to happen o…

It did.

You were warned very clearly-----

No, it is in the Dáil record.

Then do it.