Social media can be used for good and for evil. I see social media being used, for example, to look for the World Rally Championship, WRC, to come to Limerick. We can put that on social media, it reaches a couple of hundred thousand people, and they can comment on different things and see social media is a good thing because we are using it to try to get the WRC here. If we then consider the time I brought the truck to the Dáil when we were looking at fuel prices, where people had transport networks-----

I did it according to the law of the House. There were no markings on the truck and it was my only means of transport on the day so I followed the rules of the House. It did not break any rules, but it showed some of the TDs in Government parties who did not realise the amount of tax that was being taken on fuel. Deputies were voting on things in the House that they did understand. Social media taught them about that. The other thing social media can do is hold the Government to account. Members of the Government g…

The drive is there for five, hopefully.

On the directly elected mayor, a vote was taken and 51% were in favour and 49% against. I had my concerns at the start of this about the cost of a mayor for Limerick exceeding €500,000 per year. At the start, it was said the local authority would have to fund this, but now the Government is going to fund it for the first term. After that, I believe it is to come back out of the budget of the local authority. That is €500,000-plus coming out of a local authority's budget to have a mayor that was recently only to cos…

I thank the Regional Group for bringing this Bill forward. The Bill provides that each Minister shall report annually on large capital expenditure in his or her Department five years after the expenditure has occurred. Infrastructure Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil promised not only five years ago, but decades ago, still has not been done. Reporting on something not done after five years is one thing, but another thing is reporting on something not done after decades of promises from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, failure of…

Broadband is going to save an awful lot of people, is it? “Broadband” - that is your answer.

My heart goes out to the three children and the carer who were at the heart of a situation where a person tried to and did stab them. My heart also goes out to the people who intervened to save those lives. Some 98.7% of the gardaí voted against Drew Harris as their representative. The Minister is the protector of the people through the Garda service. Some 98.7% of the Garda service voted against Drew Harris and the Minister did not listen to them. That means that she is not protecting the people of Ireland. She ha…

This change in legislation is to change Ireland's stance on neutrality. It will mean there is no longer a need for approval by the UN for a deployment of more than 12 members of the Defence Forces. This basically means getting rid of the triple lock system. Why fix something if it is not broken? This is not broken. It has worked in the past and it is working now. As of the end of August the strength of the of the Permanent Defence Force stood at 7,671, with 6,221 on the Army, 755 in the Naval Service and 695 in the…

The Taoiseach was in Limerick during the week at the Limerick Chamber Regional Business Awards. When he spoke there, people were disillusioned and wondering if it was actually the Taoiseach speaking or an independent Deputy because what he was saying is not actually what his Government is carrying out. They actually thought, at the start of his speech, that he was reading my speech, with the things he was trying to introduce. This is the story of a local business in Limerick before the budget. Before the budget was…

I agree with the Taoiseach 100% that people who work in Ireland deserve to get fair pay. The top earner in the HSE earns €974,000 a year whereas a newly qualified nurse earns €32,552. Again, we go back to the people who work and these nurses work tirelessly to help us. The Government is backing a person who earns €18,730.69 per week against a nurse who earns €625.80 and then it introduces a recruitment freeze in the HSE. Who is the Government actually working for? That wage would pay for 30 newly qualified nurses. …

Bernard Gloster is on €420,000.

It does.

It does apply to nurses. The Taoiseach does not know what he is talking about. He is all over the place.

Children at Risk Ireland, CARI, provides long-term therapeutic supports for children aged three to 18 who have been affected by child sexual abuse, and their families. It is notable that One-in-Four, which supports adult victims of child abuse, receives 75% funding from the State, such as the HSE, Tusla and the Department of Justice. At the present time, Tusla is only offering one third of the cost for 2024. In the first half of 2023, there were 4,000 cases of suspected child physical abuse referred to An Garda Sío…

What Israel is doing is disgusting. It is wrong. Men, women and children are suffering and dying needlessly. I am looking at this from the point of view of a Deputy, father, brother and nephew. What is happening here disgusts me. People are calling for the Israeli ambassador to be expelled. The first thing I would have said would be to do this, then, after thinking about it, I would say that if one wants peace and if we have to negotiate with somebody for the release of people and for peace talks, closing the door …

We are talking about the electoral reform Bill. The County Limerick constituency was always a three-seater. For many decades it elected two Fianna Fáil Deputies and one Fine Gael Deputy, or two Fine Gael Deputies and one Fianna Fáil Deputy, until we broke the record and now it is one Fianna Fáil Deputy, one Fine Gael Deputy and one Independent Deputy. I believe I am the first Independent to be elected in County Limerick. When Limerick city and county were together in the early 1900s, there was an Independent electe…

First, I thank Labour for the motion being brought before us today. I am so thankful for home help. My father managed to live to the ripe old age of 98, and would have been 99 if he had lived to his next birthday. He would not have done that only for the care of the home help. I am from a large family, and we were lucky enough that between our own family and the home help, that was the age he lived to in the comfort of his own home. I am so thankful for that. I look at the home help today and the struggles they hav…

Why are Irish people welcome all over the world? It is because we are not a threat. In the world cup, why do people say "Ireland standing tall"? It is because we are not a threat. I do not like what is happening in Gaza. It is absolutely disgraceful. The same thing happened in Ukraine. Ireland is seen as a protector but also seen as neutral. This is why we are welcome everywhere. Given the language being used by the Government, I ask the Minister of State to not make us a threat. In doing so, the Government would p…

One in eight is in arrears on electricity bills. The price to produce electricity is €50 per kWh. The Government is allowing electricity companies to charge at €120 per kWh - that is what it is capped at. The Government then talks about a windfall tax. With all the VAT that applies even on the reduced price of electricity at the moment, the Government is still up compared with when it was at a lower cost because of tax. Who gets to pay the tax? It is the working people again. Not only is the Government taking tax f…

There were 130 people on trolleys in UHL on Monday. Other Deputies have mentioned UHL this evening but I have been mentioning it for 12 months. I was told to stop talking about the CEO and the management. I was in the hospital when I got a knock-out during the year. I waited in the waiting room for 16 hours. I did not look for preferential treatment. The Minister said the money is like a runaway train. The money is going out of all proportion. I wonder where the money is going. Is it all going to the top and to the…