The Taoiseach says you have to bring people with you, but the people are miles ahead of the politicians on this one. In today's poll, when you exclude the undecided, 74% of people support a ban on hare coursing. In the poll a number of years ago, it was 77%, and higher in rural areas than in urban areas. The problem the people often face is that they have to try to drag the politicians with them because this place remains an outlier compared with society at large, where there is potentially going to be a majority s…

How can people vote when they are told there is €70 million from Irish coursing? That does not make any sense whatsoever.

They are told it is in a report but they do not have the capacity to analyse that. That is a problem.

Will the Taoiseach accept that the report needs to be published before a vote takes place?

Pico Lopes put it clearest when he arrived back in Ireland from the World Cup: "Some things are bigger than football ... The game for me has to be stopped. It shouldn't be played". Tonight, delegates at an FAI extraordinary general meeting will vote on whether Ireland should play Israel. I hope the delegates do the right thing, which is to say that a state like Israel, which is engaged in genocide and apartheid, should be isolated, not played. Will the Taoiseach assure the delegates that if they do the right thing …

What about-----

The Government likes to tell us it does not have our neutrality in its crosshairs. It tells us it is planning to drop the triple lock so that a future government or this Government could send troops outside of the framework of international law on NATO missions to invade countries in the Middle East or elsewhere. However, we should not worry; neutrality is not under threat. It tells us it wants to triple our military expenditure but we should not worry, neutrality is not under threat. It participates in the Ukraine…

It does not. The Minister of State is misleading the Dáil. For the record, the Minister of State said this group removes landmines. It does not.

It does not just train people to remove landmines. That was the propaganda put out at the time but if the Minister of State read into the detail, he would know that is not what it stated. He will be able to go and check it later. The Government attempted - it appears the armoured vehicles were too rusty and perhaps would have presented a threat to the poor Ukrainian conscripts - to offload armoured vehicles which were armed with grenade launchers or machine guns. It still tried to pass that off as being non-lethal …

I object to giving only 90 minutes to the occupied territories Bill. This is a Bill both Government parties said during the general election that they would support, and yet they are now trying to absolutely gut it. The Government parties do not want time to discuss it because they do not want that to be exposed.

Will Fianna Fáil Party TDs be given a free vote on Wednesday night when they get a chance to ban hare coursing? Multiple Fianna Fáil TDs have responded to constituents saying that they are utterly opposed to hare coursing. Is Fianna Fáil going to force them to vote to continue this cruel practice, where thousands of hares are captured from the wild every single year, held in little cages initially and then kept in enclosures with many other hares when these are solitary animals, all to prepare them for the point of…

I will be brief because I want to get onto the meat of the debate, services. I will re-emphasise the point I made on Committee Stage. Section 5(1) of the Bill is very clear - there is no exemption that deals with this in terms of subsection (2) - and states that the importation of goods originating in a postal code to which this Act applies is prohibited. It is written very clearly. In the case of a Palestinian farmer in one of the postal codes in the Bill, according to any reasonable reading of the law, the import…

I remember well the debate on RTÉ during the general election where it was kind of a quick-fire question, "Will you implement the occupied territories Bill?" With no hesitation, Micheál Martin and Simon Harris said yes. There was also then someone with a camera phone who went and talked to Simon Harris in a café and asked him if he would implement the occupied territories Bill and he said, "Oh yes, no question, no ifs or buts. This is an absolute priority for me." We had one promise made to the public during a gene…

The Minister of State made a point of saying that the ICJ does not require member states to do anything. Therefore, it is up to member states how they chose to act and whether they make a distinction between goods and services. In the regulatory impact analysis from the Minister of State’s Department, it stated that, "The only reasonable reading of the 2024 ICJ advisory opinion is that a complete prohibition on trade with Israeli settlements is required". The Minister accepted that on Committee Stage and, like the …

I support this amendment and our similar amendment No. 4, which substitutes "may" with "shall". In theory, and I accept this is not the intention of the Government, and for the benefit of the public, it is true that we could pass this Bill and it could become law. However, if there was an election, resulting in an even worse Government if it is possible to conceive of that, a Minister could decide not to do this. If we are passing a law, let us make it obligatory on the Government to carry it out. As I think this i…

I move amendment No. 16: In page 5, between lines 36 and 37, to insert the following: “Prohibition on sale or offer for sale in State of certain services 7. (1) It shall be an offence to sell or offer for sale to a person in the State a service provided, or to be provided, in an illegal settlement in a postal code to which this Act applies. (2) A person who commits an offence under this section is liable— (a) on summary conviction, to a fine of €5,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or both, (b) …

I welcome the Bill and the additional investment in An Post. There is a fundamental problem with An Post and it is why week after week we hear Deputies rightly complain in here about post offices closing, sorting offices moving and the terrible treatment of pensioners in An Post. The fundamental issue at the heart of it all is the so-called commercial mandate for An Post. An Post has to legally behave like a company that is solely focused on profit despite the reality that it is a public and community service and s…

All of the evidence suggests that an Irish citizen, Daniel Tatlow-Devally, along with four others, is being denied a fair trial by another European state. I believe the Minister has a letter from a senior counsel. The letter refers to the fact that no audio recording of what is happening is permitted or provided by the court, there is no official stenographer, and the defendants cannot bring their own stenographer and have been refused permission to engage a professional note-taker. The letter went on to say that i…

Fundamentally, I do not accept that the denial of the right of an Irish citizen to a fair trial is a matter just for his or her legal team. I just do not accept that. It is a concern of the State if an Irish citizen is, in effect, being railroaded through a show trial. The State needs to be represented by an observer at that trial to see what is happening. Deputy Boyd Barrett has been organising a delegation of representatives to go there on 22 July. Deputies Farrell and Duncan Smith are going, as are Lynn Boylan M…

I am sure the Minister is aware of it but I want to draw his attention to the open letter signed by more than 2,300 academics and researchers, which rings the alarm bell about Research Ireland's 2026 to 2030 strategy. The letter states, "The new strategy is structurally, rhetorically and materially focused on commercially translatable research and economic impact rather than supporting bedrock, fundamental, discovery research and research for the public good." Will the Minister take this on board and meet the petit…