I would look into it if I were the Taoiseach.

The Taoiseach should acquaint himself with the theory of Frankenstein's monster, because the militias that are running around and now killing Sudanese people are, in a significant part, the Frankenstein's monsters that have been created by hundreds of millions of euro of European Union funding. The leader of the Rapid Support Forces, RSF, which was formerly the Janjaweed militias that committed genocide in Darfur, boasted that they got European Union money to provide their arms. They first crushed the Sudanese revo…

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion on the very important subject of how mortgage holders are being absolutely creased with the mortgage interest increases they have experienced as a result of not only the rising ECB rates but also, and this is critical, as far as we are concerned, the profiteering of the banks. It is for that reason we think the Sinn Féin proposal is far superior to the do-nothing approach of the Government that essentially says these are decisions of the ECB, commercial banks and i…

The profits from a public service go to build infrastructure in Australia. It is madness.

The Government's decision to lift the eviction ban is going to cause thousands of people to face the terrifying prospect of homelessness. That is particularly the case because of the abysmal failure of the Government to control rent increases. Over the past ten years, rents on average have risen by 82%, while in Europe rents in the same period have only gone up by 18% because they have rent controls in most of Europe. The Government boasts that it has built record numbers of houses and so on, but look at the cost o…

I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

I thank Deputy Cian O'Callaghan and the Social Democrats for bringing forward this important motion. We are happy to support the idea of a punitive vacant homes tax to deal with an estimated 166,000 vacant properties, according to the CSO, that could be used to address the utter scandal of the housing crisis. Let me give an example that stares me in the face every day I go into my office in Dún Laoghaire. Directly across from my office is a multi-unit apartment complex called St. Helen's Court. It was owned by one …

-----says there are 70,000 planning permissions but the applicants are sitting on them. As soon as someone gets a planning permission, the value of the property goes up and then he or she sits on it for ten years. The Government allows that as well. When will it do something about this? My last point is topical. The Minister now has a €10 billion surplus. I have a very simple proposal. That money will have to be put somewhere. Whether it is with the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, or a fund or whatever i…

No doubt the Taoiseach hoped the Easter break would give him a bit of respite from the rage and despair people are feeling concerning the cruel and stupid decision his Government made to lift the eviction ban. This issue is not going to go away for thousands and thousands of families and individuals. They are facing notices to quit, they are facing eviction and they have nowhere to go. No social housing is available for them. There is no affordable rental available for them. There is no affordable purchase availabl…

The AHBs are buying their housing from private developers. That is the reality. The bulk of social housing is actually private developers. The Government is still depending on the private developers and paying them extortionate prices. They are charging for the stuff they are doing with extortionate rents that nobody can afford. That is the actual reality. I will tell the House how bad it has gotten even for affordable housing. I got a call this week from a teacher who said he is over the threshold for social housi…

These are the Government figures.

Do not get me wrong. I know that AHBs contribute to the provision of social housing. I am in favour, especially when we have a €10 billion surplus, of the Government buying up a lot of the new developments, which otherwise would be rented at extortionate levels. We are swimming in money. Use that money to buy up the houses of people who are threatened with eviction and to buy up some of the new developments that would otherwise be rented out at extortionate levels or bought by wealth asset management companies whic…

For the past hour, disability activists have been outside this building calling on the Government to ratify the optional protocol to the UNCRPD. I remind the Taoiseach that the UN convention was established in 2006. It took 12 years of campaigning by people with disabilities and disability activists finally to force the Government to ratify it. However, we are one of only three countries in Europe that has failed to ratify the optional protocol that actually gives teeth to the convention and provides a mechanism fo…

My jaw nearly dropped when the Taoiseach said, after meeting President Biden, that he did not know what the world would do without the assistance he and the United States have provided to protect democracy and security around the world. When he made that amazing statement, I wonder if he knew about Joe Biden's record. Did he know, for example, that Joe Biden said that if Israel did not exist, the United States would have to invent it and that there was not that much difference between the policy of the United State…

Not as an apartheid state. If there were equal rights for everybody then yes, some state should exist but not as an apartheid state.

That is a myth. That is partition.

I said to the Taoiseach earlier that I believe his decision to lift the eviction ban was cruel, heartless, and stupid. He obviously intends, for now at least, to persist with it but we in People Before Profit intend to persist in campaigning for its reinstatement because thousands of people are facing eviction and potential homelessness. Our view is that people in this situation, where there is nowhere else to go, where there is no council housing available to most and where there is no affordable rental or purchas…

I am not sure if the forum proposed by the Taoiseach to deal with foreign policy, security and neutrality matters is part of this foresight and research group but I would like an answer to the question asked earlier by Deputy Paul Murphy. Why has the Taoiseach decided to abandon the original proposal to have a citizens' assembly made up of a representative but random group, which would be a cross-section of Irish society, and instead have this stakeholder forum where it would appear to me that the Government is loo…

No matter how much the Government tries to spin it, this debate is happening because it has made the cruel and cold-hearted decision to allow thousands of people to be evicted from next Saturday. That includes workers, pensioners, sick people, women and - worst of all - children. Does the Government honestly believe that any child deserves to be evicted into homelessness? More than 4,000 children are homeless now, because it allowed them and their families to be evicted and thousands more will be evicted if this ba…

I have not finished yet.