Mark Wall
Kildare South · Labour Party · Ireland
“I understand that the Electoral Commission is undertaking research on this, but we really need to see changes in our voting system to ensure that everyone can take part on voting day.”
“We are seeing lower turnouts in our elections and extending postal votes to a wider range of people would be one measure that could help us all address this issue. I appreciate that the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage may be waiting on the research to be received from the Electoral Commission on postal voting.”
“The Minister is 100% correct that we all want to see recruitment to our Defence Forces continue. However the figures she has given far from the 11,500 sought by the Commission on the Defence Forces by 2028. The Minister mentioned 850 a year. Is that the height of the ambition? It is not going to take us near 11,500.”
“They cannot engage in the democratic process like every other ordinary citizen because they work 24-7, 365 days a year, with no break. This Bill is a small but necessary step to ensure that family carers feel that they can use their voice by voting.”
“There is no single issue here. This is about housing, pensions, pay and conditions. Has the Minister dealt though with the representative organisations on the single public service pension scheme? She might confirm that and let us know whether there is any update.”
“I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to entitle certain persons caring for others to be entered in the register of postal voters, for that purpose to amend the Electoral Act 1992, and to provide for related matters.”
The complete record
Every one of 679 lines we hold for Mark Wall, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 7 of 14.
“As the Minister of State knows, the most important thing for children is that they know what school their friends are going to come next September. At the moment, there is too much stress on families in Allenwood and too many families do not have a school place.”
“The school also applied for a prefab to allow it to accommodate those children without a place in September while the new extension is being built or when construction starts. My request is for the Department to allow that prefab to be placed on the grounds. The management will work with that. A prefab would allow those children without a place to have a much-needed place for September while we still wait for the various stages of the new build to go ahead. I ask the Minister of State, on behalf of the Minister for education, to confirm that the Department will allow that prefab to be placed on site to allow those children to have places and to take the stress off working families who do not have that place at the moment and are contacting me and, indeed, every public representative in south Kildare.”
“The school was granted an extension, which was announced a number of years ago. We have been told lately that the process is at stage 2b. That is where it sits at the moment. That leaves us with a deficit of school places for next September. It leaves us with problems for all those families. At this stage, Scoil Mhuire Allenwood is getting up to 40 applications for primary school places per year. That has been the case for the past four to five years and it has created a problem for the school management. The school management wants to work with the Department of education and the local community to ensure that no child who lives in the Allenwood area is without a school place this coming September.”
“The problem we have with Scoil Mhuire Allenwood is that there are 42 applicants for a school place in September next year but only 28 places available. Unfortunately, that leaves a deficit for a number of families. We have spoken previously about the stress that many of those families are under. Many of them also have a child - a sibling of the applicant child- already in the school. That is causing distress for parents. Where will their second child go to school? The school is trying to do everything it can to facilitate new children and to facilitate those who do not have a school place at the moment. It previously put prefabs onto the school grounds. It is using every part of the existing school to accommodate children. There are waiting lists for every class in Scoil Mhuire Allenwood.”
“I want to talk about the village of Allenwood, which is in my constituency in County Kildare. It is a beautiful village, not far from Naas, Clane and Rathangan. It is right in the middle of the county. It is a country village, or perhaps I should say that it was a village in 1991, when 303 people were living in it. The latest census, taken in 2022, showed 1,685 people living in the village of Allenwood. The reason I have raised this Topical Issue is to talk to the Minister of State about Scoil Mhuire Allenwood, an amalgamation of two primary school schools, that opened in 2017. The census taken in 2022 told us there were 142 children in the village of Allenwood between the ages of zero and four.”
“Before I call on Deputy McGuinness, I welcome 25 students from Gaza who are with us in the Public Gallery. They are currently studying in UCD. They are very welcome and I hope they enjoy their day. They are guests of Senator Harmon.”
“Almost 50,000 people in this country suffer from Crohn's disease or colitis; I am one of them. Will the Government support my Bill for a no-wait statutory card for those people? I am working with a Kildare woman, Maria Crowe, in relation to this. The Tánaiste and other Members will be familiar with the need for a statutory card. Many organisations have a non-statutory card but people are refused the use of toilet facilities again and again. This is so common, it is unbelievable. It is time we legislated for this and brought in this statutory card. I hope the Minister for Health will support this card as well.”
