-----and the neglect and abuse they have suffered. We need to have a debate on it.

The debate is nearly finished.

This is a record-breaking Government for all the wrong reasons. Under Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independents, there is record-breaking homelessness, as well as record-breaking house prices and rents. Rents, incredibly, have doubled since the bottom of the crash. This must be the most pro-cyclical Government in the history of the State. Deputy Micheál Martin was a member of a Cabinet that crashed this country. His actions led in part to a significant spike in house prices and rents in the noughties. His policie…

Tacaím leis an rún seo agus molaim Páirtí an Lucht Oibre as ucht an rún seo a chur faoi bhráid na Dála. I thank the Labour Party for bringing this motion before the Dáil. It needs to be supported across the Chamber. The clock is ticking towards famine in Gaza. Those are the words of the head of the UN agency for Palestine. This is no natural famine or natural disaster; it is a man-made famine designed to clear Gaza of Palestinians. The term "man-made famine" resonates in Ireland more than in any other country in th…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an mBille seo. Is maith an rud é go bhfuil sé ag iarraidh cearta oibrithe a threisiú sa tír seo. Le fada an lá, ní raibh cearta ná cumhacht ag oibrithe in aghaidh go leor comhlachtaí. Dá bharr, chaill go leor dóibh a gcuid tuarastail agus a gcuid slite beatha. Aontú is committed to justice in the workplace and the right of all workers in Ireland, North and South, to fair pay for a fair day's work and fair living conditions. We affirm the dignity of work and the right of workers to equitable pay …

I want to welcome the O'Farrell family and thank them. I want to mention two TDs who have done a great deal of work on this over the years for the family, namely, Deputies John McGuinness and Matt Carthy. That deserves recognition. To bury a child is an excruciating pain, one that no parent should ever have to experience. That should have been the limit to the pain the family experienced, but that was not the case. The State then heaped pain in a continuous battle against the family over the next 14 years. The O'Fa…

I listened to the Tánaiste give Pearse Doherty an answer with regard to the national children's hospital. He was like an under-pressure estate agent furiously trying to sell an overpriced, extortionate and exorbitant hospital to an increasingly angry population at the moment. Nobody is arguing about the quality of the hospital; we are arguing about the price and the length of time it has taken to deliver. Leo Varadkar promised that it would be delivered by 2020 for €700 million, save for "an asteroid hitting the pl…

The problem is that he cannot enforce a culture of accountability to any other elements of the Civil Service at the moment because accountability and the Tánaiste are like oil and water.

Did you lie to the people?

What does that mean?

Calling it correcting homework is an understatement. I think the Tánaiste knows that, given that we could literally spend a full day with a litany of examples of overspending and waste across the whole range of the delivery of public services. Inertia, waste and blame-shifting are the characteristics of this Government. These are serious issues. Why? It is not only because it is incinerating taxpayers' money, but because these are really important public services and infrastructure that are simply not materialising…

The Tánaiste is directly responsible for the costs and for the fact that this infrastructure is not operating for the children who need it today.

Literally inflammatory.

Your excuse is they are worse. That is hardly an answer.

I welcome this motion from Independent Ireland. It is very well written and, if implemented, would make a significant difference to carers and people who are cared for. Care is the most valuable service delivered in Ireland now. First and most significant, it is most valuable in human terms. The relationships we have with people are actually the most important things that exist. When we strip everything back and take all the superfluous stuff away, at the end of the day it is the relationships we have with our love…

Israel and its government have murdered 53,000 people. The grim horror of that sentence is still incredible when you think about it. Hamas murdered 1,700 people, is a terrorist organisation and must release all hostages. However, Israel is killing 51 people for every person Hamas has killed. My colleague Deputy Collins is right that it is not about numbers, but it is about proportion and 51 times the level of blood has been shed by the IDF than has been shed by Hamas, a terrorist organisation. That reflects what Is…

This is one of the areas where there is a large chasm between where the people of Ireland are and where the political establishment in Leinster House sits. Most people want to be able to provide shelter for those who are fleeing war and violence and to be able to help people, especially from Ukraine, given the horrendous war happening there. However, most people want a level of fairness in the system. They want that two people living on the same street will not have a difference between them that gives one family a…

I welcome the transfer of some powers and funding away from the Department of children to the Department of Justice. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth had a lot on its plate with Tusla, childcare, mother and baby homes, Green Party leadership and failed Government referendums in the previous Government. There is no doubt about that. There were huge problems in that Department in terms of funding for early childhood education providers, the massive budget to Tusla yet no real di…

Yes. It is both ways.

The Taoiseach is injecting confusion into the hip operation scandal. Yesterday in the Dáil, I asked him about the letters that were sent to parents covering a period as far back as 15 years ago. I asked on what basis those parents were being sent the letters if they were not part of the two-year audit. In his answer, the Taoiseach gave a number of contradictory statements. He said first of all that the letters recalling patients were part of a routine follow-up of appointments. He also said that the letters were be…