Ged Nash

I am ill-prepared. I have an amendment to move but I assume it will be taken at a later point.

I move amendment No. 1: In paragraph (1), to delete "31 October 2025" and substitute "31 December 2025". I thank the Minister of State for introducing this measure. We in the Labour Party anticipated last October that we might be in this position at this point in time. The Minister of State was not in her current role then but she may recall that on budget night, when the financial resolution wa…

That is fair enough. I thank the Ceann Comhairle.

What I said earlier.

Yes. Hear, hear.

Excessive executive control.

Self-serving offices.

It is not the same executive control as here.

You could not wait to do a deal with them as the quickest route to office.

Given the strokes you have pulled, we are glad we did not.

Do not patronise the Labour Party.

The Taoiseach has lost the run of himself. He is making it worse.

The Taoiseach is losing the run of himself.

Clean up their mess.

Two wrongs.

It is about a deal with Michael Lowry.

Hear, hear.

Why is it being proposed in the first place?

It is a sad day.

Want to try again?

It is Stockholm syndrome.

In preparing for today's motion, I could not get away from the thought that if tens of thousands of children were working in any other industry in this country unpaid, unrecognised, unsupported and unprotected by the State, it would be an absolute national scandal. Yet, day after day, this is happening in homes the length and breadth of the country where young people are, as my colleagues have sai…

I, too, thank the Independent Group-----

-----for tabling this motion. It is not appropriate that we merely have discussions on Government expenditure occasionally when an Opposition group tables a motion. This matter must concern us all the time if we as a Parliament are doing our job responsibly and effectively. There is no need for me to rehearse the various overspends on OPW and other projects that have been interrogated to death in…

That is just the preliminaries.