“Will consideration be given to the use of hard shoulders for public transport? Many issues are being raised with me. TII needs to act. We cannot continue with the way things are. Productivity is down and the mental health of commuters and those travelling into Dublin is affected every day. It is simply not good enough. I ask the Tánaiste to revert to the Minister for Transport and TII as quickly as possible. This is urgent.”
“The Tánaiste said my comment was clever and deliberate but it is the reality. The commuters who are coming to me are asking for remote work and flexible working. There is a public consultation. I believe the closing date is 9 December. We need that discussion and we need new legislation. However, I am today asking the Tánaiste for a new Operation Freeflow for the M7 and the N7 because that is what is needed for the thousands of people who are trapped there every day. Will the Government commit to additional signage and to deploying additional gardaí on the road to assist with the flow of traffic? Will the Tánaiste commit to hourly trains to Dublin as part of the Government's housing plan, through which it plans to build thousands of much-needed homes in the commuter belt?”
“The first train from my hometown of Athy is at 6.41 a.m., with many commuters failing to get to work for 8 a.m. and having to revert to their cars. The Government’s code of practice on flexible and hybrid working is not working. The call back to the office and the workplace is a problem highlighted by many commuters who have contacted me over recent days. The Government needs to legislate for a real right to flexible and hybrid working. Will it launch a new Operation Freeflow and instruct Transport Infrastructure Ireland to provide an emergency response to accidents and breakdowns on the car park that is the N7 and M7 to reduce the congestion for so many commuters?”
“It is, of course, not a silver bullet but it would allow for better responses to minor road traffic incidents and would help prevent traffic coming to a standstill at rush hour. Many people in rural Ireland south of the capital cannot get a public bus or train because there are too few options. For many the times of public transport will not allow them to get to work on time. In many parts of rural Ireland, people have no choice but to use their cars to get to work. Where public transport does exist, people are crammed onto trains and are ringing their public representatives to say the bus did not show up. In Kildare South, I am fighting for an hourly train service along the Waterford to Heuston line. This would make a massive difference to people living in Athy, Carlow, Kilkenny and other places along the line.”
“Can this House imagine what it is like to be undergoing cancer treatment and be trapped in traffic for hours on end? The problems for commuters are because of the pressure and availability of housing, the lack of timely and fit-for-purpose public transport, a Government flexible working policy that is simply not fit for purpose and an inadequate response to minor accidents and breakdowns compounded by driver frustration and education and a lack of transport gardaí on our roads. Last week, I called for Transport Infrastructure Ireland and the Minister for Transport to set up an emergency response unit for the N7, M7 and other major motorways that are experiencing massive traffic delays. This is already in place on the M50.”
“I am clear in my support for increased public transport for Kildare South, but we know this extra capacity will take years. Commuters on the M7 and N7 cannot wait that long. Since I first raised this, I have been inundated with messages from commuters across Leinster and north Munster. Thousands of people are spending their lives stuck in daily traffic for up to three hours as they try to get to work. They are leaving their family homes at 6 a.m. to barely make it into work for 9 a.m. It is not just workers who are affected. People are missing critical medical appointments like chemotherapy because of these delays. Cancer patients are telling me they are having to pull over to the side of the road because they are so unwell and cannot make their appointments.”
“We need to look at this again. I appreciate that the Minister has looked at it but we need to look at the application form. It is way too restrictive. We need to encourage people to look at those 60% of appeals that have been successful and encourage people to do a day-to-day diary of how this affects their family, day in and day out. That is where we need to get to. I appeal to the Minister to go back and look at the restrictive nature of this form.”
“In our discussions last night on the social welfare Bill, I asked the Minister about increasing the eligibility of the DCA from the age of 16 to 18. I also mentioned difficulties a lot of families were having with this particular application. In his reply today, the Minister mentioned the criteria of "care and attention required by the child compared to another child of the same age". This is so hard for a parent to get their head around. Some of the applications are going to a GP who has not seen the child. The GP is filling out the form, ticking the matrix box, and putting down that the child is okay. This goes back to a discussion I had with the Minister about appeals. It is when people get one-to-one meetings with the person across a desk that they are able to describe what is happening on a daily basis in their families.”
