Paul Murphy
Dublin South-West · People Before Profit-Solidarity · Ireland
“The Minister of State assured us we are bound by international law but then went on to talk about the fact that he wants to deploy troops outside the framework of international law. That is why the Government is getting rid of the triple lock. All the triple lock does is ensure that we only can send troops in line with international law.”
“The case for MetroLink south west is extremely strong. There are 350,000 people living between the Luas red and green lines. That is who will be served by this.”
“Hopefully the junior Minister will be able to clarify. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, said earlier to Deputy Ó Laoghaire, "The people I speak to do not like the fact that Russia has essentially removed, or will remove in the coming months, all our peacekeeping troops from UNIFIL".”
“I, too, want to ask about the senior Minister. This came up at the Dáil reform committee last week. It is very peculiar that a senior Minister is here and has answered previous questions on the triple lock today and then – no offence meant - we have the junior Minister answering these questions, which precisely prevents the continuation o…”
“Its defence is that we should not worry because the Government is only going to send them as part of an international force. I do not think anyone here thinks the Government is going to invade a country all by itself.”
“It is there in black and white in the programme for Government and the Government needs to live up to its commitment to do a new, properly independent feasibility study. I appeal to the Minister of State to ask the Minister for Transport to meet with the metro south west group which has been doing such excellent campaigning on this issue.”
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“To be clear, these accounts did not watch anything or opt in for any of this stuff. They did not even watch the one video referenced in the study in regard to anorexia and pro-eating disorder content being fed to young women. They did not seek it out at all but one of the accounts was fed this toxic misogyny within two minutes. It is incredible. Since then, we have had the development of so-called AI girlfriend apps, which is a thoroughly misleading term for apps with taglines like "Build your own AI slut". These apps incite boys to create child sexual abuse imagery by suggesting they upload real photos of people they know from their school or wherever. Within minutes, the app can then create extreme, degrading, deepfake pornography of girls in their class in school.”
“Meta derives an estimated $2 million a year in revenue directly from a pro-eating disorder bubble on Instagram alone and $230 million from all those who follow this bubble. That revenue includes that derived from underage users. That is from a Fairplay for Kids report from 2022, Designing for Disorder: Instagram's Pro-eating Disorder Bubble. There was another study done at Dublin City University, DCU, called Recommending Toxicity: the Role of Algorithmic Recommender Functions on YouTube Shorts and TikTok in Promoting Male Supremacist Influencers. The study set up ten blank male-identified accounts. You go into a shop, buy a new, blank phone and say you are a young man between 16 and 18 years old. All of the male-identified accounts were fed masculinist, anti-feminist and other extremist content within 23 minutes on YouTube.”
“There was a study done by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate called YouTube's Anorexia Algorithm: How YouTube Recommends Eating Disorder Videos to Young Girls in the EU. The study looked at what videos YouTube recommends to a 13-year-old Irish girl who first watches one video about eating disorders. She then gets a thousand YouTube video recommendations. Two in three of those videos that she is then fed over the next couple of hours or whatever relate to eating disorders or weight loss. One in three of those videos is a video advocating harmful eating disorders. One in 20 of those videos involved the promotion of self harm or suicide content. Why are they doing that?”
“In regard to the amount of money we are talking about, in 2023, Meta generated over $134 billion in revenue, of which advertising revenue comprised $132 billion. The parent company of TikTok made $120 billion in revenue in 2023. YouTube's global advertising revenues were $31.5 billion in 2023. X was on track to bring in $2.5 billion in 2023. To be clear, these companies are interested in maximising their profits, not in creating safe spaces for young people, women or LGBTQ people. They are interested in maximising the length of time that eyeballs are on the screen so they can maximise the amount of advertising they can sell. That is what they are interested in. Their algorithms are simply designed to do that, and the consequence is the force-feeding of toxic content to young people. I will give an example.”
