Ged Nash
Louth · Labour Party · Ireland
“However, it is a rich country that has a problem understanding that it is now sustainably rich. Those of us in opposition will, of course, say that this country needs to do better, and it can.”
“On the one hand, it is legitimate for an Opposition party to critique the economic model day in, day out. I do it myself all of the time, and we all know that Ireland can do better. However, at the same time, is that kind of critique helping to persuade those whom we need to persuade into a new Ireland? I am not so sure that it is.”
“There will be fiscal and financial implications for this State in that transition. There is an obligation on us, insofar as we can, to properly interrogate and consider those implications and to be upfront about them.”
“No, it did not, but let us not exaggerate its impact on the Irish economy. It is good and it had an impact, but was there a causal relationship? I am not so sure. The jury is out on that. However, is the Good Friday Agreement a good thing and good for our economy? Of course, it is. Did the guns fall silent in the North?”
“We are not good at describing what those accommodations will be or what that relationship with the UK will be, whether economically, socially, politically, culturally or otherwise. It is a relationship that will have to be maintained. It will look very different as we approach a new Ireland.”
“That was a very different prospect when the vast majority, if not all, of East German citizens wanted to become part of a united German polity. As we know, that is not the case on this island. We need to be careful about how we approach that.”
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“NAMA, in terms of the legislation governing its work and the priorities laid down by successive Governments, has one would argue done a good job on what it was asked and required to do. On its own terms, that is what it would say. It has handed more than €5.6 billion in terms of a lifetime contribution to the State. I recall only too well when NAMA was set up in 2009 the fear the taxpayer would ultimately have to keep bailing out the agency, an agency that it is worth recalling took over, as the Minister of State stated, €74 billion of distressed assets at less than half that initial valuation. That was a genuine fear. That was an insight into the fairly legitimate sense of catastrophe and fatalism that abounded at the time as the country crept towards the bailout signed up to in 2010.”
“There are lessons here for the way in which our economy is managed today and into the future. While I do not want to exaggerate, there are worrying signs that all the lessons of the disaster that kicked off in earnest only 18 to 19 years ago have not been fully understood. The shadow of the crash still looms; most notably in a dysfunctional housing and construction sector that still has not fully recovered. We see the impact of this every single day. There are more than 17,000 people homeless in what is now, objectively, a rich country. Annual housing targets are routinely unmet. Housing is out of the reach of far too many working class people. There is the smashing of the social contract that urgently needs to be pieced back together.”
“We also need to reflect on the lessons that need to be learned to ensure the citizens of this country are never again saddled with the debts and long-term consequences of the actions of a class of developers who flew too close to the sun egged on by a political elite of enablers, out of control bankers who funded the developers' misadventures and, indeed, the actions of unquestioning regulators who got far too close to them all. Irresponsible frenzies of tax cutting coupled with over-spending, allied with an over-reliance on one or two unreliable tax heads to fund the madness that commenced at the start of the 2000s led directly to the economic collapse and an impact on our society and political system that is still spinning out. We still cannot say with any certainty that the outworkings of that catastrophe have in any way concluded.”
“I thank the Ceann Comhairle. At least I am keeping it in the county. It is a seamless transition. I am pleased to speak on this Bill. While the Bill's provisions are mostly technical and procedural in nature, the import of NAMA and the IBRC, the history attached to these institutions, and their purpose, certainly were not and are not. Seventeen years on from its controversial establishment, NAMA is today being given a decent burial. Thirteen years on from the effect of tearing up the IBRC promissory notes, this zombie bank is being liquidated. On balance, this is a milestone; this is a good thing. It is important today that we reflect on why these institutions were set up in the first place and on how they were managed.”
“The current public sector pay deal is due to expire over the next few weeks. Trade unions looked at the Government response to the fuel protests in recent weeks and understood that the package that was developed for those who were protesting did nothing whatsoever for PAYE workers, despite the Taoiseach's protestations to the contrary. He is opening the Fórsa conference this week. What will he say to the public sector workers represented by Fórsa and other trade unions, both in regard to their expectations about a new public sector pay deal and what he plans to do for PAYE workers in October's budget?”
“What we are arguing for is the definition of fiscal responsibility, namely, a properly framed mini-budget rather than a drip feed of interventions worth hundreds of millions of euro based on who shouts the loudest. That is no way to manage an economy. That is not fiscal responsibility or prudence. I would ask Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independents to reflect on the position they have adopted here today.”
