Joanna Byrne
Louth · Sinn Féin · Ireland
“Irish artists and writers have given their labour, blood, sweat, tears and dreams to creating something uniquely human - songs, stories, music and paintings that mean so much to many - only to see their labour being fed to AI systems without their consent and without being financially compensated for their loss.”
“A couple of days before my tenth birthday, I came home from school to once again find my mother beaten to a pulp and our home smashed to pieces. The bravery of my mother that day changed the course of our lives forever.”
“The basic income for artists scheme was only made permanent after it proved it could boost the economy. Many of our beloved cultural events are based on Irish artists having the backing to be able to hone their craft and share their art.”
“As a nine-, eight-, seven-, six- and five-year-old girl, I used to sit at the top of the stairs and pray to hear my mam scream or cry because it was the only way I knew she was surviving another beating.”
“We have the Presidency at the Council of the EU for the next six months and this is the opportune time to act. Whether by accident or design, putting protections in place has been non-existent or has been moving at a snail's pace.”
“I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion on protecting the copyright of Irish artists in the era of artificial intelligence. It is important to note this is a nuanced and targeted motion to protect Irish artists across the entire spectrum of the arts.”
The complete record
Every one of 395 lines we hold for Joanna Byrne, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 7 of 8.
“I read the press release issued on Monday by the Minister, Deputy McEntee, which detailed the 28 schools that will undergo major energy and decarbonisation retrofit works this summer under the pathfinder programme. It is welcome news for those schools and I have no doubt they are delighted to be selected. I understand the pilot inventory covered schools in counties Kildare, Meath, Offaly, Wicklow and Wexford, with 40 schools participating in the planning and design stages of the programme. However, there are other schools in every county that would also love to be included in the programme. I hope the Minister of State will review it and consider adding another school. It is a primary school in Drogheda, St. Joseph's CBS.”
“If we are all singing from the same hymn sheet, I do not understand why there would be any reluctance to progress the Bill. We all want the same thing. This represents step one when it comes to the bigger picture, and the rest could be done by means of the Bill the Minister is going to introduce.”
“I got clarity from both the clerk to the Committee of Public Accounts and the Comptroller and Auditor General that this is not the case and might not be for some time. I am not entirely sure if the Minister understands his own timelines. He said earlier that it was May of last year when he initiated legislation and brought it forward slightly in announcements made in October. However, it was actually only this week that general scheme of his amendment Bill has brought forward. Despite all the goodwill in the world, these things inevitably take time. The Government's opposition to the Bill before the House and its efforts to delay the move to place RTÉ under the aegis of the Comptroller and Auditor General only enable further bad governance, another free for all and more squandering of money.”
“We can address all of those proposals as part of the broadcasting (amendment) Bill. We can address this one simple proposal right now if there is the political will to do it. If we all agree that RTÉ should be under the oversight of the Comptroller and Auditor General, and I have heard nobody disagree, then we can pass this Bill into law without delay in order that the Comptroller and Auditor General can get to work right away in making sure RTÉ's accounts are in order. I questioned the Comptroller and Auditor General on this matter at last week's meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts in response to some comments made here on the floor of the House to the effect that he had beaten me to it and that this was a revenue train.”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachtaí who contributed. I thank the Minister and Minister of State for their responses. While I appreciate everything we received from the Minister and Minister of State this evening, there is a simple thing being lost with regard to the Bill that has been presented. The Bill simply puts RTÉ accounts under the oversight of the Comptroller and Auditor General. There is no need to lump this one simple change in with an omnibus Bill that includes the transposition of the European Media Freedom Act, the implementation of the Future of Media Commission recommendations and the one-man crusade of the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, against allowing Coimisiún na Meán impose a levy on Netflix and other multinational streaming corporations that would benefit Ireland's film-making sector.”
“We can undo that wrong today. Let us not drag our feet. Let us not duplicate our work and waste this House’s time and the committee’s time going over old ground. Let us work collaboratively and move this Bill forward now.”
“We could use those hours to examine the Arts Council’s accounts and look at the €6.7 million spent on an abandoned IT system project, or the National Gallery’s purchase of an unused scanner costing almost €125,000, or whatever is the next financial scandal that will arise under this Government. If there is one thing we have learned recently, it is that there probably will be another financial scandal. Anyone who knows me knows I want to work in collaboration with people around me for the greater good. If we did not have this Bill already before the House and ready to move to Second Stage, I would be happy to wait for the Government’s Bill. The 1990 Broadcasting Act, introduced by the Fianna Fáil Minister, Ray Burke, allowed RTÉ to appoint its own auditors instead of the Comptroller and Auditor General having oversight.”
