As someone who worked for more than 21 years as a hospital administrator in a general hospital, I am lost for words to describe the mayhem which is Children's Health Ireland. The word "bewilderment" comes to mind. It is certainly shocking. The first principle of the provision of a health service is that the patient comes first. We might say that is old-fashioned but it is still 100% true. There has been a fundamental breach of trust here, which has not only not put the patient first but that has harmed patients, in…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. I commend Sinn Féin on bringing it forward and I strongly support it. This Bill would be a vital first step in stopping the genocide and starvation of the Palestinian people. The Bill is fully compliant with international, European and Irish law, and is supported by the independent Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers. Its legal opinion is supported by the leaked opinion of the Attorney General when he dealt with the occupied territories Bill and the divestment Bil…

There has been no public eye care service in south Tipperary since last September. There have been no consultant ophthalmology clinics, optometry clinics or nurse-led eye clinics. Dr. Hillery, the previous consultant, retired last September, having given years of wonderful professional and personal service to the population of south Tipperary, including children and the elderly. She gave more than adequate notice of her retirement, yet the HSE has failed in its duty to fill the vacancy and provide this vital servic…

The acid test of the bona fides of the Government on carers and caring is the immediate abolition of the carer’s allowance means test. This has been the demand of Family Carers Ireland for years and was promised by all political parties in the run-up to the general election. It was understood that the means test would be abolished within the first 100 days of this Government coming into office but we are still waiting. Worse still, the programme for Government is silent on it, so we do not know when or if it will e…

We must ask ourselves whether the State, the Government and we as a people are complicit in genocide. I acknowledge the State’s support for the South African case in the international courts, the Taoiseach’s description of Israeli action in Gaza as a “war crime”, and the statements at the weekend by the Taoiseach and other Government leaders; however, we must do more. We must take action. What is happening in Gaza is the ultimate appalling vista. It is the deliberate destruction of the Palestinian people by bomb, b…

I compliment the remarkable courage of Cara Darmody, a 14-year-old disability rights campaigner from my constituency. I welcome her and her dad here this evening. Cara started her campaign in support of her two brothers, who have autism diagnoses, but now she is supporting and campaigning on behalf of all children in the State with disabilities. She has been very successful to date. She extracted €10 million from the current Tánaiste during the general election campaign. This issue, of course, was huge in the elect…

Local government is the beating heart of democracy. It was abolished in 2014 by the Fine Gael and Labour Government. When will the Minister establish the local democracy task force promised in the programme for Government 2025 to re-establish local government?

I thank the Minister. The town and borough councils were abolished in 2014. They were replaced by committees that have no powers, functions or funding. This abolition of town and borough councils has seriously damaged towns throughout the country, including in Clonmel where we had a form of local government going back to the 1400s. This is a very serious issue. I had hoped the Minister of State would give a timeline for the establishment of the local democracy task force initially and one for the completion of that…

When is this Government going to stop failing children with disabilities? Next Tuesday, Cara Darmody, a teenage disability rights campaigner from Ardfinnan in my constituency, will start a 50-hour sleep-out in pursuit of urgent and immediate action to secure assessments of need for children with additional needs within the six-month legal limit. There are over 14,000 children on the waiting list. To be precise, the actual number is 14,221. Some 90% of these have been waiting for well in excess of the six-month lega…

I welcome and strongly support the Trade Union Recognition Bill 2021. I compliment my colleagues in People Before Profit on bringing it forward. Not only do I believe in the right of workers to join a trade union, but I also believe that employers should be obliged to recognise the union and negotiate with it on the pay and conditions of its members. I have been a proud trade unionist all my working life, during school holidays working in a meat factory, as a member of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union…

One million Irish people, the Taoiseach's ancestors and mine, starved to death during the Great Famine in the 1840s and 1850s. Two million of us were driven to cross the Atlantic in coffin ships in search of mere survival. Thousands of us died on those ships. At home, our people died in cabins, in ditches, on the roads and in workhouses. There is hardly a parish in the country that has not a famine graveyard. To this day, the awful devastation of the Famine is imprinted in our minds, our hearts and our very souls. …

I believe this country must take action that is within our control, like stopping the Central Bank from facilitating the sale of Israeli state bonds, stopping all military flights through Shannon, even if that is a temporary measure-----

-----prosecuting airlines that are bringing armaments through our airspace and immediately reintroducing the occupied territories Bill in this House.

I am sorry but that is not good enough. We have to do more. Gaza is absolutely shocking. We have genocide and war crimes every hour of every day. The Palestinian people are being starved and bombed every hour of every day. Time is not on their side. Half a million are in a catastrophic state of hunger and starvation. Surely some country, or some leader, must stand up and take dramatic action to stop this. The Taoiseach has already said that this is a war crime. We went through something similar ourselves in the 184…

We can do things without them.

We can do things ourselves.

I acknowledge what you have done but there are things you can do, and there are things this country can do, and they can do it now.

Something dramatic needs to be done to stop this situation.

Big things start small.

It is a desperate situation.