Peadar Tóibín

It is business as usual.

Fourteen-year-old Noah Donohoe went missing for six days in 2020 and was found dead in a storm drain in Belfast, yet there is still no clarity about what happened to him. His mother, Fiona, continues to valiantly fight for justice. Three years ago, thousands of people took to the streets to protest against a public interest immunity certificate which redacted enormous amounts of information. The P…

I move: That Dáil Éireann: recognises that: — Ireland is the most exposed country in the European Union (EU) to a United States (US) tariffs war, and while a reprieve has been given to the pharma sector, the landing zone on tariffs is still not known; — a full-scale tariff war will affect Ireland disproportionately, and while Ireland exported €223.8 billion of goods and services last year, one…

The Minister of State is corrupting what I have said.

I said that FDI was good and I welcome it.

That is what I said.

The Minister of State's peak argument is not what I said.

With unfair regulations.

We are criticising the Government's policies and not the outcomes.

It is incredible.

No, we are not. We referred to it in terms of transitional policy. The Minister of State has got to tell the truth.

We have the sums.

No wonder people do not believe you.

There is a weakness in your argument when you have to tell untruths.

I will say it slowly in my closing speech so you will understand it better.

We are not-----

FDI is good and it should be attracted and nurtured. The Government is trying to critique Aontú's criticism of its policy and twist it in a fashion to say that we are in someway criticising FDI.

We are not; we are criticising the Government's overexposure to FDI-----

-----and its inability to create a balanced economy-----

-----in which it makes sure indigenous enterprise is also thriving. That is a big problem. The Government has massively exposed Ireland by not developing indigenous enterprise in recent years. It has created a weakness in the Irish sector. I will give an example if the Minister of State and the Minister will stop shaking their heads for two seconds. Ten CFOs control 40% of the corporation tax comi…

Ten individuals control 40% of the corporation tax coming into this country. Corporation tax is the second biggest tax in the State. It makes up 27% of the tax receipts. That is a massive exposure. It is a very narrow tax base. It means that if decisions are made by those ten individuals, it creates a big hole in our budget.

That is the first thing. The second issue is that we obviously need to develop FDI but we also need to develop indigenous enterprise and the way to do that is to make sure first of all that input costs are low. Input costs in this country are massively high. They are threatening indigenous and FDI business at a big rate. The other issue is that there are, or should be ,other competitive advantages…

Aontú is completely opposed to water charges. I was proud to be the chair of the Meath Right2Water campaign that fought alongside men and women across the country to protect families from the worst excesses of water charges ten years ago. It is incredible that the Government is considering revisiting water charges. The Fine Gael and Labour Party Government that previously tried to introduce water …

Obviously, this is bad news for Ireland - there is no doubt about that. While the pharma sector seems to have been given a reprieve for the moment, which is a blessing, the secondary effect of tariffs internationally will be a dampening effect on the world economy. We are a small, open economy and will be very sensitive to that. That will have a significant effect on our tax take - both on corpora…

93. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform the total overruns in public infrastructural projects in each of the past five years. [15639/25]