“That is acknowledged by representatives on the Government side and is something we are seeking to address in a motion that is put forward in good faith to try to address the real concerns of working people in this country, who simply have had enough. They can no longer manage and they cannot, as colleagues have said, wait until a signal is sent in October that things might improve come 1 January when the Finance Bill is enacted. I ask the Minister of State and his colleagues to reflect on the decision to introduce an amendment to the Labour Party motion. I ask the Government to send a signal to working people in this country that it is on their side. In particular, PAYE workers rightly feel abandoned by this Government.”
“I have the height of respect for the Minister of State and the way in which he practises his politics and the way in which he represents his constituents and the country. We can, however, respectfully disagree. We fundamentally disagree with the choices that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael made in the last election. There was no argument, for example, for a tax cut for the hospitality sector, which was adding jobs by the week. There was an even smaller argument, if one existed at all, for tax cuts for the development sector to supplement the bottom line of builders who were building apartments already. There was no argument whatsoever. That was done at the expense of tax indexation for PAYE workers.”
“We all know the impact that their destructive policies are still having on our dysfunctional housing system today, which goes to the root of the economic and social problems we have. We in the Labour Party will not be taking lectures from the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, or anybody else in his party about fiscal responsibility. By the way, fiscal responsibility does not mean austerity, cutbacks or anything of the sort. Fiscal responsibility means good economic management allied with imaginative economic management and social initiatives that allow Governments to address the real problems society is encountering. In the last budget we saw the Government make choices that we fundamentally disagree with, and the Minister of State accepted that in his remarks. We can, thankfully, respectfully disagree.”
“In my concluding remarks I will counter one or two of the points the Minister of State made, the first being his claim that nobody likes talking about fiscal responsibility and that it is not sexy. Well, it is the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night, and the Minister of State touched on one of the reasons. In an economy that is not managed responsibly, we know there is no future for working people and there is no future for small businesses. This is why it is very difficult to sit here, take lectures and be sermonised about fiscal responsibility by the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, and by Fianna Fáil. We all know the impacts of the irresponsibility they showed 20 years ago, and the impacts this had on working families in this country.”
“This would be done in a focused way and before the benefits of October's budget are seen next January. Working people simply cannot wait until October for a signal that they will receive some respite through the budget process. They need support now and I am happy to propose our motion.”
“The rest of the money will come from a reversal of the VAT reduction due to come in in July as well as an increase in the bank levy. In short, this is an old-fashioned transfer of wealth from big business to the pockets of working people who keep this country going day in, day out but are far too often absent from the thinking and considerations of this conservative coalition. It is quite extraordinary that the Government has chosen to oppose this modest motion. Before the last election, Government parties bought voters' support with their own money. There was no shortage of hare-brained wheezes that Jack and Paschal were happy to fund. What we are proposing now is a fiscally and socially responsible initiative to assist households that need extra help today.”
“For the longer term, we would increase investment in retrofitting and renewable energy. Colleagues will expand on this later in their contributions. We want to turbocharge the retrofitting process across the country and use the profits of big tech in the form of the Apple tax windfall to fund it. The Labour Party is always careful with the public finances and we have set out precisely how this package is to be funded in a responsible way. We propose €1.3 billion in revenue-raising measures to cover the cost of these measures to help working families to make ends meet. The increased revenue will be drawn from a windfall tax on energy companies, which seem enjoy record profits every time there is an oil crisis.”
“The Minister of State will know that hot school meals are a real help for families but they end when the summer holidays start and grocery prices continue to climb. That is why we would provide a one-off summer grocery supplement of €100 for each child through the child benefit system, giving real help to families. We would cut school transport fees, which are due to rise sharply in September, and we would scrap the reimposed €116 charge on students to take the leaving cert and €109 for the junior cert. We would reduce public transport costs in a really targeted way and include a trial of free public transport that would cost an average of €90 million a month. A number of cities and countries around the world have made public transport free as part of their response to the energy shock and there is no reason we cannot do it here.”
