He charges them for uniforms.

He charges them for uniforms.

The Deputy would not know that.

This is extremely simple. There is nothing complicated here. There is no need to wait for a year or get a load of reports. This is extremely simple. We need to end the situation whereby young people are discriminated against on the basis of their age. We need to end the situation where they are super-exploited while, legally, the Government is saying it is okay. We need to end the situation where under-18s can be paid as little as €7.91 an hour, 18-year-olds €9.04 an hour, and 19-year-olds €10.17 an hour. It goes a…

I want to ask the Taoiseach about an issue arising from information I gathered from parliamentary questions to the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, which reveal a significant delay in the roll-out of smart meters for people who have solar panels installed in their homes. More than 1,000 families are waiting up to four months for a smart meter and close to 1,000 have been waiting more than four months for one. The consequence is that if a person is eligible for a smart meter but does not hav…

The way that the workers at Tara Mines have been treated is utterly disgraceful. They found out that they are to be temporarily - they do not know for how long - laid off yesterday. Some of them found out through watching the Nine O'Clock News that, effectively, they will be left without pay. The company says it is due to a variety of factors in terms of zinc prices, inflation, energy costs, etc. The company does not mention the fact that when there were previously high prices for zinc, Tara Mines was operating ext…

The Council of Europe has found that Ireland is in breach of its labour rights obligations. In its conclusions, the European Committee of Social Rights stated that the situation in Ireland is not in conformity with Article 4.1 of the European Social Charter on the ground that the minimum wage paid to workers of 18 and 19 years of age does not ensure a decent standard of living. The committee is referring specifically to the scandalous situation of so-called sub-minimum rates of pay whereby employers are legally per…

The NRP deals with climate action and the environment. I want to ask the Taoiseach what would it take for this Government to reverse its disastrous course on data centres and reject the policy of consciously seeking to attract what is the digital toxic waste of the 21st century. We have an incredible situation, unparalleled anywhere else in the world, whereby data centres are using up more electricity than all of our urban homes combined. Will it stop when we reach 30%? Will it stop when we have more brownouts? Wil…

Would we know how much goes onto the algorithm? Can we open the black box?

The Taoiseach said a couple of months ago that "I’ve been asked many times, can we make contributions to important infrastructure projects, like for example, the A5? Are there things we can do to the Shared Island fund? And the answer is yes". How far does that go in terms of contributions the Irish Government is willing to make to assist people in the North with the problems they are facing? I reference the health service in particular where there is an important local hospital campaign in Newry to save Daisy Hill…

We might not have 12,000 homeless.

We might not have 100,000 on hospitals waiting lists.

The fire at the apartment complex in Blanchardstown serves to underline the need for urgency in addressing building defects in apartments and duplexes. Thankfully, nobody was injured and the residents are very thankful for the work of Dublin Fire Brigade in this regard. However, we know from a Government-commissioned report that between 50% and 80% of all apartment and duplex blocks built between 1991 and 2013 have defects, mostly fire defects. The Government has had the report for over a year. We have a commitment…

I wish to ask the Taoiseach about the upcoming strike by water workers across the country in many different local authorities. These workers are due to strike on 7 and 8 June after voting overwhelmingly in favour of strike action. This comes after the very impressive rank-and-file activism of the water service workers pushing for these ballots. There are two fundamental issues here. One is the fact that these workers' pay, rostered overtime and allowances are not being red-circled in the event that they say they do…

You are never going to either.

You committed to a referendum so let us have it.

Greenhouse gas emissions are declining across Europe. They are declining far too slowly to avoid catastrophe for humanity but, in Ireland, greenhouse gas emissions are rising. They are rising at the fastest rate of any EU country, by 12.3% year on year, despite the fact the Green Party is in government and we are in contravention of our targets under the climate action plan. Aviation is a key part of that. We have a very modest proposal, namely, a Bill that has passed First Stage that will allow the banning of priv…

We are going to have to change some things.

The science here is not in doubt. We have countless reports to tell us how important biodiversity is, how threatened it is, the consequences of a continuation of the destruction of biodiversity for humanity and this planet, and even what to do to protect it. The issue is not that we do not know what to do. The problem is the political will and economic interest to do it. The appalling lack of political will from successive Irish governments around biodiversity is shown in the damning verdict of the citizens' assemb…

It is very obvious from the response of the Government to our Bill that those in the political establishment have not learned a whole lot from repeal. They should be taking the overwhelming vote for choice that the people gave us five years ago and running with it. Instead, they are hiding behind the sops put into the heads of the Bill before the referendum, designed to appease the Catholic Church, to allow conservative politicians to complete their so-called journeys and to appease what they thought were their own…