Faced with the really dire crisis produced by Covid-19, which is a health crisis, an economic crisis and a social crisis, we needed a budget that would support decisive action to defeat the threat of Covid-19 to public health and to support the workers, livelihoods and families most severely impacted as a result of the economic fallout of Covid-19. This budget has failed on both counts. The headline figures sound great but as soon as one looks into the detail it becomes clear that, despite significant increases in …

I will be brief. We oppose this. Smoking is a major public health problem. It kills large numbers of people and as a society we should do everything we can to discourage people from smoking, encourage them to break the addiction and get young people not to take up the habit in the first place. Nonetheless, a lot of people smoke and there are many reasons they do, such as stress. Advertising does not have as much impact as it used to, but a lot of people acquired this addiction when advertising was still around. I d…

I am amazed at the disconnect that seems to exist between the Green Party - and to be honest, the position the Labour Party has just announced - and the reality that huge numbers of working people inhabit. There is nothing discrediting the climate change agenda more than these kinds of regressive taxes. The Greens are signing their own death warrant with this kind of stuff. I am amazed it does not get through to them how damaging this is to the climate action agenda when climate action means punishing working peopl…

Financial Resolutions Nos. 5 and 6 seem fine to me. However, I want to express concern about Financial Resolution No. 4. The main mechanism through which some of the wealthiest corporations in the world avoid tax is through the category of intangible assets, such as patents on intellectual property, whereby big multinationals pay for the use of their own patents. For example, one subsidiary of a company pays another subsidiary of the same company for the use of its own patent and, by doing that, it can write down i…

In fairness, people other than Teachta Doherty have been making these points for some time. I am satisfied with the Minister's answer on this resolution. I am glad we have had the debate because I have raised this issue at the Committee on Budgetary Oversight and the finance committee over the past number of years. We never discuss tax reliefs in the same way we discuss expenditure, and we should because they are expenditures of public money in exactly the same way as the budget we discussed today is. They are exac…

On "Claire Byrne Live", in justifying the Government's decision to dismiss the public health advice and trash the rationale of the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, in calling for further restrictions, the Tánaiste cited his concern for workers and people who either have lost their jobs or might lose their jobs as a result of restrictions. Aside from the irony that the Government is cutting the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, lifting the eviction ban and facilitating the removal of the mortgage repa…

We wrote to the Business Committee on Tuesday asking for a proper debate on Covid strategy. There has been much discussion and kerfuffle about the spat between the Tánaiste and the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET. Certainly, questions have to be asked and answered about all of that but there is a much more important issue, which is, how are we going to respond to what is an escalating crisis with Covid infections rising? We need a very serious discussion about strategy. We need to hear the options laid…

We would like to hear from the Government whether it will honour the commitment made by the Taoiseach that he would participate in a discussion on Friday?

This is a serious discussion. Things have changed; everyone knows that. It is not just questions that need to be put to the Minister of Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, late at night. We need to hear from the Head of Government what will be the strategy from here and what are the impacts of taking particular strategic options. That cannot be squashed into the graveyard shift alone. We should have the debate tonight, but we have to have the Friday sitting.

We raised the issue.

Do we have a choice?

Can we put the proposal for the Friday sitting?

I raised at the Business Committee earlier today the approval of the Revised Estimate by the arts and culture committee - I will not give it its new name as it is so long I cannot remember it. We are discussing public money and a very serious matter. The committee only signed off on the Estimates yesterday and they have come to the House today. As of this morning at least, none of us, apart from the members of the committee, has seen the Estimates and we do not know what the considerations are, yet we are being ask…

The point needed to be registered. It was a fair point.

Before this debacle emerged at the weekend, People Before Profit and RISE had already come to the conclusion we needed to move to a higher level of restrictions and that we should pursue a zero Covid-19 strategy. We held that view because after fairly intense discussions with public health and infectious disease experts, they predicted where we are now, with rising infection rates all over the country. They indicated that regardless of what the Government said, we would need to increase restrictions. I want to get …

You are becoming involved. You might stop the clock.

My point-----

The Government politicised this in a dishonest way instead of addressing the substance of the argument. There was an attempt to trash the person and the rationale behind his suggestions. That is what is wrong here. I ask the Minister to apologise for that treatment of the Chief Medical Officer on behalf of the Government and move on to a serious discussion about strategy, which cannot be had in the limited time we have here. We have been asking for this for several weeks. We have a particular view. We want to hear …

Does the Minister agree that the Government's response to Dr. Tony Holohan's letter and recommendation was not the best? Should the Government not apologise for the treatment of the Chief Medical Officer?

Is the Leas-Cheann Comhairle sure?