Palestinians are the victims; they are not the aggressors.

I bet you I have been on more protests outside the Russian embassy than you have.

The programme for Government refers to work-life balance, quality of life and quality employment and it even contains the phrase "a secure future for all living things", which is quite a noble ambition. I want to shout out for a group of workers very close at hand who do not have any of those things. They are the majority of people who work for Oireachtas TV, who broadcast proceedings from this Dáil Chamber, the Seanad Chamber and the committees but who are only employed on the days that we sit. That means that ove…

Does the Taoiseach agree with me?

We do not have a place on the commission but the Government has a place.

I just thought I would start the ball rolling.

It was only raised with me last week.

Will the Taoiseach support them?

About a week ago, I raised the plight of tenants in Sallynoggin who have been living in council houses for years with infants and children where there is mould all over the walls, all of the time, water running down the insides of the walls and rodent infestations. The tenants are still being forced to live there. It has been earmarked for redevelopment but the point is that the tenants want out of there because the conditions are terrible. People are getting pneumonia.

Sallynoggin. Since I raised this, the people are still in there and still looking to get out. By the way, the Rialto Action Group took a legal case against Dublin City Council some years ago because these kinds of conditions are a breach of the European Social Charter. The group won the case. The Sallynoggin case is similar. These people's rights are being breached by the local authority. Since I raised the case here last week - it was televised and so on - I have been inundated with messages from people living in …

It is not very stable for tenants.

Impose minimum standards.

I am talking about rehousing people when they are in those conditions.

The Government should impose minimum standards.

Classical economists Karl Marx and David Ricardo, on different sides of the political spectrum, agreed that all wealth is derived from labour. One of our biggest problems is skills shortages in every sector of our economy, whether it is construction, the health service, education or retail. The reason is increasing numbers in their tens of thousands of young people are bailing out of the country because they cannot afford to live here. If we are talking about competitiveness, this is the biggest challenge. I do not…

Society is not a football game. Perhaps the Taoiseach thinks it is. We need our housing to be affordable for young people and to remove financial barriers to education that drive many of our young people out.

I am happy to support this motion for Ireland to opt in to the negotiating mandate on the EU-UK youth experience scheme. It is worth noting that the consequences of the anti-immigrant sentiment that drove the right-wing campaign in the UK against the EU are now becoming apparent. It should be a salutary warning to people who want to go down the road of anti-immigration that it comes back to bite you in all sorts of ways. From an economic point of view, the UK has not thrived as a result of the Brexit decision. Davi…

Not agreed.

The Government is planning to further expand the gravy train of ministerial jobs and allowances and it is doing it with a guillotine to suppress proper debate and discussion of the expanded gravy train it is planning. This is completely unacceptable. There should not be a guillotine. Additionally, we have had very alarming pronouncements made by the Taoiseach that he is planning to, effectively, hand over the housing sector, lock, stock and barrel, to profit-driven investors. I refer to private investors, vulture f…

We have still not had a discussion on the Housing Commission report that we have been asking for a debate on since it was published seven or eight months ago.