I just want to give the House a laugh, albeit a grim laugh, by reading from The Irish Times from 2011. Mr. Conor Pope wrote an article at that time when it was announced that the Government was going to deregulate the electricity market. It is a real exercise in the ideological blindness and stupidity of people who believe in the efficiency of markets. In all seriousness, the ESB, the Consumers Association of Ireland, CAI, and others all welcomed the deregulation of the electricity market. They said it was going to…

Cover-up.

The Minister of State did not really answer the question.

On the face of it, this Bill to protect our historic and archaeological heritage is a very good and welcome thing. Looking at the size of the Bill, some officials deserve thanks for putting it together and it is clear a lot of work has gone into it. I am not going to pretend at this stage, given we are only a few Deputies trying to cover all of the bases, that I have read all of it, but I am going to try as best I can to get on top of it. It is incredibly important to do everything we can to protect our historic, c…

Well, if one has the time, one might as well use it. One of the newer areas of cultural output is film. The Committee on Budgetary Oversight, which is looking into the section 481 film credit, heard testimony from actors and performers about their lack of rights over their work, the performance that they put into what becomes part of our cultural heritage.

I beg your pardon?

It is relevant because the Bill refers to mobile heritage, as far as I know. This is not just about physical landscapes and sites. It could be argued that our cinematic heritage and more recent cultural heritage deserves protection as well, where it is important. I do not know if that means we have to protect the site where "Game of Thrones" was filmed. That could be the subject of a discussion.

Yes, "The Quiet Man" or "Darby O'Gill and the Little People". In all seriousness, a point I did not know until the performers made it at the committee, is that when movies are made, often by international film production companies in conjunction with companies based here, performers are required to sign buy-out contracts on their copyright or their intellectual property rights on their performances. Obviously that is very unfair on the artists and performers because they do not benefit from the success or further d…

The Government seeks to pick holes in People Before Profit-Solidarity's Rent Reduction Bill, but offers absolutely no alternative on how to control rents that are off the charts and that are directly contributing to the worst homelessness crisis on record. A record number of 11,600 families, including nearly 4,000 children, are languishing in emergency accommodation and thousands more have got notices to quit and are facing the real prospect of eviction and homelessness over the next period because of the Governmen…

Who will?

I was not smirking, actually.

I have raised, and indeed have campaigned for some years on, the plight of people studying psychology and trying to get doctorates in psychology. We have a chronic deficit of psychologists in terms of assessments for children with special needs in education, health and in many other areas. In fairness, the Government responded to the campaigning of psychologists by announcing funding for counselling psychologists who had not been funded and who were paid shocking fees - €10,000 and sometimes €15,000. However, for s…

What about now?

It is not fair to leave people in debt. What about people now?

Child poverty has significantly increased as a result of the cost-of-living crisis. It has increased from 202,000 to 236,000 children facing enforced deprivation. The number at risk of poverty has jumped by about 20,000. We now have 89,000 children living in consistent poverty. All of those suggest a serious failure of this Government to protect children, who are our most vulnerable citizens. Maybe the worst aspect of the failure of this State to protect children is the number of children in homeless accommodation,…

Following neatly on from Deputy McAuliffe’s intervention regarding the cost rental the Government trumpets, I will highlight something important for the Taoiseach and the Government. If someone is over the social housing income thresholds, that individual is not entitled to HAP or social housing, obviously, so the Government, under pressure, developed cost rental. What are the criteria for cost rental? You have to have a net income of under €53,000 but, critically, you can only pay a rent that is 35% of your net in…

I agree with the broad principle of what Deputy McAuliffe said. We should have this approach in every area where there are concentrated pockets of significant disadvantage. We need a much more proactive and on-the-ground approach in order to address some of the persistent, often intergenerational problems that can be concentrated in areas of particular disadvantage. Despite what some people think about Dún Laoghaire, we certainly have significant areas of concentrated deprivation and poverty where there are real an…

The Government is involved in a systematic campaign of trying to condition public opinion to move Ireland away from neutrality. It is exploiting every dire crisis around the world to further make the case for reviewing neutrality and, ultimately, moving away from it into a closer alliance with NATO and the EU militarisation project. The latest example is Sudan. All present have witnessed the scenes of Irish citizens, for example, trying to flee Sudan, which have generated further discussion. Would it not be good fo…

How about EU funding of militias?

I raised it here back in 2018.