Search the record

Taoiseach allow the general secretary of Fine Gael to sit in on a Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party meeting and listen to all the points being made? The Government is allowing Larry Murrin to sit as chairperson where he has access to full access to Bord

brought in. Former Deputy Joe Callanan from east Galway and I put a motion before the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party many years ago regarding the half-rate carer's allowance. We had been banging our heads off a stone wall for some time but Séamus Brennan, the then

issue. I have heard him talk about it at parliamentary party meetings and he has shown great commitment and enthusiasm in this role. There has to be some recognition that in the space and time he has been allowed 400 special classes will be introduced from September

with disability allowance. We also have a larger number of working adult children forced to live at home because of the housing crisis, which can also result in families losing their position on the list. I am talking to colleagues in my own parliamentary party

Church of the Holy Spirit in Ballyroan. WB Yeats was also a constituent, though just slightly before my time. We in the Labour Party are deeply proud of our record in this space. It was Michael D Higgins as the first Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht … recognise the opportunities of AI. It has the potential to at least improve productivity or accelerate research, submit parliamentary questions and so on. Like Sinn Féin, the Labour Party is not opposed to innovation. We support responsible AI development, but innovation cannot become a licence for exploitation. There

this House and I know, the law does not allow pharmacists to prescribe although they are qualified to do so. Advanced nurse practitioners have qualifications that enable them to do A to Z but the State only allows them to do A to D. There are special needs … words, there is no pathway for them to move on. I was in a Montessori special school recently. I raised this at a parliamentary party meeting last week. The teacher who is regarded as the best in the school was educated in a different jurisdiction and so their

minority allows it. It involves refusing to respect basic rules and making extreme statements and false assertions, as we have just had. Since Dáil Éireann first met, its rules have changed hundreds of times. Many times these rules have been changed without agreement between all parties. We have … regularly had votes on changes to parliamentary procedure. The concept of an Opposition veto is found nowhere in the democratic world

rise in the serious threats and online abuse directed at a significant number of Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas of all parties and none, a phenomenon that can no longer be ignored. Not alone does it affect us as Members, but also a significant percentage … Chamber must remain a secure environment for the conduct of parliamentary business. In addition to my concern for current Members, I am concerned that this environment may deter decent people from entering public life. If we allow a culture of fear and intimidation to take root, we risk

presidential election.In this case, we had one of those parties imposing a diktat, a whip on their councillors, and another of those parties intimating that thou shalt not select anybody else in this particular election.That is a major difficulty. That has significantly reduced the routes to nomination … polls shows that Maria Steen would have achieved 22% of the vote in the election, and yet she has not been allowed on the ballot.That should be a wake-up call for the political establishment. The political establishment should be shocked that people are disengaging from the political

calls to Women's Aid and a shocking increase in the number of calls to the Garda, something that emerged in replies to parliamentary questions to the Minister. There have been 65,000 disclosures. This crime is practically unpunished and unreported. Only 5% of adults ever disclose … parliamentary question about this. There is no monitoring as to how many people do it and there is no record kept of how many people go. It is just there; it is a case of take it or leave it. In what other job would one be allowed

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

must be accountability for genocide and crimes against humanity. In addition, the incoming Government cannot be allowed to renege on commitments to enact the occupied territories Bill. There was cross-party consensus during the election that we needed to enact this crucial legislation. Now the Government is talking … firmly for the application of international law and the principles of justice and peace. The Social Democrats, with an increased mandate and enlarged parliamentary party, will play an important role in this new Dáil. Our role will be constructive, robustly holding the Government to account while also proposing

Disablement Pension; and — Domiciliary Care Allowance; and — immediately progress the introduction of a permanent cost of disability support payment, as promised in the Programme for Government, as a matter of urgency. I rise to introduce this motion, on behalf of my party, to introduce an emergency winter payment … Ireland and Access for All - and others for their leadership in this campaign and the opportunity to support them. I also thank my parliamentary party colleagues for their support and Deputy Liam Quaide, to my left, for his counsel and leadership and his work on disability policy

trapped there in insecure and expensive accommodation. During the election campaign, Fine Gael promised to retain RPZs. In its manifesto, the Minister's party stated that it would review the effectiveness of RPZs. There is no mention in the programme for Government of ending the caps. On Sunday … front page of the Irish Daily Mail today would be even more concerned because apparently the Taoiseach told members of the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party that they should brace themselves for unpopular decisions. It seems that the partial row-back by the Taoiseach in Brussels yesterday was about