“This would have the effect of turning social media back to what it was supposed to be and what it was sold to us all as, namely, a space where we can connect with our friends, build communities and so on, as opposed to, precisely as Micheál Martin says, a thing that is creating a major public health challenge. There is a huge mental health crisis among young people in particular but in society at large, it is driving a process of alienation, all for the profit of these major social media companies. Let us be clear: this is why the Government is opposing a measure to protect the health and safety of children. It is because these are huge, powerful corporations that have massive political sway and by which the Government is effectively captured.”
“They protect people and that's why need to keep them". Then Coimisiún na Meán changed it and took it out. Big tech lobbying won out over the safety of our children. This is the Bill that will deal with, or significantly deal with, the issue of toxic content. As I said, it is precisely what all the relevant expert groups are calling for. To explain what the effect of the Bill would be, it is to turn off the recommender algorithm systems for anyone under 18 and turn them off by default for those over 18. Adults can choose to opt in. If the algorithm is explained in a transparent way and the platform can explain what you are signing up for, you can choose to opt in but it is turned off permanently for under-18s until they reach the age of 18.”
“The Government does not quite have the neck to just vote it down because it knows this is popular and is being supported by backbench TDs. Deputy Brendan Smith explicitly called for the measure contained in this Bill about a year and a half ago. It will be interesting to see how he votes tonight. Instead, the Government tries to pretend to people that it is dealing with this issue. It is not dealing with this issue and the reason we know it is not dealing with this issue is that the online safety code, to which it refers, was explicitly amended to take this out. This was in the first draft. It was precisely what is contained in this Bill, which I will go on to explain in a minute. It was amended out because big tech lobbied and said, "Actually, do you know what? The algorithms are great.”
“Big words; great, but now we have a Bill that implements the recommendation of the AI committee. It implements, to the letter, what the AI committee is calling for. We have a Bill that recommends what is called for by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, the National Women's Council of Ireland, the National Youth Council of Ireland and all of the experts who have looked at this area, which is to turn off the toxic social media algorithms that are force-feeding toxic content to our young people. What does the Government say? In its amendment, the Government declines to give the Bill a Second Reading on the grounds the issues the Bill seeks to address are already being addressed by Coimisiún na Meán through its implementation of Ireland's online safety framework.”
“I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." The choice we have in this debate and in the vote tonight is whether the profits of social media companies or the health and safety of children are going to come first. That is the choice. The Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, himself said that the damage caused to young people by social media is the public health challenge of our time. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, when asked if we should turn off the algorithms, said we should. Simon Harris, the Tánaiste, said that some things are more important than money when speaking about the need to regulate big tech in the context of the revelations about the mass production of child sexual abuse imagery and imagery of sexual abuse of women by these corporations for profit.”
“Report after report seemingly vindicated energy companies and supermarkets, claiming they are not profiteering when it is obvious that they are. The Taoiseach has the power to introduce price controls. Will he use that power?”
“War is a racket. It is an opportunity for many profiteering companies and individuals to try to rip people off. With Trump's new reckless, illegal, criminal, imperialist war in the Middle East, energy prices are going to rise even higher. In some cases, they already have, so the cost of home heating oil has gone up €80 since last Friday, for which there is no justification. That oil would already have been bought before the bombing started. The Taoiseach said earlier that he was going to raise this price gouging with the Minister for energy and has asked the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission to examine any unfair pricing practices. This is like "Back to the Future". We heard all of this when the cost-of-living crisis started five years ago. Ultimately, the Government refused to do anything at all.”
“When I raised this with the Taoiseach last week during Leaders' Questions, he pointed to an ESRI study that said the lowest income groups benefited most from the recent budget. I actually went and checked the report, which says the opposite. It says that the lower income households were hit harder. Will the Taoiseach listen to those on the street and implement a winter payment?”
“On Saturday, I attended a powerful protest organised by the Affordable Ireland campaign. It was led by disabled people and disabled people's organisations. The focus of the protest was the cost-of-living crisis in general but in particular a demand for an emergency payment for those who have seen €1,400 in cuts savagely implemented in the past budget. A striking feature of the speeches was people responding to the ridiculing that happened in here about the notion that people are making real choices to heat or to eat. People spoke about their lived experience and this being the choice they face. The Government is talking about a national human rights strategy for disabled people, while pushing people further into poverty with its political choices.”
