Holly Cairns
Cork South-West · Social Democrats · Ireland
“At the end of the day, there are a few things that we know and a few things that we do not know. We know the commission of investigation found that it is highly likely there are babies buried on the grounds. We do not know why it made that recommendation. Why? Because the archives are sealed.”
“He now seems to be using that as an excuse for inaction, when what he should be doing is moving heaven and earth to find these children and 19 women who disappeared. Two weeks ago, the Taoiseach told me that Cork City Council should have placed a compulsory purchase order on the land.”
“It knows the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes said it was highly likely that burials had taken place on this land. It has all the evidence of abuse, suspicious deaths, disappeared women and children and likely burial, and the Taoiseach is telling us he is powerless to act because legislation his previous Government d…”
“I want to take up where we left off yesterday. When explaining why the Government was not going to buy Bessborough the Taoiseach said: Excavation without evidence of location is neither feasible nor lawful [because] Under the Institutional Burials Act 2022, the Government can only [start an excavation] where it is satisfied that burials h…”
“The decision by An Coimisiún Pleanála to grant planning permission for apartments at Bessborough is disgusting. This represents yet another failure, a betrayal by the State of the thousands of women and children who were incarcerated and abused there and of the 859 children and 19 women who remain unaccounted for and are presumed dead.”
“I take it from the Taoiseach's reply and his talk about respecting An Bord Pleanála's decision that the answer is that the Government will not be issuing a CPO for the land. The Taoiseach may correct me if I am wrong because I hope the Government is going to make moves to compulsorily purchase the land.”
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Every one of 419 lines we hold for Holly Cairns, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 2 of 9.
“Both countries recognised something important, namely, that transparency builds trust and allows people to make informed choices. The cost-of-living crisis is out of control and people often feel that the system is stacked against ordinary consumers. This Bill is just one small, practical step we can take to address that. Consumers should not need a magnifying glass, a spreadsheet or a photographic memory to work out whether they are getting value for their money. The information should be available to them clearly and openly at the point of purchase. Transparency should be the norm, not the exception. That is very simply what this legislation seeks to achieve.”
“Workers are watching their wages disappear into rent, childcare, energy bills and, more and more, into food costs. When every euro counts, transparency matters. That is what this Bill seeks to address. This legislation would require large retailers to provide clear labelling on a product or a notice nearby to inform consumers when shrinkflation has occurred. Consumers would be clearly informed that the product costs more than it used to and contains less. It does not ban reducing quantity, impose price controls or tell businesses what they can charge. What it does is say consumers have a right to know if a product has become smaller and more expensive. This is a very simple proposal. The exact same regulations have been introduced in France and Austria.”
“Increasing the label price by 20% would be noticed and would make people think twice about buying a product and go for something else. Shrinking the contents means people notice the change a little later, after they have made the purchase, opened the packet and finished the product and realise it did not last as long as it used to. People realise that they will now have to buy more earlier than they thought they would. It is part of the reason people often feel like their money just is not stretching as far as it used to even when, on paper, their shopping lists and shopping bills have stayed the same. We are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis that is putting enormous pressure on households across the country. Pensioners are making difficult choices every week. Families are stretching every single euro.”
“This happens when a product is reduced in size or quantity while the price stays the same. It is a tactic used by manufacturers and retailers to maintain profit while giving the impression that nothing has changed. It is a hidden price increase and it can be very difficult to spot. We have all seen examples of chocolate bars getting smaller, cereal boxes with fewer grammes inside and fewer items in a multipack. Consumer reports show everyday household essentials are shrinking while prices continue to rise. It is happening across every major supermarket chain in the country. The changes might seem minor - fewer biscuits in a pack or sheets on a toilet roll - but there is a reason these price increases are hidden.”
“I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to provide price transparency for consumers by preventing hidden price increases by way of quantity reduction, allowing consumers to make informed purchasing decisions. When people go to the supermarket they deserve to know what they are paying for. They deserve to know if the product they bought last week has become smaller this week and if the quantity has been reduced while the price has stayed the same, or worse, gone up. Everyone deserves to be able to make informed choices about how they spend their money but, right now, too many people feel like they are being caught out. The weekly shop costs more than ever, and people know they are getting less for their money, but it is not often very clear why. That is because of a practice known as shrinkflation.”
