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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“I have said time and again over the years in this Chamber, and to successive enterprise Ministers, that we need to put the business support scheme on a statutory basis and the fact that we have not done so is not acceptable. There were plans to do so three or four years ago, when I raised it with the then Minister, Simon Coveney, in response to flooding episodes that caused serious problems in the Cooley Peninsula. It is not sustainable that for each event a new memo has to be brought to Cabinet to provide for a new scheme. I know it is not the Minister of State's direct responsibility but I have no doubt he is engaging on all flood-related matters with all relevant Departments and Ministers.”
“I will make two further points before passing over to my party colleague Deputy O'Donoghue. I have always found the response of the Department of Social Protection to be excellent, in terms of the management of the humanitarian scheme. Members of my own family in east Meath had to benefit from that scheme in recent times in a vulnerable area around Bettystown. The response of the county council, working with the Department of Social Protection to provide basic resources to people who need them to get through difficult periods, has been excellent but we can always improve the planning in that regard, given the permanence of the kinds of problems we are experiencing.”
“I am told that €1.9 million has been allocated for coastal protection works in County Louth across some 26 projects but much more is needed. We also need to see that multifaceted response that we all speak about. The Minister of State will also be familiar with problems in the Baltray area outside of Drogheda and, as Deputy Ó Murchú referenced, in the Annagassan area in mid-Louth. Frankly, the list goes on, but these problems are predictable. The Minister of State visited Blackrock recently. The main street in Blackrock, facing onto the beach, effectively became a kind of canal in recent times, something that I have certainly not experienced in a long time. We know that when rain persists and we have these flooding events, places like Wellington Quay in Drogheda, beside the River Boyne, are very vulnerable indeed.”
“Many of the potholes that engineers or contractors wish to fill and resolve are actually full of water and the recent icy conditions in parts of the country have only exacerbated the problems. As physics tells us, when water ingress becomes a problem on roads, damage is done to the tarmac, the tarmac expands and that creates more problems. Hopefully we will get a period of finer weather that will allow contractors to do the work that is necessary. There has been extensive damage to the road network around Termonfeckin, for example, and I tabled a series of parliamentary questions recently in relation to the flood response issue and the need for the OPW to prioritise minor flood mitigation in that area, as well as coastal protection scheme works.”
“I welcome Louth County Council's commitment to making an application for €1.2 million in additional funding from the Department of Transport to try to cover at least some of the damage caused to roads in County Louth in recent times as a result of recent flooding. I hope that application will be looked upon favourably by the Government when it lands and is being considered. I am really not sure that €1.2 million is going to cover it, though. The problem is not confined to Dundalk and north Louth; severe damage has been caused in the south of the county as well. When we speak to local authority engineers, as we do almost daily, we hear reports of roads being flooded and a growth in the number of potholes over the last period of time. That in itself is a complex issue.”
“At this point, I want to join colleagues in putting on the record my appreciation of the outdoor staff, engineers and everybody across the spectrum in the public service in Louth and Meath for their actions in recent times, their preparedness and their professionalism in dealing with the very real problems that householders and business are experiencing. Homes and businesses in Blackrock, with which the Minister of State will be familiar having visited recently, have been particularly badly hit, and areas on the Cooley Peninsula are continually finding themselves quite literally in the eye of the storm.”
“Some have been in the system for almost a decade. Out of 54 large projects where some work has begun since they were prioritised for development back in 2018, the majority - 31 - are only at preliminary design stage. Some of those are in my own region. The target completion times for many of the projects run well into the 2030s but those who are suffering annual, and now more frequent, deluges simply cannot wait any longer. That said, I believe the Minister of State is genuinely committed to ensuring projects are expedited in the best way possible. The people I represent in County Louth and east Meath are very much in the firing line of this problem and of the tardiness, dare I say it, of the collective national response to this crisis.”
