Gary Gannon

I listened to the previous Government speaker who repeated something said yesterday. It is almost as if you cannot talk about regulation if you have a social media account. What a banal and boring analysis of the situation.

It is the equivalent of saying you are not allowed talk about banking regulation if you have a bank account. The only person I remember in the Chamber who could meet that standard was the former leader of Fianna Fáil. What a weird analogy. For years we were sold the dream that automation and AI would free people from drudgery, allowing society to prosper and with fewer working hours and more leis…

The Taoiseach is presiding over a Government that seems to see crime as something to be responded to only after the fact. I read the programme for Government once again earlier, I heard the Taoiseach's statements and I listened to the Minister for Justice on the radio over the weekend. There does not seem to be any co-ordinated strategy for a violence reduction approach. I hear the Taoiseach talk…

Where is the strategy, then?

I support this motion and I will continue to do so as it progresses through the Dáil because it is about giving young people back the opportunities that they lost after Brexit. Regardless of what the scheme is called, whether it is the UK-EU youth experience or otherwise, it actually enables the British Labour Party to find its courage and recognise swiftly and loudly that Brexit has been an unmit…

Yesterday I listened again as the Minister for Justice became a commentator-in-chief and stated that parts of Dublin are unsafe. How long do those parts of Dublin have to remain unsafe? What exactly does the Government intend to do to increase not only perceptions of safety in our city but also actual safety? Last year we saw the first increase in Garda numbers since 2020. The increase in question…

When I consider the programme for Government we are now asked to speak about, the image that comes to mind is from the plinth in the early stages of the Dáil when a number of members of the Government, who are now established as members of the Government, stood there and said they would support this Government through the good times and the bad. That phrase has been reiterated in different context…

In November of last year, a mere three months ago, I sat with the Taoiseach in a committee room for a meeting of the foreign affairs committee and he assured all those present and, more importantly, the public watching at home that one of the first acts of this new Dáil would be the enactment of the occupied territories Bill. It is now very clear that this is not his intention. This morning, we wo…

Are you?

That is without question.

I do not take ethnic cleansing lightly.

That is the-----

Earlier today during Questions on Promised Legislation, I took the unusual step of actually asking about legislation that was promised. It was promised by the Taoiseach, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Micheál Martin, last November, when he told members of the Oireachtas foreign affairs committee that it would be a first priority of a new government to enact the occupied territories Bill…

I am not sure which absurdity to oppose first but I will start with the Government allowing itself another two weeks to avoid Dáil scrutiny, not answer questions and not be held to account in the traditional manner of this Parliament. The public will simply not stand for it. It is ludicrous and was opposed in the Business Committee. We need to demonstrate a little bit of leadership here. We all k…