“It was quite incredible to hear the Taoiseach at Leaders' Questions again and again refuse to condemn the criminal US and Israeli bombing of Iran. His refusal to tell the very simple truth that this attack is in violation of international law is a shocking illustration of his Government's subordinate position to US imperialism and his moral cowardice in seeking not to irritate Donald Trump in advance of meeting with him. Over 700 people have been killed so far. Israel has commenced a land invasion into Lebanon forcing 30,000 people to flee. Almost 200 people, overwhelmingly young schoolchildren together with teachers, were killed in one strike alone at a primary school. These were seven- to 12-year-old girls. What position has the Taoiseach gotten himself into where he cannot condemn the murder of children?”
“This issue is coming and the Government should get ahead of it, address it, order an inquiry into it and not force another group of people to have to protest for a basic recognition of the wrongs the State did to them and an apology.”
“In 1966, nursing notes said there appeared to be very little wrong mentally with her, yet she remained institutionalised. Included in the allegations against these psychiatric institutions are mistreatment, rape and forced labour. The abuse also severely impacted the life of Mary's brother Christopher, who spent over 20 years in a psychiatric hospital and died there in 2007. The abuse he suffered saw him go from what was described as a big man to a skeleton and develop numerous other issues, including schizophrenia. There is no inquiry in place regarding psychiatric institutions and no redress or apology has been offered.”
“If they are not, we will be putting very significant pressure on in here to make sure that they are and that survivors are not forced to contact us to say that they keep hearing that things are going to be resolved but things do not seem to be resolved. There are around 4,000 living survivors of abuse in industrial schools. They cannot be made to wait. They have to get this. It is the very least that they are entitled to. I also want to raise a related issue of abuse that has been ignored. This is the historic abuse that occurred in psychiatric hospitals. I have been speaking to Mary Donovan about her mother Margaret Mary Donovan, who was institutionalised for nearly her entire life. She spent over 50 years in both State-run and religious institutions across Ireland from the age of 16.”
“We cannot forget how long it took to get to this point, not just in years but in terms of the 46 days of the hunger strike it took for a mediator to be put in place and the 51 days for the Government to commit to work with the hunger strikers regarding their very simple demands. These were the award of a Health (Amendment) Act card and a State contributory pension for the abuse that they suffered in their childhood, in line - this is the point they always made - with what had been offered to other survivors of similar institutions. It is good that the Government has announced supports for survivors. It has been a very long process and they are not all in place but they need to be put in place.”
“These are the words of Mary Dunlevy Greene, one of the hunger strikers who fought for redress from the Government for the State's part in their abuse: We were child slaves. We got very little portions of food. We were deprived of every human right. A capitation grant was paid by the State to the religious orders to keep us there. They gagged us. We weren't allowed to speak afterwards or name an institution or a perpetrator. The horrors cannot be overstated. I remember going out to meet with them when they were bravely on their hunger strike, not seeing any road in terms of justice and just the horror these people went through for which the State was responsible. Therefore, it is welcome that the State has given an apology but it has to be followed by action.”
“That is what needs to be stopped. Instead, the Department should trust schools and parents. They know what the needs are. The Department should start forward planning based on realistic demographic projections with spare capacity built into the system. We need significant and sustained multi-annual increases in funding to reduce class sizes, train thousands more special educational teachers and therapists and guarantee at least one SNA for every classroom. There is so much more that can be done but what we have learned is the Government will not do any of it unless it is forced and that is why people continue to mobilise and will be on the streets in a couple of hours' time.”
“[...] The stress we face every day going to school is sometimes unbearable. Through no fault of their own, a lot of these kids just can’t cope because they are in the wrong setting. Myself and my colleagues are daily hit, kicked, bitten, called all sorts of names but we continue to go to work because along with these distressing behaviours we also witness moments of magic when a child will engage, will integrate, will give you a smile and some eye contact, will begin to form letters while writing after our hand has been over theirs for years. We are important. We are good at our jobs. We deserve better and more importantly these kids deserve better. Inclusion without support = abandonment. It is clear that the root cause of this is the failed approach of allocating SNAs on the basis of narrowly defined primary care needs.”
