The retrofitting of homes should be the low-hanging fruit in any campaign against climate change. Making houses warmer, more efficient and cheaper to run and reducing carbon emissions should be the first steps the Government takes. Ten years ago, I published a plan that would have resulted in the deep retrofitting of 500,000 homes within five years. It was at a time when many skills that we needed to keep were being lost from the country. The target for the past three years was the retrofitting of 50,000 homes. Las…

It is less than 10%.

There is a tale of two countries currently. The foreign and direct investment sector is motoring away at the moment, but many elements of the indigenous sector, which employ the majority of people in this State, are in big trouble. Walking through any provincial town, you will see many shops that are shuttered and closed. We know that 40,000 jobs that existed in hospitality in 2019 will not exist this year. Some €3 billion of taxes has been warehoused from businesses that cannot afford to pay their taxes this year.…

The majority of the citizens in the North voted to remain in the EU. Most polls show that the majority of citizens in the North either support the protocol or can live with it. The Good Friday Agreement is meant to put the will of the people at the heart of the direction of the North of Ireland yet we have the DUP, which is a minority party with a minority view, holding the whole of the North to ransom at the moment. Stormont is dysfunctional, broken and is not working for the people at the moment, which the Taoise…

There was no answer to the question I asked on the-----

Stormont needs to be reformed now.

I am disappointed that the Minister for Defence is not here. Perhaps there is a reasonable excuse for that. Maybe he has an important job to do. However, this is a very important debate and one of enormous gravity. It is a debate on a matter the Minister is directly responsible for so it is disappointing that he is not here. The Women of Honour are simply women who wanted to work in the service of the State. These women put their lives on the line and at risk for the rest of the citizens of this country. Shockingly…

I am sorry to break up the love-in here. Documents released to Aontú under the Freedom of Information Act reveal emails sent to the Minister by students who were refused SUSI grants. Homeless students, orphans and students who are full-time carers of their parents are all emailing the Minister on this issue. Why is the Department refusing to give these people the SUSI grant?

The SUSI grant system has let down homeless students who have been refused the grant. If a system is not providing a grant to a student who is homeless, then it is absolutely broken. There are inadequacies and discrepancies. Many families are caught in that gap just above the threshold but still finding it increasingly hard to pay the fees. I know of a number of students who had to take out loans just to pay for fees for their education. Another issue is that the threshold for the grant focuses on the household inc…

The Minister will agree with me that holding Ministers to account is very important. Sometimes it is hard to do so in this institution because Ministers move on from one Department to another. A whistleblower, Sharon Butler Hughes, has received documents under freedom of information, FOI, from the Department of Health which basically amount to reams of notes that are fully redacted. These are the Minister's own briefing notes from 2019. Does he agree that, in the interest of transparency, the Department should rele…

I understand it is not related, but usually the Minister is very forthcoming in talking about health service issues.

I would just like to put that question of accountability to the Minister.

"You have cancer" is probably one of the worst things that any person is going to hear from the health service. One of the next worst sentences that anybody will hear in the health service is being asked if one has private insurance or public insurance. If you have private insurance, you are likely to get an appointment in the next fortnight for your condition but if you just have public insurance, you are likely to be put into a lottery and will never know when you will be reached. Another aspect of this is that, …

The names of the boys and men who were murdered by the British military on the streets of Derry 50 years ago are: Patrick Doherty, 31, Gerald Donaghey, 17, Jackie Duddy, 17, Hugh Gilmour, 17, Michael Kelly, 17, Michael McDaid, 20, Kevin McElhinney. 17, Barney McGuigan, 41, Gerard McKinney, 35, William McKinney, 26, William Nash, 19, James Wray, 22 and John Young, 17, and John Johnston, 59. The murders of these peaceful civil rights campaigners changed the course of history forever. When a government murders its own…

Aontú is supporting this motion. The only problem I have is that if the motion is passed but the necessary investment is not put into services, there will be no beds for children within the system in this State. We need to have enough child psychiatric beds to admit children into. Otherwise it is not going to work for the children on the ground. We need to ensure that all children under the age of 18 have access to urgent emergency mental health services and that they are given access to an age-appropriate speciali…

The biggest Internet database in the EU relating to the cost of living ranks Ireland as the sixth most expensive country in Europe in which to live. We are ranked the most expensive for the cost of rent, with only Switzerland and Luxembourg being more expensive than this State. The more frequently updated website, Expatistan, ranks Dublin as the fourth most expensive city in Europe, with only three Swiss cities being more expensive. The Minister's Government, including Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, is presiding over a…

Yesterday the Minister with responsibility for children responded to Aontú on a shocking case we raised with regard to Tusla recording untruths about a mother in its files. Tusla incorrectly stated the mother, along with other things, was an alcoholic. It said it was a copying and pasting error and has apologised since. For months we have had a back and forth with the Minister to try to find out how many other families have had untruths in their files. The Minister said he only became aware of this in March 2021. W…

-----where he actually did become aware of it in October 2020.

It is important that we find out-----

-----as soon as possible the prevalence of this crisis among families throughout the country.