Conor Sheehan
Limerick City · Labour Party · Ireland
“If a student does not have access to one of these devices or access to one at home, there is often no alternative and that could leave them excluded. Many families are forced to pay hundreds and thousands, particularly with the rising cost of microchips, for these devices.”
“I thank the Minister for her considered response. We need to get rid of voluntary contributions and move to generic school uniforms. This is something that has been done in the UK.”
“This digital divide is resulting in a severe and growing level of inequality where so many communities, students and families are unable to purchase the devices they desperately need for their children's education.”
“I raise the issue of the community access support team, CAST, in Limerick, which has prevented 133 detentions under section 12 of the Mental Health Act and reduced the number emergency department presentations. It has responded to over 1,000 incidents.”
“Do not worry. We need to have a debate this week before the House rises about the imminent report on Aughinish Alumina. There are up to 2,000 direct and indirect jobs at stake in Limerick. We cannot have a situation where the State is inadvertently complicit in the export of alumina to Russia. Where there is a will, there is a way.”
“It is absolutely reprehensible that planning permission has been granted for apartments on the site of the former mother and baby home at Bessborough. We have 19 mothers and 859 infants associated with Bessborough still missing. Now 140 apartments are going to be built on a mass grave. We need statements on this next week.”
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“With no mention of this in the programme for Government, I will be forgiven for being doubtful. The Government has committed to a new housing programme which, to all intents and purposes, sounds like Housing for All with a nip, tuck and a bit of botox. As a new Deputy in the House, today feels like Groundhog Day because here we are at the start of a new term with the Government intent on ploughing on with the worst of the previous administration. In my city of Limerick, the Land Development Agency, LDA, has a number of key strategic sites, such as the Colbert quarter where there is potential for at least 2,800 homes to be built, the gasworks site, the Rosbrien site and so on.”
“The Taoiseach said yesterday in the Dáil that it was his genuine belief that we would reach 40,000, despite the fact that every available expert was telling him we would not. The programme for Government commits to delivering 300,000 homes per year by 2030 with scant detail on how this will be achieved. We are just to believe it will happen by osmosis, just as we were to believe that 40,000 homes would be built last year. Within the seven pages dedicated to housing in the programme for Government, there is no stated commitment to examine any of the key recommendations from the Housing Commission, the Government's independent body, which it has effectively decided to pretend does not exist. The Department of housing stated previously it would undertake a full assessment of the report and cost its implementation.”
“Fine Gael's attitude to housing is to leave it to Fianna Fáil and Fianna Fáil in turn has attempted something a little like a David Blaine-style illusion, promising 40,000 homes per year in the run-up to the election when the reality was just 30,350 and that was revealed, of course, after the fact. The Taoiseach and the previous Minister for housing chose to ignore the warnings from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, and the Central Bank that completion figures would be nowhere near 40,000 and continued parroting that figure because it suited them in the run-up to the general election. There is no doubt in my mind but that it benefited them in the election. Not only was this House deceived, but the general public were deceived and that damages trust and integrity in politics.”
“I welcome the Minister of State to the House and echo the comments of my colleague, Deputy Kelly, about Tony Maher. This programme for Government contains more reviews than the RTÉ Guide and offers little in the way of hope for renters, people on the housing list or people languishing in hotels, especially in my city, Limerick. It offers more of the same and does not contain anything remotely resembling the radical reset in housing policy called for in the Government's own Housing Commission report. It is difficult to objectively critique the Government's housing policy because it does not have one.”
“I rise today to raise with the Taoiseach the issue of sentencing and the need for sentencing reform on foot of the sentence handed down in recent days in the case of the tragic death of Joe Drennan in Limerick city. He was a very promising journalism student and had a bright future in front of him. He was killed because of a deliberate decision to drive dangerously, a decision made by somebody who was out on bail at the time. There must be accountability in relation to this because the person who killed Joe Drennan has received a concurrent sentence for this crime and will not spend one additional hour in prison. I ask the Taoiseach to urgently review sentencing guidelines, particularly with regard to the issue of concurrent and suspended sentences for violent offences, something for which the Labour Party has called.”
“We, in Labour, believe in an active State and a social floor for health and housing, a threshold beneath which no citizen would be allowed to fall, and it is on that basis we will hold this Government to account.”
“As we meet here today, I am conscious that homelessness, house prices and rents in this country have never been as high, with the number of new homes built last year falling by 7%. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and their coalition colleagues have shown, through deed, that they will not and cannot deal with this crisis. The Government's own Housing Commission report has called for a radical reset of housing policy and the Government's response to this has been to effectively pretend that it does not exist. It is clear from the programme for Government that this Administration is intent on ploughing the same failed furrow as the previous one.”
“I dtús báire, ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil le muintir chathair Luimnigh as ucht an deis seo a thabhairt dom agus déanaim comhghairdeas leis an Taoiseach agus an Rialtas nua. As I rise here to speak for the first time as a TD for my home city of Limerick, I want to sincerely thank the people for electing me. Without them, I would not be here today. I am cognisant of what an enormous privilege and responsibility it is to be able to speak freely in Dáil Éireann, the Parliament of a free republic. They say to govern is to choose. This coalition of convenience has chosen, in the flowery language of ambivalence, to do very little to deliver the meaningful change that the people who elected me are seeking. There is nothing flowery about this governing arrangement and this whole sordid arrangement has more than a whiff off it.”