Does the Taoiseach want a medal?

And do what Trump says. Is that the moral thing?

It is hard to think of community infrastructure more important than our postal services. It, therefore, makes no sense whatsoever that the sorting office for Dublin 16 is being moved out of Dublin 16, from Edmondstown to Lucan. It will be a disaster for workers who have built their lives around the fact that they live near where they work, and it will result in massively worsened postal services because the letters and packets will get stuck on the M50. The routes will not get finished and, potentially, people will…

Nine days ago, hundreds of people marched to Lough Neagh to protest the ecocide of our largest lake. Last year, the EPA published research on 35 lakes in the South. Two thirds are classed as at risk under the water framework directive. Seven important Irish lakes are found to be at high risk of Lough Neagh-type toxic algae blooms, including loughs Derg, Ramor, Sheelin, Sillan, Muckno and Naglack. Lady's Island in Wexford where toxic blue-green algae have all but killed the lake was not included in the research. The…

I thank Deputy Stanley for this excellent and important motion. I will start with a quote from the Fianna Fáil Minister of State, Deputy Troy: Ireland's position on the use of force where there is no UN mandate or authorisation is well established and known. For fear that anyone is in any doubt, let me be clear: it is wrong and it is illegal. Does the Minister of State, Deputy Murnane O'Connor, agree with the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, on that? I will repeat the quote, if the Minister of State wants: Ireland's…

This is from 5 March. Is this the Government's position or not? The Minister of State, Deputy Troy, said: Ireland's position on the use of force where there is no UN mandate or authorisation is well established and known. For fear that anyone is in any doubt, let me be clear: it is wrong and it is illegal. He was summing up a debate on the Middle East on 5 March. There is a problem with the Government, if that is its position. What does the triple lock do? It means that we cannot send troops except where there is a…

I support the Sinn Féin amendment and I have concerns about the Government amendment. I have concerns about the whole Bill, to be honest. I will start on the Sinn Féin stuff, to which the Minister responded by saying this is about real terrorism, it is about brown people or republicans. That is the type of terrorism he is dealing with here, not any of that fine state terrorism we see carried out by the US and Israel. Today, we have video of an Irish citizen being terrorised by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the security minister…

I have just received notice of what will be proposed for a massive increase in council rent in South Dublin County Council. It is looking to increase the basic rate of council rent by 25%. It will mean thousands of euro extra per year for many families at a time of a cost-of-living crisis that people simply will not be able to afford. It is not just South Dublin County Council. We have seen this in Dublin City Council where rents have been increased by almost 30% - there is huge resistance and opposition to that - …

The Minister's speech really encapsulates the cynicism of the Government on the issue of Palestine. The written copies of her speech include, in two places, references to the start and end of media clips. It is the first time I have seen that. It encapsulates the Government's approach. One of the clips includes the Minister talking about all the good stuff the Government is going to do at a European level and how hopeful she is about the things happening at EU level. The clip ends with a statement that the Governme…

I thank the Social Democrats for bringing forward this Bill, which People Before Profit supports. It really is the bare minimum the Government should be doing to implement the recommendations of its own official review of the abortion law. The review recommended decriminalising abortion, reviewing the treatment of fatal foetal anomalies in order that women in this terrible situation are not forced to travel and abolishing the patronising and medically useless three-day wait. The Bill mostly does all of that. There …

Fianna Fáil's former leader and Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has engaged in disgusting racism in Dublin Central, saying we have “too many” immigrants and saying, "The ones I worry about are the Africans", and that, "We can’t be taking in people from the Congo and all these places." He said he worries about the next generation of Muslims. Bertie Ahern doing it makes the agenda very blatant: scapegoat immigrants and divide ordinary people. Why? So that nobody blames Bertie Ahern, Fianna Fáil and the landlords and develop…

On Bertie Ahern, I will just say this. What people say when they do not think they are being recorded is actually more valuable than what they say when they know they are being recorded. It suggests a dirty game used on doorsteps by Fianna Fáil to divide and rule ordinary people, and to have them not blaming the people the Taoiseach represents - the developers, the landlords, the people who get rich from the housing crisis. Instead, it is better to blame the people from Congo or wherever else. Regarding the council…

The other thing is the Department. The Department pulled the plug on Oliver Bond. It is the Department-----

-----that has pulled the plug on regeneration. The Government cannot wash its hands of it and just say it is the council.

You will not catch me saying racist things, even if you record me secretly.

I was never on a council.

It takes a lot of courage to increase rents on council tenants.

The Currency reported today that, at the height of the genocide in 2024, the Department of trade authorised the export of €20 million euro worth of military-capable so-called dual-use goods, not just to Israel, but specifically to the Israel Defense Forces, IDF, or Israel's Ministry of Defense. What on earth was the Department doing sanctioning the sale of these goods, potentially for military use, to those organisations involved at the time of the mass slaughter of Palestinians? Did the Minister know anything abou…

These are modest amendments reinstituting some form of democratic oversight. I presume the Government is going to oppose them, because the whole purpose of the Bill from the Government's perspective is to gut democratic oversight and democratic input into the planning system. The public should know where this is coming from. The Collison brothers, two filthy-rich Irish billionaires, have developed seriously undue influence over the Irish Government via the neolibertarian think-tank, Progress Ireland. First, it was …

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the National Minimum Wage Act 2000 to provide for apprentices and young workers to be paid at least the National Minimum Wage. I will share time with Deputy Boyd Barrett. I am glad to be introducing this Bill. It is a Bill to end the super-exploitation of young workers and apprentices. We introduced a similar Bill in the last Dáil to abolish sub-minimum wage rates for workers aged under 20. At the time, the Government claimed to be looking i…