Micheál Martin

Deputy Whitmore referenced 59%. This is a very serious point which I have raised with Irish Water. In my view, there should not be operational errors or non-performance which then leads to poor water quality. The Irish water authority should be the personification of excellence in terms of clean water. There has been some pretty poor evidence in some areas where standards have dropped. In fairness…

Collectively, there is a question about ethos here. We have had presentations from the EPA and Irish Water and this is an issue.

Deputy Heneghan, too, raised the issue of water quality. You are looking okay but, that said-----

You are looking very well, actually. You are invigorated from your swim.

However, at the same time, we will-----

I propose to take Questions Nos. 21 to 37, inclusive, together. I note the announcement of the resignation of the Uniter Kingdom Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, earlier this week, and acknowledge the very significant role he has played in resetting the Irish-British relationship, as well as relations between the United Kingdom and the European Union, during his time as Prime Minister. Since Prime M…

Deputy O'Rourke asked about the EU asylum pact and the common travel area. The European Union asylum pact creates a structure that is positive, firm and robust. It has critics on the left and it has critics on the right. One side is saying we are not going far enough and the other is saying that we are going too far in terms of the returns aspect. We need to protect the common travel area because …

Deputy Tóibín then went on to give a precise figure. I will just leave it-----

The point is I think it is high. I am not arguing the figure, but the point I would make is there is a need for data on this. There are also less and less coming in through airports because of controls and so on that have been implemented over the last two to three years. There is an issue, but I am not clear. Could the Deputy flesh out his proposals and send me a paper on the Irish Sea border, an…

-----is particularly important. In that respect, I would make the point that in terms of the Narrow Water Bridge project, a lot of people were talking about it for a long time and nothing was done-----

-----both in the North as well as the South, including members of Deputy Ó Murchú's party, but the point is that this Government has done it and we have put a scheme in place to enable that.

Deputy Moynihan raised the cross-Border directive. We are going to do more work on that. We have identified that as an area generally under the Labour Employer Economic Forum, LEEF, and also in terms of North-South relationships. We are asking Departments about tax, treatment of workers and so on. Have I picked up the Deputy's issue correctly?

I am going to get everyone done.

Anything is possible. In response to Deputy Smith, I want to say that legacy issues remain a very top priority, particularly with a new Prime Minister coming in. The legislation is in the UK and they need to implement it. We will pursue the Monaghan and Dublin bombings, although we are waiting for Operation Denton to perhaps bring more clarity to that. In response to Deputy Ó Murchú, the amount o…

We are working. We are working flat out. I am substance all the way. I am not about slogans.

I am not saying someone else give me the solution.

Sorry, the Deputy is always saying that Sinn Féin's view is that "Everybody else must do the Green Paper except ourselves". That is the bottom line.

In any event-----

In response to Deputy Boyd Barrett, again, I do not have the specifics on the strike. Industrial relations mechanisms are there to resolve issues between companies and workers and they should be utilised. In response to the Deputy Murphy's comments on the British commentariat, to suggest that Prime Minister Starmer committed genocide, as Deputies Murphy and Coppinger did, is outrageous. He did no…

There is a tendency on the far left and on the far right to say that no one else can meet but themselves. I have no truck with these people. I have no interest in whatever is going on there, but-----

-----citizens of different countries are entitled to come to Ireland. If they get visas, they are entitled to meet and organise. We have a very good democracy here. In the international transparency index, by all measures, we score very highly because of our approach to these issues. That is generally a positive, and we should not try to undermine that either. I disagree with Deputy Coppinger's r…

We recently endowed a chair for history in Cambridge university to try to strengthen the academic partnership in the humanities between the UK and Ireland. In response to Deputy Whitmore, I will actually go the Minister and ask him for a timeline. He is committed to plug-in solar. Deputy Heneghan has spoken about this quite a lot as well. The Minister is worried, and he is getting feedback that w…

The abuse carried out by Leo Hickey was evil, horrific and deeply harmful to many people who were children at the time that he was in Dunderrow National School in the 1960s. I do appreciate and I am fully conscious of the enormous trauma experienced by the survivors of sexual abuse in that school and abuse carried out by Leo Hickey. It is important that their voices are heard and listened to. In 2…

To set the record straight, back in 1998 and 1999 the issue was industrial schools. I created a commission into abuse that happened in industrial schools.

I want to put that on the record. It was the first time ever any Irish Government established a commission of inquiry into abuse in schools and that was in the context of industrial schools.