That will be far too late.

Like many, I feel trapped in a kind of doom loop of lockdowns. Figures come down but community transmission is nowhere near eliminated. The Government listens to the considerable amount of business lobbying and reopens too quickly, and then the number of cases rises again. The way the Government talks, it is like a third wave and third lockdown are inevitable. That would be a nightmare for people. It is completely avoidable if the Government invests in finding, testing, tracing, isolation and supports for people an…

It was James Connolly who wrote that governments in capitalist society are but committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class. He was 100% correct. He was actually popularising what Marx and Engels had written in The Communist Manifesto , stating the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. That was back in 1848. Very many things have changed about the world since 1848 but that essential truth about the role of capitalist govern…

Will the Government act quickly to criminalise image-based sexual abuse and so-called revenge porn? As people may have seen, in the last number of days it has emerged that a group of men, it seems, collated thousands of pictures of over 500 women, apparently including some women under the age of 18, without their consent and shared them in a gross and disgusting abuse of those women. There is an online petition and campaign led by some of these brave women speaking out about this abuse. Over 25,000 people have sign…

There has been a terrifying growth in domestic violence during this pandemic, which has added great strain to services which were already overstretched and underfunded. We have also seen a rapid growth in image-based sexual violence. It is epitomised by this Discord server which has been uncovered which involves horrific abuse of women, including some under 18. I was shocked when I asked the Tánaiste about this earlier and he did not know that it is not currently a specific crime. We need action immediately to ban …

I want to first pay tribute to Maria Delaney of noteworthy.ie , who has done a series called "Academic Uncertainty", an investigation which shines a light on the precarity of university staff and the impact of that on diversity. The picture that emerges is that Irish universities are increasingly reminiscent of Edwardian, “Upstairs, Downstairs” society, with extravagant salaries for a very small minority while those actually keeping the show on the road are struggling to get by. Take the example of Trinity College,…

Workers want to live; they do not just want to exist and to live to work. They deserve not just decent wages, but also a proper work-life balance. In recent years we have seen big corporations trying to squeeze every last drop of energy and productivity out of their workforces, expecting them to be always on and always available. Instead of freeing people up to live their lives, new technologies are being used to tighten the screws, to increase the control of the employer, to decrease the autonomy of workers and to…

Last month, the Minister admitted to me that it was common practice for PhD students to be required to do five hours teaching work per week without payment. These are workers who are working through the lockdown. They are running tutorials, laboratories and classes in the universities, but are unpaid while students pay extortionate fees to be there. Does the Taoiseach think it is acceptable to expect people to work for free in the universities? I highlighted this two weeks ago and I have since been in contact with …

I listened to the Minister's speech and I was struck by how out of touch the Government is as regards seeing how significant an issue this is. That is nothing personal. This is a huge issue for working-class communities. The dangerous, irresponsible and unsafe use of scramblers and quad bikes is a scourge for working-class communities. It should be a major political issue but it is not treated that way by the Government and was not treated that way by the Minister in her response. I agree with Deputy Gino Kenny tha…

There are plans in place from January to expand the number of ferries to France in light of Brexit. It will go from a few times a week to a daily service but it seems from media reports that there will not be access for foot passengers on these services, which would be a huge missed opportunity in getting people who want to go to mainland Europe out of planes and onto a much more sustainable mode of travel, namely ferries.

The answer illustrates another problem with the privatisation of Irish Ferries, whereby Irish Ferries is not obliged to provide a public transport service or access to foot passengers. It is free not to do it and it does not do it in circumstances where it does not think it is profitable. A consequence of that is increased CO2 emissions but from the point of view of capitalism, that is just another externality and not something it is concerned with. My understanding is that the Irish Ferries Dublin to Cherbourg sai…

In many circumstances, providing access for foot passengers is a simple matter. It means putting on a minibus to bring people from the boat to the ferry terminal or just providing a safe route for people to walk. Especially in the context of subsidies being provided for private companies to encourage them to put on ferries to avoid the so-called British land bridge, it would be crazy not to insist that there is access for foot passengers on these ferries. There is a stark contrast between the amount of CO2 generate…

Will the Minister agree to expand the Local Link bus services, which are essential for getting people out of private cars in rural areas? That means developing an integrated national transport service in which routes and timetables are integrated with other public bus and train services. At the moment these services are quite successful but there is only one Local Link office for every two counties so we need a massive expansion.

These services are vital as they connect people who live in relatively isolated areas to the main public transport links. They are absolutely essential. They are, by definition, low-volume services and therefore are not particularly profitable. That is a problem with the entire model of how the NTA is doing this, by contracting services for which private operators like Go-Ahead Ireland can bid. That model means these services, which we need in order to get people out of cars and to counteract isolation, are not nec…

I want to speak about working conditions at our airports because right around the world, the airline industry and airports are using the pandemic to tear up workers' contracts and their terms and conditions. Unfortunately, it is no different in Ireland. The workers I am most familiar with are the DAA workers. They have been faced with a semi-State company which has used the coronavirus to attempt to impose the document known as New Ways of Working. That means significant changes to peoples' rosters. It means so-cal…

On the same matter, these workers have been now out for seven months in the increasingly cold and wet weather on the picket lines. There is an increased danger with the threat of KPMG to walk away from the liquidation process. That is a threat not just to the workers but to the State. The simplest resolution here is for the State to step aside as a creditor and to use that money in order to make sure the workers get what they are owed. I listened to the response of the Taoiseach yesterday to Deputy Gino Kenny. What…

No, I am saying that is what should be done in this case.

I am sure the Taoiseach is aware of the reports from Denmark about a mutant form of coronavirus that has been discovered on mink farms and that has spread to humans. Globally, health authorities are worrying about the consequences of this for future vaccines. Six countries around the world have experienced outbreaks on mink farms. It seems that minks are particularly susceptible to the coronavirus. The horrific conditions in which they are held in captivity mean that the virus spreads rapidly and has the potential …

In his call with President-elect Biden yesterday, did the Taoiseach discuss corporate tax avoidance? Last year it was reported that, if elected, Mr. Joe Biden was planning to impose sanctions on the State because the Government facilitated "illegal corporate tax avoidance and [engages] in harmful tax competition". In the Biden plans, Ireland was listed alongside the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. Does the Taoiseach agree that the State has been operating as a tax haven for big businesses as part of a chain of global t…

A Fianna Fáil Taoiseach proposing a motion of confidence in a Fine Gael Tánaiste is an appropriate end to Civil War politics. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are uniting to defend corrupt behaviour while the Green Party is asleep at the wheel. Tonight, Leo Varadkar will get away with it as a result. He will face no consequence as a result of breaking the code of conduct for Deputies, breaking the code of conduct for officeholders, and committing a crime under the Criminal Justice (Corruption Offences) Act. However, peopl…