Ruth Coppinger

This is to give Sinn Féin something to say on a doorstep when somebody says something racist: "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we opposed that." That is all this is about. It is-----

I will sit down now but I would have liked to finish my point without being interrupted.

A task force on special education in Dublin 15 was set up in October 2024. Why, eight months after its final report was handed to the Minister, has it been buried and still not published? Dublin 15 is a fast-growing area with an acute crisis in school provision for children with additional needs. Three parents, all of whom have children with additional needs, gave up their time voluntarily to be p…

It is a bit ironic that we are now paying the price for a horrific imperialist adventure by Trump and Netanyahu, which the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach have never once condemned. The Taoiseach spent a whole day in Washington and managed not to say one thing about the attack on Iran. In relation to the emergency motion the Tánaiste is bringing through the Dáil, where is the emergency action for the …

80. Deputy Ruth Coppinger asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine for an update on the drafting of a new animal welfare strategy for 2026 to 2030; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21353/26]

I ask the Minister to make a statement on how the animal welfare strategy is progressing. I draw his attention to the fact that two countries, Wales and Scotland, have this week banned greyhound racing. Ireland is now going to be a complete and utter outlier. In banning it in Scotland, it will be an offence to set up a racetrack or for a dog owner to race a dog on one. The proponent of the motion …

I do not think the Minister should be pre-empting whether he will ban greyhound racing. I hope he will actually study the strategy and come out with a report from it. Are we not actually going backwards on animal rights in this country when Wales and Scotland, two countries we have close ties with and to which we are aligned culturally, are banning it while the Minister is doubling down on maintai…

It is just because of what happened this week.

They are facts.

My question was broad. I will happily talk about the treatment of wild animals, animals in captivity and farmed animals but I decided that two events happened in Wales and Scotland this week that were absolutely seminal and should make the Irish Government think as well. Part of the reason that the greyhound industry has been able to sustain itself is exporting greyhounds. That will now be less of…

I send solidarity to the workers in RTÉ, who have been balloting and speaking out against the outsourcing at the station and the effective gutting of RTÉ. I agree that the scandal of high wages, hidden accounts and ridiculous pay for a few presenters at RTÉ is being used to gut the public service station. I have loads of issues with RTÉ and will mention some of them but we do need public service b…

Exactly.

Not to the Oval Office.

Wow. I did not know that was our job.

He did not say that.

Unfortunately, International Women’s Day was not a day of celebration; it was a day of rage. There is rage that we have rising levels of misogyny, epidemic levels of gender-based violence and genocide and militarism increasing around the globe. In Dublin, thousands of people gathered for International Women’s Day. It was a very large turnout made up of survivors of sexual assault and women from Pa…

6. Deputy Ruth Coppinger asked the Minister for Health her views on whether gender-based violence should be ground for disqualification of a medical professional; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17502/26]

The question of gender-based violence and the medical profession arose last year when a doctor, Christopher Morris, who had been convicted of assaulting two women was appointed as a locum consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology in the Coombe Hospital. Staff contacted me about that. It has now come up again as the result of what has happened in UCD. Thousands marched yesterday in support of a medi…

Yesterday's protest was historic. Thousands of students reaffirmed our faith in the young generation. A key question that came up during that protest was whether UCD will do everything in its power to ensure this medical student can complete her medical degree within her original timeline or as close as possible to it rather than being forced to spend years longer in college because of the perpetr…

Unfortunately, just because women are in certain positions it does not mean all of these questions are dealt with properly. I will not personalise it or mention names but we would not be here if UCD's leadership and school of medicine had handled the situation correctly in the first place. There is a problematic culture there and I ask the Minister to be open to that. As late as yesterday, the dea…

It is on my Instagram.

You never care when it is an Irish man of course. Never once have you raised a case like that. Ever.

You only care if the perpetrator is a foreigner, you do not care otherwise. You do not care about women, stop pretending.

Using gender-based violence to be racist should be called out.

I am making a point.