Aengus Ó Snodaigh
Dublin South-Central · Sinn Féin · Ireland
“In a reply to a parliamentary question on MetroLink in April of this year, the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, again stated his belief that the MetroLink terminus can facilitate any potential future MetroLink expansion to serve the south west, south or south east of Dublin should sufficient demand develop. That demand is already there.”
“A millennium and a half later, with Ireland serving as the President of the Council of the European Union, it is the same law we want to see enforced in the era of AI. In the words of the author Scott Turow, in paraphrasing The Atlantic's Alex Reisner, the bold future promised by AI has been "created with stolen words".”
“Tá roinnt samplaí anseo agam. Glacaim leis gur chuir an conradh agus BÁNÚ roinnt samplaí eile chuig an Aire ag léiriú an damáiste a dhéanfaidh sé sin. In ainneoin an méid atá ráite aige, i gceantair áirithe, tá coinníollacha ar leith ann ó thaobh forbróirí atá ag forbairt iliomad tithíochta faoi láthair.”
“Theft is being rewarded and creativity is being punished to the tune of €22 billion globally in music and film, according to the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers. The European directives are no longer fit for purpose because of the exemptions granted to train AI.”
“Cloisim é seo. Chuala mé é thar na blianta ó dhaoine a bhí ag iarraidh go laghdófaí teorainn na Gaeltachta. Bhí siad ag iarraidh díriú isteach ar na ceantair a bhí in ísle brí ó thaobh labhairt na Gaeilge chun iad a chaitheamh amach ón nGaeltacht. Bhí siad ag iarraidh go mbeadh an Ghaeltacht srianta go dtí ceantair ina bhfuil 50% ann.”
“Bhí líne den scoth sa leabhar Ag Caint Linn Fhéin , a scríobh Joe Steve Ó Neachtain, laoch an Ghluaiseacht Chearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta agus ealaíontóir ildánach, "Is é an croí atá i gceol na hÉireann a dhéanann náisiún mór den náisiún beag seo ar fud an domhain." Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam. Tír gan ealaín, tír gan chroí.”
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“In a reply to a parliamentary question on MetroLink in April of this year, the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, again stated his belief that the MetroLink terminus can facilitate any potential future MetroLink expansion to serve the south west, south or south east of Dublin should sufficient demand develop. That demand is already there. It is expanding to such an extent that the roads are clogged up and every bus is full. Now is the time, before any shovel or tunnel boring machine goes into the ground, to change tack to look ensuring we go beyond the Charlemont terminus. To continue this is foolish, bizarre and would delay addressing the public transport needs of the constituency and of this city. Will the Minister of State ensure that before any tunnel boring machine goes into the ground there is a change? A change needs to happen now.”
“Tá a lán Gaeilgeoirí lasmuigh den Ghaeltacht toisc go raibh orthu lonnú lasmuigh di toisc nach raibh aon tithíocht ann. Tá siadsan sásta dul ar ais go dtí a mbailte féin. Tá siad ann ach níor tugadh an deis dóibh mar ní raibh aon tithíocht ann.”
“Cloisim é seo. Chuala mé é thar na blianta ó dhaoine a bhí ag iarraidh go laghdófaí teorainn na Gaeltachta. Bhí siad ag iarraidh díriú isteach ar na ceantair a bhí in ísle brí ó thaobh labhairt na Gaeilge chun iad a chaitheamh amach ón nGaeltacht. Bhí siad ag iarraidh go mbeadh an Ghaeltacht srianta go dtí ceantair ina bhfuil 50% ann. Má dhéanann tú é seo, bheadh i bhfad Éireann níos mó ceantar ann a bhfuil brú mór orthu, go háirithe na ceantair atá lag. Níor chóir go mbeadh am ann riamh ina bhfuil an Stát ag brú go mbeidh tithíocht shóisialta nó tithíocht d'aon shórt ann a bhfuil níos lú ná 50% di ar fáil do chainteoirí Gaeilge. D'fhiafraigh an tAire an bhfuil na cainteoirí Gaeilge ann. Tá aithne agam ar a lán daoine i gceantair Ghaeltachta nach féidir leo teacht ar thithe. Ní raibh córas acu go dtí seo.”
