Will the Taoiseach allow for a debate on the leaving certificate and the options and alternatives for students?

We need a specific discussion on this.

Has the Taoiseach agreed to a debate on the leaving certificate? I want clarity on that.

On a similar issue of rewarding workers who played a critical role during Covid, obviously we all accept and welcome the announcement that front-line workers are to get a pandemic bonus, although it should be extended to carers, as has been discussed. There is no doubt that group were on the front line of the Covid response. What does the Taoiseach have to say, if he is not willing to extend that bonus to them, to groups such as retail workers and those who worked in supermarkets? They are traditionally low paid bu…

This Friday in the District Court, behind the Four Courts, five individuals and families - working-class people - are going to pay the price for the Taoiseach’s failure to address the housing crisis. The case of the St. Helen’s Court apartment complex, where a vulture fund is going to evict the families, really tells the story of this housing crisis. They have always played their rent. The vulture fund is evicting them for no other reason than it wants to increase the value of the property – for profit. Faced with …

Court on Friday.

The law allows this one.

Sale by a vulture fund.

The leaving certificate should be scrapped. It was never a fair exam. It always discriminated against those with special needs and those from disadvantaged areas and all of that has been compounded and made worse in the teeth of a pandemic. Will the Government take the bold step now, which could get us out of this mess, and say that everybody should be able to study the higher or further education course or apprenticeship of their choice? Imagine that. Imagine what it would be like if people got to study what they …

I thank Deputies Ward and Daly for their timely and good motion to address the scandal that arose from, but is in no way limited to, what happened in CAMHS in Kerry. As Deputy Gino Kenny said, we have tabled an amendment that does not take anything from the motion but adds a few additional refinements. Specifically, it sets out that the review of CAMHS has to be independent, as Deputy Kenny said; that the cases of other whistleblowers and instances of whistleblowers being sidelined, victimised and witch-hunted, inc…

The Minister is apparently very concerned about the Chief of Staff meeting with the Russian ambassador. I wonder would he be as concerned if he met with the US ambassador or the head of NATO. I say that because I am concerned that the Minister attended a conference - maybe he will confirm this - in Brest, France, this month with EU foreign ministers, where he discussed the further project of militarising Europe and integrating with NATO.

This country is supposed to be neutral. That is, frankly, laughable, when you consider we have allowed Shannon Airport to be used again and again by the US military to prosecute brutal, murderous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I want to know what neutrality means when the Minister goes to a conference in Brest where we discuss the French project, which is a major European powers project to increase the militarisation of the European Union, including an absolutely open call for the establishment of a European army, a…

It is a very strange definition of neutral. Yesterday, the Minister expressed concern because the Chief of Staff met the Russian ambassador. To me, neutral would mean that he would express similar concern if the Chief of Staff met the US ambassador or the head of NATO or at the fact that leading powers inside the European Union are looking for and, indeed, have achieved closer integration with NATO, which is a military and nuclear alliance. It is not some sort of benign body. It is the outworking of western, US-led…

Who is the Minister kidding? NATO is not some sort of protective entity. Its rationale, if it ever had any, disappeared at the end of the Cold War. At that time, people like James Baker, Secretary of State of the US, said that there would not be an eastward expansion. I reiterate that I believe Mr. Putin is a thug. He is dangerous. He has done horrendous things in Chechnya and Kazakhstan. The western powers were far less concerned about those things. The idea that NATO is some sort of benign, innocent force in this…

The Government has consistently defended the role of big property investment funds by saying that they could contribute to addressing the housing crisis and delivering the famous supply. Last week, a crowd called Occu, acting on behalf of a group called Haliday, advertised build-to-rent apartments. These are two blocks, Cualanor, in Dún Laoghaire. One young woman I know, who is facing homelessness and is approved for the housing assistance payment, HAP, went there and was told by the person present to look around a…

We certainly need radical reform of further and higher education. Therefore, insofar as the Bill states as its objective a desire to improve the quality of further and higher education, one could not quibble much with its aspirations. It aims to do the following: promote the interests of students; advance equality, diversity and inclusion; achieve excellence in teaching, learning, etc.; and maximise the contributions of higher education to social, economic, cultural, Irish language and environmental development and…

Well done to the committee for producing this document on the important issue of bogus self-employment. The first introduction that Deputy Joan Collins and I got to this issue was on picket lines outside building sites on many a cold morning. Some of the first of those were probably more than decade ago, perhaps 15 years ago. It is scary to think about how long ago some of those pickets took place outside the premises of some big, wealthy building contractors that are still operating. Building Workers against the B…

I thank Deputy Nash for tabling this motion on inflation and the cost of living. We are happy to support it. We will move two small but important amendments on the issue of introducing energy price caps and supporting workers who put in pay claims to keep their wages and income ahead of the galloping rate of inflation and rising cost of living. The inflation figures are bad enough if they are just taken on their own terms, at 5.7% in December, and they are expected to be above 4.5% next year. That means if people a…

On many issues this Government talks a good game but is not so good at delivering. Delivering new schools and the actual buildings for those schools is one spectacular failure in that regard. Under the online patronage process system, the Department of Education is due to deliver 47 schools between 2019 and 2022. I would like to know how many of them have actual sites and buildings. Certainly, in my area sites and actual buildings for the schools that have been decided-----

No. It relates to a promise that the Government would deliver these schools.