“Our proposals would reverse the indefensible decision to give a VAT cut to fast-food chains and instead give workers a break. The Labour Party is calling for the indexation of tax credits and bands to allow workers to hold on to more of their wages. This would be worth €400 to someone earning €50,000 and ensure the real value of their pay is not reduced due to rising prices and wage increases. We want to see this backdated to January, just as the diesel rebate scheme changes were backdated by several weeks. We want to see targeted energy income tax credits worth €400 for working households with incomes of less than €80,000. We would also introduce a double social welfare payment just like the Christmas bonus.”
“As for the Taoiseach's musings to the Sunday newspapers on inheritance tax changes, I think we should leave that argument to another day. What the Labour Party is proposing today is simple, straightforward and impactful. If adopted, it would make a real difference to the lives of working people now. The Labour Party's mini-budget would provide almost €1,000 in income supports for working families and make a real difference in helping them to cope with the escalating cost of living. Our proposals would transfer profits from the big energy companies, big tech, the infamous burger barons and the banks to the pockets of PAYE workers and the self-employed who are struggling to make it to the end of week three of the month.”
“Are they being given the message now that Ireland is taking another look at renewables like offshore wind and will instead focus on nuclear? This is the distraction of the decade. By all means, let us have the debate but the Government's timing is badly off and quite frankly it is an insult to the intelligence of the Irish people. It is also quite something to think that the Tánaiste's signature contribution to the debate on household finances since he took office has been the 563rd announcement of a proposed new retail savings and investment scheme, which, while it has merits, will do absolutely zero to help working families who are not worried about savings and investment schemes, but rather are concerned about the day-to-day problems of keeping the fridge and the presses stocked with food.”
“While the situation is worse now than could have been envisaged by anybody last October, it will get worse still. All the while, the cost of energy has gone up to the tune of well over one week's wages for a worker on the national minimum wage. I thought it was tone deaf of the Taoiseach, Monty Martin, and his sidekick, Waylon Smithers O'Connor, to be extolling the virtues of a shift to nuclear when this Government has proved itself completely incapable of developing the offshore wind we need to decarbonise to make our bills cheaper and secure our economy's future by ensuring that Ireland becomes a net energy exporter. What kind of message does this send to possible wind farm developers who have enough to contend with from a Government that has not been exactly all in on wind and solar?”
“For example, it went all in on plain silly VAT cuts for a hospitality sector that is adding jobs by the day instead of easing income tax for workers. The Minister of State's own party, Fianna Fáil, clearly still has the hots for big builders as is shown by the dopey decision to transfer a few hundred million euro to apartment developers to boost their bottom lines on homes, many of which were already under construction. The ESRI and others set out how decisions made last October which came into effect on 1 January of this year would leave working families worse off. They did so and then some. The Government has to own those decisions. Those choices are now coming home to roost. All of this was before Trump's and Israel's misadventure in Iran.”
“I will be sharing time with colleagues. I am pleased to move the Labour Party motion which calls for the introduction of a mini-budget targeted unashamedly at Ireland's 3.5 million PAYE workers. Working households are bearing the brunt of the cost-of-living permacrisis. This is no longer a fleeting problem. We have the highest energy costs in the EU; childcare which is a veritable second mortgage; rising college costs which Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil would rather have a public fight over than sort out; workers paying more income tax this year than last; extortionate housing costs; and the long-fingering of a living wage. I could go on. The Government made choices in last year's budget that are now coming home to roost.”