“I do not think this House has the time to see a duplication of work on bringing RTÉ under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General, particularly when we all agree on what needs to happen. There are 1,000 things the committee on sport, arts, media and communication could be working on instead of examining that particular aspect of the Government Bill, which will do what this Bill already does. We could use those hours to examine the RTÉ €3.6 million write-down on a failed IT system. We could be digging into RTÉ's history of bogus self-employment and what resolving that will mean for the national broadcaster's finances.”
“In the face of Government inaction, and with more and more mismanagement of public moneys at RTÉ being exposed, we wrote this Bill and submitted it to the Bills Office. Then, in October 2024, that Government, which is essentially the same as this Government, with the Green Party then instead of the Lowry group now, announced its intention to introduce its own Bill. That was eight months after this Bill passed First Stage in the Dáil. This week, the Minister sent his general scheme of the Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill to the joint committee on communications, culture, arts, sport and media for pre-legislative scrutiny, which will conclude in September. It could be two years after we introduced this Bill before his Bill will get to the same stage.”
“In March 2024, the Committee of Public Accounts recommended that the Government bring RTÉ back under the statutory remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General so RTÉ would become accountable to the committee, which can examine and report to Dail Éireann on the annual accounts of designated public bodies following audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Based on the evidence before it, the committee believed that decisions taken by RTÉ demonstrated a lack of rigorous financial controls, poor communication and little transparency, and amounted to a failure of governance which, combined, had damaged public trust in an organisation for which trust should be paramount. Yet again, the Government did not move to change anything. We in Sinn Féin knew that something had to be done.”
“RTÉ used this separate account outside of its main financial statements to record transactions that involved goods and services exchanged for advertising. Cash payments from the barter account resulted in a punishing 35% additional cost yet the Government did not move to change anything. The complete dereliction of duty and responsibility from RTÉ executives was laid bare for months, for the nation to see, yet the Government did not move to change anything. After reading back on the debates when this Bill was introduced last year, I was reminded of the contribution by my party colleague, Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh, that in the midst of the hearings, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, in the Minister's seat, categorically ruled out the Comptroller and Auditor General taking control of RTÉ in light of the events happening at the time.”
“Even the former RTÉ chairwoman, Siún Ní Raghallaigh, stated that the then media Minister, Catherine Martin, had a “hands-off” approach in relation to the national broadcaster. She also stated that she would like to see RTÉ under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Government had a year of evidence that RTÉ needed to be brought under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General but it did not act. In 2023 and 2024, the media committee and the Committee of Public Accounts examined the running of RTÉ. The flip-flops may have generated the headlines but the under-the-table payments to RTÉs top star at the time, misleadingly labelled as consultancy fees, and the nonsense reasons given, exposed the misuse of the barter account.”
“I am not here to dig into the technicalities of it or nit-pick at the minutia of the proposed Government Bill. I am not here to oppose it, tear it down or have a go at the Minister on its content. I am not here to rubbish it because it was not my idea. I am sure there are many aspects of it that we in the Sinn Féin Party would happily support. I know we would positively contribute to its passage through the various Stages. However, the reality is that that would be a long time from now and possibly anything up to two years. The Bill we are putting forward today passed First Stage on Tuesday, 27 February 2024. The Bill was not opposed by the Government and there was no debate. We all agreed that this needed to be done. We moved to introduce this Bill in the face of Government inaction on the RTÉ debacle.”
“We then had auditors’ reports on the previous auditors’ reports, or special examinations done to see why so many things were missed. This is simply throwing good money after bad. TG4 was audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General during this time and did not have the financial irregularities that RTÉ had. Again, I am not sure why the Minister would insist on a duplication of work. This is a simple Bill that does one thing we all agree needs to happen: bring RTÉ under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General. I do not understand why the Minister wants to delay that. I hope that his response gives a detailed reasoning as to why he would purposely delay RTÉ coming under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Minister’s alternate Bill is 93 pages long and includes 31 heads of Bill.”
