Paul Murphy

This Government is probably one of the most pro-AI in the world. The Taoiseach has compared AI to the invention of the printing press. The Government has swallowed the Kool-Aid of big tech seemingly with no assessment of the impact it will have on our ability to achieve our climate targets. I know the Minister has said we are not going to achieve them anyway even though they are supposed to be leg…

The new digital and AI strategy is not about climate change. I think there are five references to climate in the entire document. It is not about protecting children or artists. It is not about any of those things. It is about a commitment to "strengthening Ireland’s position as a digital leader", seemingly without regard to the negative impacts AI is having in our society. The Minister of State h…

I find it remarkable that Ministers and Ministers of State are still answering questions about climate inaction by saying "Oh, don't worry, we've got legally binding targets." The Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, is sitting beside the Minister who said we are not going to meet these targets, so how can it still be an excuse to say that when we raise inaction by the Government or action in the wro…

The truth is that the expansion of data centres has deepened our dependence on fossil fuels. They have outpaced the renewable deployment. They have strained the grid. They have hoarded power connections. They have built gas generators on site. More and more are burning fossil fuels directly. They have stalled decarbonisation and deepened their dependence on fossil fuels. Sometimes we see greenwas…

People power has forced the Government into a retreat on SNAs. That is extremely welcome. However, the underlying problem of the basis allocation of SNAs and the insufficient number of SNAs remains. This special school in Tallaght illustrates the problem precisely. It received a letter on 11 February saying its allocation would be reduced from the 2025-26 academic year. It was withdrawn on the sam…

I thank the Minister of State and I would very much welcome the idea of a meeting. I also invite him to come and visit the school and meet with the principal, teachers, SNAs and so on. On the bottom-line point, what happened in the 40 minutes between the letter removing the SNAs and the letter saying that no SNAs would be removed was that the principal contacted the NCSE to say that all the paren…

I will ask the Tánaiste about Connor Green, the surgeon responsible for inserting non-medical springs into children at Temple Street. He is also the subject of the Nayagam report, which recommended that two thirds of the children it looked at have a follow-up clinical review. I understand that he is seeking an injunction to prevent the publication of the Nayagam report. Is the State contesting tha…

Has the HSE contacted its counterparts in Maryland to warn them about this surgeon and to explain he is currently under investigation by the Medical Council?

Our Bill is simple. It would make social housing universally available. It is the opposite to what the Government has been doing. The Government has effectively, for decades, been copying Maggie Thatcher by cutting the amount of social housing being built and then ensuring they shrink the pool of people who are eligible to apply for it. It has done that by refusing to increase the income limits in…

The protest organised by parents for next Wednesday at 5 p.m. outside the Dáil is going ahead because they do not just want a pause; they want the cuts to stop. They want proper support for their kids. The other point I want to make is that this matter is being treated as if the cuts have come out of nowhere. The Government is shocked to hear that all of these SNAs are being cut, but this is the o…

It is a funny sort of pause because the cuts were not going to come into place until September anyway. The Minister of State said it is a review of suspending it but it is not like there were going to be cuts and now they are paused. Some of these schools may still face the same cuts come September. The Minister of State is not giving any guarantee that will not happen. Can the schools that went t…

I thank Deputy Lawlor for tabling the Bill, which would represent significant improvements on the current situation whereby workers have no right at all to remote working. What Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael legislated for was a right for employers to refuse reasonable remote working requests. I was on the enterprise committee at the time when the Government Bill went through. ICTU came in and told us …

There are about 20 Northside Home Care healthcare assistants in the Gallery. These workers are on strike today. Some of them have worked for 25 years and are only paid €15.04 an hour. Others are on minimum wage. They get approximately 30% less than others doing the same job. They provide vital care for about 500 people on a daily basis. The reason for this ultimately is the HSE has arbitrarily exc…

This is an incredibly serious piece of legislation. It is a frontal assault on human rights. It is a Bill for the detention of children. It is a Bill which undermines the right to legal representation. It is a Bill which attempts to effectively telescope the process of asylum in order to deny asylum seekers their rights. I do not think that such an assault on human rights will stay with one group,…

The Minister's response is quite revealing. We are saying this is a Bill for the detention of children. He is saying not to worry, he will recognise the rights of children and there is nothing to be worried about. Then we have amendments before us that propose the best interests of the child should be a primary consideration in the carrying out of this procedure in terms of asylum, and we have ame…

The Minister is not going to accept it today on Committee Stage. As part of the Minister's consideration, I ask him to consider that he cannot logically say that we do not need it because it is already binding on us because of Article 23 itself, and then on the other hand say it is here in relation to this particular part. The fact that it is there in relation to the Eurodac regulation and screeni…

7. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the first progress report of the climate action plan. [8099/26]

For years, we have been told that the Government's climate targets are legally binding, and the implication was that, therefore, heaven and earth would be moved in order to meet those targets. Then, in January, we heard from the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, that the Government is not going to meet the targets, and it did not announce any measures or have any plan to announce any measures to a…

I think the answer is interconnection.

You just did.

21. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach for his response to the NESC report, Building a Virtuous Demographic Cycle. [10455/26]

The energy transition is not happening, is it? A total of 80% of our energy comes from fossil fuels. It is not because ordinary people are not making efforts to make changes in their lives, put on solar panels and retrofit their houses and so on. The central reason is that data centre usage of electricity has ballooned by more than 400% in the past ten years and it is on a trajectory to rise even …

Income tax, but all the other stuff.

No.

The Taoiseach knows I am not.