Richard Boyd Barrett

I am talking about rehousing people when they are in those conditions.

The Government should impose minimum standards.

Classical economists Karl Marx and David Ricardo, on different sides of the political spectrum, agreed that all wealth is derived from labour. One of our biggest problems is skills shortages in every sector of our economy, whether it is construction, the health service, education or retail. The reason is increasing numbers in their tens of thousands of young people are bailing out of the country b…

Society is not a football game. Perhaps the Taoiseach thinks it is. We need our housing to be affordable for young people and to remove financial barriers to education that drive many of our young people out.

I am happy to support this motion for Ireland to opt in to the negotiating mandate on the EU-UK youth experience scheme. It is worth noting that the consequences of the anti-immigrant sentiment that drove the right wing campaign in the UK against the EU are now becoming apparent. It should be a salutary warning to people who want to go down the road of anti-immigration that it comes back to bite y…

Not agreed.

The Government is planning to further expand the gravy train of ministerial jobs and allowances and it is doing it with a guillotine to suppress proper debate and discussion of the expanded gravy train it is planning. This is completely unacceptable. There should not be a guillotine. Additionally, we have had very alarming pronouncements made by the Taoiseach that he is planning to, effectively, h…

We have still not had a discussion on the Housing Commission report that we have been asking for a debate on since it was published seven or eight months ago.

As was requested at the Business Committee, we are looking for a discussion on the housing crisis and the announcements the Government is making and an opportunity to question the new Minister about the Government's crazy housing proposals.

We want to question the Minister.

The Minister is new in the job at the Department and I ask him to intervene on behalf of lecturers in the British and Irish Modern Music, BIMM, institute. Four of those lecturers are here in the Public Gallery. They were all on the picket lines earlier. I was with them today on Thomas Street. They have been forced to take strike action and mount protests because of absolutely shameful treatment by…

TUD is publicly funded. Some 80% of the students at BIMM are on courses provided by TUD. It gives €3 million in direct funding to BIMM and the SUSI grants and other moneys the students receive go to BIMM. It is public money. The Minister does have responsibility. He cannot wash his hands of this. Given his responsibility for higher education, the Minister has an interest in ensuring that every sin…

It is a TUD course.

The Minister could crack the whip with TUD as well.

Thankfully, much of Dublin escaped the worst ravages of Storm Éowyn but I know that, across the country, tens of thousands of people suffered extreme hardship as a result of water and power outages. The lack of resilience of our key infrastructure in those areas of water and power exposed extreme vulnerabilities in our ability to respond to emergency situations. Some, including some in this House,…

He was their chief negotiator.

Since I met them during the general election campaign I have been advocating on behalf of four families, three with young children and infants, who are living in council maisonettes in my area in Sallynoggin. They are living in absolutely deplorable conditions. There is rodent infestation, black mould and damp running down the walls. One of the tenants told me this morning that there was ice insid…

Lies, lies, lies. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael won the election based on a pack of lies about some of the most serious issues facing the country, whether that is housing, the crisis in the health service, looking after the disabled and those who need care-----

-----and the issue of Palestine.

I know what you are going to say; we will call it misleading, then.

They deliberately misled the public about the reasons for the housing crisis and not just about the numbers or targets. They misled the public by saying 40,000 were built when only 30,000 were built. They also misled the public as to why, after more than a decade, they have not solved the housing crisis. The reason is that they are dancing to the tune of people who are making money from it. That i…

The Israeli state project is a racist, apartheid project.

I am not an antisemite.

We are objecting to the Order of Business. The Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and so-called Independents gravy train has arrived, in the form of the Ministers and Secretaries and Ministerial, Parliamentary, Judicial and Court Offices (Amendment) Bill 2025, to give more jobs, allowances and Ministries to spread out the spoils of an election. It is really blatant and outrageous and the Government is not eve…

But you do not want a debate.