Ivana Bacik
Dublin Bay South · Labour Party · Ireland
“Just today I and other local representatives got an email from the owner of two restaurants in Dublin city centre about this issue. The Minister of State’s brief includes not only the circular economy but also small business.”
“The Bill Deputy Sherlock and the Labour Party are proposing is not one we suggest is a silver bullet or a panacea but it offers one small, constructive mechanism to address the dysfunction in waste services.”
“In Dublin Bay South we have superb Tidy Towns organisations that I am proud to work with from Ringsend and Sandymount across to Portobello in my area to Rathgar, Rathmines, Terenure, Donnybrook and Ballsbridge. We see really important work being done by Tidy Towns organisations.”
“The owner says he no longer has space to accommodate additional recycling bins, cannot leave recyclable waste out for collection and cannot leave flattened cardboard outside for collection. Private waste companies must send a vehicle to collect this directly from premises. This is costly, inefficient and unnecessary.”
“I do not mean just in Dublin, though Deputy Sherlock and I are focusing on Dublin and most of the TDs present are Dublin ones, as clearly this has ramifications across the country and the dissatisfaction and the concerns Deputy Sherlock’s constituents and mine are expressing are ones felt across the board.”
“We want to see a move, as Deputy Sherlock has it in the Bill, from competition in the market to competition for the market and this Bill would represent an important positive step on that journey to quality public services provided by the State and to remunicipalisation. Deputy Sherlock has set out the detailed provisions in the Bill.”
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“As a result, we need to have a debate on this in the Dáil next week because it appears that the entire management of this project was shambolic. I would question many aspects of governance and management of the project at the Arts Council and in the Department too. We all have very serious questions in respect of this issue. Here are some specific questions. First, why has the arts department been so dogged by controversies about overspends and lack of oversight over semi-State bodies? Second, why was there no relevant expertise, it appears, on the Arts Council senior management team, leading to such undue reliance on private contractors to deliver this massive and complex project? Third, were red flags raised by those with knowledge of the project and were their concerns ignored or dismissed?”
“This unfortunate debacle must not be used to undermine support for the arts or artists. Ireland's contribution to the arts is a source of immense pride. Our paintings, writings, music, film, theatre and comedy are an envy of the world and many artists are not sufficiently rewarded for their work. We in Labour have always championed the arts. President Michael D. Higgins was an inspirational Labour Minister for the arts. We are conscious that many of those who are funded by the Arts Council will be worried today that their vital supports might be undermined as a result of this controversy. The Tánaiste and the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, must reassure artists that their funding will be protected and that we will see full disclosure and accountability for this overspend. Oireachtas committees are yet to be formed.”
“The Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, has had a string of bad luck with ministerial issues. It is a sort of reverse Midas touch. In his previous role, he had to deal with bike shelter and security hut overspends by the OPW. Now, weeks into his new job, we find out about this extraordinary and alarming spend of nearly €7 million on a failed IT project at the Arts Council. This enormous waste of public money raises serious questions about governance and oversight of that body. It raises serious questions about what oversight, if any, the Departments of arts and public expenditure had over such a major IT project that involved a significant spend but that resulted in nothing. It also raises questions about a cover-up by the previous Government, many of the members of which are serving in the new Cabinet.”
“Their child has severe dyslexia and fulfils the criteria for a reading class but has been denied a placement due to oversubscription. The programme for Government is silent on dyslexia more generally. What is the Government going to do to support children with dyslexia and what is the policy on reading classes within mainstream schools?”
“I want to raise with the Taoiseach gaps in the education system for children who require additional supports. We are all very conscious of the serious shortfall in this area. In particular, I want to speak about children who are failed because the education system lacks support for those with dyslexia or dyspraxia. In schools and in our State exams, people continue to be let down. During State exams, readers are often restricted in the assistance they can provide to students and the National Council for Special Education has instituted a moratorium on the setting up of new reading schools at a time when reading schools and classes are oversubscribed. One local parent contacted me this week to express their deep frustration.”
