Mary Lou McDonald

This is beyond comedy at this stage.

How dare you.

Sit down.

Seriously, do we, Darragh?

Is that it? The comedy is over.

We welcome three people, the Rev. Karen Sethuraman, Ben Collins and Claire Mitchell, who gave a fascinating presentation today on Protestant perspectives on constitutional change. They are very welcome here today. The measures the Taoiseach brought forward yesterday to address soaring fuel prices are not good enough. He has short-changed working people, people with little or no support, working e…

Níl an Rialtas ag déanamh faic. Níl sé ag éisteacht ar chor ar bith. We could not be clearer in our position. For the avoidance of any confusion, the Government's half-baked measures are not enough. We will not support measures that leave 750,000 households high and dry. They are real people, real families, who today now worry about how they will pay their home heating bill. The Taoiseach has no a…

I ask him again to adopt our proposal.

Adopt the Sinn Féin solution and give these families the relief and support they deserve.

That is absolute waffle.

With nothing

The name of Harvey Morrison Sherratt, a child catastrophically failed by Children's Health Ireland, CHI, was very sadly joined by another name last weekend. That name is Chloe Maher, from Coolock, a 23-year-old who died on 4 March last. Her death was caused by health complications from her untreated scoliosis. Chloe never got the treatment she required when she was in the care of CHI and then she …

-----into how Chloe was failed as a child and a young adult?

Will the Taoiseach ensure-----

-----that the cases of children who age out of CHI are included in the public inquiry?

We are four weeks into a crisis that has seen fuel prices skyrocket and only now has the Government brought forward limited measures to respond. It has taken relentless pressure from Sinn Féin and massive public anger to force it to act.

The Government watched on as fuel prices spun out of control. It has sat back as working people struggle to heat their homes and fill their cars. When households needed a government of action, they got this do-nothing Government. Clearly its plan was to ride this one out. Its package today had to be dragged out of it. Still the Government comes to the table with half-measures. It could not bring i…

The Taoiseach is always so shocked and outraged when it is a case of families and working people needing support. That is such an "outrageous" thing to say. That is so "unsustainable". It is always so "unaffordable", even when the Government coffers are full. Of course, he takes a take a very different view when it is developers or big bankers or big corporate interests. Mind them every day of the…

“Violence against women and girls is the shame of our society and we must do everything possible to end it.” These were the words of Natalie McNally's heartbroken brother Declan yesterday after Stephen McCullagh was sentenced to life in prison for her horrific murder. It is a sharp reminder of the dangers women face. Today violence against women and girls is at epidemic levels across Ireland. The …

We are now two weeks into a crisis in which Irish households are being hammered by skyrocketing fuel prices. The cost of petrol, diesel and home heating oil has spun out of control, yet Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are absent. This is a do-nothing Government that is sitting on its hands and refusing to help while workers, families and motorists are fleeced. People are under massive pressure right her…

The only actions that the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Government has set out so far are proposals to increase taxes. The Minister has reiterated that position again. I do not know whether there is anybody sitting here among us who cannot turn on their heating or cannot fill their car. I do not think that is an experience anybody here on the Government benches or anywhere else has but it is the reali…

I appeal to the Minister today to stop the distraction, end the rhetoric and actually make the move that is necessary.

Will the Minister answer the question?

Are they?

Are they?