As the Taoiseach knows, one of the biggest issues in areas of significant deprivation is the impact of drug addiction on individuals, families and communities. I have often heard Government spokespeople pay lip service to the idea that we need to move away from the criminal approach to dealing with this problem and take a health-related approach but, in fact, we have not done that at all. I wonder when we are going to realise that the so-called war on drugs is a disastrous failure and that we need to start to deal …

Does the Taoiseach think, as I do, that it is time the State issues an apology to all those who are homeless in this country and for whom the State has failed in its duty and obligation to provide the most basic thing, which is affordable, secure housing? The homeless figures are accelerating disastrously once again. Despite all the talk about Housing for All and all the policy measures the Government claims it is taking, the number of people going into homelessness is increasing. There now are more than 2,500 chil…

It is failing.

Nonsense. Many planning permissions are granted.

Zero council houses were built last year in Dún Laoghaire.

It is getting worse again.

There has been a war raging in Yemen for seven years. Some 10,000 children have died directly and indirectly as a result of that war, 377,000 people have died directly and indirectly as a result of that war and the UN estimates that 17.4 million people are on the brink of starvation. That war involves Saudi Arabia, which is armed to the teeth by allies of ours, the United States, the UK and France. When is the Minister going to argue for action against the war crimes of Saudi Arabia and its backers in Yemen?

Presumably, if anybody in this House suggested that we should send a trade mission to Russia to develop our trade relationship, given what it is doing in Ukraine, they would get pretty short shrift from the Minister and from everybody else, rightly so. It would be similar if anybody suggested that it would be okay for any of our allies, so-called, to be selling weapons to Vladimir Putin in the current context. Yet, strangely, in the context of the Saudi war that has brought Yemen to the brink of catastrophe, Irelan…

The Irish Anti-War Movement, in conjunction with Saudi Arabian dissidents who can never return to their country because if they did, they would be killed, is organising a demonstration this Saturday at 1 p.m. at the Garden of Remembrance. Those involved will march to the Saudi Arabian Embassy. The march was organised long before the war in Ukraine but, in a gesture of solidarity, they are going to make it also a demonstration against that war. It would be nice to see reciprocation from Europe in that regard. Let us…

Behind closed doors, there is plenty of wining among the sheikhs.

As the Minister is aware, we believe that he should use the powers he has under the Consumer Protection Act to control the price of fuel, energy and so on. He has turned his face against that. However, there is one measure I would ask him to consider. Given that he has rightly given €100 per week to hauliers as an emergency payment to compensate for the rising cost of fuel because they depend on it to sustain their businesses, will he do the same for taxi drivers? Some 22,000 taxi drivers who were hammered during t…

It seems the IMF and Bretton Woods institutions are keen to rebrand themselves and this Bill seems to be linked to that effort by the IMF. The infamous structural adjustment programmes that were imposed by the IMF on this country and many other countries in the developing world or those which hit major economic crises have proved utterly disastrous because of the conditions linked to these loans provided by the IMF and World Bank. The global interventions of the IMF have been just a litany of disaster where the con…

While the people of this country are showing extraordinary solidarity and generosity in terms of the terrible suffering of the Ukrainian people, they are simultaneously being crucified by the spiralling costs of living, electricity and gas prices, energy prices and so on. The latest bad news in that regard is the ESRI report that the rate of inflation will hit 8.7% this summer. People's incomes and savings and their ability to pay their bills are being wiped out. In the face of this, the Government and, I stress, o…

The point I am making is that collectively, the Irish Government and the European and American governments do have the power. It is a power that was used during the Second World War, whereby profiteering was stopped and the State took control of energy and other vital supplies in order to control prices. Under the current regime, even if we do develop more renewable energy it will not reduce the prices. I will set out some facts. Europe now produces most of its electricity from renewable resources in Europe and mos…

Most.

I did not say we are self-sufficient. I said that the Government has the power to intervene.

We believe the time is right and appropriate to have a referendum to let the people of this country make a decision, which is what this Bill is doing. We want to put our traditional military neutrality, which this and successive Governments have tried to undermine, into the Constitution so it is absolutely guaranteed and secured, and to stop the very concerted push by successive Governments to align us with the NATO military alliance dominated by major imperial powers, namely, the United States, the UK, France, Ger…

Tairgim: “Go dtógfar an Bille in am Comhaltaí Príobháideacha.” I move: “That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

I support this group of amendments. I am not on that committee so I was not part of that discussion, but fair points have been made. It really is quite extraordinary that the CIF would be the body to house the register of building providers. This is an attempt or effort at regulation of an industry that has failed so badly in many respects, including the health and safety of workers, bogus self-employment, desperate defects such as fire safety, mica, pyrite and you name it, all of which has cost the State an absolu…

The world is rightly expressing its utter outrage and revulsion at the despotism and warmongering of Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. I have asked at the Business Committee for the Government to facilitate a debate as a matter of urgency on a crisis every bit as horrific, involving Saudi Arabia and Yemen, where the UN recently reported there are now 13 million people on the brink of starvation. This is a war where Saudi Arabia is armed to the teeth by Britain and France and their lives count every bit as much. We need to…