Paul Murphy

Answer with facts then.

Then why will the Minister not change the law? If he does not want to be complicit in genocide, then why does he not change the law?

The Minister never answered the question.

It has been almost two years since the publication of Dr. Shannon's report on sex abuse of children at St. John Ambulance. The report makes for harrowing reading. The report found that a culture had facilitated the potential grooming of children and that the organisation had failed to intervene, despite knowing that the boys were at risk of abuse. It concluded that the organisation had failed to a…

People Before Profit strongly support this motion. We thank Deputy Healy, not only for bringing forward this motion today but for years of pushing the necessity of legally recognising the housing emergency as an emergency and the necessity for radical action. The motion contains the kind of emergency measures that the Government should have been implementing ten years ago. I was first elected in …

Workers' rights. Environmental legislation.

Two weeks ago, I raised the crisis facing Sacred Heart Junior National School in Killinarden with the Taoiseach. It was forced to write to the Department of Education saying it would close its doors because it could not pay the bills. It first flagged a shortfall of €26,000 last October. The crisis worsened. The school was in touch with the Department repeatedly but no extra funding was forthcomin…

It is quite incredible that the Taoiseach is blaming a school, which was put in a position by his Government and by the Department of Education, for being in a situation such that the management felt there was no alternative but to say the school will close its doors. It is incredible. The Taoiseach is victim-blaming and gaslighting these principals across the country who likely do not want to be …

No, this is not our remedy.

13. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach the engagements he has had with the National Emergency Co-ordination Group in the days before, during and after storm Éowyn. [15509/25]

One of the things that Storm Éowyn exposed was the lack of resilience in our monocultural forestry model. Unfortunately, this is set to get worse due to Coillte's recent decision to silently scrap Coillte Nature, its not-for-profit wing that is supposed to be dedicated to the restoration, regeneration and rehabilitation of nature across Ireland. In Orwellian fashion, Coillte claims that scrapping …

17. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach how he intends to increase the coordination role of his Department in national security. [12377/25]

These mothers were protesting from Mother's Day. They were protesting in support of the Occupied Territories Bill, which the Taoiseach promised would be passed during the election. They were protesting to stop weapons going through Irish airspace, which continues and is increasing and which the Taoiseach has refused to do anything about. I hope he will support the arms embargo Bill coming up in th…

If the Taoiseach had kept his election promises, he would not be asked these questions.

Get on with it.

Is that how democracy works?

Is that all there is to democracy? Just majority rules? No minority rights whatsoever?

This is the Government's motion.

No, we are not. It is more like 70 minutes.

What we have heard from the Government benches is an incredibly narrow view of what democracy means. You could paraphrase the Chief Whip with "We won, you lost, we can do whatever we want.". I am sorry but that is not democracy. Where is the space in that for the rights of minorities? Where is the space in that for the rights of opposition?

The rules that protect those rights were deliberately, consciously and repeatedly broken by the Ceann Comhairle last week. It is her job to protect those rules and to ensure they are abided by but instead she broke them one after the other. There was the unprecedented situation of a vote being called on the Order of Business and no vote being granted. It was an incredible, unprecedented situation …

Why not?

No.

Why not?

Let us have a committee of selection right now.