“First, he believes it does not provide for the accountability of the director general of RTÉ to the Committee of Public Accounts for RTÉ’s financial statements or value-for-money matters. If that were proposed as an amendment, we would support it. His other objection is that it does not allow the RTÉ board the discretion to appoint a regulated private sector auditor in addition to the Comptroller and Auditor General. I would ask whether this matters. The external auditors that RTÉ had for decades did not expose or uncover any of the financial scandals or irregularities that we now know were common in RTÉ. Their ineptitude was exposed at the Committee of Public Accounts and the media committee in 2023 and 2024. RTÉ spent a whole lot of public money on these external audits for a whole lot of box-ticking and nothing else.”
“I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I hope the Minister will withdraw his amendment killing this Bill and support it as it stands. We ask those on the Government benches to also support this Bill as it would do what all parties agree needs to be done and bring RTÉ under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General. I have read the media reports that the media Minister, Deputy Patrick O’Donovan, has outlined to his Government colleagues that it is his opinion that this Bill does not go as far as the Government’s proposed legislation and, therefore, the Private Members’ Bill will be opposed. I have read the media reports that his view is that our proposal differs from the approach by the Government in two substantive ways.”
“Government ideologies are clearly failing the children of this nation and I urge the Government to put its politics aside and work with the combined Opposition's proposal set out before it later tonight to uphold children's rights and deliver the support that Cara and the 15,296 affected children like her are crying out for.”
“Two out of three CDNTs covering north and south Louth, north Meath and Ardee are at capacity for carrying out assessments of need. Instead of properly resourcing the HSE, this Government is again privatising aspects of our health system and it is not working because the waiting lists are getting longer. Even with this privatisation, Louth's assessment of need service has stated to us that it cannot guarantee statutory timeframes of when assessments of need will be met. Louth has a total of 902 children waiting for assessments of need to be processed. A total of 245 of these children have been waiting for over 12 months, 350 have been waiting for between six and 12 months, and 155 of these children have been waiting for between three and six months.”
“Parents and guardians have contacted my constituency office in Louth in their droves, asking for help, as their children are on the ever-growing waiting list for an assessment of need. In mid-2025, Louth assessments of need, AON, service is currently only processing applications from late 2023. The statutory timeframes are not being met due to limited staff resources and an unprecedented increase in applications and workload, which has significantly affected wait times. There are limited staff resources when this Government is flagging a budget surplus this year. Currently, the Louth AON service is outsourcing the vast majority of assessments to HSE-approved private providers, as primary care does not carry out assessments for Louth.”
“I commence tonight by mentioning and paying tribute to 14-year-old disability rights campaigner Cara Darmody, who began her 50 hour sleep-out protest outside Leinster House this morning. She is here to battle for her two brothers who have autism and profound intellectual disabilities and for the thousands more children like them whom this Government is failing. Despite its denials, it is failing them. It is an indictment of this Government that a 14-year-old who should be studying for her exams and looking forward to her summer break from school should have to engage in such a protest. The failure to assess autistic children within six months in 93% of cases means the Disability Act is being systematically broken by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.”
“Something similar happened in 2023. Additional funding was announced last Monday, but when I spoke to Louth County Council, I discovered that it had factored that increase in and still had to pause applications. Every application represents a person struggling to stay in their own home with the support of loved ones. Despite assertions from An Taoiseach that there is a culture of dependency within local authorities for handouts, the fact remains that local authorities are still under-resourced and our citizens suffer unless the Government properly funds these schemes. I urge immediate engagement with Louth County Council housing officials to address this concerning development.”
“I will take a moment to mention Kyran Durnin who should be celebrating his ninth birthday with his family and loved ones today but who instead is subject to a major Garda investigation to try to determine his whereabouts and whether he is even still alive. I know Kyran's family is holding a candlelit vigil in Drogheda this evening. Our thoughts and prayers are with them. There is a need for additional funding and resources for the three housing adaptation grant schemes in County Louth. Last week, just over a third of the way through the year, Louth County Council sent a circular saying it could not accept any more housing grant applications for anything other than priority 1 applications due to funding constraints. This is not the first time that Louth County Council has had to stop taking applications for these schemes.”
“Despite having banged this drum for years and challenging Irish Water-Uisce Éireann to provide clarity, no assurances have been forthcoming. This is symptomatic of the decades of underinvestment by the Minister's Government in the replacement of outdated infrastructure and in future-proofing to ensure capacity needs are met across key areas of expansion with regard not only to water, but also to electricity and planning. This lacklustre approach from the Government is stifling the growth of our towns, cities and villages and holding them back from meeting their full potential. The time to act is now. Housing lists will continue to grow, house prices will continue to rise and the Irish people will suffer because of the Government's continued intransigence.”
