If we are going to protect and improve biodiversity and increase forest cover as part of that, something radical has to change in Coillte, the State forestry company. The Riverstick forest sale is an absolute disgrace. Before Christmas I had to help the local community in the Enniskerry area to ring alarm bells about Coillte’s plan to sell a public forest in that area, which is a public right of way used by the local community. Luckily, we were successful in that campaign but what is going on in Coillte? We need to…

Without a shadow of a doubt, the most high-profile redundancy that took place during the Covid-19 period, to which this Redundancy Payments (Amendment) Bill is a response, was the Debenhams redundancy. Why does this Bill not involve trying to do something to compensate the Debenhams workers for the failure and inadequacy of legislation to protect against the sort of strategic liquidation that Debenhams engaged in with devastating consequences for the Debenhams workers? I met with the Debenhams workers yesterday and…

I am because it is a redundancy payments Bill. It relates to Covid redundancies. The Debenhams redundancy was a Covid redundancy, where people lost their jobs in the middle of the emergency. The workers lost everything. They did not get any of their entitlements. I am asking whether this Bill addresses that. That is the question. Does the Bill address it? If not, why not? I think the Minister of State needs to understand what happened and needs to tell us what he knows because we cannot prevent this from happening …

I will be sharing time with Deputy Paul Murphy. People are facing additional costs to heat their homes. The estimates vary but €800 over the year is a reasonable estimate by bonkers.ie . Against that background, €100 is pathetic and insulting. It is a drop in the ocean and will not cut it. It is good the Government seems to be acknowledging that more needs to be done, as others have said. We made the point during the debate on the budget that a €5 increase and failure to expand eligibility for the fuel allowance we…

Fine Gael is claiming the credit for that. Apologies. Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil - it does not make much difference in truth. It is the same to us. The idea was to have a State company, rather than leaving it to the private market to produce energy. A publicly owned company was created which operated on a not-for-profit basis. That is what needs to be done. We also need to extend eligibility for the fuel allowance to the many pensioners and low-paid workers who are being absolutely crucified by energy costs. We need to…

I try to avoid masochism myself.

This Friday, in the District Court beside the Four Courts, five households - families and individuals - will taste the very bitter fruits of this Government's failure to protect tenants from ruthless vulture funds and against no-fault evictions and to offer them alternatives when they are faced with homelessness, either in terms of social housing or private rental accommodation that they could afford and is within HAP limits. The families and individuals living in St. Helen's Court will face an application by a vul…

On behalf of the tenants, I invite the Taoiseach, members of Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats, the Labour Party and anyone else who can to get down to the courts to support those tenants. There will be a solidarity rally on Friday. None of the things the Taoiseach has just mentioned would protect these tenants. The tenancies of indefinite duration still allow a vulture fund to evict tenants under these circumstances. I do not buy the constitutional obstacles to protecting tenants. During Covid the Government brought…

That is poor comfort for decent tenants being evicted.

It is poor comfort.

The Constitution includes the common good.

The north Kerry child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, scandal brought to light a much longer-term scandal of the over-medication of young people compensating for the chronic lack of staffing and resources in our mental health services. I want to ask particularly about the utter lack of community psychology and primary care psychology. One aspect of this, and I have been trying to point this out for a long time, is that CAMHS gets overrun, and often with referrals that probably should not even go to it…

The Taoiseach referred earlier to the pension age in the North being increased to 66, which is certainly not a good thing. I would suggest that hiding behind that fact is not an excuse for not returning the pension age to 65. This is a point I have often made to the Taoiseach. Surely if we want to encourage people to be part of a united Ireland, we need to make being part of a united Ireland a more attractive option. It should be a better and different place for ordinary people and that is a good reason for us to r…

Making a united Ireland.

Think about a united Ireland.

There have been many requests, including those I have made, that the Taoiseach's Department take responsibility for an area that crosses many departmental demarcations as a result of which there is no proper integrated and cohesive approach, namely, disability. The Taoiseach has to look at this again. I will give him a simple example. I have raised ACTS with him a few times, the door-to-door transport service for people in wheelchairs and with disabilities in my area. It could go under at the end of this month for …

I was next.

On the day that is in it, it might be worth paraphrasing Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce's Ulysses when he famously said, "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." Covid-19 was certainly a nightmare from which we are all trying to awake. One of the great things about Ulysses , of which I am a big fan, is that Joyce takes as his characters the ordinary people, whereas in all previous literature of the 19th century, in novels and so on, it was the aristocrats, elites and upper middle classes. Joyce tak…

Since we agreed the Order of Business last week we have had the really shocking announcement of the Government's bloody-minded insistence on going back to a traditional leaving certificate, which ignores the clear call of leaving certificate students for an alternative. Before that decision is finalised we need to have a serious discussion in this House, because there are alternatives. I heard the Taoiseach say earlier that we have not outlined our alternatives. Give us the chance to do so in the House this week. W…

-----and stressful leaving certificate.