“It must be transformed to deliver the social and affordable homes needed. The Taoiseach's party in the 1960s instituted a national building agency that delivered homes at scale. We can do that again but, unfortunately, the Government lacks the ambition and urgency to tackle this housing emergency.”
“The Taoiseach offers us nothing in the Government countermotion today, nothing in the programme for Government and certainly nothing in the bland speeches delivered by junior Ministers today to indicate any change in housing policy. What are we in Labour offering? We offer the Government a credible pathway for change, a State-led approach to intervention in the market. Of course we believe in private sector delivery too. If the Taoiseach read our manifesto, he would see we propose that half of houses built each year would be private delivery. We want to see combined and diversified delivery across different modes: through AHBs, through the private sector and, crucially, through a Land Development Agency that must be transformed to deliver at greater capacity on State-owned and private land.”
“The latest figures suggest actual completion figures for last year were under 30,000, which is below Government targets and 10,000 short of what the Taoiseach said would be built last year. This really matters. It matters to the 15,000 people in homelessness and to 25-year-olds around the country. We heard from our Deputy Eoghan Kenny, who is 24 and 70% of whose generation are living in their childhood bedrooms or living in their parents' homes. We all hear stories about three generations of families living in a two- or three-bedroom house, crammed in, unable to move on or move out because there is nowhere affordable to buy or rent in this country. The average rent in Dublin is €2,500 and house prices average €600,000 in Dublin.”
“Yet, as my colleague Ged Nash has just pointed out, we have no evidence that they would assist in delivering greater supply. The evidence is to the contrary if we look at the ESRI's paper on tax breaks in construction, which simply, as the ESRI said, transfer State money to developers without any discernible or significant increase in the supply of homes. The Taoiseach's Government's housing policy has failed and that failure has been particularly evident in the appalling mismatch between the actual figures and the figures he and his senior Ministers in the last Government promised would be delivered in housing last year. Time and again the previous Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Minister for housing promised 40,000 homes.”
“Instead, we have heard from the Government and Taoiseach over recent days a series of back-of-the-envelope, Bertie-era, back-to-the-future proposals. Apparently the Taoiseach is now thinking about abolishing, scrapping or reversing the rent pressure zones. I know he has rowed back a little on that, and that is welcome, but he has left renters across the country in a state of uncertainty and great distress. We are all hearing from them. I heard from one constituent just this morning about this. Renters who pay €2,500 per month on average in Dublin are left in uncertainty because the Taoiseach has floated the idea of doing away with rent pressure zones but given no indication of what they might be replaced with for renters who desperately need protection and security. The other big idea the Taoiseach floated is tax breaks for developers.”
“We did not have the courtesy of one senior Minister, let alone the no-show housing Minister, James Browne, who did not show. All we heard was two junior Ministers reading bland, pre-prepared scripts devoid of ambition and urgency, and utterly dismissive of the seriousness of the housing emergency. The Taoiseach is now in the Chamber. He has spoken of the need to address the housing emergency. I think he recognises this but that recognition is not evident in the Government's response to today's housing motion. The first motion on housing before this Dáil should have been an opportunity for Government to set out its stall and set out the evidence-based policies it proposes to introduce in order to deliver for the communities we all represent.”
“This Labour motion offered the first opportunity in the Thirty-fourth Dáil to address and debate the question of housing. The motion set out a constructive and ambitious set of proposals and a pathway to reform housing policy and ensure Government could provide a resolution to undoubtedly the biggest challenge facing it and all of us and the biggest civil rights issue of this generation. We set out a credible pathway. We heard seven first-time Labour TDs speak with energy, passion and ideas about tackling the housing emergency and ramping up the supply of homes. Contrast the energy, ambition and constructive proposals from the Labour benches with the tumbleweed blowing across the Government benches for the two hours of this debate.”
“The family deserved better than a three-hour wait for an ambulance to bring a patient just ten minutes up the road. How will the Minister act to speed up ambulance responses?”