“In fact, as far back as 2018, on a site visit with Irish Water to Staleen water treatment plant in Donore, just outside Drogheda, to hear about a new pipeline that was under way, my colleagues and I were alarmed to be informed the new pipeline, when completed, would not export any more than the 30,000 cu. m of water per day the old one had been delivering. This was at a time when 5,000 houses were planned for construction in the northern environs area of Drogheda alone, bringing a surge of 20,000 in population. There was not the foresight to increase capacity even when major works were under way. The construction of these houses is under way at present and I have major reservations as to the reliability of this infrastructure to meet demand.”
“In 2017, a burst water main in Drogheda, the largest town in the country, caused significant water outages for eight days throughout south Louth and east Meath. Imagine a town with a population in excess of 55,000 people having no water and those people having to queue to fill water bottles for homes and businesses for this length of time. I spent nearly nine years on Louth County Council before being elected to this House, and throughout that time there was a constant air of dread hanging over us regarding issues with water infrastructure and water outages, amplified, obviously, by this huge water outage the year before.”
“Today, we put forward a detailed motion on housing and critical infrastructure. Examples were given and statements from bodies involved in the delivery of homes, such as Uisce Éireann, the Irish Home Builders Association and the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, were given, but the Government's amendment to this motion is a rinse and repeat of its response to all motions in this new Dáil term. It ignores what has been said, it ignores the examples given, it ignores expert opinion, and it gives lots of flowery words, all the while failing to address the key issue of failure by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments to invest in critical infrastructure, in particular in water, leading to delays in the delivery of housing.”
“The Arts Council's €7 million IT project failure and RTÉ's €3.6 million IT project failure are the headlines, instead of €10.3 million being spent wisely and well. Let us think of all the sports clubs, musicians and arts and cultural bodies that could have done so much with more than €10 million. It simply cannot continue, and I commend the Minister on his efforts to address it. Sinn Féin wants to see all semi-State bodies under the remit of the State auditor and I hope the Government will support that going forward. This is seen as international best practice. The Government could move to do that today if it were really interested in ending this constant waste of public money. Time will tell whether it supports that in the near future.”
“These constant financial scandals would bring down governments elsewhere but they are unfortunately par for the course here. With uncertainty in the world due to Trump's tariffs and not knowing what may happen with the Ukraine war, financial responsibility is of utmost importance. If our economy hits any bump in the road at all, it will fall flat on its face with all this public waste of money.”
“I commend the Minister on instructing his Department to initiate this exercise and on providing transparency regarding what may be a huge waste of public money by multiple bodies under the aegis of his Department. Unfortunately for him, these wastes of money seem to follow him. When he was previously Minister with responsibility for the OPW, there were issues with money being wasted, such as the €1.4 million spent on a security hut and the €330,000 spent on the Leinster House bike shed. He will say he is not responsible for this and I understand that, but what he must do is identify who is responsible and address it. This should not be with more window-dressing to ensure there is never the opportunity for this to happen again.”
“This question is to ask the Minister to provide details for all agencies under his Department's remit of capital projects costing more than €500,000 that were either abandoned or materially failed to be delivered, and if he will make a statement on the matter.”
“This was mooted a few years ago. There were a couple of false dawns, but to date there has been no concrete confirmation that a new site will be provided. We are flushing money down the toilet in my view. I visited this depot. It is in a severe state of disrepair, and it is not fit for purpose to house the front-line services needed. Will the Minister of State take those three requests to the Minister? I spoke to her briefly last night. I understand she had a long day, but she said she would come back to me on it.”
“It could be my life or the Minister of State's life the next time around. I asked a couple of questions I do not feel were addressed. I appreciate the Minister of State, Deputy Grealish, is not the Minister and is only representing her today. However, I have asked the Minister to undertake an inspection of this station. I would appreciate if that were brought back to her. I ask that she keep an eye and that these works are carried out as soon as possible. I do not understand why we are waiting for a report initiated four years ago to decide whether remedial works are needed on a roof this year when it has been falling down for four years. There are also evident signs of major subsidence with cracks in the walls. I again ask that the Minister engage with the National Ambulance Service on a potential new site for this station.”