“I move: That Dáil Éireann: notes that: — Budget 2026 failed to provide for indexation of income tax credits and bands, providing instead untargeted Value-Added Tax (VAT) cuts for the hospitality and construction sector; — despite clear evidence of an ongoing cost-of-living crisis, the Government withdrew energy credits and cut pre-election once-off payments, that in recent years had cloaked the inadequacy of existing social welfare payment rates; — the analysis by the Economic and Social Research Institute of Budget 2026 measures, shows that it resulted in household income losses averaging 2 per cent of disposable income, with low-income households hit hardest; — the illegal war launched by the United States of America and Israel against Iran, has created an energy crisis that has already led to increased inflation, with further price rises still to come on energy, food and other commodities; — the energy sector is reaping windfall gains, with British Petroleum reporting more than a doubling of profits in the first three months of 2026; — last year, in advance of Budget 2026, Department of Finance officials warned that the hospitality VAT cut was a blunt measure, would be poorly targeted, and comes with a significant amount of deadweight, while Bord Bia consumer spending in food services data shows that 60 per cent of the benefit goes to fast food outlets and hotels; — sectoral fuel supports and cuts to Excise Duty have been introduced by the Government, which includes changes to the Diesel Rebate Scheme that were backdated to January 2026; — struggling households will have to wait over five months, until October, to find out what supports may be introduced to ease the increase in the cost of living; and — the State has yet to deploy the Apple windfall funds, and carries significant cash balances; recognises that: — Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and self-employed workers have received no targeted support in the cost-of-living crisis, and are now subject to effective cuts in their disposable incomes due to Government budget decisions; — rising grocery prices continue to impact on household budgets, as 14 per cent of households can't afford to warm their home, and nearly half a million households are in arrears on their energy bills; — those most at risk of energy poverty, and reliant on fossil fuels, will continue to be hit hardest by further increases in energy prices; — Ireland has the highest energy prices in Europe, due to an overreliance on natural gas for electricity generation leaving us exposed to geopolitical shocks and international market prices; and — only by rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels through faster rollout of renewables, and electrification of transport and heating, can prices be permanently reduced; calls on the Government to immediately introduce a Cost of Living mini-Budget that will: — reverse the VAT reductions and use the savings to provide for indexation of income tax bands and credits, backdated to January 2026; — introduce a windfall tax on energy profits to fund targeted energy credits and social welfare supports, including a summer bonus double payment; — provide a one-off €100 grocery supplement to Child Benefit, restore the €100 previously cut from the Back-to-School Clothing and Footwear Allowance, and remove State exam fees; — increase the bank levy to €500 million, and provide targeted energy grants for small businesses, and tailored supports to increase uptake of Electric Vehicles for households and businesses; — introduce pilot trials of free public transport, to reduce fuel use and cut school transport fees; and — deploy the windfall Apple funds to turbocharge retrofitting, the installation of solar photovoltaic and offshore wind, and the electrification of heating and transport, to bring down the cost of bills; and further calls on the Government to introduce a Budget in October that puts the interests of middle- and low-income households first.”
“When a lot of the adjustments that were made in recent weeks are exhausted shortly, the Government will roll them over. The best and most responsible way of organising a financial package is to do so in a responsible, structured way with a mini-budget that is holistically managed and that ensures PAYE workers are looked after and that their interests are prioritised as well over the next few months and in advance of the October budget.”
“With respect, nothing the Minister has said on the record in response to my question will make it any easier for PAYE workers between now and the budget to get some respite and help with the high energy costs and so on she directly referenced. We can trace all of this back to the poor decisions the Government made in budget 2026. The Government will have an opportunity to make amends for that this afternoon by withdrawing the countermotion and ensuring it sends a signal to PAYE workers and the self-employed that it is for a change in its sights. It has gotten off to a very bad start. Working people are much worse off this year than they were this time last year. They took the Government's pre-election commitments at face value that this would not be the case. I will make a prediction.”
“Labour’s motion makes a very clear ask: do a mini-budget now, and put up to €1,000 into the pockets of average working families by: indexing bands and credits for PAYE workers backdated to January, bringing in a targeted €400 energy credit for households on under €80,000 annually and introduce a €100 groceries supplement to combat high prices at the checkout. In the absence of a mini-budget, it will not be Ireland that will be going nuclear; it will be Irish workers hit with high costs and no sign of relief and respite Does the Minister plan to formally oppose Labour’s motion later and if so, why?”
“The truth is the Government has abandoned hard-working families on middle and low incomes. Money was no object before the votes were counted in November 2024. No vote buying gimmick was too madcap not to find its way into that year’s pre-election budget in a transparent attempt to buy people's votes with their own money. The message to working people since has been clear: you are on your own. Ireland has the highest energy prices in the EU with a harsh winter ahead. We have had already high grocery prices, rising by a further 6.5% for the basics in the first part of the year. There is no sign of the promised €200 childcare rate and there were shameful sham fights this week over college fees, rather than knuckling down and cutting costs for families This afternoon, Government will have a chance to show its support for PAYE workers.”
“The Minister's party said that PAYE tax rates and bands would be indexed every year, making sure small pay hikes would be taken home. Instead, Fine Gael chose an economically stupid tax break for fast food chains and to subsidise the bank balances of developers against all of the expert advice, even from the Government's own civil servants. These are not the actions of a responsible Government. Three weeks ago, a Government that was close to losing its authority caved in to sectoral interests and shelled out over €700 million to buy their silence for a few weeks. Nobody is saying for one minute that supports were not needed but there was nothing in that deal whatsoever for PAYE workers, and they know it. There was nothing to help with the day to day challenges that now have a permanence about them.”