“By putting a roof over the head of their son or daughter again, they are losing the payment. It is causing a lot of strife and concern in families and it is hitting the lowest income families in my area. I hope the Minister, when I bring some examples to him, can look at this further.”
“I take the Minister’s reply. I acknowledge the fact that the fuel allowance has been extended to working family payment recipients, because they are in low-income families who need all the help they can get in what are housing and cost-of-living crises. I hope that if I can give the Minister three or four examples of what has been happening over the past two weeks in Kildare South, he will examine the matter again. I am sure it is not just happening in Kildare South. Maybe we are just targeting Kildare South. The affected families are genuine families. In many cases, a loved one, a son or daughter, will have left home to make a life for himself or herself but, for whatever reason, has come back under the roof again. They are in a housing emergency. Who is going to turn away their son or daughter?”
“Many of those affected are older people who need the €38 to heat their homes. What is happening is wrong, as I have said several times. Particularly where the person coming back under the roof is in receipt of a social welfare payment and is not working, we should be considering targeting. This is the kind of targeting the Government should be employing.”
“I am nodding. The Minister mentioned household composition tests and people working, but the problem I have is where a person who returns to a house is not working and is getting a social welfare payment. These are low-income households and these are the people who must be targeted. I mentioned last night that I have come across three or four cases of this in the past two weeks alone. I asked last night whether we have targeted these people. Today, the Government will announce with triumph a new housing plan, the fourth in recent years. There is a housing emergency. There are parents taking back their loved ones – their sons or daughters – under their roofs again because they have either fallen out with a partner or cannot afford rent, yet the Government is taking €38 from the fuel allowance.”
“This is a case of déjà vu in that we mentioned this yesterday, but I want to ask the Minister of State once again if he will consider granting a fuel allowance to those who have had an application refused or revoked due to another child or family member moving back home.”
“This is very important for parents to be able to make decision on costs and, in some cases, to ensure that costs are not prohibitive for them to secure a childcare place where they can actually find such a place. This is good news and I thank the Minister and the Department.”
“This is good news. I think I last raised this matter on 29 April 2025 so I think it has taken a slight amount of time to get everything uploaded. It is so important for parents to be able to see what is available for childcare in their areas. We all realise that there is a lack of places, but where there are places, it is important for parents to be able to look at prices. Previously, the Minister mentioned childcare committees. It was my understanding that the childcare committees had access to and were sharing the ECCE model, but I take it from the Minister's answer that we are now up and running. Parents will be able to access a website which will give them the detailed information that the Minister has just outlined.”
“It may be a historical question at this stage but I want to ask the Minister if she or the Department have addressed the IT issue whereby historical fee data was unavailable on the national childcare system website.”
“I encourage the Minister to engage as much as possible, as she has been doing, to ensure that we have communications at every opportunity with our childminders, ensuring that there is somebody available to answer the many questions I and a lot of my colleagues are getting. Will the Minister commit to meeting with Childminding Ireland to discuss the concerns it has got and is getting about this registration?”
“I would welcome if the Minister could mention that because it has become a serious concern for a lot of childminders, who, as she said, are so important to rural life, where it is often a neighbour who is minding two or three children and who has done so for years. If that falls, rural life is really going to be affected for so many people in my area and, I am sure, the Minister's area. The Minister mentioned communications. That is vital for where we are going with childminders because many of our childminders, as I have said before, have been doing this for years out of love for childminding and love for supporting their communities and being recognised as such within their communities.”
“There are concerns coming out of what is happening, including one provider in my county who has now been subject to rates, unfortunately. Will the Minister give that reassurance to those childminders who need it? If our childminders are not there, many working families in this country will run into so many difficulties in the coming weeks.”
“I need not put on the record of the House how important childminders are to the childcare sector in this country. It has been the subject of many conversations we have had here. The Minister is right to say there are concerns among childminders right across the country as to what this new regulation will mean for them. Many of them are minding two or three children in their own homes and have done so for many years. There is a concern, a worry, as to what starting to fill out forms, etc., and registering will mean for them. What they are looking for from the Minister and from the Department is that they will be able to continue in all aspects with what they have done for years. They are the cornerstones of many communities. I need not put that on the record of the House either.”
