The Taoiseach totally ignored my question. He cannot answer it.

Yes. You are a puppet for the Americans.

No, we were not.

No, we were not.

For the record, when Bertie Ahern was shaking the hand of Vladimir Putin, some of us were protesting outside the Russian embassy about Putin's bloody and murderous invasion of Chechnya. I did not see the Taoiseach there. We are consistent. He is right when he says we are against illegal annexations in eastern Ukraine by Russia. Nobody should facilitate such things; he is right. Next Tuesday, 29 November, is UN day of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Every single year, the UN General Assembly reaffirms its co…

We campaigned for that for years.

I am sharing time with Deputies Paul Murphy and Mick Barry. In the middle of a debate on an unprecedented and utterly dire housing and homelessness emergency, the Minister responsible for housing said there is no emergency and has now left the debate before it is over. If people did not have enough reasons to come out on the street this Saturday for the Raise the Roof demonstration, that show of contempt for the people who are suffering as a result of the failure of this and the previous Government to deal with a c…

I am sharing time with Deputy Bríd Smith. It frustrates me that every few months, or maybe every couple of years, there is a moral panic about antisocial behaviour, young people, violence and criminality and politicians jump up and down and call for more police, but what rarely happens is a serious engagement with the communities that are affected by deprivation, neglect, dereliction, poverty and the housing crisis and the lack of things for young people, particularly young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, to…

One of the most depressing aspects of being a Deputy is dealing with the hardship and despair of people suffering from the housing crisis and the fact that they just do not know what to do. This week, I had two families in tears in my clinic. They felt absolutely hopeless owing to the prospect of their being made homeless with their children. They were worrying about the mental health impact on their children, who were on the floor with depression at the prospect of being made homeless. In addition to addressing al…

The Taoiseach did not respond to my question.

Yes.

The SDGs are an internationally agreed set of progressive goals and aspiration. Goal 16 relates to justice, strong institutions and access to same. I put it to the Taoiseach that the Government's commitment to CETA threatens access to justice. He should not throw sand in people's eyes with talk about who is for free trade or trade generally. I am for fair trade, by the way, rather than free trade for the sake of it with no regard to whether it is fair or not. I am absolutely for trade that is mutually beneficial. T…

That is fine but we do not need this body standing above normal institutions for justice and favouring multinational companies and threatening access to justice for ordinary people.

That is not true.

The decision of the Putin regime to sanction the Taoiseach and other Ministers is a further worrying sign about what is happening to our reputation as a neutral country. It has implications for our Defence Forces whose safety when deployed on missions is also linked to our reputation as a neutral country. We all condemn Putin's bloody war and the escalation we are seeing at the moment. However, the Government's association with and echoing of the NATO line, abandoning a position of neutrality which should be about …

Yes.

We are now seen as protagonists.

We have respect as a neutral country.

I am saying the Taoiseach is now a protagonist in a war.

Except in Palestine, western Sahara, or Saudi-----