Mary Lou McDonald

So there is not a problem.

The October budget, which was worth €9.4 billion, left disabled people €1,400 worse off in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. For months, disabled people and their advocates have told their stories of choices between heating and eating. They have appealed to the Government again and again to deliver a cost-of-disability payment immediately, but it has ignored them. The Government’s consultatio…

No, I have not.

Today, front-line emergency workers are on strike. Paramedics, advanced paramedics, specialist paramedics, emergency medical technicians, EMTs, and supervisors are all on strike. People who save lives are on the picket line. They stand there as a result of the Government's refusal to resolve long-standing issues relating to pay and conditions and staffing. Ambulance workers do not want to be on st…

There is the problem in a nutshell. The Government is blind to the expertise and skill of those who save lives every day. It asks ambulance workers to upskill and then refuses to pay for the upskilling properly. Is iad Fianna Fáil agus Fine Gael atá freagrach do staid na seirbhíse otharchairr inniu. Is teip ghlan é nár chuir siad pá cóir ar fáil d'oibrithe. D'fhág siad iad gan aon rogha. Ní féidi…

Because you have.

I am sorry a Cheann Comhairle but the question was put to me.

If everything is so hunky-dory, why are they on strike? Is the Taoiseach trying to suggest that the ambulance workers are wrong? Is he trying to suggest they are imagining the circumstances they are in? Here is the core dishonesty in the Taoiseach's reply. This situation has dragged on for six years and the Government has demonstrated an absence of good faith and respect. It asked the paramedics …

The Government has on three occasions taken a confrontational approach to workers-----

-----namely with the SNAs, the agricultural contractors and farmers.

It is now taking the same approach with the ambulance workers. When will it act in good faith with these people?

And what?

Never mind me, what about the workers?

The Taoiseach did not just live through it. He-----

The urgent need for an emergency budget grows by the day. In the past week, we have had report after report all saying the same thing: this crisis is getting worse. This morning, we heard that rising prices hit the average household by close to €2,000 a year. Families are under huge pressure to keep up with the cost of groceries, fuel, insurance and energy bills, and €2,000 is a lot of money for t…

The Taoiseach acknowledges on the one hand go bhfuil daoine is teaghlaigh faoi bhrú, that people are under pressure. He acknowledges the stress that people are living with daily. I am sure the Taoiseach accepts the figures and facts presented to him of over 300,000 households in arrears, of energy prices, including gas and electricity, rising again and of people here already spending more than an…

When will the Taoiseach intervene? He really is a do-nothing Taoiseach-----

-----or else he is just so incredibly indifferent-----

-----to the reality of people's lives.

Does he listen to people?

Does he hear what people are living with?

Pardon me?

Says farmer Micheál.

Silage, manure and cow dung. Was the Taoiseach out cutting the silage?

Go away out of that.