“She went to the European Court of Human Rights after fighting the State for over a decade. She won. Eighteen other people were abused in the same school by the same man. Their testimony was used in the criminal court to convict him but the Taoiseach will not take that as good enough to provide the redress these people have been waiting over a decade for. The Taoiseach will delay more with another interdepartmental group and another redress scheme. Why will he not commit to giving these people what they are entitled to now and end this despicable practice of disregarding survivors and delaying, delaying and delaying?”
“What the Taoiseach has highlighted is the well-established practice of the State. At the hands of the State, people are seriously and systematically abused. They try to seek justice. There is delay after delay, an interdepartmental group, a commission of investigation, and a redress scheme that is blatantly cruel and excludes the people who need it, then the State does it all again with another redress scheme that also does not work. It is delay, delay and consult. The Taoiseach said today he should positively engage and listen to these people. I spoke to Louise O'Keeffe this morning. She said she met the Taoiseach in March 2025 and he said he would get back to her in a month. She has not heard from the Taoiseach since. This is not engaging positively.”
“Does the Taoiseach recognise the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights and if so, will he commit to providing fair redress to all survivors without arbitrary barriers?”
“Incredibly, 19 victims of Leo Hickey - women whose evidence helped secure his conviction - have been denied redress. Their testimony was good enough for the criminal court but somehow is not good enough for the State. It is unbelievable. In 2019, the Taoiseach stood on this side of the House and said that the O'Keeffe judgment demands that every child who experienced sexual abuse in a defective child protection framework in schools be compensated for that abuse. He also said that redress should not wait for the results of any commission of investigation. Survivors do not need another review, report or excuse. They need a Government willing to do what the Taoiseach himself called for. I have two questions.”
“They were failed by every system that was supposed to protect them and they are still being failed today. Leo Hickey was eventually convicted while the State managed to evade all responsibility. I spoke to Louise O'Keeffe today, who spent 16 years fighting to change that. The State fought her, in her words, "tooth and nail" every step of the way, pursuing her through the courts and aggressively seeking legal costs against her. In 2014, she finally won at the European Court of Human Rights, which found the State had failed in its duty to protect children. That judgment should have been a turning point. Instead, in a textbook Irish Government approach to how it treats survivors of abuse, the redress scheme excluded the very people it was supposed to help.”
“I want to read into the record the testimonies of two women who were sexually abused by Leo Hickey, their principal in Dunderrow National School in Kinsale. One said: Sometimes while abusing me with his right hand, I would see him put his left hand inside the clothes on the lower part of the body of the girl beside me. Again, this could last for the duration of the class. Another said: I remember feeling something hard pressed against the small of my back and I remember wondering what this hard object was. I thought it was something in his pocket. This seemed to happen for a long time, but it probably lasted about ten minutes. I remember wanting to get out to play before the break would be over ... These women and 17 of their schoolmates are, rightly, seeking redress for what was done to them as children.”
“The Taoiseach should stand up again and tell me how it is credible to say that the Government is prioritising water quality in terms of agricultural run-off.”
“In the 1980s, we had over 500 pristine rivers. Now, we have just 20 - actually, it is probably less than that because that is a 2018 figure - so for the Taoiseach to say this is a priority for the Government simply is not credible. Agricultural run-off was responsible for pollution in approximately 1,000 water bodies and the Government consistently fights for a derogation for Ireland to be able to apply more chemical applications to the soil, which inevitably run off into the rivers. Not that we needed further evidence that this was not a priority for the Government, but research has been done on alternatives to applying chemical nitrogen and we know that red clover can be as effective at fixing nitrogen into the soil, and the Government shelved that scheme only last month.”
“If not, will he just come out and say it, that protecting our waterways and biodiversity simply is not a priority for the Government?”
“A file is now being prepared for a potential prosecution, but even if that happens and the prosecution is successful, the fines are so small that they barely register. There is a reason Ireland is now the only country in the EU with a nitrates derogation. It is because the derogation is simply incompatible with good water quality. The Taoiseach will accuse me and the Social Democrats of attacking farmers, but nothing could be further from the truth. As a party, we just do not peddle obvious falsehoods and inherent contradictions, so we do not claim it is possible to spread disproportionate levels of nitrogen on soil and keep our rivers clean, not when we all know that agricultural run-off is our biggest pollutant. That is not anti-farmer. It is just fact. Does the Taoiseach accept that fact?”