“Increased investment is very welcome and I acknowledge that aspect of the Minister of State's response. However, at the moment, none of it is being directed to where it is needed. This issue in the Drogheda ambulance station has been going on for more than four years, as the Minister of State referenced. He also referenced that HSE officials were themselves shocked at the end of 2021 at the state of disrepair in the station. Paramedics based in this station are majorly concerned about decisions being taken at senior level in the National Ambulance Service, which impact crews' ability to effectively and safely carry out their work. It is not just the unfit and unsafe conditions. It is soul destroying and heavily impacting staff morale. These are people we rely on to go out and save lives.”
“I also requested a debate on this matter under Topical Issue Matters 11 times in recent weeks, but was unsuccessful until this morning and despite the obvious and urgent need for investment in Drogheda and in this station, my call has fallen on deaf ears, which is symptomatic of the Government's attitude to front-line workers. Local paramedics have told me that they have no space to rest during their breaks and no room or even small space to gather their thoughts and compose themselves after attending and dealing with harrowing scenarios. Demand for the services of the NAS is growing and in the Dublin north-east region, which includes Louth, there has been a 19% increase in calls in a two-year period. Fourteen personnel are based in this station, which is an increase on the 12 who were there in 2022 when the initial report was written.”
“It has long been established that the current premises are unsafe and unsanitary and it is wholly unacceptable that the works have not been undertaken to date. Paramedics have advised that their preference is for a new station, which is fit for purpose but to date no suitable site has been identified or proposed insofar as they are aware. They feel this building is so dilapidated that it should be condemned and cannot understand why the HSE continues to indemnify it despite it being so unsafe and unfit. None of this will come as a surprise to the Minister. I have written to her on multiple occasions since the middle of February urging her to undertake an inspection of the station and the necessary works and to consult the NAS on the securing of a new station. To date, no response has been received.”
“There are also restrictions on when the vehicles can be washed due to noise and there is no adequate housing for vehicles to protect them from freezing and ensure windows do not require demisting in cold weather conditions, which massively affects turnaround times, putting lives at risk. Numerous concerns have been raised about the security of the current site, noting that it is wide open to the public. On many occasions, intruders have entered and An Garda Síochána has had to be called. A bigger concern is the use of controlled substances in the station and by crews. The station is wide open to the public and they cannot be secured at the current site. There is no security operational on the site. Multiple violent incidents have been reported to the HSE without any real response or resolution.”
“The 2022 report clearly stated the station needs to be fully rewired and made a number of additional recommendations regarding subsidence issues, a green substance coming out of electrical outlets, mould present throughout the buildings and issues with vehicular access and the condition of the road in and out, which poses a risk not only to paramedics but also to the public due to impaired sight lines for access. To date, only patch jobs and essential cosmetic works have been carried out. Residents in nearby estates have noticed the off-run of wastewater from the cleaning of ambulances as there are no facilities to do this on site that allow for the safe disposal of wastewater.”
“The HSE commissioned a report in 2022 on foot of an inspection of the station and a subsequent inspection took place in 2024, which highlighted the dangerous conditions paramedics are working in. No report was published following the 2024 inspection despite the many complaints and concerns raised with the HSE by the paramedics. There was an additional inspection in February this year and I am not aware of any action being taken arising from that either.”
“The National Ambulance Service, NAS, is the State provider for pre-hospital emergency and intermediate care as part of the wider integrated health system. It is responsible for care from the point a 911 or emergency call is received, through treatment, transportation and handover of the patient to clinical teams at the receiving emergency department in hospital. As we speak this morning, serious challenges face the NAS and many paramedics are working out of substandard stations. Many stations have huge infrastructural issues, others are in a state of significant disrepair and there has been little visible investment in providing what should be a basic resource and home base for this crucial, life-saving service. Drogheda ambulance station is one of the stations in a deplorable substandard state and it has been for a long time.”
“By God, these children were not cherished by this nation, they were not cherished by cowboy surgeons and they are not being cherished by those who will not stand up for them now.”
“A year on we are waiting for a final report of the audit and it is just not good enough for the people who are affected. When it comes to the Irish public, and in this case sick children, the Government is moving at a snail's pace. When it comes to creating housing tsars or new super junior Ministers, the Government can move heaven and earth at lightening speed to provide jobs for the boys. I ask the Minister to drop her amendment and back this Private Members' motion. It is the very least those children affected deserve and it is the very least parents and families can expect. These are children who endured life-changing trauma unnecessarily. Just stop and think about that sentence for a moment. Our Proclamation of the Irish Republic declares a resolve to cherish the children of the nation.”
