Ruth Coppinger

There were loads of statistics to that effect. I spoke in the debate at the time.

If Deputy Doherty does not mind, his party has loads of TDs and I am sure they will all-----

What I am saying is true.

These statistics were provided by the Red Cross. I debated this with Sinn Féin's housing spokesperson on RTÉ radio. There is an implication that refugees are affecting the housing market. That has been said lots of times. It has been said about Donegal. They are not. Sinn Féin needs to point out the source of the housing crisis. It is Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael handing things over to vulture funds.…

I did not know I would be the next speaker. I thought there were others. Sinn Féin is advocating introducing a limit per day per asylum seeker. Does Deputy Carthy have any idea how much that would be? It could not be changed for 12 months. That is my reading of the amendment. There is profiteering in a lot of fields. Should we introduce the same amendment in terms of homeless accommodation for Iri…

To clarify, obviously, I would love us to continue talking on this Bill for as long as possible. My comment was in the context that we had a guillotined Bill. I have spoken in many debates before where we judiciously picked and chose what we were going to try to be allowed to reach in the context of a guillotined Bill. It was just a bit of a silly comment. We have an hour and a half left and I jus…

Can we formally take it as read?

19. Deputy Ruth Coppinger asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his attendance at the 44th British-Irish Council summit in Wales. [10446/26]

On the question of the UK and Ireland, Prince Andrew - I will still call him Prince Andrew in order to not dissociate him from the royal family - and the former UK ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, have been questioned or arrested in relation to the widespread international abusive behaviour linked with Jeffrey Epstein against children and young women or complicity in same. The Prime Minister…

-----someone who is clearly a paedophile and who has engaged in all sorts of other abusive behaviour he participated in? He is clearly a paedophile.

Children.

Not young women.

Does the Tánaiste agree that there is a time to take a stand on sport and that the Ireland versus Israel soccer fixture is exactly that time? We should have a boycott supported by the State and the entire population. We should not be complicit in normalising a team that is integrally connected to a genocide, racism against Palestinians and the oppression of the Palestinian people. Ireland has bee…

If we boycott this game, it could lead to a domino effect where other teams would also boycott.

It is not just about being a sacrificial lamb. Russia was not kicked out of FIFA because FIFA had a moral backbone; it was because a number of teams refused to play. We could be giving a lead. By the way, this is not the World Cup, as the Tánaiste well knows. It is an inconsequential tournament.

It is not the World Cup play-offs or anything like that. I want to send solidarity to Joanna Byrne, the first woman chairperson of the League of Ireland. She has been asked to resign because Drogheda United, which happens to be owned by a US multinational, does not agree with her stance that this match should not go ahead. Last year at an AGM, 93% of FAI elected representatives took a decision ab…

Compared with a genocide, it is.

We should mark in the Dáil that we are talking about minors and children being detained in prison. Every day I wake up and put on social media and my jaw drops to the floor at the stuff that is happening in the world, especially in the US with ICE and so on, but there are things in this Bill we should mark as being in exactly the same trend. One of them is for the first time explicitly allowing th…

I would like to hear some examples of what the best interests might be because I struggle to see an example of when it would be in the best interests of a child to be detained. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has said that children should never be detained because of their or their parents' migration status. We all know it is not a good idea to put children in prison or detention. The…

It is for 12 hours.

On this practical application of the best interests of children, I agree with the definitions. The child's developmental needs and vulnerability are some of the items that are listed in this amendment. I want to give the Minister an example, and this needs to be carried through to how we treat people in IPAS accommodation, not just those applying for accommodation. I have been contacted by IPAS re…

I will not go on about this but I want to clarify something for the Dáil record. By raising a case, I am not asking the Minister to break any rule. The IPAS residents I mentioned are being transferred to another place. It is not breaking a rule for them not to transfer to that place. They could transfer to another place. We already have a rule that children's developmental and health needs, etc., …

I am indicating to speak.

I want to speak on the general Bill and the reason I tabled an amendment.

I welcome the Bill in that it seeks to transpose a worker's rights into law. It is something that will assist workers and we can support it. It was, however, an opportunity to go much further. The fact that this right was not transposed into law in the first place speaks volumes about the priority that successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments have given to workers facing insolvency. A cour…