I thank President Zelenskyy for his address and extend the solidarity of People Before Profit to the people of Ukraine. We must all join in condemning the barbaric invasion by Vladimir Putin's forces of Ukraine and we must demand accountability for the horrific crimes against humanity and war crimes of which he is undoubtedly guilty. There can be no doubt that the horrific scenes we saw in Bucha and are seeing in Mariupol and elsewhere are war crimes and Vladimir Putin should be held accountable for them. The peopl…

I thank President Zelenskyy for his address and extend the solidarity of People Before Profit to the people of Ukraine. We must all join in condemning the barbaric invasion by Vladimir Putin's forces of Ukraine and we must demand accountability for the horrific crimes against humanity and war crimes of which he is undoubtedly guilty. There can be no doubt that the horrific scenes we saw in Bucha and are seeing in Mariupol and elsewhere are war crimes and Vladimir Putin should be held accountable for them. The peopl…

I thank the Regional Group for bringing forward this motion on an incredibly important subject, that is, the frankly scandalous situation around vacant and derelict properties and vacant sites that could be used to address the severe and disastrous housing and homelessness crisis we are facing. We support the vast majority of measures that the motion proposes. There are a couple of things with which we disagree but we do not always agree on everything.

We overwhelmingly agree that there needs to be radical new emergency actions to get vacant and derelict properties and vacant sites back into use to address the housing crisis. The Government has singularly failed in its efforts to do that to date. Now, a crisis that has existed for nearly a decade, which we have not addressed, of housing and homelessness is being compounded by our need to show solidarity with people fleeing the bloody war in Ukraine, which we absolutely must do. Now has to be the moment to do thin…

We never said that once.

After a very brief respite during Covid-19 on the homeless situation because of the temporary eviction ban and the ban on further rent increases, now that those measures have been lifted, the family homeless situation is once again spiralling out of control. We need to address it in this House as a matter of absolute urgency. The figures are back up towards 10,000 people. In the past few days, I have been informed of 60 families who are going to be evicted from the Shannon Arms apartment complex in Limerick. Yester…

It is all getting worse, though.

When one thinks about all of the tribunals and commissions of investigation we have had, how long they went on for and how much they cost, they are quite telling about the history of this country. A commission of investigation into NAMA related to the housing crisis and what developers did to this country; a commission of investigation into the IBRC, a dodgy bank that lent money to developers who helped to wreck the economy; planning tribunals to do with dodgy planning decisions; and investigations into mother and …

I heard a report today-----

-----from a journalist-----

I am not saying it is simple.

It is totally beyond doubt that Putin's forces have been committing war crimes. We have seen the latest horrific scenes in Bucha but the targeting of civilians by Russia in a number of Ukrainian cities is very obvious and it should be prosecuted for those war crimes. Does the Taoiseach have any trust in the ability of the international community to pursue war crimes? The United Nations dropped the investigation of war crimes committed by Saudi Arabia after an intense lobbying campaign by Saudi Arabia and the United…

Not a word.

Yemen. Palestine.

Yemen, Palestine, Iraq. Forget it.

They are a different order of crimes.

They are all war crimes.

They have not been in Yemen.

People Before Profit is asking the Government to declare an emergency in the cost of living. The Government declared an emergency in relation to Covid-19 and brought in emergency measures. It has effectively declared an emergency in relation to Ukraine and brought in emergency measures. It is long past time that it accepts there is an emergency in the cost of living and introduces immediately - not in October - a package of measures to alleviate the cost-of-living crisis that will potentially drive tens of thousand…

First, energy costs went up 27% last year, before the Ukraine crisis. The Minister cannot hide behind the Ukraine crisis and use it as an excuse. He absolutely failed to address the fact that while ordinary householders, many of them pensioners and people on low incomes - ordinary working people - are crippled by these hikes in prices, all of the energy companies are seeing record profits. Similarly, rents are up by 10% in Dublin and by 20% in other parts of the country while all of the REITS, vulture funds and lan…