“Tá roinnt samplaí anseo agam. Glacaim leis gur chuir an conradh agus BÁNÚ roinnt samplaí eile chuig an Aire ag léiriú an damáiste a dhéanfaidh sé sin. In ainneoin an méid atá ráite aige, i gceantair áirithe, tá coinníollacha ar leith ann ó thaobh forbróirí atá ag forbairt iliomad tithíochta faoi láthair. Mar shampla, i gCois Fharraige, tá coinníoll teanga i gceist le 80% de na tithe le 15 bliana anuas faoi phlean forbartha Chontae na Gaillimhe. Faoin ráiteas náisiúnta, ísleoidh sé sin go dtí 58%. Sna Déise, tá an rud ceannann céanna ann. Ísleoidh an figiúr ón 80% atá ann le 15 bliana anuas go dtí 37% faoin gcóras nua. Déanfaidh sé sin damáiste do cheantair Ghaeltachta atá ag teacht chucu féin. Beidh Béarlóirí á mbrú orthu. I gcás na Déise, beidh 63% de na tithe ar fáil do Bhéarlóirí. Tá damáiste le teacht má dhéantar é seo.”
“Déanann an cheist seo déileáil leis na coinníollacha teanga a bheidh ann de réir an dréachtráiteas náisiúnta pleanála agus an dochar a dhéantar do cheantair Ghaeltachta má théitear ar aghaidh leo, go háirithe toisc go bhfuil ísliú i gceist. An bhfuil an tAire tar éis labhairt leis an Aire tithíochta maidir leis seo? An bhfuil aon dea-scéal le teacht maidir leis an gceist seo? An féidir linn a chinntiú nach ísliú a bheidh i gceist ó thaobh an choinníll?”
“Bhí líne den scoth sa leabhar Ag Caint Linn Fhéin , a scríobh Joe Steve Ó Neachtain, laoch an Ghluaiseacht Chearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta agus ealaíontóir ildánach, "Is é an croí atá i gceol na hÉireann a dhéanann náisiún mór den náisiún beag seo ar fud an domhain." Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam. Tír gan ealaín, tír gan chroí. Tá ár gcroí i mbaol ag an intleacht shaorga. Tá dualgas orainn go léir seasamh suas ar son ealaíontóirí na hÉireann, an croí a léiríonn siad sa ghníomh agus an cur chuige a dhéanann siad a thugann gliondar chuig a lán daoine sa tír seo agus a thugann léargas ar leith don domhan ar fad ar cad atá i gceist againn mar Éireannaigh. Tá sé go maith go bhfuil an Rialtas ag glacadh leis an rún seo agus nach bhfuil aon duine á chur ina choinne. Anois tá orainn bogadh de réir an ghnímh sin.”
“People then were not happy to sit back and let artists go without while their work created income and profit for the wealthy. That stands true to this day. That spirit continues in France where the national centre for cinema announced it would not fund art without a human author or where AI replaced a human creative role. That spirit continues in Ireland. In this motion, we say that State funding for the Irish arts must be for humans and not for AI. It is incumbent on the Government and the State agencies to act in line with the unanimous will of the Dáil on this motion.”
“Emilie Conway of Disabled Artists, Disabled Academics pointed out earlier that today was Bastille Day and in the revolutionary spirit, it is worth looking at what the French have achieved in protecting the arts. Even if the focus tonight is on sport, Victor Hugo led the campaign that delivered the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, which will mark its 140th anniversary on 9 September. International law was finally catching up with what was already in Ireland, having been established in the 6th century AD. It is thanks to the outrage in 1889 in France when a bidding war raised huge profits for the owner of a painting by the artist Millet while his family lived in poverty that the idea of droit de suite or resale rights brought royalties to artists.”
“I will try to name all of the organisations but I apologise in advance for those I will probably leave out - Irish Music Rights Organisation; Screen Composers Guild of Ireland; the Ivors Academy; Irish Equity; International Federation of Actors; Recorded Artists, Actors, Performers; Irish Recorded Music Association, Disabled Artists, Disabled Academics; Praxis: The Artists' Union of Ireland; First Music Contact, the Music and Entertainment Association of Ireland; the Arts Council; Musicians' Union of Ireland; Screen Producers Ireland; Give Us The Night; Beta Festival; and many individual artists, especially those who shared their experiences in the past day or two with the media to outline their experience of AI and how it is robbing their work, competing against them and robbing their royalties.”
“Gabhaim buíochas le gach Teachta, ealaíontóir agus eagras a bhí linn inniu. I thank everybody who was with us today, some of whom are still with us, and those who contacted us in advance of this debate and are watching online who shared their stories about the impact AI was having on their work and creativity and to show their support for this debate. I am humbled and grateful for their support.”