“We can see the devastating impact of Government policy and inaction. In many cases, that impact will irreversible. Last week, the journalist Ella McSweeney shared a graph of wild salmon returns to Irish waters in recent decades. From the mid-1970s to today, salmon returns collapsed from 180,000 per year to fewer than 20,000 per year. Ms McSweeney rightly referred to it as extinction in our time. That is what we are witnessing and what the Government is facilitating. Just last week, there was another major fish kill incident in the River Glyde in County Louth. Drone footage captured 25 km of pollution and tens of thousands of dead fish, including adult and juvenile Atlantic salmon and European eel. The source of the pollution has been confirmed to be agricultural discharge.”
“Today, we have another damning report from the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, on Ireland's declining water quality. Nearly half of our rivers are ecologically unhealthy. They are dying, as is all the wildlife and biodiversity in them. Our high status water bodies are deteriorating. These rivers are hugely important ecologically. They are refuges for some of our protected species, such as kingfisher and salmon. Almost 10% of these rivers have declined in quality in the past year alone. More worrying, we have seen a net decline of 25% in the number of high quality rivers since 2012. The trend is clear and undeniable, and we all know why it is happening. It is predominantly because of agricultural run-off, with wastewater discharges also being a major cause. These are the facts. That is the science.”
“I ask the Taoiseach to reconsider that because when you consider the very fortunate position the Government is in in terms of record surpluses as well as the reality of this report, which shows that 75% of carers have never received respite, 76% have cut back on non-essentials, 32% report bad mental health and 48% experience severe loneliness, this is something the Government can do now. It would cost €266 million when carers are saving the State billions of euro. I ask the Taoiseach to seriously reconsider and to consider doing this in the next budget. It is something the Government has committed to doing. It needs to happen now. Will the Government do it?”
“The Taoiseach says he acknowledges the role of carers and acknowledges the need to abolish the means test ultimately over the lifetime of this Government. I assume he acknowledges, then, that the changes in the threshold do not abolish it but, rather, slowly work towards that. I appreciate that the Government is doing that but if I am right, I can take it from the Taoiseach's reply that the Government does not plan to abolish it entirely in this budget, and that it is something it plans to do over the lifetime of the Government.”
“Will the Government abolish the means test for carers in the forthcoming budget? Will it give carers that reassurance of making that commitment to them now?”
“This is the reality for so many carers across the country. They are exhausted, drained and filled with dread when they think about the future. The vast majority of carers in this position are women. They are saving the State billions of euro every year and what are they getting in return? Loneliness, burn-out and poverty. The Government has a growing reputation for making commitments and abandoning them. It committed to abolishing the means test for carers. Carers have had enough of empty promises, so will the Government keep this one? There is no excuse not to do so. We can afford it. It would cost €266 million, according to the report by the Parliamentary Budget Office. It could be paid for by tripling the bank levy on banks earning record profits, with money left over to invest in services.”
“Imagine how frustrating it is for those carers to hear this Government's repeated claims that it values their work as they are forced to pay out-of-pocket for essential equipment and therapies that should be provided by the State. They are forced to jump through endless hoops just to qualify for carer's allowance and are living in constant fear that a new review or a new assessment will push them just over the threshold leaving them with nothing - no financial support and no services. Catherine Rossiter, who cares for her 12-year-old twins, Aoife and Eoghan, launched this report with Family Carers Ireland. She said: I often think my life is a test of human endurance. How much can I take as a carer before I break? What will happen to my young daughter and son then? The worry feels endless.”
“I condemn the horrific attack in Belfast on Monday. Our thoughts are with the victim and his family. I also condemn the racist attacks last night and join others in calling for an end to the violence. I will talk to the Taoiseach today about the extreme pressure family carers are under. Some 71% are now struggling to make ends meet, according to the recent Family Carers Ireland report. Nearly half are experiencing extreme loneliness, are desperate for support that never comes and are feeling like their world is shrinking. This is an indictment of the Taoiseach's Government. The State, which should be there to help them, is actually making their lives harder and pushing an increasing number of carers into poverty. That is the grim reality.”
“It is the job of this Government to represent the people and not to sit back and remain silent as a genocidal state plays soccer in Europe while committing mass murder in Palestine. Government Ministers are boycotting a match which they refuse to say should not go ahead. They expect players to walk onto the pitch and carry the consequences for this Government’s political cowardice. The Minister of State said he does not disagree with the sentiment of this motion and went on to talk about his strength of feeling. He then read out, word for word, the same speech as the Minister of State, Deputy McConalogue, gave last night. This does not really display the sentiment that the Minister of State, Deputy Dooley, expressed. It is completely unacceptable.”
