It was supposed to be delivered last month.

Irishmen and Irishwomen are in Belfast and Derry as well.

What a partitionist statement.

Hear, hear.

Hear, hear.

This evening the Dáil will debate a motion calling on the Government to honour its commitment to fund 50% of the cost of the A5 upgrade. I welcome the A5 Enough is Enough campaign who are here in the Gallery today. As the Taoiseach knows, this road is one of the most dangerous on the island of Ireland. More than 50 people have lost their lives on it since the upgrade was promised back in 2006. Some of the family members of the victims of this road are also with us in the Gallery and I welcome them in particular. Th…

I welcome the fact that we can discuss this issue tonight. A number of weeks ago, I sat in a house in Newtownstewart with Patsy McSorley who had just lost his wife of 50 years. His daughter and granddaughter were also there and in the corner was what I would call a little shrine. There were flowers, a cross and a framed photograph of a bright, smiling woman, a happy-go-lucky person who lived life to the full. She left a huge emptiness, not just in that room but in the hearts of all those who knew her. Unfortunately…

Leanann an scannal faoi íocaíochtaí ceilte RTÉ do Ryan Tubridy ar aghaidh. Tá go leor ceisteanna le freagairt go fóill. Tá sé soiléir go dtéann sé seo i bhfad níos faide ná Dee Forbes amháin. Caithfidh go leor daoine ar bhord RTÉ an t-eolas atá acu faoin méid a tharla ag an am sin a chur faoi bhráid an phobail. Níl aon rud níos lú tuillte ag an phobal. Yesterday, a week since this scandal first broke, RTÉ finally released some selective information about hidden payments to Ryan Tubridy. However, it skirts around th…

I thank the Taoiseach. There is no doubt that Dee Forbes was not the only person who knew about these events. We can see that from the Grant Thornton report. We know that the commercial director is the person who operated the barter account and negotiated the secret deal with Renault that allowed RTÉ to reimburse Renault and cover all the costs of the Renault events organised with Ryan Tubridy. We know she was the person who authorised for the invoice to be raised by Ryan Tubridy's agent, and we also know she was t…

Last month, hospital waiting lists stood at 887,000 people. Emergency department waits were on average 12 hours and the trolley crisis is worse than ever. Today, we learned that the HSE has instructed senior managers to draw up a cost containment plan as it expects to run over budget by €1.6 billion this year. The cost containment measures are to be rolled out across the National Ambulance Service. It is difficult to see how this could happen except through the mismanagement of our health service with the Governmen…

I send my best wishes to my party leader, Deputy Mary Lou McDonald, as she recovers from her surgery. Tá an pobal míthreorach agus ligthe síos go dona mar gheall ar an scéal faoi íocaíochtaí breise RTÉ do Ryan Tubridy. Caithfidh trédhearcacht agus cuntasacht a bheith ann. Tá muinín an phobail in RTÉ iontach lag agus tá ceisteanna bunúsacha le freagairt go fóill ag RTÉ. The hidden payments scandal uncovered at RTÉ is shocking. Trust must be at the very heart of our public broadcaster. For the public to have confiden…

We are a week on and we still do not have full transparency, and even after the board releases its statement, we will not have it. How do I know that? The board is saying that it is not going to put any information into the public domain in relation to the €120,000 of additional payments that Ryan Tubridy received from 2017 to 2019. We should not need a Grant Thornton review. That can be independent but we should be able to hear from senior executives at RTÉ how this came about, who sanctioned it, who approved of i…

It was 2022, sorry.

It is not surprising this is the issue everybody is raising today, because it is the issue the public is talking about. People are shocked by this. I ask this question in the context of the terms of reference and the sequencing of work in this House, particularly the committees that will meet. Is the Government aware of any information about the 2017 to 2019 payments? I ask the Taoiseach that question because I know his Cabinet colleague met with the chair. Was that question asked?

Was any response given? It is really important for the conduct of the work of this House that all the information available to be put into the public domain is put into the public domain. I take it that the terms of reference of the inquiry being looked at-----

-----talk about the Grant Thornton review that has not even started.

It may be a number of months before we have a report from Grant Thornton.

It is really important. Maybe there is no information.

Households continue to struggle under one of the most pressing cost-of-living crises in a generation. In this rip-off republic, Irish living standards have fallen further behind other European countries, with people ripped off by extortionate energy bills, high housing costs and food prices. Our economy is not working for ordinary people. We have a hotel in Dublin city that is charging €1,000 for a room on the night of the Taylor Swift concert. We have the second-highest energy prices in the European Union, and whi…

The Minister will be well aware, and hundreds of thousands of people, unfortunately, are well aware, that the ECB has raised its interest rates for the eighth time since July. These sharp hikes in interest rates have led to a significant rise in mortgage costs and a massive income shock for hundreds of thousands of borrowers. Those borrowers are already in the grip of a wider cost-of-living crisis, and the State can and should support them. In that context will the Minister for Finance commit to a temporary targete…