Jennifer Whitmore

There are economic clouds on the horizon and there is a growing sense of worry about what the future holds. Coupled with that is a lot of frustration with the Government's moralising about this budget. Having splashed the cash in an attempt to buy votes last year, its message has suddenly changed. Now that an election is no longer on the cards, one-off payments are a bad idea. The Social Democrats…

We are doing a party solution.

In response to the Tánaiste's question, the Social Democrats would absolutely not have spent over €100 million on energy credits for holiday homes. We repeatedly said that. I do not know how anyone could justify that payment. The Tánaiste talks about Wicklow. I will tell him what people and families in Wicklow want. They want the same as families all over the country. They want to know their child…

There are 120 children in Wicklow town who do not have a primary school place for September.

Actually, you have not.

I want to again raise issues relating to special education supports for schools in Wicklow. I previously raised them in the context of Topical Issues and parliamentary questions and I wrote to the Minister of State directly on two occasions. Ashford national school has two special needs assistants, SNAs. One of them is fully allocated to one student. The schools' request for additional support was…

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend section 23 of the Wildlife Act, 1976 to include the Sprat Fish, Sprattus sprattus, in the Fifth Schedule of the Act; to prohibit the targeted fishing of sprat except where caught as bycatch; to provide for a moratorium on commercial sprat fishing until sufficient scientific data is available regarding sprat habitats, popul…

I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

That is rubbish.

The Government has achieved something no one previously thought possible when it comes to climate. Last year, our forests released more carbon than they stored. That is according to the Climate Change Advisory Council. The Government has turned our forests into carbon emitters. Its record is unbelievably bad. It is so bad that it is hard to fathom. The Government has no plan to remedy what is happ…

-----what his climate-sceptic Government will do to deal with this issue?

What is a bizarre assertion?

It is not my assertion; it is the assertion of the Climate Change Advisory Council. It is science.

Forestry is a carbon emitter.

The Taoiseach needs to get serious. He needs to listen to the science.

We are emitting carbon.

I welcome this Bill and acknowledge the fact that the Minister has progressed this very quickly in her position. My colleagues will go into more detail about the specifics of the Bill, but I will just use these few minutes to ask that when the Government is looking at this redress scheme it learns from previous redress schemes and the mistakes we have made in the past. Oftentimes our previous redr…

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing this motion forward and I welcome everyone in the Gallery. Here we go again. At what stage will we provide women with the support, healthcare, care and attention that they deserve? We are in a situation where we are failing a generation of women all over again. One in ten women suffer from endo. We are sending them overseas. We are ignoring their symptoms, their pai…

I raise a commitment and a promise that was made by the former Minister for Health to cancer groups across Wicklow last October. The former Minister promised funding for a number of cancer care groups, namely, Purple House Cancer Support, Arklow Cancer Support, Greystones Cancer Support, Wicklow Cancer Support, Rathdrum Cancer Support, Roundwood Cancer Support and West Wicklow Cancer Support. None…

I move: That Dáil Éireann: notes that: — households across the country are struggling to make ends meet as the cost of living soars; — more than 70 per cent of people in Ireland are either, "extremely" or "very" concerned about the cost of groceries, according to the recent PwC's Voice of the Consumer Survey 2025; — many families are now spending €3,000 more a year on groceries than they were…

Part of the privilege of being in government is that the Minister of State can intervene. She can change the law, empower regulators and force supermarkets to publish their profits. The big question the Minister of State needs to answer today is why the Government has done none of these things. Why is the Cabinet acting like bystanders, narrating a problem instead of doing anything? I implore the …

Here are the pure, basic facts. Grocery prices have gone up 36% since 2021. That is an additional €3,000 on an average family grocery shop. It is an incredible increase and it is putting huge pressure on families. Some 71% of Irish families say they are very concerned about food prices and we have seen that four in ten parents skip meals so their children can eat. That is a national statistic - fo…

I welcome our visitors to the Gallery. The European Commission has just raised the bar for Irish farmers when it comes to compliance with the nitrates directive. The intervention by Europe is welcome because successive Governments have failed to protect our river bodies.

Successive Governments have failed to protect our river bodies, lakes and estuaries. In the 1980s, there were 500 pristine river bodies in this country. We are now down to 20, so we can see the scale of the problem. The reality is the changes will be very difficult to farmers to comply with. I argue they will be near impossible. There is a responsibility on the Government to ensure that farmers ar…

A Cheann Comhairle-----