I think I am next on the paper.

It is noted on the actual book here.

Citizens' assemblies have obviously done very good work in a number of areas. Many of the issues identified in the programme for Government as being ones on which we should have citizens' assemblies deliberate are extremely positive. If one were to ask people right now what they believe we should have a citizens’ assembly deliberate upon as a matter of urgency, I believe a very large number would say that we need one on the mental health crisis which is affecting young people and many other age cohorts and which ha…

Did the Taoiseach discuss with President Biden the issue of the TRIPS waiver for vaccine technology and vaccine formulae? Even the United States Government, as I have pointed out to the Taoiseach previously, has used wartime legislation to direct private companies to do certain things to respond to the coronavirus. This is in the heart of capitalism, if we like. It does not go far enough as far as I am concerned but even the US understands the need to use emergency measures to tell for-profit commercial companies w…

On the same issue, will this rounded approach to housing extend to trying to do something to stop people from being unjustly evicted? Our treatment of the homeless reached a new low this week where the homeless, in homeless accommodation, are now being evicted. At the Travelodge in Ballymun, families, including a woman with a tumour, and people with kids in school in Ballymun, were told on Tuesday they had to be out on Thursday from homeless accommodation. We now evict the homeless. They have been told they have to…

Since the very outset of this pandemic I have been arguing for specific supports for those sectors disproportionately hit or indeed just closed down by the impact of the pandemic. I reiterate those calls because while some of the supports the Government has bought in have been very good and have kept businesses alive and wages going into people’s pockets, certain groups have not seen the benefit of those supports to the extent they need to. Next Thursday, I think at 10.30 a.m., the taxi drivers of this city and a n…

I thank Deputy Ward for raising this important motion and addressing this important issue. Many have cited the enormous need, mostly unmet, for mental health services and the unacceptable circumstances in which thousands of people are waiting for assessments of need much longer than the three months within which they are supposed to be assessed by right and the three months thereafter, within which they are supposed to get services. People are waiting many months and sometimes for more than a year to get the servic…

One of the sickest aspects of our economy is the fact that property speculators and vulture funds can make money and profit from putting people who have done nothing wrong on the street. The Taoiseach and his Government continue to facilitate that, despite desperate pleas from myself and others about their failure to close loopholes in the Residential Tenancies Act 2020 that allow this to happen, most recently with the decision to end the Covid related eviction ban on the grounds that the 5 km rule has been lifted.…

Stop the evictions.

If we are going to overcome sectarianism and division and move forward to a united Ireland, which certainly is something I would like to see, we have to be an example in terms of what unification would give to people. I have talked a lot about the importance of having an all-Ireland national health service. Something else that is critical and can help us to unite people is taking a lead on the question of providing decent jobs. I want to cite a particular example of where we are not taking the lead in that regard. …

Next Friday, it will be precisely 365 days since almost 2,000 Debenhams workers received the shocking news, via email from the company, that they were being dumped after decades of loyal service. Those workers were soon to discover that despite having a collective agreement for two plus two weeks of redundancy per year of service, they would get nothing from this company that continues to generate tens of millions in online sales, including in this country. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to those Debenhams …

I would not patronise the Debenhams workers by suggesting that they do not know precisely how they have been treated and what the facts of their dispute are. Is it not funny, as the shop stewards from Debenhams and Arcadia asked me before I came here, how the law and the system always favours the big corporations over, as the workers describe themselves, "the little people"? KPMG, a massively wealthy accountancy firm, sent its agents in to break a strike during level 5 restrictions which prevent non-essential retai…

I point out that the reason we have to change the order today is due to events last night when speakers did not show up and the debate on the Public Service Pay Bill fell, even though many of the groupings in the House did not get to speak once on that very important legislation. That is a disgrace. I commend Deputy Duncan Smith from the Labour Party on making apologies for Deputy Nash not being here for his slot. However, the truth is there were nine ten-minute slots, including two Government slots, before our slo…

I am glad the Ceann Comhairle mentioned that. Our Whip team, and we do not accept the Whip's allowance, by the way-----

We were doing the job.

No, I will explain.

First, there were nine ten-minute slots between the slot of the final Deputy to speak last night and our slot. There was, therefore, no reasonable expectation that we would speak before today but for the fact that multiple speakers in the intervening slots, including Government speakers, were not here. Our office and Whip team were monitoring what was going on in here but unlike in Dáil Éireann, the camera feed from the convention centre does not allow our Whip team to see who is in the House. It is impossible, the…

I have just told the Ceann Comhairle that we do not.

Could we get a response from the Chief Whip on the request for additional time given that there is now extra time?

Why can we not have a little longer for the secret-files issue to give some of us who have a pathetic amount of time an opportunity to ask proper questions?