“PAYE workers need a mini-budget, and they need it now. Last October’s budget, the first of this Government’s new term, managed to pull off a quite extraordinary feat. It committed to spend over €9 billion more than the year before, yet left working families even worse off. This is an unparalleled achievement and all because of choices the Government made. Even before Trump and Israel’s war on Iran, the ESRI, in its post-budget analysis, said working families would be 2% poorer this year, with those who depend on the State for all of their income twice as far behind. Roll seven months on, and the picture for PAYE workers has worsened considerably. Working people were deliberately misled by Fine Gael before they went to the polls in 2024.”
“All the schools in that area are accommodating children who are in international protection accommodation services, IPAS, centres, many of them coming from the largest IPAS centre in the country, namely the Mosney centre. It is meeting all the thresholds laid down by the new DEIS identification model and the HP model. This is extraordinary. It needs to be reviewed in a meaningful way.”
“I would like to have more time available to discuss this, because I am confounded by that response. Effectively, what the Minister of State is saying is that we have disadvantage but that it is not at the level of concentration required for inclusion in DEIS plus. That is quite extraordinary in light of the data we have available. I will give the Minister of State an example. At least three of the schools serve particular areas. I am going to read out the levels of disadvantage in the context of the HP deprivation index in 2022. One area on the north side had a HP deprivation index of minus 33. There was 27% unemployment among males there and 47% of people in the area were lone parents. On the south side, one area stood at minus 32 on the deprivation index. It had an unemployment rate of 27% and 25% of those in the area were lone parents.”
“The evidence before my own eyes, based on the work I do every single day, the levels of need and the data and the qualitative and quantitative evidence we have available all say to me that a massive error was made in this regard by the Department. The Minister of State will have the chance to correct that error. We genuinely believe a mistake has been made. While we know there is an appeals process under way, there needs to be more meaningful engagement with these schools aside from a desktop appeals process and review.”
“When the Drogheda implementation board's mandate ended, the disadvantage and poverty did not. Schools like St. John's and St. Paul's, St. Patrick's and St. Brigid's would have expected to be included in DEIS plus. St. Joseph's, Sunday's Gate, for example, and others would have expected elevation to DEIS 1 status. Deputy Byrne and I brought all principals of local schools together when the original decision was made to review this appalling decision soon after it was made. To say we were collectively shocked at the outcome is the understatement of the year. That these schools were left behind leads me to question whether the Pobal index and the new DEIS plus identification model were used at all. The Department of education has got this badly wrong.”
“We were told time and again that the identification of DEIS plus schools would be done in a transparent, robust and evidence-based way but the fact that not a single school in Drogheda has found its way into this long-awaited scheme leads me to challenge that assertion. As the Minister of State will know, Drogheda is the largest town in Ireland yet to be declared a city. It is a great place with a great spirit and yet like all urban areas, we have our problems. We have pockets of severe and deep social and economic intergenerational disadvantage. I deal with those challenges every day. This is recognised officially in the Geiran review, which I managed to have commissioned several years ago. What followed was ad hoc short-term additional teaching and support resources.”
“I appeal to the Minister to have an open mind on that and to grant the group the support it needs to help the victims through this very welcome process.”
“They have gone to their graves without any form of public accountability for the actions of Michael Shine, the way in which these crimes were allowed to happen and how he was permitted to operate with impunity for so long. There are lots of unanswered questions. This is an initiative I support and that the patients support. As colleagues said earlier, it is a constant battle. The very first statement I made in this House when I was elected back in 2011 was for additional funding for Dignity4Patients. That funding was never more essential than it is now because more victims and survivors are coming forward. When this emerges again into the public domain, it piques interest. Clearly, financial support and advocacy support are required.”
“An Garda Síochána needs to be held to account for how it handled the management of complaints over the years. Clearly the Medical Missionaries of Mary will be involved in that as well, as the owners and operators of the hospital before it was taken over by the North Eastern Health Board, which was, to the best of my recollection, in 1997. In addition, the old North Eastern Health Board, the Department of Health and any other agency that had any kind of responsibility whatsoever from the point at which former Dr. Michael Shine was allowed to perpetrate these crimes against young children, who are now young men, must be involved. Many of the men who suffered at the hands of Michael Shine are now dead.”
