A Cheann Comhairle, I want to clarify something, please.

I want to reference the Standing Order.

I tell you what, a Cheann Comhairle, I will be emailing you now calling for an emergency meeting of the Business Committee.

I believe you are bringing us into disrepute and I have to tell you that my colleagues in the Opposition agree with me. We will have an emergency meeting of the Business Committee on the back of this to sort it out.

I also wish to express my concern about the proposal to push the statements on the vaccine roll-out to Friday. The reports today are very concerning and we need to deal with them as soon as possible. While we all want to facilitate legislation that clarifies the position regarding outdoor dining, to include another issue relating to High Court judges in the same legislative measure is not helpful at all. Those issues should be dealt with separately. We have real concerns about this. The other point is that the Comm…

The Taoiseach will have seen the trawlers across the water as he came to the convention centre today. There are fishermen and fishing families from all over Ireland here today. We have 12% of the waters of the European Union and we get 4% of the fish, one third of what we really should be getting. This costs us tens of thousands of jobs across coastal communities and hundreds of millions of euro. The injustice of the Common Fisheries Policy has been going on for years. The Taoiseach talks about resetting the relati…

The Minister has heard the remarks of his party colleague, Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan. I commend the Deputy on the graphs providing a visual display of the utter injustice in terms of the allocation of quota to the Irish fishing fleet. The current percentage of Irish waters that are within the overall jurisdiction of the Common Fisheries Policy is 12%. We have 12% of the waters but we were allocated 4% of the overall quota. What we are actually receiving is one third of what we should get on the basis of our pro…

The difficulty with this Bill is that it is being rushed through, as was the national marine planning framework. The case of the national marine planning framework was extraordinary because many years of work went into its preparation, yet Government members of the Oireachtas committee voted to push it through without further scrutiny. Environmental NGOs and inshore fishermen wanted to have their say on the final plan being submitted to Europe, which was an entirely reasonable position, but the framework was just p…

I move: “That Dáil Éireann: notes that: — during the Celtic Tiger building boom, light touch building regulation, poor oversight of construction products and reckless practice by some developers, builders and suppliers have left thousands of homeowners with significant building defects; — in Donegal, Mayo and Clare, thousands of homeowners continue to be affected by defective blocks containing mica and pyrite; — in June 2017, the Report of the Expert Panel on Concrete Blocks identified that thousands of homes in Do…

What does the homeowner get for that?

I want to continue where my colleague, Deputy Doherty, left off in terms of the mica scandal in Donegal. There will be families in Donegal and Mayo who are following this debate on the recovery and resilience fund and will have listened in recent days to Ministers talking about retrofitting and the need to build more houses who are questioning how on Earth they could have ended up with a scheme such as the defective concrete blocks grant scheme which, where a house is demolished, does not provide for windows to be …

He hit the nail on the head.

Thousands of families in Dublin and north Leinster were devastated by pyrite in their homes. The Government put in place a scheme for those that was 100% funded. A scheme was introduced a year ago for the thousands of affected homeowners in Donegal and Mayo, with the Government asking that it would be 90% funded, with the banks playing a role. The banks are nowhere to be seen and people are paying a hell of a lot more than 10% of the cost. How can it be that only families in Donegal and Mayo are asked to pay sums o…

There were 2,000 families in Dublin and north Leinster supported through the pyrite remediation scheme. It was 100% funded and that was correct. This is very simple. There are thousands of families in Donegal and Mayo being asked to pay a second mortgage to fix their homes. Older people will just see their homes fall apart. It is the current state of play. Any suggestion that this should be kicked to some kind of independent group to do more consultation is utterly unacceptable. We are seeking equality between the …

I met with Irish Water, along with my colleagues, Councillors Terry Crossan and Gerry McMonagle, about our concerns over the south Inishowen water supply from the Eddie Fullerton Dam and the development of Letterkenny, the major gateway town in the county. I left that meeting with a clear view that Irish Water is utterly under-resourced. There is clearly no plan in place to address how Irish Water meets its responsibilities to our communities across this State. In the case of south Inishowen, an inadequate pipe inf…

Back in the 1980s, Ireland led the way against the South African apartheid regime, starting with the Dunnes Stores workers, and then Ireland was the first country to put in place sanctions against the South African apartheid regime. Human Rights Watch recently published a report comprehensively demonstrating that Israel is an apartheid state, and this follows the report from the respected human rights organisation, B'Tselem. Our Government knows this. That is the context to the slaughter that is happening right now…

The Taoiseach will be aware the last Dáil and Seanad voted on four motions calling for a public inquiry into the circumstances that led to the death of Shane O'Farrell in August 2011. Rather than implement the will of the Dáil and Seanad, the then-Government introduced a scoping exercise led by Judge Haughton. That was to have been completed by May 2020, then September, then December, then this March and then this April. I am sure the Taoiseach will appreciate that the delay is causing ongoing distress to Shane's f…

Thousands of family homes in Donegal are falling apart due to reckless practices in the construction industry in the 2000s. There was a huge housing boom and self-regulation was the order of the day. In the case of pyrite, the State stepped up and put in place the pyrite remediate scheme, which is fully funded, which is as it should be. In counties Donegal and Mayo, however, the families have been asked to step up and make 10% available and the banks were supposed to help. That was second-class citizenship but it h…

I support the request made by Deputy Cian O'Callaghan. The Minister should absolutely come into the Chamber this week to deal with that matter. It is repugnant to the families who have been squeezed out of the housing market that that has happened. I want to put on the record that all of the parties at the Business Committee last Thursday asked that we would get back to the Dáil Chamber. We need to get our Dáil business back there. The reality is that Deputies are present at Leinster House and the Convention Centre…

The Taoiseach is doing stand-up now.