“The livelihoods of human and Irish artists need to continue to be supported. Domestic legislation needs to be established for an appropriate framework for the licence transparency, fair renumeration, personality rights to guard against impersonation, collective bargaining and civil liability on upsales and much more.”
“Theft is being rewarded and creativity is being punished to the tune of €22 billion globally in music and film, according to the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers. The European directives are no longer fit for purpose because of the exemptions granted to train AI. This is not simply Sinn Féin's view but also the view adopted by the European Parliament in March, as well as most member states during the Danish EU Presidency. Abandoning Commission proposals to reform the civil liability regime for AI could have helped artists and others besides. We must lead the charge for action at European level now but there are things we can do here at home. We need representation for the arts sector in every AI policymaking body, and we need no State funding for our art and content produced by AI.”
“Spotify has even had to remove 75 million tracks in the recent past, such was the volume of AI slop tracks that had been uploaded. Whole personas, voices, faces, identities and styles have been cloned without consent, and Bollywood has seen a tragic film re-release with an AI happy ending, with neither the director nor lead actor being consulted; there was not a penny for the original creators, performers or artists. Worse still, human artists now need to compete with this AI-generated work to make a living. Profit moguls push the private sector to cut the cost of human work in favour of AI slop. The public sector is also guilty, opening up the opportunities humans once relied on to so-called AI innovation. An Post released an AI-designed stamp and Údarás na Gaeltachta held an AI film competition.”
“A millennium and a half later, with Ireland serving as the President of the Council of the European Union, it is the same law we want to see enforced in the era of AI. In the words of the author Scott Turow, in paraphrasing The Atlantic's Alex Reisner, the bold future promised by AI has been "created with stolen words". We are living through the greatest art heist in history. The entire corpus of global achievement in writing, music, film and the visual arts is up for grabs and is being used and abused for corporate greed. Whole books and poems are being garbled up and plagiarised in output presented as original work. Vocals are being stripped from recordings and backing tracks sold without permission. Entire singles generated without humans attached, and not even labelled as AI, amount to 44% of uploads of music on the streamer Deezer.”
“AI is already here and is flooding the world with text, songs and videos on an unprecedented scale; some call it AI slop. The question is how we deal with this flood to ensure our artists do not sink beneath the waves of the scale of the AI flood. That is the premise of the motion before the Dáil today, which calls on Ireland to lead the world as we did before in the arts. Copyright was invented in Ireland and is the arc on which we can save our artists from the flood. When Colmcille copied a book lent to him by Finnian, a bloody battle ensued. Thousands died and Colmcille was forced into exile when a famous judgment of the Rí, Diarmait mac Cerbaill, said, "Is le gach bó a lao, agus is le gach leabhar a chóip", to every cow its calf, to every book its copy.”
“CMAT, Kneecap, Colm Tóibín, Sally Rooney and even my name are all names you will find on The Atlantic's AI Watchdog website, whose writings and songs have been pilfered for artificial intelligence, and there are many millions more. It is an interesting website people should look at to see the names of local artists, writers, poets and others who pop up there and to see the scale of the pilfering and robbery of their creative talents. Agus mé ag cur fáilte roimh na healaíontóirí agus na heagrais ealaíon atá san Áiléar don díospóireacht seo inniu, glacfaidh mé nath ar iasacht ó bhuaiteoir an duais Ivor Novello, Iain Archer, a dúirt nach féidir an abhainn a choimeád siar i dtaca le hintleacht shaorga. There is no holding back the river when it comes to artificial intelligence.”