“It is absolutely beyond belief that this Government can stand back and do absolutely nothing. Is this what passes for political leadership from this Government? Previous Governments were not so cowardly. In 1999, a Fianna Fáil Government took a stand in response to the atrocities in Kosovo and refused visas for Yugoslavian players, which was against the position of UEFA at the time and without the approval of the FAI. In 1999, we were not pretending that football existed in some separate moral universe. We understood the political power and symbolism of the game. What has changed? Israel is using sport to launder its international reputation in the midst of a genocidal campaign in Palestine and ethnic cleansing in Lebanon. Why are we facilitating that? The Irish people do not want this game to go ahead. Is anyone listening to them?”
“I thank Deputy Gibney for all her hard work on this motion. Moving the match to a neutral venue is not a solution; it is cowardice. The issue has never been where the game would be played. The issue is whether it should be played at all against an opponent actively committing genocide. A neutral venue will not make the game neutral. Across Ireland, there has been overwhelming public support for strong action in response to Israel’s barbarity but the Government has failed time and again to meet this moment and respond with the urgency needed. Instead, we get weak responses dressed up as difficult decisions, like finally introducing the occupied territories Bill after years of delay while gutting it by removing services. Similarly, the suggestion of moving the game to Hungary is an attempt to make the controversy go away.”
“Does the Rotunda's statement draw a line under this for the Taoiseach or is he concerned about other governance issues with regard to the public-only contract in hospitals around the country?”
“Like I said, I am glad that the Minister and Government held the line. The reason many people were surprised to see the Government coming out to bat so strongly for public health is that we do not see that with regard to all aspects of Sláintecare. I hope that we see more of that now. For example, 80% of home care is private now. That is just going up and up. There is no money behind the 2025 plans for Sláintecare. There are so many things that need to be addressed. I asked the Taoiseach two questions and he did not answer either of them, so I will put them to him again. With regard to the particular consultant, will their previous patients be refunded and are their eight current patients aware of the situation that they are in, that their consultant who is providing this care has a public-only contract?”
“Are the eight current patients aware of the situation they are in? Does the Rotunda's statement draw a line under this for the Taoiseach, or is he aware of further concerns about the operation of public-only contracts in our hospitals?”
“This is the type of two-tier care that the head of the busiest maternity hospital in the country is fighting for. The Social Democrats fully supported the approach the Minister for Health took in relation to the Rotunda but this controversy has exposed deep flaws in our maternity services and the so-called choices that are available to women. The choice that is only available to women who can afford to pay for it is not a choice at all. What woman is choosing not to have continuity of care? Every woman should have that. It is the bare minimum we should expect in our public system and that is what the Government's national maternity strategy is supposed to deliver. The focus now needs to be on delivering this for all women in maternity services. With regard to the particular consultant, will their previous patients be refunded?”
“He has not withdrawn that statement but in an interview with David McCullagh earlier, he attempted to clarify it. He said "nobody is saying it is about safety" even though that is literally what he said. He went on to say that having consultants treating private patients at the Rotunda improved safety for public patients because if they happened to be around when a public patient needed consultant care, they could potentially pitch in. I cannot have been the only person listening to that interview in complete disbelief. Are we really saying that safety for public patients in maternity hospitals now depends on blind luck, in that if they happen to be giving birth when a consultant is on site with a private patient, then they will be taken care of?”
“A lot of questions have been raised about our maternity services in recent weeks and there appears to be confusion about a hugely important issue. Which category of patient deserves continuity of care in our maternity services? Can I be absolutely clear about what I thought was obvious? Every woman accessing maternity services should be entitled to the highest quality care. It should not be an optional extra reserved for those who can pay for it. Public maternity services should not feel less safe than going private. However, that is very much the feeling people have been left with because that is exactly what the master of the Rotunda said. He said the reason the hospital was breaching the public-only consultant contract by allowing consultants on that contract to treat private patients was "safety for women".”
“It is shameful. The Taoiseach talks about every metric and fails to mention the most important metric, which is the increase, month on month, and the records being broken in the number of people becoming homeless. Instead of acknowledging that the approach has failed and changing it, the Government introduced legislation that we all knew would increase evictions and rents, which is exactly what happened. Will the Taoiseach at least acknowledge the staggering increase? The only success the Government has had in terms of homelessness is to normalise it. I do not have any faith in Fianna Fáil to address this crisis and I do not think any of the electorate in either constituency where there was recently a by-election do either.”
