Paul Murphy

The number one reform that would make the most difference is ensuring that apprentices at least get the national minimum wage from the start. That is not a radical demand. I was previously on the committee and this came up with everybody we spoke to - apprentices having to pay loads of money for tools and so on and not even getting the minimum wage. At the very least, let us give apprentices the m…

That is a bit of a hard case to make to young people who are looking at their options and see that they will be getting paid €7.67 an hour in the first year, or just over half the national minimum wage. I am in favour of an increased student grant and so on, but the difference is that these people are working. They are creating value for their employers. It is a real obstacle. According to Mr. Ben…

An apprentice - a first-year motor mechanic - contacted me after we introduced the Bill. He said: I am currently working a 40-hour week at €6.20 an hour. I am expected to pay for my own tools. To be fair, the employer I am with gives a tool allowance of €250 but that would barely get you much. To even get into an apprenticeship in Ireland it is a minimum requirement across most trades you must be…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." It is an honour to finally be moving this at Second Stage after the Animal Health and Welfare (Ban on Hare Coursing) Bill was first introduced in 2020. It has been a long road getting to this point. This section of the road will finish next Wednesday with a vote. I will start and finish with an appeal to the public to get on to their TDs and dema…

Even Elon Musk?

I cannot call Elon Musk a psychopath.

If you cannot say that, what can you say?

Thank you. I will keep going. For anyone concerned about biodiversity, the impact of coursing on the Irish hare population should be a major concern. A National Parks and Wildlife Service study indicates an eight times lower survival rate for hares after they are released from coursing. That is a significant additional stressor on wild hare populations, which are already in decline, along with mos…

Yes.

I thank all the Deputies who participated in the debate. I will start on the point about hare coursing being highly regulated, and that we do not give that more credit to that and to the idea that animal welfare is a top priority. Let us consider what hare coursing is in essence. You can regulate it all you like - and we are in favour of more regulation - but the essence of it involves going into …

That is all it is.

That is all it is for you. As long as we are not in NATO we are neutral.

I did not. Check the record.

Today is 30 June. It should go down as the day of the bonfire of our climate targets. In this one swift afternoon, we will make real the Minister's softly saying just after Christmas this year that we would not reach our energy targets. What does that look like in reality? It looks like ramming through measures, with no parliamentary oversight, no proper debate and, in the case of the next Bill we…

I will try to be swift, so we can move on. We have heard the same speech from Deputy Danny Healy-Rae on a number of occasions, effectively denying human-caused climate change by saying we have had storms and extreme weather events in the past. Yes, we have had storms and extreme weather events in the past. That is not evidence against human-created climate change. The evidence is very clear. There…

I am less concerned about that. It is fine. The main thing I have a problem with is that we have a Government that did not really make an effort there to object to the climate denialism but will, on occasion, object to climate denialism and will say it recognises the science. We have a Government that says climate change is real and accepts that climate change is caused by fossil fuels. It accept…

The Minister was not here when I spoke earlier on the LNG Bill, so I will make the point to him now. What the Minister is doing tonight is disgraceful. This is, in six hours, a bonfire of our climate commitments. What we are seeing in action is the Minister's abandonment of targets that we were told many times were legally binding and, therefore, we did not need to worry and the Government would d…

Being honest, I did not intend to speak on these amendments - I was going to wait until later - but when a substantial debate, which should go on for a long period in a committee room, is squeezed into two hours, it invariably turns into Second Stage speeches because it is our last chance to have a say on it. For me, this is the third leg of a bonfire. I know bonfires do not have legs but I am ref…

I have two points. One is the point that Deputy Gibney made. The Minister of State denied that she gets to appoint the CEO. For now, until the establishment of the board, she has total power in appointing the CEO. That is the truth. That is what is set out in the legislation. Afterwards, she still gets to pick the CEO. She picks the CEO from a shortlist, which is done by the Public Appointments Se…

It is appropriate that I speak at this stage because I think that gets to the point. I think the Government agrees with the Deputy that it wants to set up an enabling office. That is the wrong way to go. Fundamentally we need a “thou shalt not” regulating office to try to protect the citizens from the potentially negative impact of AI. I will speak to two of the amendments. I support Deputy Gibney…

Does Deputy Geoghegan mean the weather forecasting guy?

His main thing was to say this is not like the large language models, LLMs. I did not disagree with anything he said but I do not think he was making the general case that is being made that somehow AI is going to help us to deal with climate change. If we roll out the argument that a combination of AI and a stable demand for energy is going to promote investment in renewables, and load management…

14. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance if he will introduce a wealth tax in budget 2027; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48192/26]

Eleven Irish billionaires now own more than wealth than two thirds of the population. Half of the population owns less than 10% of the total wealth. It is time for a wealth tax. A wealth tax on the richest 1% could raise €9 billion. At a time when so many people are suffering in one of the richest countries in the world, is it not time to introduce one?

We heard this week from Barnardos that, in Ireland, one of the richest countries in the world, 30% of parents say they do not have enough food to feed their children. A total of 44% of parents - almost one in two parents - said they have to cut back themselves so that their kids have enough to eat. That is at one side of the pole of Irish capitalism. On the other side is the 11 billionaires who ar…