If you read the statement from the Taoiseach about the issues discussed at the European Council, you might on the face of it say they are reasonable, even admirable, things to be saying, in terms of the justifiable criticism of what Russia has done and is doing in Ukraine and the murder, brutality, kidnapping of children and generally criminal nature of the intervention by Russia’s rotten authoritarian regime. You might briefly think, to use the phrase the Taoiseach kept using, we are standing up in Europe for our …

I would like the Minister of State to respond to my comments on the shocking double standard of rightly condemning the authoritarian, brutal, murderous and warmongering activities of Putin in Ukraine on the one hand and, on the other, collaborating and having arrangements with regimes that do exactly the same thing. I would like the Minister of State to elaborate on the question of Tunisia, which is mentioned in this document. A number of times, I have raised in the House the fact that the Saied regime, which is ef…

One of the reasons whoever is responsible for the scandal of RTÉ overpayments should be ashamed of themselves is because for three or four weeks now it has sucked all the air out of every other issue affecting ordinary people, who often struggle with intense hardship and difficulty in their lives. Before the Dáil finishes for the summer recess at the end of this week, one of the issues that has tragically been overshadowed by what is happening in RTÉ – what is happening in RTÉ is an important issue, do not get me w…

-----and addresses the anomalies in the tenant in situ scheme to prevent more families being made homeless over the summer.

Promises of things in the future are cold comfort to families who are homeless now with their children, in many cases for several years, or those threatened with homelessness immediately. This week a woman who came to my office was bawling crying because she felt she had let down her daughter. She is working, by the way, as are many who are homeless or threatened with homelessness. The problem with what the Taoiseach has just said is that he has no solution for her or her children, or for many others. Last week, I …

Two and a half years and four years.

There is no complicated story.

That is not the case.

It is a tiny amount.

This is an emergency.

On Thursday the Dáil debated the report produced by the Committee on Budgetary Oversight on the section 481 film tax credit and issues in the film industry. This was the second committee in a number of years to recommend a stakeholder forum to address very serious issues that echo in a very serious way the things that have happened recently in RTÉ. There are allegations of systematic blacklisting, that the law, in terms of the copyright directive on the remuneration of actors, performers and writers, is being syste…

It is disappointing that the Minister has to go-----

-----because this is our last chance before quite a long break to appeal to the Government to step up its game and to respond to a housing and homelessness emergency that is continuing to get worse. I hope the officials and the Minister of State will listen although, realistically, I do not expect them to admit that their policies are failing or to take on board the full package of alternative proposals the Opposition is offering. I thank Deputy Ó Broin and Sinn Féin for giving us the opportunity to discuss these m…

I argue here that we need a State construction company. I think even the Minister of State would acknowledge that the delivery of social and affordable housing is less than the Government had hoped for. It has not met its own targets, and when you look at what has been built by the private sector, average prices in Dublin are now €498,000. In my area they are €610,000. If we are going to deliver housing that can address the housing crisis, we need the State to build large numbers of public and affordable housing on…

I hope we can move off the script now to have a real conversation. Of the 30,000 homes delivered, 7,000 of those were social housing, including approved housing bodies, AHBs. However, 73% of those were bought or leased. In other words, what the State is actually delivering on a not-for-profit basis is a tiny proportion. The councils only built 1,680 houses. Some 8,000 were build-to-rent, and the rest were big private developments. I have quoted the prices. If the majority of building is done by commercial entities,…

More than 12,500 people are homeless. I am telling the Minister of State, and he can deny it all he likes, but for working people it is currently not affordable to rent or buy. It is just not affordable. I am dealing with a family, which I might address in another question. The father works in a semi-State company. He is on a decent salary. They are going to be homeless because they cannot afford to move anywhere else, and they are now apparently above the threshold for cost rental by €1,300. There is another woman…

There is nothing to disagree with. It is a fact.

It is People Before Profit next.

It is no problem. We oppose any involvement in the European Defence Agency or the project of European militarisation, which is accelerating at a shocking rate. We will support the Sinn Féin amendment to refer the motion to the committee but, in our view, there is no justification for getting involved with the European Defence Agency. We have opposed it, root and branch, and continue to do so because it is part of arming Europe for war, a global escalation of militarism and developing the military-industrial complex…

No.