“I move: That Dáil Éireann: recognises that art is the product of the labour of artists, informed by their unique human experience, creativity and skill reiterates Article 27.2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that "Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author"; affirms that the constitutional property rights of our writers, composers, performers, actors, and artists include the intellectual property of their works and performances, the royalties from which form an integral part of the income they earn from their labour; notes with concern that the social impacts of low pay, precarious work and poor working conditions have been identified as endemic to the arts sector in Ireland since the late 1990s, according to research commissioned by the Arts Council of Ireland, and demonstrated in research conducted as part of the pilot basic income for artist’s scheme; and commends the work of the Irish Music Rights Organisation, the Screen Composers Guild of Ireland, The Ivors Academy, the Irish Recorded Music Association, the Irish Writers Union, Irish Equity, Recorded Artists Actors Performers, the Digital Creative Industries Forum, the Association of European Performers' Organisations (AEPO-ARTIS), the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance, the International Federation of Actors, among other organisations, and of individual artists for defending the rights of Irish artists, authors, creators and performers against exploitation and misuse, and for highlighting the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) developments on rights holders; expresses alarm that: - the use of generative AI systems that rely massively on protected content not only reproduce work without authorisation from, or remuneration for, the rights holders affected by such use, but may also result in the provision of products and services that directly and unfairly compete with those of the rights holders; - generative AI systems, by massively and inexpensively creating content that mimics what was produced by human creativity, competes directly with the work of creators, particularly of cultural and media content, and that this competition may lead to a decline in the quality of online content as a result of creators disengaging, and thus to an overall decline in human cultural and creative production; - a study on the economic impact of Generative AI in the Music and Audiovisual industries by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) in 2024 found that AI would put 24 per cent of music creators' revenues at risk by 2028, a cumulative loss of €10 billion over the next five years; and - generative AI systems are used to massively generate outputs used to commit streaming fraud, with music streaming service Deezer finding in April 2026 that up to 85 per cent of the streams generated by fully AI-generated tracks in 2025 were fraudulent, and that 75,000 fully AI-generated tracks are uploaded to Deezer every day, representing roughly 44 per cent of total daily uploads; notes that a majority of European Union (EU) member states responding to a consultation by the Danish Presidency of the Council of the EU into lessons learned on Article 15 of the Directive of the Digital Single Market Copyright (DSMC) Directive and on fostering a well-functioning framework for licensing in the age of AI called for immediate action to increase transparency and facilitate licensing; criticises the European Commission for withdrawing the proposed AI Liability Directive, which would have established a new civil liability regime for AI including disclosure obligations and a rebuttable presumption of causal link between such systems and harms; notes with concern that: - the implementation of the copyright-relevant obligations of the AI Act, through the Code of Practice for General-Purpose AI providers and the template for the transparency summary, has not led to effective solutions for rights holders to enforce their rights and is thus insufficient; - the opt-out mechanism under Article 4 of the DSMC Directive has not delivered meaningful control for rights holders in practice; and - the extension of the text and data mining exemption under Article 4 of the DSMC Directive to AI training has in effect authorised the mass ingestion of protected content to build commercial systems that directly compete with, and in many cases displace, the very creators whose work made those systems possible; supports the creation of collective licensing models, ensuring robust opt-out mechanisms, fair remuneration to authors and performers, and transparency for creators as recommended by the Government's AI Advisory Council in its advice paper on The Impact of AI on Ireland's Creative Sector; supports, in particular, the recommendations adopted by the European Parliament in its resolution of 10th March, 2026 on the opportunities and challenges relating to copyright and generative AI as they relate to the rights of artists, including: - that the current copyright law is insufficient to address the challenge of licensing copyrighted material for generative AI and an additional legal framework is needed; - those who use generative AI models and systems and do not observe copyright, should be barred from the market; - a framework is needed for transparency and source documentation on the use of copyright-protected work or other protected subject matter, including for opt-out compliance; - a coherent and functioning licensing framework must be established in respect of the use of content protected by copyright or related rights, to enable the fair remuneration of creators for the exploitation of their copyright-protected content by generative AI models; - a rebuttable presumption should be established that, for any generative AI model or system placed on the EU market, works and other subject matter protected by copyright or related rights have been used for the purposes of training, inferencing or Retrieval-augmented generation, where transparency obligations have not been fully complied with; and - content fully generated by AI that does not meet the established criteria for copyright protection should remain ineligible for copyright protection; and calls on the Government to: - use the opportunity of our Presidency of the Council of the EU to draw attention to and lead efforts to resolve these issues, including through the organisation of a dedicated conference focused on protecting the copyright of artists in the context of generative AI; - introduce legislation domestically, while also seeking agreement at EU and international level, to establish the appropriate framework for licensing, transparency, fair remuneration, anti-impersonation personality rights, collective bargaining, civil liability and opt-outs required to protect the copyright of Irish artists in the context of generative AI; and - ensure that no State funding for art is spent on content production by AI, and that the livelihoods of human Irish artists continue to be supported; and includes representation for the arts sector on the AI Advisory Council, and that the AI Office of Ireland and other mechanisms for developing policy recognise creative industries and copyright as areas of special interest and ensure creative industry representation.”
