Conor D. McGuinness

Front-line youth workers are being asked to carry more and more of the burden with less and less. They are dealing every day with the real pressures facing young people, such as mental health challenges, online harm and misinformation, social isolation and increasingly visible antisocial behaviour. In Waterford, we are seeing that play out in very real terms with the lighting of fires in parts of …

I note the Minister's response and thank her for it. The difficulty is not the absence of strategy, it is the absence of delivery. We see the results of the workforce survey. There is also the workforce development strategy that is taking place at the moment. This is another case of too little too late. The issues in terms of recruitment and retention are not new. In many cases, they have always b…

Sixteen hill farmers on the Knockmealdown Mountains in west Waterford are facing the imposition of rent increases of 900% by a British absentee landlord. This increase will put them off the land. These are generational farmers; families who have farmed the mountains for generations and centuries. I have met them several times. Only last week, Deputy Cullinane and I were up on the mountains with th…

The Minister of State and this Government need to make a clear intervention here. I am more than happy to say that what is happening here is wrong, that the demand of a 900% rent increase by a British absentee aristocratic landlord on Irish farmers is wrong. I would urge the Minister of State to make that statement and for his colleague, the Minister, Deputy Heydon, to make a similar statement. Th…

I attended a protest in Dungarvan on Sunday, which was one of many that took place across the State. Hauliers, farmers, fishers and rural contractors, such as agri-contractors, were present, but people from other walks of life were also there protesting against the fuel cost increases and about the need for action. There were older people who were rationing heat; families who were making the invid…

It is not reflected in the-----

That is not true.

Borrowing money to get to college. For God's sake, Taoiseach.

Time is up.

You were forced into it.

How many of those cannot-----

Homeless figures.

How many children are in poverty?

Why was that?

You are embarrassing yourself.

When are Ministers-----

Kids in emergency accommodation-----

That is where the demonisation-----

The Tánaiste cannot believe that.

If the Tánaiste says it again, he might actually believe it.

Here we go. The Independent voice.

Did you engage with them by postcard?

More difficult for you.

The Government survived a vote today but the Minister of State should not kid himself - public confidence has not been restored. The Government limped through, shedding some of its own along the way. People will draw their own conclusions about the motivations behind those changes of heart. What is clear is that the outcome of today does absolutely nothing to change the reality that workers, fami…

Hear, hear.