Pearse Doherty

Seacht mí ó shin, cuireadh Rialtas an Aire ar an eolas go raibh Airí, daoine atá íoctha suas le €200,000, i bhfad níos mó ná gnáthoibrithe na tíre seo, tar éis an iomarca pá a fháil. Seacht mí ar aghaidh, tá a fhios againn anois go bhfuil deichniúr Aire sa Rialtas seo nach bhfuil tar éis pingin rua den airgead sin a thabhairt ar ais. Ba chóir dúinn a bheith ionraic faoi cad go díreach atá i gceist…

Give the Minister a wee clap there because he defended some of you anyway. God knows, it may be the people beside you who owe the tens of thousands of euro, money that is still resting in their accounts no doubt.

Let me make the point. Maybe the Members heckling have the most to answer for in relation to this. The core issue is that Ministers were overpaid tens of thousands of euro. Some Ministers paid that money back. In fairness to the Minister, Deputy Jack Chambers, he called on all the Ministers to pay it back. The Minister, Deputy Burke, did not even have the audacity or cop-on to do that. This money …

-----owed €20,000 or €30,000 to the public purse and has been refusing to do it over the last seven months.

I ask the Minister to do the decent thing and-----

-----call on the ten Ministers and his former colleagues, the 17 ex-Ministers, to immediately engage in a repayment plan to pay that money back without delay. It is now seven months on. Nobody else gets that latitude.

These Ministers think they are above the rules and it is not acceptable.

When? Will it be next year?

I want to return to the issue of the fact that ten ministers have not paid back money owed to the public funds, in some cases tens of thousands of euro, seven months after it was requested. When I questioned Deputy Chambers, who is the Minister responsible for the NSSO, the body which will deal with these repayments, he said he is not privy to the interactions between Ministers and the NSSO and th…

Where did you get the information on the ten?

Who told you?

How do you know what the other ten are doing?

Jack Chambers said they have not paid it back and they should pay it back.

Do you know who the ten are? How many of them are Fine Gael Ministers?

This motion speaks of failings that are all too well known affecting communities in Donegal and other places. There has been a failure of the Government and Uisce Éireann to deliver basic infrastructure, including in parts of my own constituency in Donegal. In one community, 40 houses have no running water. There are people who rely on wells as a source of water this year. That is a disgrace in 20…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an ambasadóir chuig Tithe an Oireachtais. Cuirim fáilte roimh na páistí chuig Tithe an Oireachtais fosta. As we approach the last Leaders' Questions, I want to wish you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, and all the staff of the House a happy Christmas. Nollaig shona daoibh agus athbhliain faoi mhaise. Hopefully, everyone will have a peaceful new year, and we will see each other back h…

You hoodwinked the electorate by claiming bogusly and falsely that you were building 40,000 houses last year. You did not do it. The ESRI says you will not even it this year. It also says in its report today you are not even going to do it next year. That is why so many people are losing hope. The ESRI made it very clear that your budget has left families worse off. That is fact.

Is there in black and in white. I can read it to you if you want.

You can shake your head all you want. It is the lived experience of people. They know it, Simon. They know what you have done. You are the man who stood up a year and a half ago and said he would fix housing for once and for all. Do you know what has happened in the past year? There has been a €31,000 price increase on a standard house across this State. Never since Fianna Fáil crashed the economy…

Those are the facts.

House prices are through the roof.

Will the Tánaiste acknowledge house prices are through the roof?

I will take the Deputy's money on that one. He is not going to get a clear answer.

The Taoiseach would want to tell his MEP. She was cheering it on television recently.

The outcome of the recent EU Fisheries Council has landed a devastating blow on Irish fishing families in coastal communities. It is an affront to Ireland's sovereignty over its national resources. Irish fishermen now face catastrophic losses. Jobs are at risk in my own county and elsewhere. Local economies are going to be stripped of hundreds of millions of euro and families who have worked the s…