“Today's announcement regarding the empty GPO and the row-back from the wholesale commercialisation of the site is welcome. Maybe now the Taoiseach can row back on his endorsement of the Hammerson plan to destroy the nearby battlefield site on Moore Street, not just because that plan would lay waste to one of Dublin's most important historical heritage sites but also because of Hammerson's continued partnership with Allianz, which has been cited in a UN report as an enabler of Israel's genocide in Palestine with its €1 billion purchase of Israeli war bonds and more. Will the Taoiseach end his association with and support for Hammerson and Allianz and their plans for Moore Street?”
“They thought it would take five years and it took six or seven. The history is absolutely fantastic. I cannot find the quote now, but there is a quote from somebody early on that this was one of the best practical restorations they had seen and that we could do a lot more to encourage them. However, being rejected afterwards is the problem. There is no mention in the response as to when the new board will be put in place. It is out of office at this stage.”
“I am also gobsmacked. It is very strange because it would not cost anything to facilitate the board of visitors. The venue is there to launch the book which has been republished as a new issue. There have been private launches of books and other events in the gaol. It is a great venue to have anything. Even though it is for sale in the museum shop in the old courthouse, it still deserves to be pushed again so that the public outside, those who do not get one of the golden tickets to attend Kilmainham Gaol, can be encouraged. So much can be said. In fairness, the Labour Party view in 1954 was that this is all nonsense, that these schemes are nonsense. There is a very interesting list of the work the volunteers carried out, down to the hours. As Máire said, her uncle spent 720 hours and that was in the first two years.”
“Those men in the early 1960s and before had a vision that people would come to look at this and would respect our history. It is not just the history of the patriotic struggle; it is the history of imprisonment. That can be seen in the way it was used as a film location because it is reflective of prisons of an era. There were a lot of hangings there, including hangings of women. There were executions of republican soldiers by the British but also by the new State. They are remembered in the museum that is attached to it now. Anybody who has gone on a tour appreciates the work done. The problem at the moment is that the OPW does not seem to appreciate that when it was handed over to it in 1986 it agreed there would be a board of visitors which would be reflective of the families who did this restoration. That was one of the conditions.”
“I am here to support Deputy Devine's call. Her uncle was one of those who was involved directly in the restoration project, a huge undertaking by a voluntary committee which did what the State had promised to do from the thirties, forties and fifties. They said that they would do it at no cost to the State. A group of men mainly - there are women in some of photographs - helped to clear the prison which had been abandoned from 1929 onwards despite requests in the thirties for it to be handed over to be a museum or a memorial of prisons and a memorial of the patriotic struggle. It was agreed even though not every party at the time agreed with it. The Labour Party in particular in the fifties thought this was a madcap scheme. We know now that it was not. It is one of the most, if not the most, sought-after tourist attractions.”
“There are concerns about the freedom of speech, satire, etc., and we will address them on Committee Stage, when this gets to the committee, because it is important we do as much of this collegially as possible. It is not only us as politicians being precious; it is our whole society.”
“How do you call that image back? How do you call back screenshots and everything else? How do you stop people sharing? We saw, even this week, images that should not be shared. Those very graphic images from Belfast were shared worldwide in an instant and then used by other actors. That was not a case of anybody doing anything to change those images, but a voice-over could be put on it. I think it was only a few hours later that the second person was there. There was no such thing and it was proven. However, it gets a head of steam and that head of steam is what you are trying to protect against here, to make sure that people understand it is illegal to do it in the first place but then that you have the power to stop it and to call it back before it does further damage. I support this.”
“It can be done for fun sometimes, which is what most people are doing, but it is not for fun when you start manipulating somebody's voice and what they are saying. We have laws that protect us in some ways already. The Minister of State referred to some of them, but we have to be able to act quickly. Some of our laws were brought in to deal with libel. It was a form of assault on people. The way to assault people now is through an image. You went to court and took action but the damage was restricted to a small circle of people who saw it. If it was on The Irish Times , you had a circle of maybe 50,000 people in the whole country who saw it and it died. If it was on the television, maybe a few more saw it. Now, literally at the click of a button, a million people can see it, so the damage is done there and then.”
