Paul Nicholas Gogarty

I send my best wishes to Senan Molony on his retirement. Here we are with another bandage to help hard-pressed citizens deal with rising energy costs arising from circumstances beyond their control. I am also happy to stick it on while also sticking it to Donald Trump but we really need to look at the bigger picture. The Tánaiste referred to our dependence on imported fossil fuels. As the late gre…

I have been listening to this debate in my office since Deputy Currie started her contribution. I always follow these debates on Irish unity with interest as someone who wants to see a united Ireland by consent. I note that this discussion is focusing on the fiscal elements required to help make it a reality, but these considerations can never be looked at in isolation. During my brief contributio…

My constituency and others have seen a huge number of childcare providers leaving the core funding scheme because of the fee freeze, which is kind of a financial straitjacket, with staffing taking up 7% and a lot of huge costs. Meanwhile, the newer ones are able to set much higher fee baselines, although in areas like the Adamstown strategic development zone, SDZ, the rents are so high that we do …

Yes, the older ones are leaving because they cannot afford it whereas the newer ones find it easier.

We took in the Ukrainians as part of a Europe-wide collective effort. We might have been perceived as being more generous than some countries precisely because of our military neutrality. We are not giving weapons to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia, so we did have to go above and beyond. I think that is only right and fair. A lot of the Ukrainians who have come here have settled. Some of …

Yesterday I thanked the Minister for using the Seanad route to get this legislation through so it could be passed before the summer recess. That confirms the Minister's own acknowledgement of the urgency of getting this legislation passed. There is a balance between the urgency of getting something passed, but also the urgency of getting something passed that is going to impact as well as it coul…

It is my firm belief now that we are lax on crime and lax on the causes of crime. A year ago this month before the recess, I raised the issue of my constituents being attacked willy-nilly by under-18s with no apparent consequences. I am talking about lads going around on scooters, intimidating people, bottles being thrown, stones being thrown, young lads and girls being beaten up. I raised it agai…

I have given credit where it is due before with Government initiatives, and the body-worn cameras is one positive response. However, even with the addition of gardaí, the numbers per head of population are still at 2008 levels. People want an Operation Irene all year round, where they have that visible Garda deterrence but they are not actually seeing it. The juvenile resources work; there are man…

I, too, welcome this belated apology after the final report of the investigation. I pay tribute to the survivors, whose immense personal bravery and persistence finally forced the truth out. It sounds like a platitude because successive Governments and we as a society have treated people with contempt. People were dealing with their own trauma and suffering. Complaints were made in the mid-to-late…

Like others, I have called for this Bill, Jennie's law, and now welcome it. It came through the Seanad first in order to speed it up. I thank the Minister for doing that to get it through the process before the recess. It is a significant step forward in protecting victims of domestic abuse. For too long, the horrific realities of coercive control, assault, non-fatal strangulation, which others ha…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion, not only as a Teachta Dála but also as someone who trained and worked as a journalist for many years creating original output and as someone who has had stints as a singer-songwriter, writing and recording original works, and who hopes to do so again in the future. I do see genuine uses of AI as a tool to speed up your creative process and to gene…

I support the motion because there are thousands of parents, many now in their 70s and 80s, who are worried about what will happen when they can no longer care for their child with an intellectual disability. This fear is real because, as referenced previously with regard to the HSE, there is no centrally maintained list for residential services. I know the disability capacity review estimates tha…

The HSE has rejigged the way it operates regionally and locally, but we still have issues with the recruitment of public health nurses, particularly in the Lucan, Clondalkin, Newcastle, Ballyfermot and Palmerstown CHN areas. I have previously raised issues like the Dublin allowance, pay restoration and other measures, such as building houses specifically for staff. We are told the HSE will not div…

I have raised it before.

The Bill is another piece of omnibus legislation. It tidies up the 2024 Act and is designed to fast-track the judicial review changes, clarify and firm up the ten-year development plan timelines, look at the critical infrastructure and increase the Housing Finance Agency's borrowing capacity. There is a lot contained in the Bill, on one side, but nothing on the other, to be quite honest, because i…

Mar a déarfá, tús maith leath na hoibre. Even if it is only the start rather than half the work done, today's launch of the Presidency of the EU Council in Dublin Castle was, if Members can pardon the pun, a real "Ode to Joy" - from the band of the Defence Forces and the National Youth Choir who heralded the hanging of the Irish, EU and then the Ukrainian flags, to all the other performers, it was…

I thank Deputy Charles Ward for tabling this latest motion on behalf of families who are living in defective homes and who have waited years for help. They have got some assistance but not anything near what is needed. As I have said previously, the Deputy is meeting his mandate 1 million times over and I am happy to support him. This motion is important for families on the western and north-west…

Each week, thousands of mothers face the worry of not knowing when court-ordered child maintenance payments are going to arrive, or if they will arrive at all. Their ex-partners can drive their flashy cars, go on loads of holidays, sometimes gamble the money away and often live extravagant lifestyles while the women are forced to take out multiple loans just to pay the mortgage, buy food and pay f…

I will not use all the time. This is a mixed bag because we want to protect the citizens of this State from the wrong kind of people but, equally, we want to allow those who are not happy with the State to protest in a meaningful way without being lumped in with them. I support the motion if it is taken in isolation, in the absence of the real reform that others have been calling for, but I want t…

I am not the first to say it, but more than 11,000 children are on HSE dental and orthodontist waiting lists. Over 8,000 have been waiting more than a year. Half of all primary school children now finish school without ever receiving even a screening appointment. In some areas, the waiting time is four and a half years. This is not acceptable. In CHO 7, which covers Lucan, Palmerstown, Clondalkin,…

In its countermotion the Government mentions that tit is close to meeting the first carbon budget, according to EPA projections. There are several issues raised, including that any emissions that exceed this budget have to be deducted from the second budget. There is also the fact that, as others have mentioned, the five-year budget will not be anywhere near being reached. It will be exceeded in a…

Like previous speakers, I do not like the short notice given for this debate but I otherwise broadly welcome the Government motion on Ireland opting in to the proposed EU directive on combating firearms trafficking under Protocol 21. It makes sense because it aligns us with newer EU-wide rules on tracing, information and data sharing and penalties. The directive is focused on tackling the illegal …

This month's Irish Business Against Litter survey found an increase in the number of cigarette butts around our community. Cigarette butts cause damage to the environment in a number of ways. They are microplastics. They leach into the water system. It has been estimated that one butt can contaminate 1,000 litres of water, yet throughout the country, local authorities are doing nothing in their pl…

When I was told that I had 90 seconds to talk about tourism, my first thought was "Aw fliuch", because tá sé ag cur baistí i gconaí an t-am ar fad, so we have to make use of the fliuch or the wetness in Ireland. One of the ways to do it would be to promote Ireland as a more climate-friendly destination to people from the likes of Spain and the south of France. They could come here, get a little bi…

I understand he may not be able to turn up. I will speak as long as I am able. Like everyone here, we are appalled at the Israeli state’s absolute dismantling of the West Bank over the years, whether it is allowing settlers to de facto annex parts of it in their own right or whether it is the state policy of dividing it up so as to make the West Bank no longer viable. This has been going on for d…