Martin Kenny

We blocked it, which the Government failed to do.

We blocked it, which the Government failed to do.

We blocked it.

I raise the issue of the Mercosur trade agreement, which has certainly not gone away. We are in a position over the weekend where we see that Larry Murrin, the chair of Bord Bia, is also the CEO of a company that was providing Brazilian beef. It is simply incompatible with his role in the promotion of Irish food products to remain in that position. That is the first point. We also had good news fr…

Which it failed to do.

It failed.

It failed totally.

One of the big issues we have as parliamentarians is when we write to the Minister, he writes back to us and says he cannot talk to us and to talk to Irish Water. That is one of the big problems that an awful lot of Members of this Dáil have. Continuously, I have written to various Ministers, the Minister and the Ministers of State about issues about water. The can is always kicked to Irish Water…

It is a public company and, therefore, it has a public responsibility to answer public representatives and it does not do that. The Minister cannot also abdicate his responsibilities around that. That is the first point I want to make, and I hope the Minister hears that point very clearly. We will no longer accept this notion that the Minister - water and local government are covered in his brief …

As the Minister of State is well aware, there are an awful lot of problems regarding the provision of home packages. One of the big issues that strikes me is the privatisation of it. At the moment, about 60% of the home care packages are provided by private companies. It used to be the opposite way around. It was 60% to 40%. A total of 60% or 70% of packages in years gone by were provided by the S…

I raise the issue of home help hours across the country, but particularly in my constituency. We have serious problems with people who have been allocated home help hours on the recommendation of the district nurse. They are allocated three calls per day of half an hour or an hour each, seven days per week, but staff cannot be got. No one can get anyone to work in the service. Even those providing…

-----provide these services, we might have a chance of being able to provide it to people.

Yes, Leitrim, Sligo and Donegal.

I move: That Dáil Éireann: condemns: — in the strongest possible terms, the catastrophic failure of the Irish Government to prevent the advancement of the European Union (EU)-Mercosur Trade Agreement, despite many years of warnings, repeated opportunities to build a blocking minority, and repeated appeals from Irish farming organisations, environmental experts and Sinn Féin; and — the role of …

The Government did nothing. Zero.

As well as it did in fisheries. It did a great job there.

Do not mention the fisheries deal.

Was that a trade-off?

At the nub of this issue is the reality that everybody knows, across Europe and the world, that the standards we are expected to meet in Europe when it comes to food production and the standards that are expected in Brazil and other Mercosur countries are not the same. We all know that. They are decades behind when it comes to food quality standards. The Minister of State knows that, I know that a…

It is as simple as that.

It is a contradiction if the Government says it wants to improve the deal but it is also saying to the same people it also wants to block it. The Government cannot do both and we all know that. We hear it back. We do not live in a vacuum. We hear what goes on in the country and we hear what goes on in Europe also. The truth is, on one side of the Minister of State's mouth over here he was saying h…

I thank the proposers of the Bill for bringing it before the House. It is important to debate all these issues, even the issues that separate and divide us. Every year at the Sinn Féin Ard-Fheis we have an opportunity to discuss various motions and set out our party policy. That is where our position on this comes from. For many years we have had motions before Ard-Fheiseanna where it has been dis…

We are in a very difficult situation for coastal communities around the whole Irish seaboard. The Fisheries Council has caused absolute devastation. That is all it can be described as. It is going to be catastrophic for the fishing industry over the next year and more. The betrayal of the fishing community has gone on for decades. That is the reality. It is what we hear when we talk to fishers aro…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill this evening. It is clear that it is an essential part of what we need to put in place for spending for the coming year and the function has to be put through here. We understand that. I take the opportunity to speak about some issues in in my constituency and in the north west in general, particularly capital projects. Capital projects are certainl…

I thank Deputy Whitmore and the Social Democrats for bringing forward this legislation. It is an appropriate time to introduce it given the work being done by the stakeholder group to look at all of these issues. The Government is talking about kicking the can down the road, as it does with so many of the Bills that come before the House. We all need to recognise that we have a difficulty in Irela…