“The severity of the storms and the impacts we are experiencing are going to become ever more complicated and we need to do more to adapt, mitigate and manage. That is not to say that we do not need to do more to ensure that we halt, moderate and mitigate the climate change effects that we are experiencing. We need to do that but we know, unfortunately, that when it comes to the performance of this country, we are way behind in terms of meeting our climate targets. That is not an abstract thing but is having a very real impact on the day-to-day experiences of everybody in this country, and we are all in the firing line. According to an article in The Irish Times last weekend, dozens of flood protection works that have been deemed critical to protecting thousands of homes across the country have yet to progress to planning.”
“-----he had the good grace not to and I have the good sense to live on the top of a hill, knowing that there are certain areas that are vulnerable to flooding and flood damage. The experience and topography in our respective towns is quite different. We are in a new era and a new normal, dare I say it, when it comes to flood events. Over the last few years and certainly before 2020, we got used to describing flash events as one-in-100-year rainfall events but the reality of climate change in 2026 is that the kinds of events and experiences we are encountering now are permanent. They are much more frequent, much more damaging and are putting a huge strain on already stressed infrastructure, road networks, flood defences and so on. We can expect more of this.”
“I certainly will not attempt to run through the names of local estates and roads the way in which my good friend and colleague Deputy Ó Murchú did in the context of County Louth. I thought that when he was eating in to that additional time, he was going to mention my own street in Drogheda but -----”
“The ability to work remotely gave them the opportunity to come up for air, a chance to breathe. In so many cases, that opportunity is being taken away unilaterally and without any recourse whatsoever to any legislative protection or remedy to support them and to bring some semblance of balance to the question and to their lives. The legal framework needs to change. I strongly believe there will be a political price paid by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil if this Bill is rejected, and if the changes we want to see are not ultimately introduced. We will continue to campaign on the key question of workers' rights in modern Ireland.”
“I ask the Minister of State to listen to what he said: Now we find ourselves commuting sometimes a four hour round trip if traffic is bad, increased travel costs, parking, tolls, diesel, car maintenance, additional childcare costs, not to mention quality time lost to the commute. And all for what? To say we clocked in to the office. That is the long and the short of it. The laws we have at the moment let poor managers and bad businesses off the hook. The cohort of people who are angry with this situation need to be listened to. They are the young, ambitious, highly educated professionals who have paid an exacting price for the Government's housing and childcare failures. They are people with a very real stake in society, who need the social contract to work.”
“Hours are being spent in traffic and people are dealing with unreliable and stretched bus and train services. We all know the impact but I am not sure this Government necessarily cares or understands it. I will give the House an example of the human impact, if I may. Earlier this week a man in Dundalk was in touch with me. He works in the IFSC as does his partner. He was hired during Covid and he has worked very productively from home. He is now being pulled back into the office for most of the working week, with a full five-day return on the cards. He moved to the Dundalk area for more affordable housing. The understanding was that he could work remotely and that the arrangement would continue.”
“For a time, as my colleague, Deputy Bacik, said, Fine Gael almost had some people persuaded that it had some kind of Pauline conversion to the cause of improving workers' rights but the reality can be found in the empty formula contained in the 2023 Act, the utterly meaningless right "to request" the opportunity to avail of remote or flexible work. This Bill gives the Government the chance to correct the mistake it made in 2023. The evidence of that mistake is all around us. The Act, as adopted, is simply not working. This is one of the key workers' rights questions of our time. I am dealing all of the time with the fallout of this Government's failure. We have return-to-work mandates being imposed on workers, no questions asked and no quarters given. This is creating childcare chaos and very real financial worries for families.”
“We are debating this Bill this morning because the previous Government's so-called Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, which is less than three years old, has abjectly failed working people. Then again, we should not be surprised because it was set up to fail. We said that at the time and the proof is there for all to see in the operation of the terms of the Act in the WRC's annual reports. The debates on that Act were a waste of Dáil time. That legislation was an act of fraud perpetrated against commuters in my county of Louth and elsewhere. It was tokenism of the very worst kind.”