“We have a serious issue with waiting times for ambulance arrivals - 500 times in six months last year, ambulances took longer than an hour to arrive on the scene of a high priority case. These can be cases of life and death, literally. The Minister for Health may wish to respond. I have just been informed of a very sad case in my constituency in which an elderly woman suffered broken bones and a head injury at her home, which is ten minutes from a hospital. The ambulance took three hours to arrive and the delay, the family were told, resulted from a shortage of trolleys at St. Vincent's University Hospital. Very sadly, this poor woman died some weeks later. I express my deepest sympathies to her family, who asked me to raise this case.”
“I again ask the Minister whether he will accept our Labour motion that sets out clear evidence-based policies to provide a radical reset in housing policy and ensure that we see an increased level of supply of homes and protections for renters who so badly need them.”
“The Minister spoke about an uplift in housing delivery, but the only uplift likely this year it seems is an uplift in the rents people are being forced to pay. People tell all of us that they can barely afford to meet their monthly rents. Can the Minister give certainty to renters that RPZ laws will be retained or that there will be an equivalent safety net? There is nothing coming from Government except uncertainty and, it seems, tax breaks for developers. We know from the ESRI that tax breaks for developers do not increase delivery. Rather, they lead to a transfer of tax revenue from the State to developers without any significant effect on supply. That is from ESRI research.”
“The Taoiseach has warned Government TDs to brace themselves for a raft of unpopular decisions on housing, but renters, who we have all heard from every day since the Taoiseach's pronouncement on Sunday, are bracing themselves and facing the fear that their monthly bills will further skyrocket. In his new role in public expenditure, the Minister must be concerned about the Taoiseach's threatened transfer of public money from investment in necessary State infrastructure and beefing up the Land Development Agency to instead delivering off-the-cuff handouts to developers. Handouts to developers did not work in the past; they made matters worse. Can the Minister confirm that the RPZ laws will be renewed this year? What evidence does he have that tax breaks will lead to any increase in housing supply?”
“We are all clear that the Minister's party and Fine Gael misled the public on housing delivery in the general election. It is only 12 weeks since we were in the thick of that campaign. In the pitches to the public from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, there were claims that construction would exceed targets and that 40,000 homes would be built. There was nothing about ending RPZs or about prioritising tax breaks for developers. Fine Gael even committed to retaining RPZs. In its manifesto, the Minister's party committed only to continuing to review them. On the same page Fianna Fáil boasted about capping rents using RPZ legislation. There is no indication that it will be pulling the rug from underneath renters and removing the safety net that is there.”
“We are offering a radical reset of housing policy, as the Housing Commission has called for. However, the Minister and his Cabinet colleagues have agreed a countermotion which will reject our ambitious proposals for change and which instead, it seems, will offer only more of the same - more of what has not worked to deliver homes for people. The only suggestion of change is from the Taoiseach, namely to weaken protections for renters and provide more money to developers, with no active role for the State. Can the Minister explain why the Government is so set on repeating the mistakes of the past? Why is it intent on repeating the same mistakes which led to missed targets and lack of delivery under for Housing for All and which created the conditions that led to the last property crash under the watch of the Minister's party?”
“I return to the biggest immediate challenge facing the Government, namely housing. Despite the bluster from Government, it has admitted that last year it built nearly 10,000 fewer homes than it previously stated. We all hear from our constituents in communities around the country that housing is the single biggest issue facing families and individuals. We hear this from people who are homeless, from families who are living in housing insecurity and from people who cannot move out of their childhood bedrooms because they cannot find affordable homes anywhere in their neighbourhoods. Tomorrow morning, the House will debate a Labour Party motion which sets out both a clear pathway for the radical actions necessary to address this housing catastrophe and our proposals for active State intervention to address this matter and ramp up delivery.”
