This morning, I went to a screening organised by the National Animal Rights Association and Animal Rebellion Ireland. It contained footage taken from two randomly selected pig farms in Ireland and it was extremely harrowing. These are very smart, sentient animals. They have no daylight or comfortable bedding. They have no space. They are massively crammed together in farrowing crates, sow stalls and fattening pens. There are dead and dying pigs, which have been really maltreated, and then a whole bunch of dead pigs…

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to ban advertising of fossil fuels and fossil fuelled vehicles, including commercial sponsorship, by corporate entities and to establish a Fossil Fuel Information Commission for the purposes of product and price comparisons by the public. I am introducing this Bill today as a small step in combating the climate catastrophe which is unfolding around us. COP28, despite what some people want to claim, was an historic failure. There was no agreement to p…

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

I do not know if the Taoiseach knows the post office in The Square in Tallaght. It is extraordinarily busy whenever you go there, and it is more than just a post office. It is a community hub for many people, where workers are extremely helpful to those who are coming in, advising them on what to do and so on. Those workers, and those who use the service, are faced with that post office becoming what is known as a contract-run operation. In other words, it is effectively being privatised. The workers are not being …

I want to raise again the huge hikes in childcare fees happening in crèches. Management personnel in many crèches are saying that they cannot afford to stay in the core funding programme any more, and are massively hiking their prices as a result. I have spoken to the Taoiseach previously about Chuckleberries crèche in Firhouse, where fees are being increased by an incredible 35%, which many families are simply not able to afford. From the moment the price increases, they will not be able to stay there. I received …

I want to ask about a pretty pressing issue for underfunded community drugs projects, namely, the extortionate cost of insurance. I will give a couple of examples from Tallaght to show just what an impact this is having. One project was paying €2,500 six years ago for insurance. That increased to just over €6,000 three years ago. For 2023, the insurance company wanted €21,000. There were no claims against the project and the insurance company blamed the increase on medical malpractice insurance attached to the harm…

You are in government.

Are you the only Government?

On Tuesday night, a crowd gathered outside Celbridge Manor. That is where more than 100 people seeking asylum, children, women and men, live. The crowd chanted, "Paedophiles out. Deport them now. Get them out." There were threats made to burn down the building, where people live. Why? Because of a disgusting lie spread on social media by far-right agitators. The lie was that a seven-year-old girl had been raped in the hotel by three non-Irish men. It was first shared by a supporter of the Irish Freedom Party online…

I do not doubt for a minute that the Tánaiste is utterly opposed to and condemns the arson attacks, racist violence, lies, misinformation and so on. I do not doubt that. I do think the Government bears a responsibility - not the same responsibility, of course, as the far right. For example, it has placed over 1,000 people who have come here seeking asylum in harm's way by putting them on the streets. That is a policy choice it has made. It created a two-tier asylum process which legitimised some of the arguments su…

The faux outrage.

Take them off the streets then.

The Government is putting asylum seekers on the streets. The faux outrage is a bit much.

Good, then protect them. Take them off the streets.

Take them off the streets.

It is.

Shameful.

After all the revelations about exit packages in RTÉ, we have a new revelation about a senior official in the HSE being paid almost €400,000 to leave the organisation. This is an extraordinary amount of money. Does the Tánaiste know how much the public has spent on these sorts of pay-offs over the term of the Government? Does it run into millions, or perhaps many millions? How widespread is this? Does the Tánaiste agree we need to end these extraordinary pay-offs to those at the top of public bodies? We need a pay …

I thank Deputy Collins for bringing forward this very important Bill. We live in a world of growing, galloping and deepening inequality. Since 2020, about two thirds of the new wealth created in the economy went to just 1% of the population, almost twice what the bottom 99% got globally. The same process is happening in Ireland, where the richest two billionaires now have as much wealth as the bottom 50% of the population. They are the vast majority who, according to a recent survey, struggle to feed their children…

I raise the issue of historical sex abuse of children at St. John Ambulance. Mick Finnegan, one of the survivors of that abuse, is in the Gallery. It is almost a year since the publication of the Shannon report into this. It will be over a year since the organisation received a copy of that report. It made a series of recommendations, one of which was the employment of a full-time safeguarding officer. Now, almost a year later, St. John Ambulance has come to the Government saying it does not have the funding to pay…