“We have heard over a number of years about concerns regarding ongoing bogus self-employment contracts, in particular in RTÉ. Self-employed people must be included in order to ensure companies are not incentivised to place workers on such contracts. The pension coverage among this cohort is, as we know, already too low. I welcome the implementation of the scheme but, as I mentioned, the Labour Party has some concerns, and I ask the Minister, as I have done on previous occasions, to address them. I again welcome the fact that we are debating the Bill and thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for affording me the opportunity to contribute”
“It is a conversation piece time and again at my clinics, and I am sure many others hear the same in their offices and clinics. In a country with the surplus the Government has in front of it, it is simply not good enough that people are hoping and praying for a mild winter. Regarding the auto-enrolment system, I and the Labour Party broadly welcome its introduction. It is much needed and will help to increase the basic standard of living for workers who are unable to contribute financially to a private pension or whose employer does not provide one. It is a conversation that I encourage the Minister to continue to have with young and not-so-young workers because it goes to the core of future suitability for many working families in this country. I have previously raised the issue of the self-employed. They should also be auto-enrolled.”
“These social protection measures will do little or nothing to help many pensioners, lone parents, carers and people with disabilities who have to make tough choices this coming winter. They are making choices like whether they can afford a heating bill or have enough money to buy something to feed themselves. I deal with many people on a daily basis who ask me what they are going to do. I must raise with the Minister and with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael people's concerns about the direction being taken in respect of working families and low-income households. These families and individuals raise their concerns with me on a daily basis. The cost of living for many is simply out of control and energy bills are through the roof for many people. Many hope and pray for a mild winter.”
“I am sure the Minister's office receives calls from worried and distressed parents whose children's disability is a lifelong one, yet they must go through reams of paper to prove they still have an entitlement to domiciliary care allowance at the age of 16. It is simply not good enough. Other families are struggling to provide care and much-needed private services for their 16-year-old children because they face the withdrawal of the payment. Many families find they have to endure a review or appeal. They welcome the fact that, as the Minister said, the allowance has increased. However, we must examine the age limit and do something about the reams of paperwork people have to fill in when their child has a lifelong disability.”
“I want to raise with the Minister, as I have done on previous occasions, the cap of 18.5 hours for those who are working and are in receipt of carer's allowance. This affects those who need to work or study. I have had many queries from those who are studying. The cap is becoming a serious problem for those who are travelling long distances to attend courses while at the same time providing essential care for a mother, father, brother or sister. I know everyone in the House has examples of this, but, unfortunately, the 18.5 hour cap is excluding those people from receiving the payment. As I did when I was a Member of the Seanad, I want to ask why we cannot increase the eligibility for domiciliary care allowance from the age of 16 to 18.”
“For the life of me, I cannot understand why the Government is taking the €38 weekly fuel allowance away from those who qualify simply because they now have to provide a roof over the heads of a son or daughter who has returned home because they cannot find accommodation. Unfortunately, some may break up with a partner or simply cannot afford to pay rent in their area. It is very unfair to make this cut during our current housing emergency. Again, I ask the Minister to examine this matter. Unfortunately, I am sure he, like my office, received a number of such queries during the week. I am not sure whether the Department is targeting people, but there have been multiple queries submitted to my office this week by families who provide a roof over their loved ones' heads and who have had their fuel allowance cut.”
“The question many are now asking is whether they will have to wait another 15 years for the next increase. The allowance is to pay for the child. Many foster carers will use much of their own savings just to get by. I have raised the issue of the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance for foster families with the Minister. It would have cost just over €1 million and would have been a vital support for all of those foster caring families. They will again have to use their own savings and any other income they have to provide the very best for the children in their care. That is what these families do. They put everything into the care of their foster child because no one else will and the State has failed to help on this occasion. I want to use this opportunity to highlight an issue we will discuss tomorrow during Question Time.”