“Before the general election, it seemed that all parties in this House, Government and Opposition, agreed on the urgent need to pass the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 first introduced by Senator Black. Last night's debate gave rise to immense concerns for all of us across the Opposition that the Government was rowing back in some way or watering down the commitment on this Bill. My question is simple. Will the Government commit to giving effect to the Bill within a set timeframe to ensure we have a law in Ireland that would end trade in goods and services with the occupied Palestinian territories?”
“The world looked on in disbelief this week as US President Trump made his outrageous and brutal proposal for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from Gaza. I think we all agree that the people of Gaza have endured an horrific bombardment by Israel over many months. We have seen tens of thousands of civilians, including many children, killed and injured. The entire infrastructure in the enclave has been destroyed and devastated. At this time, it is all the more important that we in Ireland stand firm in our solidarity with the people of Gaza and of Palestine more widely and take strong action against Israel.”
“It certainly would not lead anyone to have confidence in his Government's commitment to build the 300,000 homes it has promised to build by the end of 2030 without changing Government policy, which has patently failed. We in the Labour Party put forward constructive proposals to ramp up housing supply but the Taoiseach rejected them.”
“Right through the election campaign, the Taoiseach and Government Ministers claimed that 40,000 homes would be built in 2024. We now know that this was a wildly exaggerated claim. In fact, the actual number built last year was almost 10,000 short of that figure. That 40,000 was a bogus figure. Earlier today, the Taoiseach rejected the suggestion from Opposition parties that he was deliberately misleading the country by repeating this figure of 40,000. That raises a very serious question, however. Did he and Government Ministers repeat that assertion throughout last year in good faith? Did he repeat it while genuinely believing that number would be achieved? If so, it smacks of incompetence.”
“Why do we not see funding available from the Government to provide those in the most affected areas with support to put in place measures to mitigate against inevitable future power outages? These include the generator supplies that the Taoiseach mentioned and the sort of emergency backup facilities that were so sadly lacking in many of the most affected areas. What we want to hear today from the Taoiseach is a clear outline of substantive measures that can be put in place now to support families.”
“We all appreciate just how ferocious this storm was. I join with the Taoiseach in expressing sympathy to the family of the young man, Kacper Dudek, so tragically killed. It is simply unacceptable, however, that we still have 18,000 homes, farms and businesses without power so many days on from the outbreak of the storm. It is clear that much more urgent action is necessary from the Government to invest the money we in the Labour Party called on it to invest in the grid. We called for investment of some of the Apple moneys in building up the grid so that we would build in that resilience. There is also the issue of the lack of supports for households. One constituent told me that she recalls during Covid how swiftly funding was put in place for the hospitality industry to be able to serve outside, just for example.”
“We must take decisive climate action to play our part in mitigating climate chaos but we must also build real resilience against inevitable weather disasters by building up security in our energy sector, our water systems, our broadband and our transport networks. We must ensure the necessary transition to cleaner energy will not leave communities behind. The first national climate change risk assessment will be published soon by the EPA and will help us better to understand how to adapt our infrastructure. What will the Government do on behalf of the families and households we have all heard from to protect our infrastructure and to support struggling households trying to cope now with the aftermath of the storm and struggling to meet bills? What urgent supports will it provide to communities to restore infrastructure?”
“They ask what the Government is going to do about this. They need greater supports, as do all those affected. They cannot afford the financial cost the ESB is now saying it may pass on to all consumers to cover the cost of repairs. This is especially wrong at a time when the ESB is reaping operating profits of nearly €500 million. It is projected that Ireland will face more frequent weather disasters as global temperatures rise. We are already witnessing more regular awful weather events such as hurricane Ophelia and storms Babet, Darragh and Eunice in recent times. More storms, freezes and floods are likely, due to climate change, which will bring more disruption and more damage. There is a careful balancing act.”
