Seamus Healy

I welcome this motion being brought forward by Sinn Féin. It is a timely motion due to the time of the year and the upcoming budget. It is important to continue to focus on the cost-of-living crisis, a crisis that is pushing more and more families towards poverty. I want to share with the Minister of State a very sad and disturbing story of a family in particular difficulty relating to energy cos…

The prevention of antisocial behaviour requires a wide range of social, economic and community actions. These include education, training, employment, income, social inclusion, community activities and policing. Garda policing is one of the most essential elements in tackling antisocial behaviour. For a start, we must be open, upfront and honest about the number of gardaí available to police our …

Disabled people are entitled to live life to the full. They must have an opportunity to take full part in society, education, healthcare, housing, employment, justice, transport, entertainment and so on. This strategy fails to outline an urgent concrete implementation plan, and such a plan is needed if Ireland is to comply with its obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of P…

The right to education is a fundamental right for all children. It is enshrined in our Constitution and in international conventions. Many children with additional needs are denied that right today. There are still children awaiting school places for the 2025-26 school year. That is absolutely shameful. There are a further 168 children with allocated school places who cannot take them up because t…

The local training initiatives, LTIs, run by Tipperary Education and Training Board, ETB, at Spafield family resource centre in Cashel, Knockanrawley centre in Tipperary town, the Cahir Development Association facility in Cahir and the Littleton community centre, have been abolished. This has an impact on the most vulnerable people in our society. This is unconscionable and wholly unacceptable. T…

I thank the Tánaiste for the reply. The local training initiative is a valuable service that has been in existence for more than 20 years. It provides a leaving certificate qualification over two academic years for students or trainees who are not suitable for mainstream education. It provides modules on subjects such as computers, communications, work experience and mathematics. The closure of th…

I welcome the motion from the Social Democrats. It is very important and opportune. Families across the country are struggling to make ends meet. The cost-of-living crisis is an ongoing crisis that is no longer temporary or once-off. Everything is going in one direction, which is up. This includes food prices, energy prices, rents, mortgages and transport. Energy prices, for instance, have increas…

Local government is the beating heart of democracy. That heart was torn out of democracy with the abolition of town and borough councils in 2014. They were replaced by committees with no powers, functions or funding. This has done serious damage to towns across the country. I welcome the recent announcement regarding a local government task force but there is widespread concern about its compositi…

The student fees issue shows how out of touch the Government is and how unfair it is to students and parents alike. Third level education should and must be available and affordable to all. Students and their parents have to plan financially for the coming academic year and are surely entitled to know the costs involved. The failure of the Taoiseach, Tánaiste, Ministers for Finance, public expendi…

Over ten years since the successful completion of the Clonmel flood relief scheme, householders and businesses are finding getting insurance flood cover impossible or it comes with very heavily loaded premiums. The Clonmel flood relief scheme was completed in 2013 at a cost of €44.5 million. The scheme has been completed to a one-in-100-year protection level and it protects all areas adjacent to t…

I broadly welcome the Bill, which provides a mechanism for workers to access the Social Insurance Fund where their employer has ceased trading but has not been formally wound up. The Bill addresses the 2018 Supreme Court judgment that found that Ireland did not properly or fully transpose an EU directive on the protection of employees in the event of insolvency. That was seven years ago, and this …

Local government is the heartbeat of democracy. The Fine Gael–Labour Party Government abolished borough councils and town councils in 2014 and replaced them with committees that had no power, no functions and no money. I think it is already accepted by almost everybody, including the former leader of the Labour Party, Brendan Howlin, that it was a very bad decision. The programme for Government co…

As someone who worked for more than 21 years as a hospital administrator in a general hospital, I am lost for words to describe the mayhem which is Children's Health Ireland. The word "bewilderment" comes to mind. It is certainly shocking. The first principle of the provision of a health service is that the patient comes first. We might say that is old-fashioned but it is still 100% true. There ha…

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. I commend Sinn Féin on bringing it forward and I strongly support it. This Bill would be a vital first step in stopping the genocide and starvation of the Palestinian people. The Bill is fully compliant with international, European and Irish law, and is supported by the independent Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers. Its legal opinion is suppor…

There has been no public eye care service in south Tipperary since last September. There have been no consultant ophthalmology clinics, optometry clinics or nurse-led eye clinics. Dr. Hillery, the previous consultant, retired last September, having given years of wonderful professional and personal service to the population of south Tipperary, including children and the elderly. She gave more than…

The acid test of the bona fides of the Government on carers and caring is the immediate abolition of the carer’s allowance. This has been the demand of Family Carers Ireland for years and was promised by all political parties in the run-up to the last general election. It was understood that the means test would be abolished within the first 100 days of this Government coming into office but we ar…

We must now ask ourselves whether the State, the Government and we as a people are complicit in genocide. I acknowledge the State’s support for the South African case in the international courts, the Taoiseach’s description of Israeli action in Gaza as a “war crime”, and the statements at the weekend by the Taoiseach and other Government leaders; however, we must do more. We must take action. What…

I compliment the remarkable courage of Cara Darmody, a 14-year-old disability rights campaigner from my constituency. I welcome her and her dad here this evening. Cara started her campaign in support of her two brothers, who have autism diagnoses, but now she is supporting and campaigning on behalf of all children in the State with disabilities. She has been very successful to date. She extracted …

15. Deputy Seamus Healy asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he will immediately establish the local democracy task force promised in the programme for Government 2025 with a view to the early re-establishment of borough and town councils; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24258/25]

Local government is the beating heart of democracy. It was abolished in 2014 by the Fine Gael and Labour Government. When will the Minister establish the local democracy task force promised in the programme for Government 2025 to re-establish local government?

I thank the Minister. The town and borough councils were abolished in 2014. They were replaced by committees with no powers, functions or funding. This abolition of town and borough councils has seriously damaged towns throughout the country, including in Clonmel where we had a form of local government going back to the 1400s. This is a very serious issue. I had hoped the Minister of State could g…

When is this Government going to stop failing children with disabilities? Next Tuesday, Cara Darmody, a teenage disability rights campaigner from Ardfinnan in my constituency, will start a 50-hour sleep-out in pursuit of urgent and immediate action to secure assessments of need for children with additional needs within the six-month legal limit. There are over 14,000 children on the waiting list. …

I welcome and strongly support the Trade Union Recognition Bill 2021. I compliment my colleagues in People Before Profit on bringing it forward. Not only do I believe in the right of workers to join a trade union, but I also believe that employers should be obliged to recognise the union and negotiate with it on the pay and conditions of its members. I have been a proud trade unionist all my work…

One million Irish people, the Taoiseach's ancestors and mine, starved to death during the Great Famine in the 1840s and 1850s. Two million of us were driven to cross the Atlantic in coffin ships in search of mere survival. Thousands of us died on those ships. At home, our people died in cabins, in ditches, on the roads and in workhouses. There is hardly a parish in the country that has not a famin…

I believe this country must take action that is within our control, like stopping the Central Bank from facilitating the sale of Israeli state bonds, stopping all military flights through Shannon, even if that is a temporary measure-----