“The draft report found that 79% of hip surgeries in Cappagh were not necessary, 60% at Temple Street were not necessary, 2% at Crumlin were not necessary and all those operations cost about €1,600 each. Those figures are scandalous. We have heard about cowboy tradesmen but does this point to cowboy surgeons? These revelations come at the same time as the completion of HIQA's investigation into the use of non-medical grade implants in several children, which found severe governance and institutional failures at CHI. With those levels of ineptitude and possible wrongdoing going on, and for how long we do not know, we cannot have confidence in the CHI board. The Government's amendment to this Private Members' motion does not inspire confidence, either. It has been a year since this was uncovered and thus far, nothing has been resolved.”
“The Minister has to understand that these are questions parents are asking us. Last year, a whistleblower was worried that some of these operations at Cappagh and Temple Street hospitals were purely for financial gain. The whistleblower was proved right when the audit my colleague referenced took a sample of 147 cases from 2021 to 2023 across 14 surgeons and three hospitals.”
“Who and what company, Department or hospital benefited from that silence because I cannot make sense of that silence other than a cover up of failures? The expert first appointed to conduct the audit, an NHS consultant surgeon from England, resigned over a lack of clarity and confusion about their work. Was that lack of clarity and confusion by design?”
“There is a history of journalists in Ireland uncovering scandals, including the RTÉ payments scandal, the tracker mortgage scandal and the revelations in the Pandora papers. When questionable hip surgeries in CHI hospitals were raised by a whistleblower and an audit was conducted, this Government stayed silent. It stayed silent on the unnecessary hip surgeries until this scandal was exposed and publicised by the journalists at The Ditch . It is a scandal much worse that the kind the Government is usually embroiled in such as the waste of public money or misleading the public on housing delivery. In no uncertain terms, the children of this country were quite simply failed. Parents are still in the dark and worried that their children had unnecessary, traumatic surgeries.”
“Mark my words: the Irish people will not accept any steps of any kind to move on water charges. Feet on the street and mass mobilisations in communities the length and breadth of the country stopped water charges before and if needs be, they will do so again. The Minister's labelling of the Bill as nonsense is disgusting and making faces says more about him and the contempt in which he holds the Irish people than it does about anything else.”
“Parts of north Louth experience water outages and discolouration issues all too frequently. There are major supply issues around Clogherhead and Termonfeckin in south Louth. Above all, the communication between Uisce Éireann and the people it serves and their elected representatives is atrocious. Of the 29 councillors in Louth County Council, there is not one who has not had major frustrations in this regard. In my own experience, it took years at one stage to get an answer on capacity in Drogheda and south Louth. I would go as far as to say that there is not one councillor in Louth who has any confidence in this entity at all. The final nail needs to be put into the coffin of water charges and that is what this Bill is for. The Minister's opposition, his deflection and his blasé response by calling this a waste of time is shameful.”
“Just like the Fianna Fáil promise in the lead-up to last year's general election that 40,000 housing units would be delivered, that pledge was also misleading. The people of Ireland cannot take the word of Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael Governments when it comes to Uisce Éireann or water charges, be it by conservation charges, metering or however it can be labelled and dressed up. The Sinn Féin water services Bill is needed to ensure that manoeuvres by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, by hook or by crook, to introduce water charges on the general public do not succeed. If half of the energy was put into making Uisce Éireann fully fit for purpose, with sufficient capital funding, as is put into plotting to shaft the Irish people with water charges, we would all be a lot better off. A mammoth amount of works needs to be done within Uisce Éireann.”
“When it appeared in the news that a recent briefing document prepared for the Minister, when he was new to his role, listed the finalisation of the draft household water conservation charge regulations as a high-level priority, my reaction, along with the majority of the country, was that they could not be serious. How many times do Governments need to be told that "No" means no before it sinks in? Of course, there were swift denials from the Taoiseach and other actors but we have learned not to trust Fianna Fáil's word when it comes to Irish Water or Uisce Éireann or whatever name the State water entity wants to give itself in the future. The Fianna Fáil 2016 general election manifesto, An Ireland for All, stated that the party's core priorities included abolishing Irish Water and water charges.”
“The Government needs to course-correct on its housing and homeless policies now. It needs to enact an emergency response that this Private Members' motion is calling for, not for the Opposition or for those of us who are advocating for this, rather for the more than 15,000 homeless people, of whom nearly 5,000 are children, for the tens of thousands of people languishing on local authority housing waiting lists and for the young generation who is locked out of home ownership in this country.”