Housing is a basic need. Without housing, all aspects of life become radically more difficult. Physical and mental health starts to deteriorate and a family's ability to provide even simple nutrition falls apart. Education and work life are next to impossible without a home, and the human condition disintegrates if a person does not have a house. Ireland is suffering from a prolonged housing emergency and the level of human misery being caused by this prolonged housing emergency is unprecedented. I firmly believe t…

Is tábhachtach agus is luachmhar le muintir na hÉireann an Ghaeilge toisc gur cuid bhunúsach dínn í. Ceanglaíonn sí lenár dtimpeallacht muid. Is stór saibhir de litríocht, ealaíon, amhránaíocht, stair, agus seanchas í. Struchtúr smaointeoireachta atá inti atá uathúil i ndomhan ina bhfuil éagsúlacht teanga á cailleadh ar bhonn bliantúil. Tá an Ghaeilge greanta ar ár n-ainmneacha agus ár dtírdhreach. Tá an Ghaeilge ar na teangacha is sine sa domhan agus ar an teanga choiteann scríofa is sine san Eoraip. Tá muidne in …

The management of this crisis has been enormously difficult for the Minister, the Department and teachers and parents around the country. It is probably one of the biggest impacts that has been experienced by many people. I have no doubt the cost of the closure of schools will continue for years to come as a result of the lack of education and socialisation and due to the mental health issues that have been created among this generation of schoolchildren. It has been indicated the leaving certificate examination is…

Tógfaidh mise ceithre nóiméad go leith.

There is a banking crisis unfolding before our eyes in real time in this country. It is one for which the Minister, his party and the Government are in large part responsible. I have listened as, one by one and with furrowed brows, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Deputies rose to their feet in this Chamber and fretted about the closure of banks in their constituencies. Each was careful to mention every town that has been stuffed by these decisions in recent times, yet none of these Deputies has admitted that there is a m…

Ireland has the longest lasting and most severe workplace restrictions in Europe. We have lost 163 days of work due to closure. This compares to 34 days in Germany. Does the Minister not agree that it is an outstanding fact that this country has had to lock down for longer with restrictions more severe than other European countries due to the way this illness has been managed? Indeed, for most of the Covid crisis this country has been a radical outlier in terms of the severity of the lockdowns that have happened. T…

Out of 200 countries.

I have been contacted by student nurses who are to go on placement in a number of months who have not been given their first vaccine. They have been called back a second time to be given their first vaccine. They feel embarrassed because people who are over 85, some of whom have contacted me, still do not have a date for their first vaccination. There are vaccines in Tuam but there are no needles. There is confusion in this regard. We will not be able to roll this out within the steady timeframe required if this co…

The Good Friday Agreement and the Executive that flowed from it helped to bring an end to the Troubles and one of the most tragic conflicts in the world. The Good Friday Agreement was an incredible achievement. The institutions that were created, in comparison with what went before, represented incredible progress. However, we have to get real. Twenty-three years later, those institutions are proving to be incredibly dysfunctional. The New Decade, New Approach agreement came about because the five parties in the No…

I want to raise a specific issue. It relates to something the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage said in recent days. His statement in respect of homeless deaths in this State was tone-deaf. It was an incredible statement for the Minister to make from a political perspective. It was also an incredibly cold reaction to the sad fact that 79 people died in homelessness, in Dublin alone, in 2020. The Minister of State can correct me if I am wrong, but it appeared that the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Bri…

For how long have we been talking about insurance in Leinster House and the Dáil? How many years have passed in which Private Members' Bills, motions, discussions, questions and hot air have been produced en masse on the issue of insurance in Ireland? What level of actual reform has happened in the intervening time? One of the most frustrating things about being an elected representative in the Dáil in the past ten years is comparing the level of conversation about the issue of insurance with the actual reform that…

Accountability and democracy should not be victims of Covid. They are more important now in this crisis than they ever were. Ministers are being insulated from accountability within this Chamber due to the lack of opportunity available to the Opposition to debate the crisis in areas such as nursing homes, vaccines roll-out, education and housing. I appeal to the Government to support a return to a three-day Dáil week.

Two weeks ago, people gathered for the 29th anniversary of a gun attack on the Ormeau Road in 1992 in which people were murdered by loyalist paramilitaries. The PSNI descended on that gathering in an extremely heavy-handed manner. Its officers came down on the families affected by and survivors of that loyalist atrocity like a ton of bricks. One police officer has been suspended and another has been repositioned. The Chief Constable of the PSNI has apologised. It is just another example of heavy-handed and politica…

Did the Taoiseach raise the matter with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland?

Táim buíoch don deis labhairt ar an ábhar tábhachtach seo. Covid-19 has radically impacted on the health and well-being of people around the country. Many families have lost loved ones in tragic circumstances and many families listening to this debate are in bereavement or serious grief. The country needs to do everything it can to make sure we reduce the incidence of this illness. We must do our best to make sure we get the daily case figures down to single digits if possible. It is important in a debate such as t…

Nursing homes have been the ground zero of the Covid crisis. A total of 1,543 people have died in nursing homes since the start of the crisis and 369 people have died in nursing homes with Covid just in the last month; and my deepest sympathy goes to each and every one of those families. I am not aware of so many people dying so quickly in any other institutions in the history of this State. In the month of January, Covid has been out of control in nursing homes, to devastating effect, with 193 outbreaks in one mon…

If the Tánaiste wants to contradict the medical professionals I have spoken to in some of these nursing homes with regard to the timing of delivery of vaccines into those nursing homes, he can, but timing is key, and every single nursing home that is experiencing the wave at the moment will tell him that timing has been absolutely shocking. Things could not have been worse with regard to the timing that has happened. The roll-out of the vaccine in the first number of weeks in this State was scandalously slow. The o…

Last January was the coldest January in the past ten years. Sub-zero temperatures are again forecast for the coming weekend, which means the cold will be eating into many people's homes around the country. Right around Ireland, people are choosing whether to heat their homes or feed their families and whether to turn on the heating or purchase clothing for their families. It is incredible that such choices are still being made in this country in 2021, at a time when this is one of the richest countries in the world…

May I raise a point of order?

It is a point of order. I very rarely raise points of order. There was 30 minutes assigned to Questions on Promised Legislation. Every Tuesday, one particular Deputy takes up ten minutes of that time-----