“We need the State-run and State-supported expert services that we should have an entitlement to expect in this rich republic to support people who are seeking international protection who are, by definition, the most vulnerable in our society. We need that now. There is very little evidence of that happening at scale. When the Minister and Minister of State make their concluding addresses, it would be very much appreciated if they would place on the record their view in respect of the D Hotel. I corresponded with both on the matter. This is an issue of concern to the community I represent. I know the Minister and Minister of State are aware of that. Their guidance at this point, as the contract is about to expire, would be appreciated.”
“I have made the reports and they are on record. I have engaged with officials. There is a lengthy list of issues with this place. As I said, the contract expires this month. This hotel has a track record. It is inappropriate. From the point of view of the needs of the local economy, the contract must not be renewed. It is as simple as that. The Government's promise at the time that this would be a two-year contract must be honoured. The commitment made by the owners that this would be a two-year contract and that the funds generated by the company would be reinvested in the hotel must also be honoured. The hotel must be returned to productive economic use locally.”
“An economic assessment done at the time suggested the cumulative loss to the local economy was about €22 million annually. This is not on those who need accommodation when they come here to have their applications assessed, who are coming here seeking safety and the shelter which is their entitlement. This is about the loss of a key piece of very critical local economic infrastructure. This or indeed any other hotel in the country is not an appropriate place for children or families and this place has been no exception. On countless occasions over the last two years, including working with Drogheda 4 All - a welcome group I helped support and establish some time ago to express solidarity and to work with new arrivals to our community - I have represented people and families who have been treated very badly in this place.”
“It was managed well in our community in the way I would expect and the response was precisely what I would expect from the people of the great small city I am from, which I am proud to represent. We are a town that is synonymous with solidarity and we have shown that time and again. At this time two years ago when other parts of the country were frankly disgracing themselves, our flag and the essence of Irishness, the people I represent did not. We chose not because that is not who we are. We are people who show solidarity and people who show leadership. The decision taken two years ago removed more than half of Drogheda’s hotel bed stock at the stroke of a pen. It removed the largest full service hotel from the tourism landscape.”
“They come here because we are a welcoming and tolerant place for members of the LGBT+ community and we have shown that in our society. The Minister and Minister of State will be aware that two years ago this week the previous Government signed a contract to use all of the D Hotel in Drogheda to provide accommodation to international protection applicants. I wrote to both of them recently and raised this by way of parliamentary question to get their assessment of whether this contract will be renewed on expiry. It is due to expire this week, this month. About the time that contract was signed I worked very hard under extreme pressure with other colleagues in my community to ensure this decision and the response to it was managed effectively.”
“They are concerned about the legislation and the requirements that will be placed on international protection applicants who are members of the LGBT+ community. Some LGBT+ applicants will find it difficult to make some of the declarations they will be required to make and may find it difficult to speak freely to people in authority because of their experiences in their home countries, which are not as tolerant as Ireland and do not have as progressive a legislative and social framework in terms of the LGBT+ community. These issues have been raised with me and we need to be very conscious of them. There are people fleeing persecution from countries around the world under threat of the death penalty and who have suffered all kinds of terrible experiences because of who they are.”
“We all deal day in and day out with applications from family members of people who are here working in our health service, in our financial services system and across the economy who want and require their families here. If we are to seriously consider how we best integrate the new Irish then we unite them with their families and loved ones and we make this a welcoming and tolerant place for them. What is proposed in the legislation before us is far from that. I have received correspondence about the Bill, as lots of other Members have. I received some from a group in my area I work closely with. They are based in Dundalk and represent the interests of the LGBT+ community in the north east.”
“We heard claims recently from the Tánaiste and others that there is some kind of campaign going on to silence him and anyone who might disagree with my position on this matter, or the positions of those of us who might describe ourselves as being on the left. This does not stack up. Hearing comments like that from somebody who has the largest forum in the country from which to pronounce is quite extraordinary. I do not intend to use up all the time available but I want to address a couple of issues that have been well ventilated but are worth reflecting on again. The measures in this Bill are, in the words of the Labour justice spokesperson, Deputy Kelly, "cruel".”
