Over the last two years we have seen a shadow pandemic of violence against women yet in many rural communities and counties such as Carlow there is no domestic violence refuge available. The Carlow Women's Refuge Campaign supported by Councillor Adrienne Wallace has long been pushing for this injustice to be corrected. Numerous reports and experts have recommended it. Two temporary emergency accommodation units have been provided but this is far from adequate. Will the Minister agree that Carlow needs a refuge?

I accept this matter is not the primary responsibility of the Minister of State, but a Department with responsibility for community and rural affairs should be supporting the fight for rural communities to get the services they need. I ask the Minister of State to add his name to the list of those calling for a women's refuge in Carlow, and in all those counties without one. I will set out a striking statistic. In the first nine months of this year, more than 500 incidents of domestic abuse were reported to the Gar…

The absence of a refuge has been ongoing and highlighted for a number of years. In 2018, a report on homelessness in Carlow by Dr. Brendan O'Keeffe highlighted how women and children are often forced to stay in violent homes for the lack of a refuge. Tusla's 2019 needs analysis accepted that a refuge is "the most effective means for protecting women and children". The Carlow Women's Refuge Campaign was set up in 2018. An emergency motion was passed by Carlow County Council in 2019. All of the experts agree that a p…

I am sharing time with Deputies Boyd Barrett and Barry. As we explained and outlined clearly yesterday, this is a budget for banks, landlords and developers. It is not an exaggeration to say there is less than nothing in it for renters, workers, pensioners, carers and the unemployed, all of whom will be worse off in real terms this time next year because what is being given is less than the rate of inflation. I gave a general speech yesterday and today I will go into detail on a couple of aspects of this budget bec…

That is nonsense.

No it will not.

The Government spin is that this is a back-to-normal budget after Covid-19. It is that. We are going back to the capitalist normal of reliance on the market, which means a further deepening of the housing crisis when rents are completely out of control, prices are going through the roof and 10,000 people are homeless. It means a further growth of the hospital waiting lists when there are already close to 1 million people on them, while public money continues to be funnelled to private healthcare. It means continuin…

Ireland's childcare barometer shows that 65% of the public agree that childcare, like primary education, should be free. People Before Profit agrees. If we want happy, healthy and developmentally successful children, we need proper State investment in early childhood education and childcare. The Minister spoke earlier about all the supports given during Covid and so on, but will he accept that the previous model completely failed? It was a disaster for children, workers and families.

The figures are €638 million this year and €1 billion by 2028. These are inadequate sums. Families are spending 34% of household income on childcare, compared with 3% in Austria and 6% in Sweden, and that is despite childcare workers in many cases earning just the minimum wage. There is a crisis and the Government proposes, basically, to go back to normal. UNICEF recommends that spending on childcare and early childhood education should be equivalent to 1% of GDP. Given our inflated GDP, we might instead use GNI*, …

Post-Covid, this is not a time for half measures; it is a time to restructure the entire way childcare operates, recognise the failure of the current model and set ourselves on a short, direct, rapid path to a national childcare service, publicly provided and free at the point of use. The Minister stated nobody disagrees we are underfunding childcare but, with all due respect, he is the Minister. He can go outside, perhaps, and join a protest against his own Government, as Government Deputies like to do. He is part…

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry. It is more than a year since I said in the Dáil that what was happening in aviation was an example of what Naomi Klein calls "shock doctrine", that is, the taking advantage of a real crisis to drive through a pre-existing agenda. In this case, the agenda is to outsource operations, drive down workers' wages and conditions and create a leaner workforce in the interests of profit. That is what was happening in aviation back then and, in the past year, that process has deepened and…

I move: “That Dáil Éireann: recognises: — that energy prices are currently rising rapidly worldwide; — the fact that data centres currently take up 11 per cent of electricity produced in Ireland is adding to upward pressure on energy prices, as predicted by Moody’s in 2018; — that according to the Economic and Social Research Institute, one in six households were in energy poverty in 2019; — that according to research published by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in collaboration with RED C Research & Marketing L…

That is only the case because it is a privatised market.

I thank everybody who contributed to the debate. I thank some of the Opposition groupings that said they would support the motion. I want to respond to a variety of the arguments used by the Government. I will start with what was the elephant in the room in the context of the speeches of the two Ministers of State who spoke, namely, the question of data centres. They spoke about energy usage and price rises. They correctly spoke about the predominant international factors in respect of those, but they did not make …

I wish to raise a case about an Irish citizen who fled here from Iraq after the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, ISIS, took over Mosul. His father and other close family members were murdered. He is currently in Ireland, but his mother remains in limbo, effectively, in Turkey and has been for years. This is the third time I have raised this case in the Dáil. I previously raised it with the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste and I am now raising it with the Minister. I have asked multiple parliamentary questions and sent mu…

I have a problem with the use of the word "apartheid". I am against the Bill as well but to describe it as "apartheid" is not acceptable. It undermines the actual reality of apartheid.

We need answers from the Government about the quite incredible situation involving the Attorney General effectively double-jobbing, acting as legal adviser to the Government during the week while at the weekend, doing what appears to be a nixer for former Independent News & Media, INM, directors. This is the same Attorney General who provided legal advice against a ban on evictions and rent increases without following the legal requirement to submit, in writing, a declaration of a potential conflict of interest giv…

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 to provide for a definition of fresh air based on CO2 levels in the workplace as an emergency Covid-19 prevention measure; to provide for health and safety inspectors to take CO2 measurements and issue improvement or prohibition notices; to provide for employees to request inspections; and to provide for related matters. The People Before Profit Workplace Ventilation Bill is a very straightforw…

I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry.