You were actually willing to go with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael - both parties. We refused to go in.

I move: That Dáil Éireann: notes that: — increased flooding is destroying property, causing hundreds of millions of euros of damage, and putting lives at risk; — communities are waiting, in some cases for decades, for flood defences, protection and amelioration projects to be built; — the delivery of flood defences is dangerously slow or grinding to a complete halt, with planning, licensing, permitting, tendering and the delivery of judicial reviews being slower in Ireland than in most of the European Union; — floo…

I thank Deputies for their contributions to this Private Members' motion. I thank the Government for not opposing it. That is important. I thank the Labour Party for its amendment, which we are not opposing. It is a cynical, well-worn experience in this House that the Government does not oppose Private Members' motions but then simply does nothing about them. Accepting a Private Members' motion and not doing anything about it is a good way of saying "Yes" while saying "No" at the same time. That is a problem. My ma…

-----in 18 months’ time, we will back in the same place, with families being inundated and hammered in this situation. We have had many years of Ministers being dispatched to floods in their top boots, splashing around in the puddles on camera for the media, nodding-----

-----empathically to families who have lost everything. That has added up to a hill of beans for those families over that period of time. I accept that the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, wants to get things done. I accept his bona fides in relation this. He has been this position for a year at this point. We have to get to the root of the problem here. The construction of flood defences is drowning in bureaucracy and red tape. Many flood defence planning applications are taking 20 to 30 years, from concept to com…

This is a really serious issue. It is an issue the Irish Government has not done the right thing on for a number of years. I will give a couple of reasons. There are three elements to all this. There is what has happened in the Troubles in relation to Irish citizens; what the role of the British state was in those actions; and what exactly the Irish Government did to make sure justice and truth were achieved for families. For years, we have known that families have been fighting for truth and justice in the North o…

All Troubles victims should be fought for equally.

The script the Taoiseach read out has no relation at all to the reality for farmers. If the backbenchers ever manage to overthrow him, I think there is a Booker Prize for fiction in him when he retires.

Some 1,400 farmers are leaving agriculture on an annual basis, with 8,400 farmers having left since Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael got together back in 2020. Another 5,600 will have disappeared from the land by the time this Government is finished. That is the stark reality facing farmers at the moment. The Mercosur deal is simply going to accelerate that process. Farm incomes will be lower, there will be rural depopulation and the food security of this country will also be threatened. The idea that we have Mr. Murrin i…

You are very good at fiction.

Just listen to farmers.

However, they want to make a living from farming; they do not want social welfare.

The Taoiseach's objective-----

The Taoiseach's objective is to improve the Mercosur-----

Aontú believes that we, as a people, should do our best to try to provide help to those who are fleeing war and violence. We believe there are many people in Ireland who are migrants who are making a valuable contribution to our country and our society. They are essential in many sectors and this country would not function properly only for those individuals. We also believe that when a person is here legally, they should be treated with respect, and that the colour of a person's skin is of no more significance tha…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Bille seo inniu. It addresses one of the most insidious frontiers of crime in modern Ireland. For years, we watched technology outpace our laws but today it is outpacing our own sense of human dignity. We are living in an era where nudification has become a service and predators do not even need a camera to destroy a life. All they need is an algorithm. We stood in this Chamber and spoke about Coco's Law as landmark legislation, and it was, but technology is moving fast and the Government's s…

Road safety is not being taken seriously by this Government; that is a fact. We have all the legislation but no enforcement. Legislation does not mean tuppenny damn if we do not enforce it. Let us consider the new legislation the Government's bought in yesterday for scramblers. I have spoken to representatives of the Garda. They say gardaí do not have the ability or the right to pursue an individual on a scrambler. The press statement put out yesterday said that there will be pursuit of individual scramblers. Garda…

The death of Grace Lynch as a result of a scrambler was a shocking loss of life. It was shocking to her family, friends and community. We welcome the legislation that was brought before Cabinet today. However, there is an issue in relation to enforcement. Incredibly, gardaí are currently not trained to pursue a person on a scrambler or electric scooter. At the moment, there is no legal protection for them if they pursue. They could be stood down from their job or subject to a civil court case or Fiosrú investigatio…

There is no training.

Training helps.