“What we would expect from the government of a proud liberal democracy – with a sophisticated economy in which our health, IT, financial services, pharma, tourism and care sectors depend on migrant workers – is an informed, evidence-based public campaign to challenge the myths and shibboleths that, when unchallenged, have contributed to members of the Indian community and other people who do not look like me, the Minister and most of us in this Chamber experiencing violence and hate. Instead of the responsible campaign and approach we in Labour have been advocating for some time, we get this Bill.”
“In his contribution on this Bill my colleague Deputy Ahern, a lawyer of long standing, said, "A faster, more efficient asylum process is a worthy aim". It absolutely is and would be something that could command the support of a large majority in this House but this Bill is not that. The legislation seems, as Deputy Ahern suggested, more concerned with limiting established and well-understood rights of asylum seekers in ways that are concerning and have been well ventilated by others in this Chamber. This Bill goes well beyond the obligations we have signed up to at EU level and this in itself is telling.”
“I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. Several of my colleagues have spoken on it over the last week or so. It is not an understatement to say migration, emigration and the policy that supports the area are complex issues. There is no doubt about that, but the policy we develop in here that finds its way into the legislation on our Statute Book cannot be done by simply appeasing the views of bar stoolers who get their news from Facebook. There is far too much of that in the reactive response we see to this issue. Having assessed the Bill I can only conclude much of what is provided for here is as driven by the politics of the day as it is by our requirements to legislate and comply with the EU pact and the framework we signed a short time ago.”
“It would have been a perverse situation if this kind of process were in place in recent years, given that we have had the Department of housing overpromising and under-delivering for years. We could have a situation in the annual budget round and the Estimates process, where the Department of housing, in the context of what the Minister is seeking to do here, could essentially be sanctioned with a reduction in its budget for not performing. Are financial penalties for under-delivering Departments the kind of thing we are talking about in this regard?”
“We will be watching this very closely. The reason we gave the report a fair wind was because of the dire situation with infrastructure in the country. According to the IMF and others, our infrastructure is about one third behind comparable countries. Accountability is key because that has been one of the significant missing pieces. The problem is that if it is everyone's responsibility, it is nobody's responsibility. Ultimately, the Minister will be chairing the task force. My understanding, from re-reading the report yesterday, is that where issues around delays occur, the infrastructure division of the Department will deal with them but they could potentially be escalated to the task force and subsequently to the Cabinet subcommittee. Mention was made of sanctioning Departments and agencies that are not performing, for example.”
“Are there any key legislative interventions that will be made this year to make that happen and ensure accountability really is at the heart of this, rather than having mere words peppered throughout this report?”
“The Minister will be aware that we in the Labour Party gave the action plan a fair wind. We did so because of the absolute dire situation this country faces in terms of infrastructure development, most notably in housing. The kind of economic development we all want to see simply will not happen if we do not address the key concerns we all have around housing provision, renewable energy, transport links and improving connectivity around the country. Will the Minister put on the record, in terms of the accountability measures outlined in the plan, any legislative interventions that might be required this year? For example, I notice there is a heavy emphasis on accountability for regulatory bodies and different agencies that will be responsible for implementing the plan.”
“The accelerating infrastructure task force action plan was published towards the end of last year. Key to that plan is the accountability measures referenced in it and how they are implemented. The Minister, Deputy Chambers, might take the opportunity to put on the record of the House the details around accountability measures in that plan and how he intends to enforce and implement them.”
“I am a bit confounded as to why it will take so long to introduce the tax, or transition from the levy to the tax. We have a very sophisticated system in Revenue. We could set up a very complex wage subsidy scheme practically overnight thanks to the expertise of officials in Revenue, the Department of Finance and elsewhere, with the support of IBEC, ICTU and so on. I am confounded as to why the derelict sites tax will take so long to introduce.”
“It is one weapon in our armoury. There is no doubt about that but we need to take a varied approach to this. Another initiative, which was announced in the budget last year, was the transitioning of the derelict sites levy to a derelict sites tax. By definition, the responsibility for the collection of that tax will be given to the Revenue Commissioners. I have been campaigning for that for years; it makes sense. I always made the point that business owners who can afford to allow a building to become vacant and derelict must be quite wealthy because owners need to sweat every single asset they have to make sure their business is successful. Sometimes the only language that people understand is the brown envelope with the harp on it containing a tax demand. It is important we introduce that as quickly as possible.”
