I, too, wish to pass on my condolences to the friends and family of Tom Burke. Tom was a bright presence outside the gates of Leinster House and just a very nice person. He will be sadly missed here, although more so, obviously, by his family and friends. I was going to address my question to the Taoiseach. I meant the Tánaiste. The co-Taoiseach, perhaps. People Before Profit is not a late convert to questioning the 12.5% corporate tax rate. We have done so from the very beginning. How does the Tánaiste morally jus…

Corporations earned €200 billion and paid €11 billion in tax. In other words, workers paid 20%, on average, in tax and corporations paid 5%. Why does the Tánaiste defend the corporations instead of looking after working people?

Those are scare tactics in order to justify the pitifully low levels of tax these corporations are asked to pay. As even the US Chamber of Commerce and representatives of many of these multinationals have said, the reason they are here is not primarily or exclusively the tax rate. It is to do with the fact that we are an English-speaking country, we are within the European market, we have an educated workforce, and we used to have - not now, because of the lack of public investment - a decent water infrastructure a…

They have a 19% rate.

Fair trade.

Where are they going to go?

To put it simply and bluntly, energy poverty is going to kill several thousand of our most vulnerable citizens this winter. So-called climate action in the form of the carbon tax is going to kill many thousands of our most vulnerable and elderly citizens this winter unless the Government does something about it. That is what we are appealing to the Minister of State to do. We are edging our way out of a public health emergency during which 5,000 people died tragically. The pandemic prompted the Government, correctl…

This morning, in response to the People Before Profit motion seeking a deferral on carbon taxes to prevent further winter deaths and fuel poverty, the Government reiterated its promise or commitment to continue with increases in the carbon tax. Can the Minister explain how the Government can morally justify how the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance and the Government have spent weeks now trying to minimise efforts to make Facebook, Google and Amazon, which are some of the wealthiest corporations in the world, pay…

How does the Government justify those extraordinary double standards?

The Minister has not answered that.

Stop the data centres.

Has the Government confirmed over the past weeks that we are actually trying to defend a tax haven status for big multinational corporations in this country? While the rest of the world has finally recognised that staggeringly profitable corporations making billions in profits should pay a greater contribution, a minimum effective corporate tax rate, Ireland is almost alone in trying to defend the pitiful levels of tax that these corporations pay. How can the Government possibly justify this when these multinationa…

The French finance minister has said that the decision is already made, by the way. He just said it today.

People Before Profit has proactively supported the vaccination campaign and has encouraged people to get vaccinated as a critical measure to give us a layer of protection against Covid-19. The vaccination programme undoubtedly has done this, putting us in a position whereby, fingers crossed, we can edge our way out of the grim period we have been through and the terrible hardships, mental stress and anguish that people have had to endure for the past year and a half. Our view and our record on this are both clear. …

Contrary to what I believe the Tánaiste stated, data centres are contributing to the global surge in demand for energy and, consequently, the price hikes. Setting that issue aside, what is undoubtedly the case is that energy prices for ordinary people are going through the roof. Many have seen two, three or four energy price hikes this year alone. The Tánaiste stated that the Government could not do anything to control the hikes because they had to do with wholesale energy prices. The Government can do something ab…

As well as knowing about the potentially disastrous consequences of constructing further data centres for CO2 emissions and water usage, it is important that ordinary people, who may not know much about what data centres are, know what value they give in terms of employment, which is little. As Deputy Murphy explained, much of what they do is highly questionable in respect of their contribution to the betterment of society. People also need to understand that there is a connection between the significant energy pri…

I wish to raise an urgent, disturbing and upsetting case which has wider ramifications for the State's responsibility to vulnerable children. A mother of a 17-year-old boy in my constituency - I will not mention names, obviously, because it is a sensitive matter - has asked me to raise this issue with the Taoiseach and anyone who will listen. The boy is on the very severe end of the autism spectrum and, as a result, his family were not able to manage him at home. He got a placement out of Dublin, away from where he…

I will continue to speak about the case I raised of the 17-year-old child with autism who is wandering the streets and reliant on homeless accommodation. As the Taoiseach rightly said, the agencies that are the first ports of call should work. In this case, we are talking about Túsla, which has constitutional responsibilities. We had a referendum in 2012 about the specific responsibility of the State in terms of children. We have also signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in terms of o…

We fought to get him a placement but it fell through.

The Government seems to be getting itself into a mess over the issue of recognising the huge role workers played in sustaining our society during the Covid pandemic. I will give a few suggestions in that regard. First, health workers who were on the front line in hospitals fighting to keep the disease at bay and getting infected are a particular category whose work must be recognised, along with that of other people, including home carers and anybody in the health service who was directly confronting the health con…