“We have to find some way of helping them get around the problems that exist and teach them how to identify, as much as we can, what is fake and what is not fake. The only way we can do that is to show them examples. Way back when I was only a young fella, about 50 years ago, I remember doing a course in school. We had an imaginative teacher and he taught a media studies course. It was an extra class. He used to show us different pictures. He would block out one part and show that blocking out the context could change the interpretation and the purpose of the image. That was a photograph in a classroom of kids who were 13 or 14 years old. Now we have a computer that can do that and a lot more, for example, change the scenery or the background.”
“That raises the issue of the protection of the image and who owns it when you die. Does your partner or your family own it? This presents dangers. Mention was made of Nixon and the moon landing. We can all laugh at that, but if somebody like Deputy Byrne can be taken in, it just shows what is possible. That occurred a number of years ago. We have gone beyond that. Things can be smoothed out. You do not see six fingers on people any more in the pictures. It has gone beyond it. This technology is learning the whole time. It is now at the stage where it is teaching itself from its mistakes and identifying them. That is the nature of it. I am not afraid of it, but there are a lot of people who are afraid of it. A lot of older people are panicking.”
“We must have a way to protect people. Our image is our image. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of pictures of me. I am not too precious about whatever shape, size or whatever I am, but my image cannot be taken and put into another image to create a fake. I worked in the media for years so I know how to use images, but now it can literally be done by a child. There is now a Bollywood film that was created from ten other films. The main actor is dead. All of the songs are new songs but they use his voice. The film has been sold and people have gone to see it, knowing it is not a fake but something created by AI that is considered brilliant. None of the other actors got a penny and the main actor is dead. The only people who benefit are those in the film company.”
“In the vast majority of cases where I have reacted to posts or stuff online, it has never been taken down. What version of our law are they reading? If somebody accuses you online of a crime, that is the equivalent of libel. While you can go to court, by the time you get there it will have been seen by hundreds, thousands or millions of people because of the speed of technology. It is not suspended until you win the case. If I make a charge, it should be suspended while the company adjudicates. I have no problem with that. As regards the incident we are dealing with, the programme most people were discussing at the time was Grok but it is not just one programme. It did not stop there, because that kind of ability to use people's images and to manipulate them and present them as reality is still available.”
“That is the level it can be done at, and that is the speed it can be done at. That is the danger of it. Apart from us legislating for it, one of the big issues is that we have to hold the companies that have the platforms and programmes to account, those who hold the purse strings because, at the end of the day, this is all to do with money. They have to put in place the protections that are required but they also have to act when something happens. The biggest failure in the digital media age we are in is that the big companies are very slow to act. If you ring them or send them an e-mail to say what is online is libellous or if you press the button to say something is malicious, it does not get taken down straight away. It is not suspended while the company adjudicates.”
“While we understand deepfakes and we can laugh about some of them, such as the crude ones that kids get up to that have been around for years, we need to think about the tools that are behind it and the ability to create deepfakes, as Deputy Byrne mentioned. At the push of a button, somebody can create my voice and play it back to somebody on a phone with me giving them an instruction. That has the potential to destroy people's careers and marriages or to result in suicide. That is on a one-to-one level, but what if it is a state actor, as they call them now, doing this? We have all had a laugh at clips of Donald Trump in Lego form coming from Iran. Literally one minute after an incident happens there is a new Lego video of Donald Trump being an idiot, as he is, but it is funny.”
“I congratulate the Minister of State on her appointment. We are likely to see swaps in some committee Chair positions in the next while. Deputy Byrne was doing a good job as committee Chair, leaving out the circumstances. I welcome the Bill. In some ways we are dealing with an issue that is accelerating at a pace we have not seen before. That is one of the reasons I support this legislation. It is not that this is the only part of the armoury to deal with this; it is but one tool. We need to ensure that we have in our legislative system the tools required to react as quickly as possible.”
“The lack of investment and the lack of building have forced us into a place where couples and families who are trying to buy are now competing against the private sector, the vulture funds or even just small-time capitalists who want the property because they know it will pay for itself through their mortgage. They are sometimes fighting against the local authority as well which causes its own problems. I could go into a whole list of problems in terms of the estate agents and how they are gaming the system at this stage and trying to drive up prices. That might be something that the Government could look at. If you want miscellaneous provisions, there is a whole area there that could regulate that market a lot better and stop them driving up the prices as well.”