“The Taoiseach needs to stop and listen to himself when he comes into this Chamber week after week and tries to spin a positive message on housing when there are 17,000 people homeless, including more than 5,000 children. This is at a time when there are record budget surpluses. The only thing the Taoiseach has changed in his approach is to start blaming migrants for that failure.”
“These are people and an area that have been abandoned by successive Governments. They have been left to pick up the pieces of years of Government failure on housing. The response of this Government is not to help or reduce homelessness but to make the situation even worse and introduce new rent rules that have led to record rent increases. We need the Government to recognise that and change course, starting as a matter of urgency with a temporary ban on no-fault evictions and a ban on rent increases. Will the Taoiseach do that?”
“The full extent of the trauma being created by homelessness is something we will never truly know, but we know the negative impact can be lifelong. It affects children’s development, education, mental and physical health, job prospects and relationships. A stable, secure home is the foundation for a happy life. That basic building block is missing for 17,500 people. This is especially an issue in Dublin Central, where a disproportionate amount of emergency accommodation is located. One tenth of the homeless population of Ireland – 1,700 people – are living on just one street, namely Gardiner Street. Across the constituency, it has been estimated that there are 7,000 people living in homeless accommodation. Has any small area in the country ever had to cope with such a disproportionate level of trauma, unmet need and State failure?”
“I thank our excellent candidate in Galway West, Míde Nic Fhionnlaoich, and everyone who voted for the Social Democrats on Friday. The front page of the Irish Daily Mail today reveals a shocking figure. The cost of emergency homeless accommodation reached nearly €500 million last year. That is a 570% increase in spending in just ten years. While we can measure the financial cost of soaring homelessness, we cannot measure the human cost. How many babies are struggling to learn to crawl right now because of a lack of space? How many toddlers are experiencing delayed speech development? How many children have become withdrawn or have fallen behind in school? How many of their parents have developed insomnia and depression? How many relationships have broken down because of the constant stress caused by their living conditions?”
“I congratulate our new Social Democrats TD, Daniel Ennis, and Fine Gael’s new Deputy, Seán Kyne. I warmly welcome them to this Chamber. Dan is going to be a fantastic addition to our parliamentary party team. We are all so excited to work with him. This is a huge day for Dan, Seán and their families. I welcome their families and supporters to the Gallery. I especially welcome Dan’s mother, Jacqueline, his brother Geoff and his fiancé, Chloe. None of us would be in this Chamber today if we did not have the support of family, friends and party members. These are the people who knock on doors for us and keep us going through the hard times and families who are willing to make enormous sacrifices in order that we can be here. This essential support does not get enough recognition, so I wish to acknowledge it today.”
“We tell him this will bring up rent prices. He does this big how dare my doubt my bona fides thing, and then rents go up. Then he comes in here and spouts out these lines about how the Opposition's plans will not work. It is not credible. This Government has no credibility left on housing.”
“The confidence with which the Taoiseach tries to slate the Social Democrats' policies on housing is honestly astounding, when we consider that he is coming in here on a day when there is news that rents have gone up more than they ever have since records began. That is in the context of a housing crisis that has turned into a housing disaster and then into a catastrophe, where there are record levels of homelessness, where rent prices, house prices and homelessness are all going in one direction under this Government. Then the Taoiseach stands up in here and says our plans would do damage. The Taoiseach's response and his rhetoric on housing are now ringing about as hollow as his election promises. Time after time, piece of legislation after piece of legislation, the same thing happens. The Opposition warns him.”
“Are they supposed to work harder and save more? They are already doing that but it is not working because the housing system is fundamentally broken. We have all been knocking on doors in Galway, so I am sure the Taoiseach has seen the same thing I have. Everywhere you look, there are lock-boxes hanging from houses turned into short-term lets, houses that could be homes for students, workers or young families. Instead they are Airbnbs going for extortionate rates while young people like Lauren are left crying into their phones, wondering what they are supposed to do. At what point is the Taoiseach going to admit that Ireland is becoming a country that young people simply cannot afford to live in? Will he now admit that his rent rules have been a disaster?”
“She has tried everything - hundreds of emails, viewing after viewing, applying on rent.ie , daft.ie and through agencies, private student accommodation, digs and every avenue possible, but has found nothing. After nearly a year on a waiting list for private student accommodation, she was finally offered a studio, but the condition was €12,000 upfront for nine months, with no monthly instalments allowed. How is anyone supposed to afford that, let alone somebody fresh out of secondary school? Lauren said something else which stuck with me. She said she feels embarrassed. No young person should feel embarrassed to be in this situation. The Government should be embarrassed for failing them. Right now, this feels like a country with no vision for young people, no place for them and no future they can afford. What are they supposed to do?”