fuel allowance. Now it is a four-week extension and that needs to be kept under review. For the record, the Labour Party is happy to support the cut in excise that has been proposed. This is necessary. As the Tánaiste said at the outset, it is important … people and we need to see it reached and maintained as prices come down. We also support the intervention on the fuel allowance but outside of the excise cut, there is very little here for working people. The Government and the famed energy task force have proposed nothing

cause trouble in the country. We were attacked at that time by pretty much every single political party. Now, most of the parties have moved onto the same ground as ourselves but there are still major differences. The EU migration pact is one of them. The EU migration … allows Brussels to determine the money that we must pay in lieu of accepting those same applicants. Already the Government is putting away €9 million for fines that it expects next year as a result of that pact. We have received legal advice from the Office of Parliamentary

embrace of technology. This will allow us to access funding to embrace technology, move with the times and remain agile, responsive and flexible. He made a point about tertiary education being a combined platform across all the different fields. At the Labour Party conference in the UK, Keir … apprenticeship. That is a much broader, more ambitious and more progressive aim. I conversed with some of my colleagues at the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly earlier in the week. Deputy Toole mentioned Louth and Meath Education and Training Board and Dunboyne, which is close to my heart

city divisions. In a rural county like mine, some Garda fleet vehicles are ten or 12 years old. I have put down parliamentary questions to ascertain their service records and some of those vehicles have been off the road for six or seven weeks of the previous year … will mention the programme for Government because it proposes to reintroduce electronic tagging. This was a suggestion I made in my own party. It is a no-brainer. The legislation for that passed in 2009. If our prison system cannot accommodate prisoners, at the very least, they should

Minister's party and every other party in this House made a commitment to the electorate. That commitment has not been honoured. That is a very serious situation because it calls into question people's trust in the democratic process and in politicians. That is serious. The Minister … have the same lack of respite and mental health difficulties. They should surely be entitled to the carer's allowance. The moneys involved are not significant. The Parliamentary Budget Office has indicated that. This is something which, in the context of the political and democratic processes

Every political party, including Fianna Fáil, made a commitment in general election 2024 to abolish the carer's means test, full stop, no ifs or buts. There were no terms and conditions. There was no small print and no devil in the detail. The Government was going … abolish the means test for carer's allowance, but it has not honoured that commitment. That raises the whole question of trust in politics and politicians. The public are becoming quite cynical now about all things political. The Minister has another opportunity to do the right thing

about, we have signed up to international agreements and if you want to deconstruct them, maybe you should revisit your belief system. Through parliamentary questions the Minister has also confirmed that of that number of 80% at least one in three is successful on appeal. The Minister … Immigration Act 1999. It allows for detention for up to 56 days extendable only by court order. We have detentions in prisons at the moment but our prison system is operating at 124% capacity. Is Fine Gael, the party of law and order, telling us that those people

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 … State approximately €20 billion. The abolition of the carer's allowance means test is the least the Government should do in return. The cost is modest in the overall budget of the State. In 2024, the Parliamentary Budget Office estimated the full cost at €375.3 million, which

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

could be paying anything up to €32,000 just to put their child through what is supposed to be free education. The Labour Party is clear that free education means free. It does not mean voluntary contributions, State examination fees or €700-plus on laptops or tablets. Uniform … costs are putting financial pressure on working families who, in most cases, do not qualify for the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance. Parents contacting my office tell me they are forced to go to one supplier due to the requirement for school branding. These parents

Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation the protocols governing the eligibility criteria for inclusion in a party’s parliamentary activities allowance claim; if a public declaration of independent status by a Deputy obliges the party to revise its allowance claim accordingly

asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation if any portion of the €424,696.10 in parliamentary activities allowance paid to a political party between January and June 2025 is currently under review or subject to repayment, in light of reports that a Deputy

received any reports or notifications of irregularities in claims made under the parliamentary activities allowance during the period January to June 2025, particularly in relation to payments claimed for Deputies who were suspended from their parties or publicly declared as sitting as independents during that period. [44878/25

Dolan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine further to Parliamentary Question No. 762 of 8 April 2025, if the Statutory Instrument mentioned in his response, to allow sharing of data between third party agri-loan providers and his Department has been finalised