“There is a real job of work to be done by the Department of Finance and Revenue Commissioners to ensure the newly expanded and enhanced scheme is accessible and people understand how they might use the scheme and how it might benefit them individually and the towns we represent.”
“I thank the Tánaiste. We can all agree that vacancy and dereliction are a scourge in communities up and down the country. There is a particularly pronounced problem in my hometown of Drogheda. The Tánaiste will be aware of the extent of the problem in the historic core town centre of what is a very historic town, with some very significant buildings from an architectural and heritage point of view. Louth County Council did an analysis last year of the inner town centre area and identified approximately 58 vacant and derelict buildings. In fact, 46 of those are now in the area the council proposes the special regeneration area should service in the context of this scheme. Close to 600 applications have been made since the inception of the scheme a number of years ago.”
“I raise with the Tánaiste the extension of the living cities initiative to five regional towns, including two in my constituency, Drogheda and Dundalk. When he has the opportunity he might state exactly when the initiative will go live for the new areas provided for under the Finance Act.”
“I have been a proponent of this for many years. It could fundamentally address some very real problems we have with in-work poverty and standards of living more generally. We in Labour support the motion. We thank Deputy Healy and his colleagues for introducing it and we look forward to voting in favour of it next week.”
“The Government has not met its own targets for the introduction of a living wage. The longer we wait to introduce a living wage, perversely, the more costs will arise for the Exchequer. We spend an enormous amount of money essentially subsidising low pay and subsidising big corporations that are paying hard-working people poverty wages. That is an outrageous commentary on our priorities as a country. Working people should by definition enjoy a living wage, sufficient income to have a reasonable, modest lifestyle, something that people in a rich economy should be entitled to expect. Something else we did not do in the budget for this year was index social welfare rates. Most modern, sophisticated economies analogous to Ireland have some form of indexation of social welfare rates and personal taxation rates.”
“At the end of January, if you are paid every month and you got a pay increase, which people will receive this year at on average 3% to 4%, you will see that swallowed up because the personal taxation system was not indexed last year. Much if not all of that pay increase will not make it into people's pay packets or bank accounts every week, every second week or every month. Instead it will go to the Exchequer. They are the decisions the Government has made. The motion refers to the need to introduce a living wage. I established the Low Pay Commission back in 2015 with the sole intention of ensuring that Irish workers would ultimately enjoy a living wage. We have a real problem with in-work poverty, and that problem remains. While we are closer now to achieving a living wage than we were, we are very tardy about it.”
“As Deputy Ó Murchú said earlier, the Government has more or less admitted there is a problem for people with disabilities who merely exist and do not participate fully in society because of their economic circumstances. The Government has admitted that given that it introduced cost-of-living payments in recent years ahead of the last general election, of course. There is no sign of them now. The Government decided not to do that and instead to provide enormous, unjustified, unwarranted tax breaks for burger barons and big builders, at the expense of those who require cost-of-disability payments and of workers.”
“Time and again we in the Labour Party have published comprehensive and coherent joined-up proposals to address all of the issues that make this country such an expensive place in which to work, in which to do business for a small business, and in which to live and exist. We need a coherent cost-of-living action plan from this Government but we simply do not get it. Decisions were made in the last budget that really make it very clear what the ideological direction of this Government is. On the one hand, the poorest and most marginalised in our society, those who depend on the State for their income and people with disabilities require additional cost-of-living payments to ensure they can make ends meet. We have acknowledged over many years that there is an additional cost to having a disability.”
“I do not like to conclude this, but it is quite clear that the Government is simply afraid to take on big business and corporate interests as its actions have shown. We are still waiting for all the powers of the Agri-Food Regulator to be properly commenced. That will actually give the State a very significant weapon to use to ensure greater transparency for primary producers - the farmers, producers, processors and so on that we rely on to purchase food. It will be another important piece of the jigsaw for consumers to figure out who is gouging whom and what the problem is. If we cannot measure the problem, we cannot propose solutions.”
