Are we going to have a referendum about neutrality in this State? The Government claims now not to want to undermine neutrality but, de facto, it tunnels underneath this and does things bit by bit that undermine what is left of neutrality, including the use of Shannon Airport and participation in the Ukraine defense contact group and NATO alliance that is sending soldiers to train Ukrainians in Germany and in Poland. The Government has said, however, that it does not want to undermine neutrality. In that case, will…

But the Government refuses to condemn. The Taoiseach will not say the word "condemn", never mind "genocide" or "apartheid".

Do words not matter?

The Taoiseach cannot even say "condemn".

I will raise issues about the well-being of staff and animals at Dublin Zoo. Serious allegations have been made about the mistreatment of animals, about a culture of bullying and mistreatment of staff and about the mismanagement of funds and there has been no independent investigation. I will give a few examples of the treatment of animals. In October 2022, the elephant herd was divided in two and elephant bulls were left without access to fresh drinking water while in their outside habitat for nine months. They we…

The Government is committed on paper to a major programme of retrofitting of homes, which makes all the sense in the world from the point of view of the cost-of-living crisis, allowing people to significantly reduce their energy bills, and from the point of view of the climate crisis, allowing people to significantly reduce their energy usage. However, the reality on the ground is very different. I am dealing with a woman in her late 80s living in a council home in Tallaght who has single-glazed windows, as is very…

I welcome the debate on the consultative forum report. It is just a pity that the same opportunity to debate was not afforded either to the people of this country or Opposition parties during this supposedly consultative forum. We should not forget that the Tánaiste initially said he wanted to hold a citizens' assembly on neutrality, as has successfully been done on a wide range of other issues, in particular, the first citizens' assembly, which was part of the road to the repeal of the hated eighth amendment. Howe…

We have to.

Israel is carrying out a genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Its number one supporter and military backer is the US. As a party to the genocide convention with the duty to prevent the crime of genocide, the US should be imposing an arms embargo on Israel. Instead, it has aided and abetted genocide by increasing military assistance to Israel by $14.5 billion since the genocide began. By allowing Shannon Airport to be used by the US military while it is aiding and abetting genocide, Ireland is complicit.…

We are not doing inspections.

It is another day and we have another devastating report predicting catastrophe for humanity if we continue on the track we are on. The UN environmental programme report on the emissions gap says we are heading for 3°C. It says that by 2030, we will have overshot the carbon budget to give us a 50% chance of avoiding 1.5°C, and then we will keep going. The Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, has said that all of this is a failure of leadership, a betrayal of the vulnerable and a large missed opportunity. …

I will read a sentence from the programme for Government, which states "The ambition of this Government is to provide each citizen with accessible and affordable healthcare, housing, education, childcare and disability services". That ambition is not being met. The State is failing fundamentally to meet the rights of many people in this State but in particular, the rights of children with additional needs. I will raise a particular case, which illustrates the point. Rocco is four years old. He is in junior infants.…

Would the Taoiseach say the same about the Nazis?

Successive Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Governments have reduced our health service to a permanent state of crisis through years of underfunding, privatisation and neoliberal mismanagement. Now, the Government is forcing through a recruitment freeze that will make the crisis even worse. I heard the Taoiseach's reply earlier to Deputy Gino Kenny. He seems to be denying the fact that there is a recruitment crisis because there will be 2,000 extra staff in a total workforce of 140,000. It is in black and white in the mem…

Has the Taoiseach visited the hospitals? Has he seen the waiting lists? They are getting longer.

Does the Taoiseach accept there is a recruitment freeze?

He does not even accept there is a recruitment freeze.

I endorse what Deputy Boyd Barrett said.

The decision to privatise the bin service and charge for all forms of waste management, including recycling and composting, has been an unmitigated disaster from an environmental and cost-of-living standpoint. Will the Minister now commit to legislation to take waste collection back into public ownership?

I do not know if anyone has told the Minister this before, but he is in the Government so he can change the law. There is a majority in the Dáil. It can never be an answer to a question to say something cannot be done because it is not in the law. Evidently, the law can be changed and it needs to be changed to provide for public ownership and the re-municipalisation of waste collection throughout the country. The statistics speak for themselves. According to the EPA, the municipal waste generation trend in quantity…