I have noticed the new tactic. Fair enough. It is all politics.

I am not objecting; I am just pointing it out.

It is not feigned at all.

It is real anger.

Every week, I come in here enraged by the housing crisis in my area. There is nothing feigned about it.

People Before Profit has been against the carbon tax from the outset, despite what some Members appeared to be suggesting rather bizarrely earlier. We have been very clear in opposing carbon tax as an unfair, regressive tax. There is no evidence that it has any significant impact on the reduction of CO2 emissions. However, even if that was always true, it is simply blatantly self-evident that increasing the carbon tax yet again in the current situation is going to contribute to fuel poverty, hardship and injustice.

To be clear, what is needed are caps on energy and heating prices. That is what we believe is the necessary action. While the Minister is clearly not going to do that, although he should, it is unacceptable to add additional hardship to people by further increasing carbon taxes. He is absolutely right that on its own it is not enough. He has control of VAT, the PSO and carbon tax. This is more than €1.2 billion worth of taxes that will be levied on people's energy use, with most of it hitting the least well-off. Do…

I am speaking about the higher level of VAT receipts specifically on energy and heating. Let us forget about the rest. It is up to €481 million and rising. The State has yielded a big tax bonus from the energy hikes that ordinary people are getting through their doors that they cannot afford. This gives the Minister scope not to impose further hardship on them. In fact, it gives him scope to reduce their energy bills and reduce the hardship, as do the profits of the ESB. The Minister is right that it is a publicly …

We all know the urgency of retrofitting homes that are badly insulated to protect the climate and lift the financial burden being imposed on families by rising energy costs. As usual with Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and, most sadly, the Green Party, the way the scheme is designed means it is, once again, a scheme where the suffering of the poor will subsidise improvements in the lifestyles of the rich. That is what is going to happen. What I mean by that? The financing for all of this is dependent on regressive taxes be…

I said it at the end. Tax the-----

I thank the Regional Group for tabling this very important motion. As has already been said, the question of transport for people with disabilities is absolutely critical. Without a decent transport system, every aspect of their lives is diminished. This includes access to education, employment, a social life and everything. As a result, people with disabilities suffer disproportionately from poverty and in terms of the impact on their mental health. This is not merely grossly unfair because if we are serious about…

Eighteen years ago, the British Government was critical in supporting the US Government in telling a pack of lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Those lies were used to justify a murderous war in that country, albeit against the nasty regime of Saddam Hussein. However, the premise of the war was a pack of lies that had been recycled by the British Government and the US Government. That war had disastrous consequences for the people of Iraq and the entire region. Given the events of the last few weeks ar…

Does the Taoiseach trust US military intelligence?

It has all changed since Iraq, has it?

The Americans and British are angels then.

New computers for the HSE might help.

That was appalling.

There is more evidence today of the crisis in the health system. Covid shone a light on a hopelessly dysfunctional, fragmented, under-resourced and understaffed health service and brought us to the brink but all that dysfunction, fragmentation and lack of resources and staff is coming back to bite us quickly in the aftermath of the pandemic, especially in the context of emergency departments being overrun and what we saw in north Kerry child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, which is widespread. Why are…

There are many instances that demonstrate that the equality for people with disabilities to which we signed up with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, is not being delivered. There is one that I want to draw to the Taoiseach's attention and that I ask the Government to address as a matter of urgency. Many people who have mobility problems or who are in wheelchairs simply cannot access the existing public transport system. Bus, DART and train services are not suitable f…

I was just reading over the debate in January 2003 in the Oireachtas in advance of the Gulf War when then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brian Cowen, got up and defended what we now know to be an absolute pack of lies told by the US Government, US military intelligence, the British Government and British military intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that did not exist. Brian Cowen and others said there was a real danger they existed and something had to be done and the consequences of this were abs…