“People from affected communities have a multitude of justified concerns about the Government's response to the crisis. They speak with one voice when they say they need help. They have been really severely impacted. I have heard from families who were tragically forced to wake their dead relatives by candlelight, from parents unable to cook a hot meal for their bored and cold young children, from older people left terrified and isolated by power outages and fallen trees, from people with chronic health conditions whose appointments were cancelled or they could not access them. I heard today from one family in Roscommon who are still without power and will likely remain so until this coming weekend. They say they have had no electricity, heat or water since 24 January. This has been the case four times now in the last ten weeks.”
“Today at last and after an unnecessarily long break, we have arrived at the first Leaders' Questions session of this new Government term. I want to raise the emergency situation affecting communities all across this island, that is, the ongoing fallout from Storm Éowyn. At the outset, my thoughts and those of my Labour Party colleagues are with all those families and households that have been so severely impacted by the storm. Many households are still continuing to suffer the consequences of the storm itself along with the weakened infrastructure and insurance and cost implications they are now facing into the future. I am sure all of us agree that our thanks go to the front-line workers who have been working tirelessly to restore power and water supplies to communities, often in dangerous conditions.”
“Our new TDs will outline further why it lacks vision and lacks any sense of positive change for the communities we represent.”
“I offer personal congratulations to the new Ministers. We wish them well in their portfolios. We need to see positive change delivered by this new Government. There is one very negative change: we see a reduction in the number of women in Cabinet from four to three. There are as many men named James as there are women in this incoming Cabinet. That is a negative change, and we do not see any sign of positive change either from the programme for Government. There is no transformative vision, no State construction company, no public childcare scheme, no strengthening the protection of workers' rights and no radical measures to protect our climate and biodiversity. We in Labour cannot support this programme for Government; it is a recycled programme in a circular economy.”
“As we always have, we in the Labour Party will work constructively from opposition with those who share our vision to achieve the change that we believe in over the course of this Government. We will hold the Government to account, fiercely and fairly, with integrity and transparency, as we have always done. I look forward to the challenge ahead.”
“We want to see a Government that will support integration and stand firm against the politics of hate and the politics of the far right.”
“We have a proud track record of high ethical standards for our public representatives of transparency and integrity in our political practice and work. We have a strong political vision for change. Our vision is for the creation of an active State that can and will deliver for communities on housing, climate, care and work. That is the programme we stood for in the election and it is the programme we will be working to achieve over the course of this Dáil, even from opposition, along with others on the left with whom we share a common vision. We want to see this Government building affordable homes, protecting our climate, defending the rights of children, ending child poverty, ensuring timely access to healthcare, guaranteeing decency at work and using the machinery of the State to drive down household bills.”
“To compound the discomfort that so many of us feel, the Lowry leg of the stool was, until today, intent upon pulling off an old-style political trick by setting up in government, having secured Ministries and commitments, and also in opposition, making a mockery of our democratic process. Bertie may not be back but grubby deals are, and this looks like such a deal. I am glad that we have now secured a commitment from the Chief Whip and the Government leaders that we will see this matter resolved with the agreement of both the Government and the Opposition. That is important and welcome. We in the Labour Party stand for a different kind of politics than those in government in our policies and practise of politics.”
“People despair that the highest standard to which Deputy Martin can aim is an assurance that a leading negotiator of the programme for Government will "not be in government to do any corruption", as if that were something to boast about.”
“There is no sense of urgency about tackling the crises that face us in housing, climate and disability services. We are seeing no vision and a regressive set of policies. It is not only the policies that are regressive, but also the practise of politics. We do not even know what constituency deals were done with, or sidebar commitments made to, the "Lowry lads". Those deals do not appear in the text of this programme. Let us be clear, in that many people were deeply uncomfortable, given his history, about the involvement of Deputy Lowry in the negotiation of the programme for Government. Many people are very concerned, remembering when Deputy Martin described Deputy Lowry as a "rogue politician" and called on him to resign his seat.”
