I worked on its reopening.

I worked on that too.

I campaigned for that.

I campaigned for all three of those projects.

Last week the Taoiseach and the Chinese Premier met. There was the result of a fantastic decision on behalf of Irish farmers that access for Irish beef was re-established into the Chinese market. However, there are major issues with China. We have millions of people in the Xinjiang province who are being treated barbarically by the Chinese regime. We have democracy within Hong Kong being completely flattened, with political activists, journalists and anybody standing up for democracy being jailed en masse . What is…

It is difficult to overstate the human rights crisis in China. It is estimated that more than 1 million Uyghurs have been put into re-education camps in China since 2014. Subjects there suffer torture, women are forcibly sterilised, women have forced birth control and forced abortions, and products are being made in slavery situations, with many such products finding their way into western society. Mr. Pat Leahy reported in The Irish Times last week that the Irish Government’s approach to these issues in terms of r…

I understand that another diplomat, when he heard a report that the issue of human rights was mentioned, wondered how he had missed it because he had not noticed it at the meetings. The two pieces of evidence we have heard today are in contradiction. The US has moved to ban imports from Xinjiang and to stop slave labour products made by Uyghurs from being sold in the US. The EU proposed to do the same but has still not done so. Whatever about the argument about how strong or weak the Government’s presentation on hu…

I want to pay tribute to the Women of Honour, many of whom are here tonight, who have courageously brought to light the shocking litany of abuse and bullying that has been experienced by men and women in the Defence Forces over the decades. I had the opportunity to raise their case for the first time in the Dáil. At that time, I stated that if we wanted to achieve justice, we had to ensure first of all that the terms of reference must be drafted in consultation and in agreement with the Women of Honour. This has no…

We need to have a discussion about the Government's mismanagement of immigration policy. The absence of resources when it comes to accommodation is startling at the moment. The Government promised 700 rapid-build units back in June 2022. The majority of those have not been built. The Minister promised a community dividend of €53 million, but only €3 million has actually been spent. We now have this nebulous promise by the Government of more investment going into local communities and these accommodation centres. We…

Tara Mines is the biggest lead and zinc mine in Europe. It is one of the largest employers in Meath and its closure has been one of the biggest economic blows to the east midlands area for a long period of time. A key element of the closure was the fact that electricity prices in this country are the highest in Europe. Tara Mines management has given a plan to workers. That plan is a race to the bottom for income and terms and conditions. It seeks more than 200 redundancies and possibly reduces the working month to…

The fishing industry was mentioned. It has been brought to my attention that the Minister for agriculture was offered a quota from the Danes of 3,000 tonnes of fish, but the Minister seems to have done the reverse of the loaves and fishes miracle and returned to Ireland with 1,500 tonnes of fish. It seems that the Minister is also in negotiations with Iceland about allowing its fishing boats into Irish waters. Right now fishermen in Ireland are becoming an endangered species and it is increasingly unlikely to see f…

There is an alarming increase in the number of small businesses being forced to close. The owners of these businesses, who have invested blood, sweat and tears to make them function, are being hammered with massive costs. In fact, we have a two-tier economy. We have a very strong foreign direct investment sector but a comparatively weak indigenous business sector. The businesses to which I refer are being hit by rip-off Ireland, which is made worse by the cost-of-living crisis. Many of them, especially restaurants,…

I have received some incredible answers from different Ministers to parliamentary questions in respect of what happened during Covid. The Minister for Health confirmed to me that there were 10% fewer cancers diagnosed in 2020 than would have been expected for that year by the National Cancer Registry Ireland. That is an alarming revelation. In 2020, 60,000 fewer women were screened by CervicalCheck than were screened in the previous year. This is because the Government in part shut down cancer screening. There were…

The only country in Europe.

We were an outlier.

Religious leaders of all faiths are working overtime in this country at the moment. They do enormous work in helping the vulnerable, members of the Travelling community, victims of human trafficking, those in prison, those who are homeless, those with addictions, those who are grieving and so on, and in terms of integration and working with many in our migrant communities. They must, however, be better supported by the Government. I always find it very interesting to watch many within the political establishment, w…

In Gaza, 25,000 individual human beings have been murdered since the horrendous attacks by Hamas on 7 October. This is the equivalent of every man, woman and child in a large Irish town such as Tralee being killed. More than 10,000 children have been killed in those attacks. That is the equivalent of 416 classrooms of innocent children murdered in that time. Women and children have been the main victims of Israel's war, with more than 16,000 of them killed. It is estimated that two mothers have been killed every ho…

There are 9,409 adults currently homeless in the State, and 4,105 children are accessing emergency accommodation. That is equivalent to the full population of the town of Midleton in Cork. It is a significant number of Irish citizens who are currently in a state of homelessness. There is the equivalent of 117 classrooms of children homeless at the moment. It is an incredible situation. There are 60,000 people on local authority waiting lists in the State. Eurostat has found that there has been a 100% increase in re…

The average ambulance response time in this country has been increasing significantly in the past few years, so much so that one particular and heartbreaking statistic is the number of times a patient was dead when an ambulance reached the person. In 2019 that figure was 700 and in the past year that has increased to at least 900 deaths. This is a very serious statistic that shows lives are being put in danger as a result of late ambulance arrival.

The figures quoted by the Minister are obviously from a baseline in 2015. The Minister will accept that 2015 was probably during the complete collapse of investment, post austerity, into the health service. The figures being taken as a baseline are from the lowest level of staffing within the National Ambulance Service, which obviously will make the Minister's figures improve. It is very important. In 2019 there were 750 people dead by the time the ambulance arrived. In 2022 that figure was 900. The average respons…