“Today we got news that we all knew was coming. The Government's new rent rules have already driven rents to a record high. They are rising at the highest rate in a quarter of a century. Year on year, rents are up 7% in Dublin, 13% in Cork and a whopping 18% in Galway. We told the Taoiseach this would happen and these measures would undermine renters and he said it was "a ridiculous assertion". Now it is renters who are paying the price. Lauren Keena worked hard, sat her leaving certificate in 2025 and got her dream course in Galway. Because she knew she could not afford to live in the city, she put her life on hold for a year and worked full time to save up. I spoke to Lauren yesterday after seeing a video she posted online in tears at the heart-breaking struggle to find a place to live in Galway.”
“There are so many actions that this Government could take and the brave point that the people on board the flotilla are making is that there needs to be action, not just words. Like Tom's sister said, it is time for the Taoiseach to use his voice and power to do something about this instead of people continuing to feel that they need to put their own lives at risk to try to get aid into Gaza.”
“Asking the Taoiseach to live up to his election promises is not attacking him. That should be the bare minimum. He said that he would enact the occupied territories Bill and all this Government has done for 16 months is find excuses to delay it. Back and forth to the Attorney General, over and over again, looking for advice that we know is the same as that from the Attorney General to the previous Government. We know the advice was to go ahead. Now the Government has run out of steam with that excuse so it is going for the need for all of Europe to act. It is excuse after excuse. Words of condemnation are welcome but what I am asking about is action on the occupied territories Bill and on the divestment Bill.”
“She said: The people on the flotilla have been shouting for Palestine for a long time now and that. Now it's time to shout for them in order to get people in power to act. The Taoiseach is one of those people. He has the power to stop munitions going through our airspace, to stop the trade of dual-use goods and to enact the occupied territories Bill. He has the power to act so why will he not?”
“I believe that lack of action from this Government is what has driven the Irish citizens on the flotilla to take action themselves and leave their families to board boats in the full awareness that they will likely be illegally captured by the IDF, with their safety not guaranteed. I spoke to Tom Deasy’s sister, Ciara, this morning. Her family believe he will be forcibly transferred to a port in Palestinian territories in the next two hours. They have got no word on his safety and they will not until Israel decides to share that information. Israel holds all the power because it knows there are no consequences for its actions. The past two years have shown us all that. Ciara told me how worried sick she is but, more than that, how proud she is of her brother.”
“Margaret Connolly, a Sligo GP. Twelve Irish citizens, including the sister of our Head of State, have been illegally detained. It is completely unprecedented, not that we would have known this from the Government’s response, because it took it 12 hours to issue a four-line statement about it. This is not just deeply disappointing; this is utterly pathetic. For more than two years, we have heard daily reports of Palestinian people being killed, injured and illegally detained. Meanwhile, settler violence in the West Bank is at record levels, with Palestinian villages and homes being razed to the ground. Yet, there have still been no sanctions against Israel and, crucially, no enactment of the occupied territories Bill, despite the Government's big commitments when it was electioneering.”
“I express my condolences to the family and friends of Yves Sakila. A video circulating online of an incident before his death is deeply disturbing. There must be a full, comprehensive and transparent investigation into what happened. Yesterday, Israel committed yet another blatant breach of international law. The Israel Defense Forces, IDF, boarded a flotilla in international waters and again kidnapped humanitarian activists, including 12 Irish citizens. They took this action not because the flotilla posed any kind of threat, but to stop humanitarian aid reaching a starving population in Gaza. The activists on the flotilla were kidnapped for simply trying to bring them food, medicine and baby formula. Among those kidnapped was one of my constituents, Tom Deasy from Clonakilty, as well as the President's sister, Dr.”
“I move amendment No. 2 to amendment No. 1: To insert the following after "decisions in the forthcoming Budget": "; and commits to adopt the Social Democrats' five point 'Solar for All' plan, to help families cut electricity costs by an average of €450 a year, through the following measures: — double grants for solar installation to €3,600; — include solar panels in the 'Warmer Homes Scheme'; — reinstate the €1,000 battery grant scheme; — develop streamlined regulations for 'Plug-in Solar' products for renters and apartment dwellers, whilst ensuring safety standards; and — increase the grant value for solar panels for businesses.".”