I have not been silent.

I did not lie about you.

I had an AV room briefing-----

Condemn the murder of children, Taoiseach. Why can you not condemn the murder of children?

On Saturday, I attended a powerful protest organised by the Affordable Ireland campaign. It was led by disabled people and disabled people's organisations. The focus of the protest was the cost-of-living crisis in general but in particular a demand for an emergency payment for those who have seen €1,400 in cuts savagely implemented in the past budget. A striking feature of the speeches was people responding to the ridiculing that happened in here about the notion that people are making real choices to heat or to ea…

War is a racket. It is an opportunity for many profiteering companies and individuals to try to rip people off. With Trump's new reckless, illegal, criminal, imperialist war in the Middle East, energy prices are going to rise even higher. In some cases, they already have, so the cost of home heating oil has gone up €80 since last Friday, for which there is no justification. That oil would already have been bought before the bombing started. The Taoiseach said earlier that he was going to raise this price gouging wi…

This Saturday, disabled people and the Affordable Ireland campaign will be on the streets demanding an emergency payment after the Government took over €1,400 from them in the last budget. So far, the Government has refused to concede. There is no money for disabled people. There was no money for SNAs until people power forced the Government back. There is no money for electricity credits. What is there money for? There is money to develop an Irish arms industry and to give to the French arms industry. The French m…

The planet I am on is a planet where the Taoiseach introduced a budget that cut income for disabled people by €1,400. Absolutely shameful. The planet I am on is where he introduced a budget that, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office, significantly increases the rates of child poverty and poverty among older people, and decreases the income of the poorest people in this country by 4.4%. That is the planet I am on. They are all facts from the Parliamentary Budget Office. This is the same planet where the Taoi…

-----neither Brussels nor Beijing but instead, stand up for ordinary people in this country.

It is a battlegroup.

I did not say that.

Is the Taoiseach calling for EU and NATO battlegroups-----

It is in the document. Deal with it.

You cannot describe my views. I will describe my own views.

There are two very important lessons that we have learnt from the SNA debacle over the past couple of weeks. The first is that the Government does not care about the most vulnerable and, left to its own devices, will abandon them. The second is that people power works because the Government is now promising an extra €19 million for SNAs. The Government is also saying that no school will lose SNAs next year. The only reason that happened was because of a groundswell of protest on the part of parents, SNAs and teache…

These are the words of Mary Dunlevy Greene, one of the hunger strikers who fought for redress from the Government for the State's part in their abuse: We were child slaves. We got very little portions of food. We were deprived of every human right. A capitation grant was paid by the State to the religious orders to keep us there. They gagged us. We weren't allowed to speak afterwards or name an institution or a perpetrator. The horrors cannot be overstated. I remember going out to meet with them when they were brav…

Over the summer, I met with Kirsty and Barry, who told me a heartbreaking and deeply troubling story about how their son Brody had been treated at Children's Health Ireland, CHI. He was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, DIPG, in May 2024. This is a very aggressive brain tumour that is inoperable. Children are treated as palliative once they are diagnosed. He then had a very invasive and dangerous procedure of a biopsy. As a result of the biopsy, he had a massive brain haemorrhage. His brain swelled t…

-----than other countries with no medical benefit in doing them. Will the Taoiseach examine this?

Yes.

It was not in this case apparently, because it was a bank holiday. The MD team was skipped, apparently.