Sinéad Gibney

13. Deputy Sinéad Gibney asked the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment his Department’s position on the provisions currently contained in the Corporate Sustainability and Due Diligence Directive which may be subject to alteration or removal as part of the EU Omnibus package relating to the risk-based approach to due diligence, harmonised civil liability regime, the requirement to put i…

I thank the Minister for his answer. I am glad to hear there are some elements still supported by the Government, but by removing the risk-based assessment for suppliers we are not identifying where the problems are. We cannot guarantee, then, that our clothes, food and phones are not made using slave labour or in factories like those at Rana Plaza in Bangladesh, whose collapse killed more than 1,…

The corporate sustainability and due diligence directive came about after years of collective work, consultation and engagement. My concern and that of the Social Democrats is that the Omnibus proposals are really being rammed through without any consideration at the same level. Is the Minister in favour of all the measures cited in my question, particularly the risk-based assessment? Does he supp…

I welcome the opportunity to speak to today's legislation. While I welcome the Bill, I will speak to some of the broader issues it touches on and deals with and some of the issues that come before us today. They fall into the categories of fair remuneration for fair work, first and foremost, and some of the lessons we should be able to learn around the transposition of the legislation and the erro…

Under Standing Order 35(3), I wish to move an amendment to the Order of Business. Grocery prices are currently out of control and are continuing to soar. Compared to 2021, families are now spending about €3,000 more in the supermarket. Along with all the other increases we are seeing in the prices of energy, rent and houses, this is having a devastating impact on families who are having to choose …

While certain aspects of this Bill are welcome, such as the exemption adjustments and consideration for homes with defective blocks, it fundamentally fails to address some of the issues at the core of our local property tax system. These are issues that have long been raised by the Social Democrats. Our cofounder, Catherine Murphy, highlighted these issues from the outset. We would like to welcome…

2. Deputy Sinéad Gibney asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence the human rights monitoring mechanism, if any, planned for missions without a UN mandate in light of the proposed removal of the triple lock, given the potential lack human rights monitoring at UN level in missions without a UN mandate; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31235/25]

We have discussed the issues pertaining to the abolition of the triple lock many times. I am reading the draft Bill which seeks to do this. I am struck by the apparent lack of human rights monitoring mechanisms which could be included as safeguards for deployment, given the removal of the human rights monitoring at UN level. What human rights monitoring, if any, is envisaged to ensure missions in …

The Tánaiste mentioned hypocrisy around calling for humanitarian naval action in Gaza----

----which of course is not covered by the triple lock anyway. The Tánaiste mentioned the triple lock not being the norm in other neutral countries, and once again I say that they have not had the same journey to neutrality that we have had. They did not have the same engagement with the Nice and Lisbon treaties which required us to enshrine the triple lock for that purpose. I will go back to the …

I thank the Tánaiste. On the dysfunctionality he has described in the UN, this is exactly the time for us to recommit to our engagement with the UN, to help resolve the difficulties we are experiencing at Security Council level. As we have been at pains to point out throughout this debate, and will continue to highlight, the triple lock can be satisfied by the UN General Assembly. I had answers fr…

Growing old is a privilege, one which, it is to be hoped, many of us in the Chamber will be able to enjoy. In Ireland we have a lot to do in order to deal with our attitudes toward ageing and the way we treasure and nurture our older population. We should not infantalise them, as we did during Covid. When it comes to this issue around care, we need to offer choice. The reality is that we are all l…

As did my colleague Deputy Gannon, I want to address the reaction to my use yesterday in the Chamber of the word "complicit". The Taoiseach had a very strong reaction to it. I want to be clear about why I use this word. Maybe a better word to describe the Central Bank and its role is "involvement". Perhaps this would make it easier for people to understand it. The Central Bank is involved in the s…

We still have six minutes left.

As Deputy Gannon outlined, the Social Democrats will not be supporting the motion. I will outline three clear reasons that is the case. First, it is demonstrative of virtue signalling and performative cruelty, which has not crept into our system but has been recently exposed as being in our system. Second, it is a solution without a problem. I will outline some of the problems we could be directin…

It is the manner of communication around it.

The press release.

Fifty-four thousand people have now been killed in Palestine. Eighteen people were shot today while waiting for food and another eight were killed in a bomb explosion in central Gaza. These are bombs and bullets that are partially funded by the sale of Israeli bonds. Two weeks ago, the Government was offered the opportunity to adopt legislation which would enable the Minister for Finance to cease …

Will there be a free vote?

The Government strategy through the course of the housing crisis has essentially been to increase developer investment - in a nutshell - and it has failed catastrophically. The Government now seeks to double down by creating a system that will result in the removal of the 2% rent pressure cap nationally for new builds. The whole point of building more houses is to drive rents down, not up. This pr…

At a meeting of the Oireachtas media committee yesterday, RTÉ executives revealed yet more wasted spending at the State broadcaster. An IT project, specifically a channel management system, went over budget by nearly €1 million. This comes just weeks after we learned, for the first time, about a €3.6 million writedown for another botched IT project. That is nearly €5 million either overspent or wa…

We in the Social Democrats are proud to cosign this motion, and we thank the Labour Party for tabling it. It is when international law is under attack that we need to use these mechanisms most. Day after day since this genocide began, we have watched atrocity after atrocity. It is difficult not to despair seeing the international system frozen in its tracks. This motion is about using the UN Gene…

I thank the library and research service for the paper it prepared on this Bill. It was very helpful to me in preparing my contribution for today, as I am sure it was for many of us. Déanann sí scoth na hoibre chun a chinntiú go bhfuilimid mar reachtóirí in ann ár gcuid oibre a dhéanamh, agus molaim í as ucht a cuid iarrachtaí. Ar dtús, ba mhaith liom leagan amach céard ar mhaith liom díriú air …

On his way to Cabinet today, the Tánaiste said that people wanted more than fine words on Gaza and that they wanted action. I could not agree more, which is why I cannot understand why it has taken until today for the Tánaiste to bring to Cabinet legislation to ban trade with the occupied territories. We are now nearly six months into this Government's term. Does that represent urgency or strong a…

There is enough.