That is why it is invisible. It does not affect most people.

For a migrant it is.

These are EU migrants who are legally present in the North and cannot travel to the South. That is the point I am making.

Not in that part of my question.

No, they cannot. That is why it is a hard border.

On Saturday week, 7 June, at 2 p.m. at the Garden of Remembrance, parents, families and their supporters will hold yet another protest to demand their children with additional needs have the right to education, just like any other child - appropriate education in their community as outlined in the UNCRPD. The protest is part of a growing national movement, equality in education, demanding urgent action to ensure children with additional needs receive the education support and resources they deserve. These parents s…

What is now important is that we implement this Bill as urgently as possible and that we do it right. Doing it right does not mean excluding the majority of our trade with the occupied territories; it means including goods and services. I would like to get into, in some detail, what the Tánaiste says is the legal basis for excluding services is. He said we have a narrow legal pathway identified by the ICJ and the Attorney General. However, the ICJ makes no distinction between trade in goods and trade in services. I…

There is a significant weight of learned legal opinion which says the Government can do goods and services. The Tánaiste will have seen the letter from 350-plus of Ireland's most prominent lawyers stating that they do not consider there to be any insurmountable legal obstacles preventing the adoption of legislation prohibiting the import of goods and services produced in the unlawful Israeli settlements. Two of the UK's most prominent EU law experts, cited by the Attorney General himself, have taken the view that t…

It could be amended.

A public consultation on redesignating 433 rivers, streams and lakes as "heavily modified water bodies" closed last week. If the redesignation goes ahead, it will mean a massive increase in the number of these "heavily modified water bodies" from 33 to 466. All the main rivers in Dublin - the Liffey, the Dodder, the Poddle - as well as iconic rivers like the Boyne, the Corrib and the Shannon, will be included. The reason the Government is doing this is that heavily modified water bodies do not have to meet EU water…

The Minister of State referred to a realistic yet stringent standard. I presume he will accept that it is deliberately a much less stringent standard than if those water bodies were not redesignated as highly modified water bodies. The reply was in line with what I am saying. This is the Government throwing in the towel in respect of improving the quality of our water bodies. To quote Ms Joanna Braniff of the Rivers Trust, it shows there is no ambition for these rivers and that we are writing them off. The Minister…

The gap between the words and the actions of the Government on Palestine grows ever bigger because the words get stronger but the Government refuses to act. What happens in debates like this or the one last night is that the Government comes in and effectively complains that it is not congratulated for not being as complicit in the genocide as the states that are literally funding it and arming Israel. This is simply not good enough. The people outside and those who will gather later do not think it is good enough,…

We are authorising it.

When Emilia was three years old she had osteotomies on both hips at Temple Street hospital. Her mother felt unduly and inappropriately pressured by the surgeon. It started out with the possibility that she might need one hip done and then it was an absolute necessity to get both done. Emilia was six before she could walk property. She was the slowest to do a cartwheel and the last to ride a bike. She still has pain when she climbs stairs. Her younger sister Hannah was then later in Temple Street with an unrelated e…

Correct.

Sometimes, when people are discussing this issue, they talk about culture in a disembodied sense, that a culture that was bad existed. Clearly, there was in this case. However, the culture was created by individuals and carried on by individuals. The top surgeons in question were a really big part of this. The question has to be asked in terms of what the motivation was. Was the motivation financial? I heard the figures, on top of salaries - that consultants receive €1,500 for the first hip and another €750 for the…

Does the Taoiseach agree that these surgeons should, at the very least, not now be conducting osteotomies? That can be done immediately and needs to be done immediately. The CHI statement is clear-----

----- about operations from 2010 onward being reviewed.

It needs to go back to 2002.

That is when these operations started.