I agree with the points made by the previous two speakers. I also raise the fact that it has been two weeks since the new housing plan was published. The main innovation is the removal of annual targets to prevent accountability for the failure of this Government to deliver affordable housing, while allowing a small few to get extraordinarily rich. Since the plan has been published, we have been calling for a debate on it but it has still not been granted. Why is the Government scared of debating its own housing pl…

I move: That Dáil Éireann, pursuant to Standing Order 33, and with effect from 26th November, 2025, approves the Sixth Report of the Standing Committee of Selection, copies of which were laid before Dáil Éireann on 20th November, 2025, and appoints a member to a Committee accordingly.

I want to raise an important industrial dispute with Dublin Fire Brigade over the proposed implementation of a new computer-aided dispatch system. The membership of Dublin Fire Brigade have overwhelmingly voted for industrial action up to and including strike action over it. Effectively, there is a proposal to bring all fire brigades in the country under one dispatch system. However, the problem with the proposal is that it will not include Dublin Fire Brigade's ambulance fleet, meaning that the fire brigade side w…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I am proud to introduce this Bill on behalf of People Before Profit. The purpose of the Bill is to make it mandatory for private rented accommodation to achieve a minimum B2 building energy rating, BER, standard by the end of 2030. A phase-in period is allowed in the legislation in order that landlords can incrementally upgrade their properties if they wish to a minimum D2 BER by the end of 2026 and a minimum C1 BER by the end of 2028. Limited exceptions are provid…

I thank Deputies Ó Broin, Hearne and O'Gorman for their support and speeches. I am obviously very disappointed, not shocked, given the oral responses we have had over the last couple of weeks, by the Government's response. The Minister of State says that he agrees with the aim that renters should not be living in cold, damp, mouldy accommodation but he does not agree that this is the way to do it. Let us look at the reality of the Government's policy position and how it has moved. The Government has gone from a pos…

Two days ago, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2803, a resolution endorsing the so-called Trump peace plan - a peace plan that, disgracefully, was welcomed by the Irish Government. We will probably hear it welcomed again today. It makes the saying from Tacitus, "they make a desert and call it peace," the most appropriate it has ever been because after two years of genocide, after killing at least 66,000 people, over 20,000 children, after imposing famine, after mowing people down while queuing for food, a…

Two years ago, I raised with the Taoiseach a repeated problem of sewage overflowing in Dodder Valley Park beside Balrothery weir. When there is heavy rainfall, the sewage shoots out beside a residential area in a beautiful park. It is still happening. It happened again last weekend with the heavy rainfall. In March 2024, I got a reply from Uisce Éireann accepting that it was impacting the environment and posing a risk to public health through flooding. At that time, it said it was at stage 3 of a four-stage process…

I will quote the Taoiseach who told an international audience at COP30: The science is undeniable. Temperatures are rising, and the clock is ticking. If we are not prepared to tell our citizens the truth about this, we are failing them, and this planet, in the most profound way. Has the Taoiseach tried telling the truth to the big dairy farmers and the big dairy processors who are driving up carbon emissions and are polluting our waterways, North and South? I have raised the issue previously in terms of Lough Neagh…

I want to raise the race to the bottom in migration policy that is happening right across the European Union and Europe. We witnessed it unfold over the past few days when the British Government announced that it was going to implement a Danish-style asylum system, cracking down further on already very limited rights of people to asylum, with the Labour Party Government dancing to the tune of Nigel Farage. That was followed immediately by a statement from the Minister for justice, Deputy Jim O'Callaghan, who said h…

I welcome that we are finally going to have a statutory inquiry into the care of children with scoliosis and spina bifida at CHI. It is unfortunate and outrageous that it has taken what it has taken to get to this point where we have an inquiry. Campaigners have been calling for one for a long time, as have some of us in the Dáil. It is not just about the hundreds of children who have been left waiting in pain, getting worse and in some cases becoming inoperable; it is not just about the scandal of the unnecessary,…

It is pretty shameless of the Government to use the occasion of Paschal Donohoe moving on in the world to avoid answering questions today. I also want to say that the statements on paediatric care must be made into questions and answers. We pushed for this at the Business Committee. There has been a long push for a statutory inquiry into the care of children with scoliosis and spina bifida. I understand a memo was meant to go to Cabinet today. People were led to believe it was going to be signed off on but I have h…

It was signed off on. Okay. I ask that we have questions in relation to that.

I am sharing time with Deputies Coppinger and Boyd Barrett. On a personal level, I wish the former Minister for Finance well but on a political level and on an ideas level, I do not wish his ideas and his politics well. It is worth examining what Paschal Donohoe's ideology has been and what it has meant. He is one of the more ideological and more considered figures within the political establishment in Ireland. What characterises the more general statements by the former Minister is to talk about the defence of the…

I do not know about that. There are plenty.

The programme for Government promises a permanent, annual cost-of-disability support payment, with a view to incrementally increasing this payment. Instead of doing that, we have just had a budget in one of the richest countries in the world, with a substantial budget surplus, that did not introduce this payment. Instead, it made disabled people poorer to the tune of more than €1,000. This question is an appeal to the Government to introduce an emergency winter payment to offset the extra cost of disability.

I presume the Minister is not disputing the fact that the budget made disabled people poorer, despite the measures he is announcing. The disability support grant was cut by €400. In respect of the living alone allowance, the lump sum of €200 was cut. That is another €200 gone. The fuel allowance was reduced for disabled people, resulting in a net loss of €160. The October double payment of €254 was cut. The electricity credits of €250 were cut. The total value of one-off supports taken away from disabled people is …

The cost-of-living crisis is now. The cost-of-disability crisis is now. One in four households with a disabled person experiences deprivation. That is going to be worse next year as a result of the budget. Again, we live in one of the richest countries in the world that has record national surpluses. The Government has made repeated commitments to equality and inclusion, but it has introduced a budget that will make disabled people poorer. They cannot wait until next year. As already stated, the Department of Finan…

I thank the Social Democrats and Deputy Farrelly in particular for bringing this forward. It is a really important Bill and it is great they have used their Private Members' time for it. I do not think we need to debate this; it is the most obvious thing in the world that 16- and 17-year-olds should be able to vote. It is their future and them who are going to live in the barbarous world we are currently on a trajectory for. It is them who have the power and I hope are going to avert us from the course we are curre…

The revelations at the weekend from a CHI whistleblower about why Harvey Morrison Sherratt was removed from a waiting list were truly shocking and scary. Apparently - allegedly, but wrongly - it was because he was deemed to be palliative. It underscores the need for a full public inquiry as the parents have been campaigning for-----

-----and the need for a debate this week with the Minister to come and answer questions on this issue.