The Society of St. Vincent de Paul reports today that it got 230,000 requests for help in 2022, 40% of which were about energy costs. While everybody is being hammered by the energy increases and profiteering of energy companies, one cohort is being even worse hit because the inadequate electricity credits the Government has given to people are not being given to this cohort at all. I got an email from one person in Enniskerry today. In a response from that person's management company, it was made clear that probab…

They should watch the film about Debenhams.

Will the Taoiseach get back to us on that?

The Taoiseach and other Government spokespersons have repeatedly justified the review, to use the language they tend to use, of our neutrality in terms of the threat of cyberattacks. Is that a bit of a ruse, given that they are not looking at the lessons of the biggest cyberattack that happened here on 14 May 2021? Far from suggesting that we should abandon neutrality, or whether this has anything to do with neutrality or our Defence Forces, it is suggested the biggest cyberattack we witnessed was due to the lack o…

I will take up the issue I raised earlier. The Taoiseach said he finds my position on offshore wind confusing. Yet, there is a thing called a "just transition". I know the Taoiseach does not believe in it, because his solution to everything is to let the private developers decide. That is what he has done with offshore wind. On the relevant projects, he gives them a free pass regardless of the impact on marine biology, fishers, etc., as if the two things have to be a trade-off. The truth is that there is a thing ca…

Developers have selected these sites.

I welcome the opportunity to speak to the Bill. Anything that helps develop and supports the credit union movement should be welcomed. The credit union movement is unusual among financial institutions internationally, although not unique, in that it offers a not-for-profit model that is democratic and community orientated and has social and community objectives rather than objectives of simply maximising profit, which is the raison d'être of banks. We are grimly familiar with where the profit imperative that domina…

To be honest, successive Governments seem to have been very slow in taking them up on an important offer. I appreciate there is a bit more money in the Government coffers at the moment but it still seems odd that credit unions were often forced, or at least that was the story they relayed to me, to deposit their money with commercial banks when they would very much rather have invested in things that were beneficial to society, namely, housing and other important infrastructure or services that could benefit societ…

Okay. I certainly hope it will be done and I do not know all the details as to why it has not been fully utilised. Perhaps that is a question to put out there, but the Irish League of Credit Unions was clear in making the case a number of years ago, when I was a member of the finance committee, that credit unions wanted to assist in addressing the housing crisis. The Bill includes a provision to set maximum interest rates for loans. That seems reasonable on the face of it, but I wonder why we do not take similar me…

Today, the Children's Rights Alliance highlighted once again one of the most shameful aspects of the utterly disastrous housing crisis, namely the phenomena of child homelessness and the impact that has on children, on their mental health and on their well-being, and how, as they put it, it deprives and robs children of their precious childhood. The figures are stark. There are now 3,431 children in emergency accommodation. That can be multiplied by several factors if the number of children who have been in and out…

The Taoiseach studiously decided not to answer the questions I raised. To be absolutely clear on that particular point, in the same period I did not oppose and, in many cases, actively supported thousands and thousands of planning applications and the commencement of construction, not least in areas such as Cherrywood, which is the biggest residential development in the country, or Shanganagh, which will be the biggest social housing development in the country. I actively supported and pushed for those developments…

In some cases, such as co-living, I object, or I sided with students who opposed unaffordable student accommodation. What the Taoiseach did not do, in his diversionary tactics, was answer the point about whether he will continue to allow families to go into homelessness who have done absolutely nothing wrong. Is he going to let more children and families end up homeless because he decides to stand with landlords rather than the rights and needs of children and families who are faced with the prospect of homelessnes…

Is the Taoiseach going to raise the rent supports that are available to people, in the absence of bringing in rent controls which should be done in order to deal with these obscene rents-----

-----to ensure that there is some prospect for families looking for accommodation affording the rents being charged by the very developers-----

-----who are charging these rents? That is why I oppose some of their developments.

For actively supporting it.

This Saturday, the film "406 Days" about the 406 days the Debenhams workers were in dispute with the Debenhams company will premier at the Dublin International Film Festival. It has just won the festival's human rights prize. One thing it highlights is that the Celine group, made up of three US hedge funds, Barclay's Bank and Bank of Ireland, walked away with £315 million from the liquidation whereas the workers who built the value of the company and had worked for decades were left with absolutely nothing. The vul…

-----the fact that €200 million debt was loaded on the Irish company by this consortium to ensure that the workers got absolutely nothing. I took the issue with the workers-----

-----to the Corporate Enforcement Authority. Will the Taoiseach check what report, if any, has come back from the Corporate Enforcement Authority about the tactical nature of the liquidation which left those workers with nothing-----

-----and whether the law was broken in the treatment of the Debenhams workers?