“I do not want to pre-empt the outcome of the scoping exercise. I do not necessarily want to interrogate the words of the Minister today and what she said on previous occasions, especially back in March in this House, but there is a clear expectation that a form of statutory inquiry or commission of investigation will emanate from this process. We know the legislation guiding these processes. We are aware of it and we understand it. We are conditioned to expect a bespoke arrangement to allow an investigation that has a statutory basis to happen. Without pre-empting the outcome of the scoping exercise, which would be unfair to those who are involved – I do not necessarily want to scope out what the frame of a process like that would look like - there need to be powers of compellability.”
“In the context of the scoping exercise process we are in at the moment, it is appropriate to acknowledge that many of the survivors and victims who have engaged with Lorcan Staines and the experts who are advising on the scoping exercise have acknowledged that this is the most significant initiative taken to date since they first went public. Some of them had to go public and waive their anonymity and tell their story in public. They should not have had to do that. I pay tribute to their courage, bravery and tenacity, and to the bravery of their families as well, and to the Dignity4Patients group which supported these men in very difficult circumstances who had to state publicly what happened to them, and all of the vulnerabilities that it involved. It has been a remarkable journey.”
“I want to say, hand on heart, that I am grateful - if gratitude is the right emotion or position to take - for the interest the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, has taken in this matter since her appointment as Minister for Health. That interest was generated by the remarkable campaign and advocacy work done by the Dignity4Patients group and the victims and survivors, individually and collectively, of Michael Shine, many of whom are friends, contemporaries and peers of mine - people I grew up with. They deserve a form of justice that has been denied to them to date.”
“Michael Shine has spent a short time behind bars. Prosecution through the criminal courts and spending time behind bars having lost one's liberty for a short period does not accountability make. Accountability is a more complex matter. When we discuss the crimes of Michael Shine and the way in which he was allowed to operate with impunity up until the mid-1990s, thanks to the actions of Bernadette Sullivan, we need to look more closely at the environment in which he was allowed to operate. As I have said in this Chamber on countless occasions, there was a network. The system allowed this to happen. It turned a blind eye to the damage done to my friends, my peers, my contemporaries, and it went on for far too long. It went on for years without any intervention whatsoever being made.”
“The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, spent time in County Louth last Friday opening a welcome new social housing development. It was great to welcome him to our hometown and our small city. In the time he spent in County Louth, there was a very strong chance that some of the men he met are survivors and victims of disgraced paedophile and former doctor, Michael Shine. The spectre or ghost of Michael Shine hangs over my hometown, counties Louth and Meath, north County Dublin and parts of counties Cavan and Monaghan. That one of Europe's most prolific sex offenders and abusers managed to get away with immunity with what he did over many decades working in one of the most substantial and largest public hospitals in our country requires the kind of statutory investigation that successive Governments have not been of a mind to grant.”
“Sometimes the stories we tell ourselves as a country, we simply do not recognise. Any of us who cares about our country can and should be proud of our economic success but it is what is done with that success that matters. I looked at the Government countermotion and it confounds me as a representative of working people. Why would a Government in a rich country renege on a solemn promise made before the election to introduce modest extended sick pay schemes and put a commitment made to the lowest paid for a real living wage on the never-never? It is proof, if needed, that were it not for the Labour Party establishing the Low Pay Commission 11 years ago, we would not have seen annual rises in the national minimum wage each year since 2015. I commend our colleagues on introducing this motion. We support it.”
“The evidence for collective bargaining is there but it is now clear, despite the Minister's claims to the contrary, that this is a Government with an ideological opposition to collective bargaining. It is on the wrong side of history. I am intrigued by the claim in the countermotion about the action plan on collective bargaining. It is very interesting. Yes, some actions have been delivered - the low-hanging fruit, not the difficult, challenging parts. The Minister is part of a jammy Government - a Government that is presiding over the fruits of an economic surplus and of unparalleled and uninterrupted growth. It is nothing to do with the genius of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. It has fallen into their lap but they do not know how to make this rich country that feels so poor better for the majority of us.”