“We have had the CCPC rather extraordinarily saying on the one hand that there is no issue with price gouging but on the other hand that it does not really have sufficient information to completely determine that. It said it anyway. How can anybody possibly say that there is no issue with price gouging, with all that entails, if they do not have the complete information? My proposed legislation was finally debated on Second Stage last summer. Why has it not been brought to committee to be interrogated further? The Minister in 2023 thought this was a good idea. Since then, I believe from the data I have read that the annual cost of grocery shopping has gone up by about €2,000 but wages have not. Why can we not properly interrogate this?”
“The response by the then Minister for enterprise, Simon Coveney, was to head that off at the pass in the middle of a real crisis with grocery price inflation. He said not only that he thought the principles laid out in my legislation were worthy of consideration, but that he would introduce his own legislation in 2023 to compel supermarkets to be clearer on their margins and to publish certain information so we as consumers could make our own minds up as to whether they were gouging. What did we get? We got two reports from the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, one in 2023 and, under pressure, another one in the summer telling us effectively that there is nothing to see here and that there is no issue with competition in the Irish supermarket sector.”
“One of the measures in the motion refers very clearly to the problem that we have with food prices and the increased cost of groceries, something that has put Irish families to the pin of their collective collars over the last few years, in particular since 2020 and 2021. A number of factors feed into that. As a practical legislator, I have sought time and time again to propose practical solutions to try to get a better understanding of why food costs in Ireland are so high and why the prices charged at the checkouts for everyday products are so high compared with some analogous countries in the European Union. One of the measures I proposed was my own unfair prices Bill, which was published in 2023.”
“Many of us have played our own role in ensuring that is the case. However, we cannot say with any great certainty that we have a successful society because with a successful economy must come a more equal society. That is the measurement we must use to measure success. The experiences of far too many individuals and families across this country are undeserving of the kind of approach taken by the Government and the credit the Government gives itself for its great, successful economic model and how well the country is doing because the lived experience for far too many people is very remote from that sort of assessment and that sort of analysis.”
“I am pleased to have the opportunity to support Deputy Healy's motion. The contents of the motion will not be unfamiliar to those in opposition who have tabled broadly similar motions week in and week out over the last few years. What will not be lost on us either is the nature of the rather routine response that we receive from the Government, as we saw in the Minister of State, Deputy Dillon's, response to the motion earlier on. With respect, I have no doubt that in his response in closing the debate, the Minister of State, Deputy Grealish, may respond in the same vein, telling us how successful the economy is, how well employment is growing and how resilient the Irish economy is. However, the economy exists for the principal reason of servicing the needs of our society. We have a very successful economy objectively.”
“I absolutely accept that but it would be useful if a public statement were made recommitting to the permanent driving test centre in Drogheda and clarifying and confirming precisely when it will be in operation.”
“We know that the testers who were taken on with the intention of working at the Drogheda centre in late August or early September have been deployed to other regional centres to address issues with the list. It is not unrealistic to expect that young people who are living in one of the largest urban areas in the country would be able to have their driving test done in their home community on the roads with which they are familiar and drive on with their instructors. This is something that needs to be addressed. I would appreciate it very much if at the end of this debate, the Minister of State could put on the record the very clear position of the RSA. I believe this will happen. I know technical issues have arisen. The RSA is committed to this.”
“Drogheda is the largest town in the country that has yet to become a city. The fact is we do not have even a temporary centre at this point. The temporary centre was closed a short number of years ago and not replaced. It should have been, in the interim, to allow for the permanent centre to be developed. The fact we do not have it is a disgrace. The profile of the population in the area is very young. People who are actively seeking to get into the workforce, or maybe to change job where they are required to have a driving licence, are required to go to already stretched centres in Navan and Dundalk. Admittedly, the numbers have come down in Navan and Dundalk, thanks to the work of the Minister of State and the RSA.”