Search the record

that we clearly have a Department of housing that is allowed to do what it wants with no political direction. I will never understand how it took over a year to bring this legislation here. In our party we would have been able to draft that legislation within … will just do what they want. They are not accountable. They write the script for the Minister and they write the replies to parliamentary questions. I could show the Minister of State one reply and then show him another. I will give him an example to do with

looks at these proposals, they can rightly wonder whether they are considered in any of the high-up decision-making processes. The Labour Party will work constructively with Government to advocate for a fair and equitable fisheries policy that prioritises the livelilhoods of Irish fishermen and fisherwomen … that the documentation was false. It knowingly allowed a staff member to proceed with paperwork it knew to be invalid. The employee learned that the insurance documentation was invalid only when he received a solicitor's letter from the other party involved in the car crash. This

would have provided 300 children every week with life-changing therapies, reduced waiting times for families with nowhere else to turn and allowed children to reach their full potential. It would have helped the State further reduce the waiting times for assessment of need and, vitally, train many … many families to reality. I welcome the continuation of the waiting list initiative into 2026. This is a commitment the Labour Party received in this House a number of years ago and one for which I know Cara Darmody has fought since she began her campaign. This will

That means future trade agreements that could impose new liabilities on taxpayers or restrict our regulatory freedom could be approved quietly without proper parliamentary scrutiny. That is not democracy. That is governance by stealth. Investor court mechanisms have been used worldwide to challenge health protections, environmental safeguards … Irish communities. By that measure, this Bill fails. For all of these reasons, Independent Ireland will oppose this legislation. We will not allow sovereignty, fairness and rural Ireland to be sacrificed for the sake of an investment court. Deputy Ward, who has unfortunately just left the Chamber

other producing the worst of outcomes. What we have here is Fianna Fáil adopting Fine Gael foreign and trade policy wholesale and both parties adopting Bertie-era Fianna Fáil tactics to ride roughshod through these Houses. Independent lackeys pretending to be in government and opposition at the same … worst aspects of CETA. It will open up Ireland to the corporate court systems not available to ordinary Irish citizens. These courts will allow big businesses to sue Ireland for what they call a loss of profit. What could this mean? The answer is vulture funds suing Ireland

faced in its existence. It was not a sudden collapse, it was the final shove in a long process of decline that Government parties managed, excused and normalised. What was already fragile has now been pushed dangerously close to a point of no return. That is the responsibility … They vote down safeguards for Ireland and consolidate their advantages in the interests of those few corporations. Deputy Mac Lochlainn has already used parliamentary privilege to name those Dutch corporations and the extraordinary control they exercise over Irish fishing opportunities, over the entire EU process

lack of new Garda stations and the Government's continued lack of meeting Garda recruitment figures. According to a reply to a parliamentary question I submitted earlier this year, since 2017, only two new Garda stations have been delivered in the country, despite the population increasing by nearly … lose 30% to 50% of our force due to upcoming retirements. Fine Gael has always identified itself as the party of law and order, yet the Tánaiste's party has stood over this lack of delivery for nearly a decade. The Tánaiste was one of the Ministers responsible

statutory instrument being overturned in the way I pioneered. What was done was wrong and I cannot blame anyone but those in my party. We need to set up a new office to engage with the European Commission. I recommend that to the Minister of State. The Minister … Ministers of that time, whether the Minister for Foreign Affairs or the Minister for the marine. They should never have allowed that to happen. They did it in the interests of mother Ireland but, for the second or perhaps umpteenth time, they threw the fishing sector under

talking about here. There was a lot of excitement when Sláintecare was agreed. Deputy O'Reilly was the representative of my party on the committee at the time. A huge amount of work by many people went into ensuring we set out a roadmap that could transform … Sláintecare targets we agreed to. The Bill specifies 12 types of service for which there should be maximum wait times and allows the Minister to specify any other service. The Minister must have regard to the Sláintecare report, best practice, outcomes and the effect on services of specifying

return in January on the recently published Accelerating Infrastructure plan. Such a debate has not yet happened. We in the Labour Party have given the general approach of the plan a measured and calibrated welcome, with some caveats in relation to what we view as dangerous limitations being … have all been working on the basis that the summer economic statement was the gospel, published well ahead of the October budget, allowing for clear data on ELS for the subsequent year, and making it clear as well what fiscal space was available, on a more or less

open trading are already provisionally applied. Provisional application, however, is simply not the same as ratification. Provisional application is an important mechanism that allows companies and consumers to benefit from a trade agreement at an early stage, as the completion of national ratification procedures across all 27 member … tier tribunals established under each agreement as opposed to the ad hoc establishment of ISDS panels; cases randomly allocated so that the disputing parties do not know in advance which tribunal members will decide their case; strict rules on qualifications and independence for members of the tribunals, with