“If they are not, they are getting penalised in Dublin City Council because they have just increased the rents to screw them, despite the fact that they are not getting a property that would stand up to the standards set by legislation for private landlords. There is a problem. If the price of housing keeps going up at the rate it is going, it means more and more people become dependent on social housing or housing supports, mainly HAP but also RAS. A third of the private tenancies in this country are now subsidised by the State which is absolutely crazy. It is crazy that the State is now beholden to private landlordism. We should have gone away from that. We had moved away from it even when there was no funding there. When there was no money, there was availability of social housing.”
“The problem now is that many of those who end up homeless and then end up in hot properties who are from Dublin are ending up in Kildare, Wicklow or somewhere else, but they are not allowed to be on the Dublin City Council housing list any more because their focus of interest, according to the council, is elsewhere. You have to fight each case. Maybe there is a need for a single list for the whole country. It needs to be thought about even though there may be problems with it, such as taking away some of the powers of the local authority. We need to ensure the model works. Others have highlighted the Vienna model which addresses the thresholds, which are absolutely meaningless in this city. There are couples who are working and once two adults in a house work they are basically nearly over the threshold at this stage.”
“I never noticed that there was a problem in Dublin City Council, which is the local authority I mainly deal with. I think local authorities understood who was eligible and who was not across the board. Maybe we need a standardisation across the whole country to ensure similar processes and approaches to what we had in Dublin City Council with the points system and a scheme of lettings. There is a new scheme of lettings, which is another change only voted on last night and even that did not address all of the issues. There are little peculiarities in Dublin City Council. Even in Dublin someone is allowed to be on three lists at the same time - three of the council lists because there are four local authorities in Dublin.”
“It is good that we are discussing housing, albeit a miscellaneous provisions Bill. I have not seen the Minister's amendments, even at this stage. We dealt with another miscellaneous Bill last night on justice and, at the last minute, we were dealing with a large volume of amendments which were not relevant to the original purpose of the Bill. They were related to justice all right and they were miscellaneous but that was not what the Bill was. Hopefully, the amendments that have been tabled will address some of the issues I have. One of the issues that we are dealing with in this State is basically that the State is totally dependent on private landlords and, in many cases, vulture funds to deal with housing issues. Yet we are here. Maybe it is about standardising the eligibility criteria.”
“It is good to hear that progress is being made and that the Minister of State expects at some stage, probably in October by the sounds of it, that the scheme will start but will be backdated to September. This will mean that 2,000 more artists will benefit from a basic income and, hopefully, it will help them in their output and artistic endeavours. It is about trying to ensure that others in future can benefit and that this is rolled over. The Minister of State mentioned that €18 million has been set aside for this year. This seems to suggest that if it does not start until the end of September, or is not backdated to the end of September, there may be a surplus. Is this expected to be spent this year or will it be rolled into the budget for next year's basic income?”
“Ag an am a rinneadh an daonáireamh, is An Garda Síochána, mar a dúirt mé, a rinne an daonáireamh. Bhí na Gaeilgeoirí á gcomhaireamh timpeall na gcontaetha acu. Ag an am céanna, bhí siad ag comhaireamh cé mhéad bó agus caora a bhí ag daoine. Those who spoke Irish in what are now Gaeltacht areas were equated with sheep and cattle, which were also being recorded by the commission and the census by An Garda Síochána at the time. Ag an stad seo, ceapann daoine fós go bhfuil an Ghaeilge agus an Ghaeltacht i mbaol agus is léir sin ó na fadhbanna atá ann. Cad atáimid chun a dhéanamh? Cad iad na céimeanna? Ní comóradh agus céimeanna amháin atá ann, cad iad na céimeanna breise ar gá a dhéanamh chun a chinntiú, i gceann 100 bliain eile go mbeidh an Ghaeltacht fós beo beathach? Sin an cheist mhór seachas díreach comóradh agus ceiliúradh.”
“Dúirt an Teachta Dála, Proinsias Ó Fathaigh, le linn na díospóireachta sin, “A patient in such dire straits needs special care and attention, needs nursing and special remedies.” Níl na remedies sin ag tarlú go fóill. Tá géarchás fós ó thaobh na teanga de sa Ghaeltacht.”