“Members of the Government have buried their heads in the sand when it comes to the impact of data centres and left the door wide open for polluting LNG. It seems the private sector will continue to be relied on to deliver essential public services like childcare while workers' rights are only getting derisory treatment. The Government has abandoned initiatives such as drug policy reform and the citizens' assembly on the future of education. There is nothing to reassure us about how we will face the threat of Trump's dangerous tariff plans. There is only lukewarm prospects, at best, in the programme for achieving the necessary passage of the vital occupied territories Bill that we have all united on. In short, the programme for Government is not up to the task.”
“The Government has even ignored its own Housing Commission's recommendations. There is no sense here of a radical reset on housing policy. It is welcome that the climate targets are retained but no meaningful pathway is set out for how we achieve them. What is worse is the slashing of funds for cycling, public transport and sustainable transport in favour of building more roads.”
“Instead of working on the radical changes that are needed, Fianna Fáil, the junior coalition partner, Fine Gael, and, of course, the wobbly leg of the stool, the so-called regional group, are offering a 160-page programme for Government that essentially is promising more of the same. If you parse that document, there is no sense of any acceptance at all of a need for change. There is no indication as to how the Government will deliver on the few new commitments or aspirations set out. Indeed, many of the measures in the programme will see us going backwards. There is nothing there on how the Government is going to achieve the ramped-up delivery homes that we all know is so badly needed. Instead, we are seeing more outsourcing of housing. There is nothing to strengthen renters' rights.”
“Instead of going into a two-week recess, we should be convening the Dáil next week so that we can fulfil our constitutional duty to hold the Government to account from the Opposition benches. The Government should now be actively engaging in bringing about the change so badly needed by the communities that we all serve and represent. Change is desperately needed for the families facing eviction at the end of this month and for the 4,500 children now in homelessness. That is a source of shame for all of us. Change is also needed for the parents who cannot access autism supports or additional needs places for their children, for patients languishing on waiting lists and for all the young adults, whom we all know, who are booking one-way tickets to Australia because they see no life and no prospect of an affordable home here.”
“I am very glad that we have reached agreement today and the Chief Whip read out an agreed form of words acknowledging what was a self-evident truth, namely, that a TD could not be in government and in opposition at the same time. That was the core democratic principle that we, across the Opposition, united on yesterday. The situation in the Dáil yesterday was deeply regrettable but it should never have come to that. This was a chaos of the Government's own making. I am glad that the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste reached out in the end and that we had a leaders' meeting this morning and were able to resolve things, as we had sought to do. It is important that we have done that and can move on because the Government has an important task. The success of this Government will be for the betterment of all in Irish society.”
“I wish Deputy Martin well as the presumptive incoming Taoiseach. Today will likely be a proud day for him, his family and his supporters, and I acknowledge that. I also wish Deputy Harris, the outgoing Taoiseach and incoming Tánaiste, well. Increasingly, this feels like Groundhog Day, or groundhog week, not just with Deputies Martin and Harris swapping roles and not just with President Trump reinstalled in the White House, but because here in Ireland in recent weeks it has felt like we have been returning to the bad old days of stroke politics, of a-nod-and-a-wink politics, with Fianna Fáil back again in the driving seat. All we need now is the return of the Galway tent to complete the picture. This would be funny if it were not so serious.”
“Our objection to the Order of Business is on the basis that we do not agree with an adjournment of the Dáil for two weeks until 5 February. That is our objection. We do not believe there is a need for that long adjournment.”
“A Cheann Comhairle, I welcome your ruling this morning. I welcome the statement by the Government Chief Whip this morning and, in particular, the acknowledgement by the Government that there is a need to ensure clarification in differentiating between Members of the Opposition and the Government. That is the core democratic principle that we, across the Opposition parties and groups, united on yesterday and it is fundamental to our democracy. We have no difficulty with the Order of Business proposed and, indeed, we welcomed the initiative to have a meeting of leaders this morning at which we could sensibly resolve matters. It should never have had to come to the situation it came to yesterday. We had been to the fore in seeking a constructive way to resolve matters yesterday. I am glad these have now been resolved.”