“That is what workers have signed up to, yet the Government does not seem to be keeping its side of the deal. I encourage the Government to do the right thing and rectify this as a matter of urgency. The Government had no issue with addressing issues in the Finance Bill, including a VAT cut in respect of apartments. It must now do the same for workers. I have raised on previous occasions the lack of support for foster carers who the State relies heavily on to provide care for children with nowhere else to go. Budget 2026 should have indexed the foster carer allowance to take account of the ongoing cost of providing care and provide pension security for families who dedicate their lives to fostering. Foster carers had to wait 15 years for the last increase in the allowance.”
“This is essentially a payment freeze for many people who have worked and paid their taxes – the people who keep this country going. We are already seeing a slow but steady increase in the rate of unemployment, which now stands at 5%, according to the most recent CSO statistics, a figure which is up by nearly a quarter since last year and which is at its highest level since the pandemic. This comes after a string of high-profile job losses at companies like Fastway, Amazon and Intel, as well as reports of an increase in so-called quiet or silent layoffs and a reduction in the number of companies that are hiring. Workers will pay an extra €52 this year and €104 next year. This is in order to help fund the new payment, which will help workers in the short term when they lose their jobs.”
“For example, those in receipt of one-parent family payment can access the working family payment, but those on jobseeker's transitional payment cannot. We would have extended the working family payment to those on jobseeker's transitional payments and increased the earnings disregard for one family payments and the jobseekers transitional payment from €165 to €250. Like previous speakers, I also want to highlight the concerns expressed by the Irish Congress of Trade Union, ICTU, which has called the Bill a sting in the tail for workers. This is due to the fact that the Bill contains a stealth cut to the jobseeker's pay-related benefit. Despite introducing a €10 increase to weekly social welfare payments, ICTU has since learned that the jobseeker's pay-related benefit has not been included in the general increase.”
“We would have reformed disability payments and introduced a single taxable benefit, protected secondary benefits like medical cards and phased in a cost of disability payment in 2026, starting with a payment of €25 per week. As an interim step, we would increase the disability allowance weekly income disregard from €165 to €250 for those in work. A significant proportion of single parent households are consistently at risk of poverty and face higher rates of deprivation. We would have provided for targeted income support measures in the budget. Lone parents transfer to the jobseeker's transition payment when their youngest child turns seven years of age, but there are still a number of anomalies between the two payments.”
“That would be the first step towards the introduction of a pay-related leave benefit scheme. We would also extend the amount of paid parent’s leave available by a further three weeks for each parent taking it to 12 weeks each. Combined with maternity and paternity leave benefits, this would provide 52 weeks of leave. To bring Ireland into line with other EU countries, the Department of Social Protection must also begin to develop proposals to achieve pay-related leave benefits and carer’s benefits. We would also have removed the three-day wait for jobseeker's benefit and moved towards a system based on hours worked rather than days, reflecting modern work practices and providing additional funds for the extension of pension benefits to bereaved partners.”
“ESRI research published in September also shows that one in five children, that is, over 225,000 children, live in families below the poverty line when housing costs are accounted for. It is a failure of our society and those in government that child poverty figures are relentlessly rising. We called for a new targeted second rate of child benefit, as recommended by the ESRI and the Commission on Taxation and Welfare. That step could have reduced child poverty by a quarter and cut the child poverty gap in half. The increases in this Bill to the various streams of maternity and parental benefits are welcome but fall short of what Labour demonstrated was possible in our alternative budget. The Labour Party would have increased the payment rate to €350 a week rather than €299, as the Bill does.”
“As always, there is still time for the Government to do the right thing and provide some level of support for people with disabilities. A €10 increase in core weekly social welfare rates is a paltry amount for many people on fixed incomes, like pensioners, who are deciding between eating and turning on the heating. An increase of at least €16 per week was needed to keep up with the cost of living, while additional increases were also needed in child benefit and a targeted second tier payment should have also been a priority for this budget. The number of children in Ireland living in consistent poverty nearly doubled in 2024 to 8.5%, rising by over 45,000 children in one year to over 104,000.”
“I previously shared a story of a constituent of mine who has multiple sclerosis and is struggling to cope with the cost of disability. She cannot avail of the disability allowance because her husband works and the payment is means-tested. She is also raising two children and like many families they are struggling. I have had numerous calls to my office asking how the Government expects families to be able to afford a heating bill this winter. The painful truth is that budget 2026 has left people with disabilities €1,400 per year worse off due to the loss of once-off measures. That is not spare cash lying around, it is what keeps their heads just above water. It is what helps keep the heating on during these cold winter months; heating that gives people with a disability some form of quality of life and which is essential to it.”