“Bunaíodh Coimisiún na Gaeltachta in 1925 chun daonáireamh a dhéanamh orthu siúd a raibh Gaeilge acu timpeall na tíre. Rinne An Garda Síochána an census sin. Tháinig a lán eolais as. Bunaithe air sin, leagadh amach na ceantair ar ghá cosaint a dhéanamh orthu agus tacaíocht bhreise a thabhairt dóibh le déanamh cinnte go gcosnófaí an tseoid náisiúnta a bhíodh timpeall na gceantar sin, is í sin, an Ghaeilge agus an cultúr Gaelach agus Gaeltachta. Bhí 82 moladh ag an gcoimisiún. In 1928, bhí díospóireacht sa Dáil faoi. I dtuairisc uachtarán an choimisiúin, dúirt sé, “Our language has been waylaid, beaten and robbed, and left for dead by the wayside”.”
“There were people who were not necessarily court-martialed but were cashiered out of the Defence Forces rather than being charged. They would have those records in personnel files. This is not to add a burden; it is just to make sure. It might just be a provision at the end of the list of the public bodies that says, "and any other public body that the independent assessor deems fit". I do not know whether that would cover it. It is just in case there are instances because it might be people in the Coast Guard or in other services. I am not an expert on all of this because, as I said, when one researches this, the research is quite closed. It is welcome that we are trying to close a very dark chapter in our history.”
“The Minister is right that distinctions have to be made and sometimes they did not make the full distinction of the background of whatever case. The churches are another case in point. They would have records of people. Suicides are another record. If the Minister can manage to stick to the timetable that set out two months for the records to come back from any Department, in this country that would be very interesting. It will not be the Minister but rather the independent assessor and they must then make the judgment within two months of that. I would welcome that. The Minister has set himself a high bar. In addition to access to the National Archives, the other main one is the military services records as well. There are records there.”
“It is not necessary that we look for it today but it is something to look at to see whether an equivalent right to be forgotten can be done and that people who had that disregard could approach the social media companies, the newspapers or whoever to blank out those reference in order that they do not come up in a search. I believe that is the method used in the right to be forgotten. That was brought in to protect people with small or low-grade convictions to ensure it was not held against them when they went for employment or through other types of vetting processes. It is welcome. Court documents will be key in this in many ways because when I did the research on convictions, which was only cursory, the newspapers carried very little specific detail.”
“The Department of education was also always very scrupulous about digging out people and throwing them out if they were anyway suspect in its eyes. There is the question of the employment records of people and whether they are kept. I do not know whether it is the Department of public expenditure or whatever. It is one of the provisions here that the Minister shall "as soon as practicable, notify, or cause to be notified, each public body". That is not just the public bodies that I mentioned, it could be other public bodies. It is to ensure that. In the private sector with social media, there exists the right to be forgotten. One of the problems with some of this is that the names, and addresses in some cases, in the convictions are available online if one searches newspapers and so on.”
“Why not 1916, 1867 or if we want to go back to the first republic of 1626? That is something the Minister will have to answer himself or I will keep raising it. In the main, the value of this is for families who have, in living memory, loved ones who have passed and who have had the smog or shadow of convictions upon them who were affected and those who are still alive, because there were still people before the courts well into the 1980s and early 1990s. The fact they were before the courts hung around like a bad smell on them and affected all of their work. One of the public bodies that may have information is adoption. As someone who sought adoption of a child would be refused if they had a conviction, that may be one of the bodies. I mentioned the mental health institutions.”
“We are where we are and we have it before us. Between now and the debate in the Seanad, there may be small technical issues, as there always is with legislation, especially historical pieces. There was a question about why we are not going pre-1922. There have been pardons given by Presidents. Why 1922? Why was it not 1937 with the Constitution? Why not 1948 when the executive authority Act was repealed?”
“This is basically the time where we get some discussion on the content of the amendments. As said earlier, I welcome the disregard scheme that is announced. I also welcome those members of the LGBT disregard campaign who are present in the Visitors Gallery. I thank them and other Deputies for all their hard work and for, thankfully, as the Minister has admitted, putting pressure on him, who in turn put pressure on the officials.”
“Maybe between this Stage and the Bill being taken in the Seanad, we can look at making sure that those who are required to give records are defined broadly enough so as to ensure that if there is an eventuality, there will be no restriction or any way that a State organ can refuse or block any such access to records.”
“These are the types of people whose families or loved ones, hopefully - because many of them have passed this stage - will be able to apply for the disregard and the independent person will be able to make quick adjudications and will have the access because I do not think the range of files that will be needed is complete. The Mental Health Commission, for instance, controls all of the papers from Portrane and places like that. Some of the people charged were put into what at the time were called "lunatic asylums". Maybe those places are where the paperwork is to be found.”