“The voluntarist model has not served working people well. Why? One in five working people is low paid. A plethora of economic sectors are addicted to low pay, subsidised by the State. There is a broken social contract and rising welfare supports for the working poor, rather than the alternative. What is the alternative? Better legal collective bargaining arrangements backed by the State to more fairly distribute the fruits of the labour of PAYE workers. Neither has the voluntarist model served the interests of our economy, if we are to be honest with one another. Collective bargaining gives certainty to business and the economy. Change is negotiated. Skills are enhanced. Innovation happens in a planned way. True competitiveness is maintained, rather than a race to the bottom for short-term profit over long-term sustainability.”
“The Irish exceptionalism on full collective bargaining rights, the norm across the European Union, simply needs to end. We are European when it suits us and Atlanticists when it does not. If I hear one more time from the Minister or any of his colleagues that the voluntarist model of industrial relations is working, I will scream. It is a sham and a scam. It is intellectually and politically dishonest. It is an observable fact the world over that economies with industrial strategies that embed strong legislative frameworks and cultural norms of trade union access and collective bargaining rights are the best, most productive and most innovative economies on the planet. It is why Denmark, Finland, Germany and Sweden are well ahead of us. It is why they will continue to be ahead of us and to be more competitive.”
“It is why we have also said, in the amendment referred to by my colleague, Deputy Lawlor, that young workers must be paid at least the same legal minimum wage rate as the adult colleagues who work alongside them. We spend less time in this Chamber and elsewhere asking ourselves why people who work hard for a living are seeing their living standards slip and their hope for a better future disappear, no matter the shifts that they put in. We rarely ask ourselves what structural problems we are experiencing in this country and what detailed legislative, administrative, regulatory and policy changes we need to introduce to consign that problem, in this rich country, to history. This timely motion goes to the heart of the problem.”
“I am pleased to speak in support of the motion. I commend colleagues in Sinn Féin for deciding to use their weekly Private Member's time to advance the argument for a fairer deal for working people in this country with the support of ICTU colleagues. Many trade union friends and colleagues are in the Gallery this evening and watching online. We rightly spend a lot of time in this House making the case for emergency financial support for working people who are struggling to pay the bills, keep food on the table, and merely keep the lights on. It is partly why the Labour amendment questions the decision to continue with a massive wealth transfer to growing hospitality businesses, money that ought to have been used instead to allow working people to pay a little less income tax this year.”
“Hauliers did a great job in terms of how they acted. They got the Tánaiste to respond. They have done the business for the people they represent. It is about time now the Tánaiste and his Fianna Fáil and Independent colleagues did the business for working people.”
“There are other and better ways of targeting supports to businesses which may need them, not a blanket VAT cut that is going to disproportionately benefit the burger barons like Ronald McDonald and his friends. That is a very poor use of taxpayer money and is being paid for directly by PAYE workers. That is the reality. The Tánaiste is now trying to retroactively justify that by the increased energy costs that businesses will be experiencing. I simply do not buy that. The Tánaiste is going to have to explain, with great difficulty, to workers who are going to continue to find it very difficult to pay their bills this summer when the VAT cut is introduced in July, why he is continuing to justify that. Lobbyists do a great job for the hospitality business. They did a number on the Tánaiste.”
“Because the Government keeps telling us. They also know we cannot spend it all at once and that services need to be paid for. People saw that the Government very quickly found €750 million over the past month for sectoral interests. They need help now and there are ways for the Government to responsibly do a mini-budget now to provide real relief for PAYE workers. It could reverse the VAT cuts, introduce a windfall tax on energy companies and use the money for targeted energy credits of €400 for average income households. It could introduce the income tax indexation it promised during the general election but abandoned last October, and offer real supports for families with grocery bills and school costs. It can use existing laws to place maximum-price orders on home heating oil.”
“Now it seems the Government has realised finally realised the error of its ways. In the past week, the Government has flown many budget kites, including income tax cuts, energy credits and increased retrofit grants; you name it. Why do PAYE workers have to wait more than six months for relief when protesters only had to wait for a week? Those sectors did need some support but why are the needs of the real drivers of the economy being blanked by the Government? Yesterday, the Commission laid out the measures the Government can take to address the impact of the energy crisis. There are many policy options available to the Government in this toolbox such as a windfall tax on energy profits, price controls, energy vouchers, social tariffs and income support schemes for households. People know there is a massive surplus. Why?”