“I can assure the Minister that unlike so many of the people I deal with on a daily basis, Ronald McDonald is not worried about paying the heating bill. This money could have been used to fund a cost of disability payment starting at €25 per week and to fully, once and for all, abolish the carer’s allowance means test. Carers in this country are saving the State €20 billion each year. These could have been the radical measures that people needed in budget 2026, the measures that the Labour Party proposed in our own alternative budget. To add insult to injury, there would have been money left over to help even more people. This is what we should be debating here today instead of what is in front of us in this Bill.”
“I welcome the Minister to the House this evening and I welcome the opportunity to discuss, once again, social protection and the recent budget. In responding to budget 2026 previously in this House, I described it as a punch in the stomach for many working families and unfortunately, I must repeat that here in this debate today. Budget 2026 needed to deliver real and radical policy changes towards a social welfare system that delivers equality and fairness for all those who need it. Instead, the Government gave €1.2 billion in VAT rate cuts for fast-food chains, large ones at that, and tax cuts for big property developers. They put the needs of McDonald's before working families and low-income households who are struggling day in, day out.”
“It is affecting people's quality of life and it also affecting their productivity as they get into work. I appreciate his response.”
“I wanted to raise with the Minister today the car park the M7 and N7 have become over the recent period. Yes, we all believe in public transport but unfortunately, we all know that will take time. This morning, as I made my way to work, it took me three hours to get here from the town of Athy. I have been inundated with emails today from people from Rathangan, where it is taking two and a half hours, and from people from Newbridge, where it is taking two hours. I have raised this in these Houses before and I ask the Minister, with the Minister for Transport, to contact TII and to put on an emergency service for rush hour traffic that is there constantly. That is what we need every morning because there are so many accidents happening on that road. It has become a danger for people.”
“In the time I have left, I also want to mention Cuan Mhuire and Nicola Kelly and Sr. Consilio, who do great work. That is the type of service we need to have because they give people hope. These services are in every village and every town and community groups are coming together now to support those with addiction. We must treat this as a human story and we must use the language that these are our brothers, our sisters, our cousins, our aunts and our uncles. That is the new strategy to which we must talk when we are talking about drug strategy in this country.”
“It is only when, as another colleague of mine said, you are in a pub, you see it seems easier now to get your fix than it is to get a takeaway in most of these places. It is just a matter of a phone call and then that addiction is fed. That is a problem. It is also very important to talk about services today. The Minister will be aware, being next door to us in Athy in Kildare, that I am a director of Willow Community Counselling Services, which is just up the road from her. However, the problem with Willow Community Counselling Services is that we are going cap in hand begging for funding. Sharon Malloy is doing absolutely tremendous work there and yet we are getting knocked back every time we go looking for funding. When it comes to our meetings, which we have regularly, the one topic is funding.”
“That is the most important item we can discuss today. The Minister is right. Drug addiction, which used to be an urban issue, is now in every corner of this country. In every small village, every rural area and every small town in this country, drug addiction is an issue. There is absolutely no doubt about that and it is communities that are being affected day in, day out. We need to take a health-led approach to this but we also need to take a whole-of-society approach. It was my colleague, Deputy Kelly, who spoke about sporting clubs and I want to concentrate on that as well for a moment. I am glad that he, as committee chair, will lead on this because we have to have a discussion in our sports clubs about addiction. Too many of our athletes are suffering from drug addiction.”
“I thank my colleague, Deputy Sherlock, for bringing forward this important motion. I also acknowledge our MEP, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, for his considerable work. He has brought many of us in the Labour Party on a journey in relation to drug education and its effects on society. It is an education we can all be part of and need to be part of. The Minister of State mentioned in her remarks a political dispute on the drugs issue. We cannot have a political dispute on a drugs issue. We must all, as she said, work together because this is about people and families. That is the language we must start using when talking about a drugs strategy. As has been said by many of my colleagues, decriminalisation of drugs for personal use puts the person in addiction at the centre and offers opportunities for recovery.”