What about the councils?

There are not enough private companies to build those houses.

We have seen it all at this stage. We have had unnecessary hip operations, unlicensed springs implanted into children, defective technology being a fixture in operations and we have had Wi-Fi issues. There is something new every week. Now, we have a doctor who, allegedly, referred public patients to their private clinic at the weekend and was paid money by the National Treatment Purchase Fund. This fund is meant to be used to expedite the most needy people first but these were not necessarily the children with the …

I do not have time to make all the points I wanted regarding the research. I just want to say what the parents believe needs to be done at this stage. The HSE was proposing a two-stage review, by the CHI first and then by outsiders. That has been completely rejected. They are putting forward the idea of a partial ratified independent scrutiny mechanism, PRISM, as it is called, where the parents themselves would have a say in what happens and scrutiny over the whole situation. It is incredible how knowledgeable the …

I am finding it hard to see how we are still here when thousands of babies died in Gaza last night while food trucks with baby formula and baby food were sitting nearby. Netanyahu has issued evacuation orders to annihilate Gaza, and his finance minister has said, "the world still hasn't stopped us". He is right. I do not want to hear about how the Government is the best in the class, because all of the others are so terrible. The EU and the West have allowed this genocide to happen and they are not lifting a finger…

Hypocrisy, in other words.

We are 19 months on and there is nothing.

The title of this session is statements on a world-class education system. We must begin by saying we do get very good outcomes in many ways given Ireland is near the end or in the lower part of the OECD in terms of education spending, which is about 8% below the average. However, we would be wrong to think we have a world-class education system. We have an education system that is quite ableist, driven by results and focused on serving the needs of industry. There are, for example, the extra points introduced for …

The Israeli finance minister stated, “We are annihilating everything that remains in the Strip”, “we are conquering, clearing and staying”, and “the world still hasn’t stopped us”. That is the Israeli finance minister admitting in plain sight that Israel is carrying out a genocide. Food trucks are sitting by with baby food and baby formula, and 14,000 babies are set to face death in the next 48 hours, according to the UN. What does malnutrition actually look like? It is a shutting down of the body’s mechanisms. It …

The Tánaiste said global momentum is building, but what happened yesterday with the EU? Those concerned sat on their hands as this information was brought to their attention. The EU and UK are feeling the pressure because 500,000 people took to the streets in London, and there were huge marches all over the globe. The global movement of ordinary people is the only light that shows humanity still exists. The sanctions the EU has imposed on Russia include travel bans, the immobilisation of €210 billion in Russian cen…

-----and stop the Central Bank of Ireland from processing bonds in Ireland.

The belief that zoos are necessary to preserve rare animals and biodiversity is the only justification for maintaining them. Why would we think it is okay for some animals to suffer to maintain biodiversity? In any case, it is not true because zoos do not lead to that. I have heard the Minister of State's great credentials. I am asking him to be the first Minister of State to look into Dublin Zoo. I have spoken to a number of former workers who are whistleblowers and are very concerned about animal welfare there, a…

I also do not support the change to this scheme or the amendment proposed. Let us put this in context. Some 91% of the people who are participating in hosting refugees under this scheme have never been landlords before. It is not true that this scheme will interfere or has interfered with the housing market because nine out of ten of hosts never would have been landlords. I do not understand why this argument is being made consistently other than to potentially lean in to some of the anti-refugee or racist sentimen…

The Government's new policy on justice and migration is to increase the number of deportations, particularly by using chartered flights. The Minister goes on social media to announce that a charter flight has taken place. Is this not virtue signalling to the increased racism that there is in society and to the far right? We have already seen this week the backing down from a migration centre in Coolock. Is it any wonder when the Government is sending a message out to the public that refugees and asylum seekers are …

Chartered flights.

Community development is also important in large suburbs and urban areas. As the Taoiseach knows, there has been massive development in Dublin West, in many cases without the necessary transport and schools. We have large populations but now we have no transport links between many of the suburbs. Could the Taoiseach look into a situation? There are 11 families in Tyrrelstown who cannot get into their local school, Le Chéile Secondary School, so they all have to go to Ongar, which is 9 km away. They have been told t…

Yes.

Yes.

I too pay tribute to Cara and her father and all the campaigners and the people who have already slept outside the Dáil this year, FUSS, Equality in Education, ASD15 and the myriad local groups that have been banging on about this issue for a long time. One thing I have learned about neurodivergent, autistic and disabled people is that they hate social pretence and falsity. There is a lot of pretence going here on all night. First, Government TDs pretending they are not in the Government. Second, that they are not …

Ireland's agricultural industry is an environmental laggard. Agriculture here and in the EU is based on a capitalist economic model of industrial-scale farming that is hugely unsustainable, produces environmental destruction and fails to provide sustainable and secure incomes for small and medium farmers in Ireland and globally into the future. CAP is part of that unsustainable global system of agriculture. It is a policy that intensifies unsustainability and deepens the crisis. Environmentally, agriculture is resp…