Richard Boyd Barrett

Then have a referendum about it.

The Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, lauded the European Union as being a place of values. He talked about its commitment to international law and to the rule of law and was somewhat aghast that people suggested Europe was guilty of a move towards militarisation. I put it to the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, that if he was to characterise the major value of the European Union currentl…

I thank the Labour Party for the motion and for suggesting that we should have a mini-budget to address the cost-of-living crisis. We agree with quite a number of the measures and some were in our alternative budget. It is a fact that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. While a cost-of-living crisis is going on for working people in this country, where half a million peopl…

On May Day - International Workers' Day of all days - this Government betrayed hundreds of thousands of pensioners in this country and sabotaged the democracy of this House by refusing to issue the money message for the retired workers Bill, which had passed Second Stage and pre-legislative scrutiny and would give pensioners the right to have a say over the fact that their pensions were slashed an…

It is a disgrace. Those pensioners are furious. They are very angry. Will the Government at least explain to this House why it has done this to our pensioners?

The idea that we should quantify the compensation for the damage done by Putin's brutal and illegal war against Ukraine and that the bill should be sent to Putin and the Russian regime is absolutely right and proper. It is an imperialist war being waged by Putin and has been from the outset. It is criminal and without justification. As well as the immense human damage done - probably in excess of …

People power works. That is the lesson of the protests. When people get out and protest, and organise and mobilise, they can force a Government that is failing them to make concessions. Trump's war means every single working person in the world is paying an economic price for Trump's blood lust, his imperialism and his support for the Israeli regime. We are all paying now. People who supported Tru…

Every week, month and year, working people who have been waiting on social housing lists for years are being thrown off those lists because they get a pay rise or an increment or, as was the case for one civil servant I spoke to this week, are awarded family income supplement. They lose their years on the housing waiting list as a result. They do not have enough income for cost rental. They cannot…

Some 700 workers at Covalen, a major contractor for Meta, that incidentally made €26 million in profits last year, have been told their jobs are gone. This is on top of 300 jobs before that. They cannot work for six months because of what Meta requires, and the vast majority of them are getting no redundancy. They are looking to meet the Taoiseach and the senior Minister. We need to discuss their …

1. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his attendance at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. [6014/26]

Even the multimillionaires are now saying that the inequality in wealth is obscene and that the rich need to be taxed. At the time of Davos, hundreds of multimillionaires, and even one or two billionaires, released an open letter to the Davos delegates saying there should be wealth taxes imposed on them. The inequality in wealth is staggering. The 11 billionaires we have in this country, a number …

The Taoiseach should see their profits

Look at their profits.

I talked about Kilmainham today.

23. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the Cabinet offshore wind energy clearing house. [29036/26]

It is an absolute disgrace that many of the benefits of offshore wind will be given away to private for-profit companies, most of which are from other countries. Another problem that flows from the policy the Government has pursued in this area is the displacement of fishers. I received correspondence today from fishers in Dublin Bay who have had an injunction taken out against them by EirGrid, wh…

It is even against EU law to displace one industry with another.

The Taoiseach should get on to EirGrid and tell it to leave the fishers in Dublin Bay alone.

I thank Sinn Féin for this important motion. I obviously agree with all of the points put forward about collective bargaining rights, providing unions access to the workplace, bringing the minimum wage in line with the living wage and the issue of workers' right to remote working. I want to give a shout out to a few specific groups of workers. The first is the Oireachtas TV workers. They tell me …

153. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment if he will introduce legislation to raise the minimum wage for workers under the age of 20 and for apprentices in their first two years so that they will be at parity with other workers. [30429/26]

There is a film called "No Country for Old Men". This is no country for young people because the Minister discriminates against them in their entitlement to the minimum wage. People aged under 20 get paid either 90% of the minimum wage, 80% of it or sometimes as low as 70%. Apprentices, who we need a lot more of to help us to build the houses we need in this country, also earn less than the minimu…

Okay. The Minister seems a bit more sympathetic on the apprentices, but will he do something about it? The higher education committee recommended it in a report. It is ridiculous. We desperately need qualified apprentices in the trades in particular but also in many areas of the economy. For first- and second-year apprentices to be paid either €7.67 in their first year or €11.50 in their second ye…

Daniel Tatlow-Devally has been in prison in Ulm in Germany since September. He is incarcerated for 23 hours a day, effectively in solitary confinement, in pretty shocking conditions in prison. He was not allowed to hug his family until there was intervention by myself and other TDs with the German ambassador several months into Daniel's incarceration. He was not allowed to get books of his own cho…

The Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, is not the senior minister and he is just reading off the script, which is a bit frustrating given that there is somebody facing very serious charges in a court in Germany and is being treated in an absolutely disgraceful way for protesting against genocide. This is about genocide. Ireland and Germany and 153 other countries are signatories to the Genocide Co…

They are not. I am telling you they are not.