“The lesson in this regard that should ring out widely across the country on all sorts of issues is that people power works and that the Government can be defeated. Of course, it is true that what the Government has been forced to concede is nowhere near enough to guarantee every child their right to an education appropriate to their needs. That is why the protest outside the Dáil at 5 p.m. is going ahead. It is important that the protest does go ahead because, as the organisers say, an extended pause is not good enough. An SNA who has two autistic sons wrote to me last week. She stated: I wish some TDs could spend a day in a school and actually see what is going on. We would be classed as having a lot in our school and it’s nowhere near enough. The amount of children needing our supports is too much for us to deal with on good days.”
“There are two very important lessons that we have learnt from the SNA debacle over the past couple of weeks. The first is that the Government does not care about the most vulnerable and, left to its own devices, will abandon them. The second is that people power works because the Government is now promising an extra €19 million for SNAs. The Government is also saying that no school will lose SNAs next year. The only reason that happened was because of a groundswell of protest on the part of parents, SNAs and teachers. It did not happen because some kind of logical light bulb went off in the heads of those in government. It happened because the Government came under immense pressure. Acting together, school communities forced the Government into an embarrassing climb-down.”
“We should not have military co-operation with NATO, Britain or France. Of course not. We should be neutral. The best defence we have is a consistent position of neutrality whereby we call out imperialism and attacks on human rights no matter where they take place. We have the position that Connolly put forward, "neither king nor Kaiser", which today means neither Washington nor Moscow-----”
“The planet I am on is a planet where the Taoiseach introduced a budget that cut income for disabled people by €1,400. Absolutely shameful. The planet I am on is where he introduced a budget that, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office, significantly increases the rates of child poverty and poverty among older people, and decreases the income of the poorest people in this country by 4.4%. That is the planet I am on. They are all facts from the Parliamentary Budget Office. This is the same planet where the Taoiseach is scaremongering to justify giving €1 billion to the French arms industry, the same people who have facilitated, enabled and created the weapons for the genocide. Yes, we think the Government should not have military co-operation with big, Western imperialist powers.”
“It is why people have a deep connection to an independent foreign policy, a consistent opposition to all imperialism and support for neutrality. Why is the Taoiseach throwing all of this away?”
“It is led by Donald Trump, who just in the past two months kidnapped the president of a sovereign country and threatened to invade Greenland and is trying to dismantle the UN and replace it with a so-called Board of Peace, with himself as the chairman for life. This is a strategy written for the big tech companies that want us to pay to protect their cables, by the arms lobbyists who want our money for their weapons and by Britain and France. Action 2.1 refers to developing "a trusted network of critical underwater infrastructure stakeholders", which is to include industry. Who is the Taoiseach talking about? Is he talking about big tech companies or arms companies? This State was born out of a struggle against British imperialism.”
“Action 4.6 states that Ireland should "foster relations with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, in the maritime security space". Action 4.8 states that Ireland should "pursue opportunity to participate in Joint Expeditionary Force+, JEF+, activities." The Joint Expeditionary Force, JEF, is ten NATO countries led by Britain. Is that one of the reasons the Taoiseach wants to abolish the triple lock? As a neutral country, why should we support greater co-operation between the EU and NATO? NATO is made up of states that overwhelmingly supported, armed and financed Israel's genocide in Gaza.”
“If we look at the maritime security strategy launched this morning, it is a shameful abandonment of any independent foreign policy. Instead, it commits us to deep military co-operation with the old colonial powers of Britain and France, advocating further integration with NATO and using huge amounts of public money to defend the infrastructure of big tech companies. The strategy refers to "our responsibility and commitment to support the security and defence of Europe". When did we sign up for that? That sounds awfully like a mutual defence pact, when the protocol associated with the Lisbon treaty explicitly stated that there would be no common defence agreement involved. Again and again, the document refers positively to NATO. It says, "Ireland can play a positive role in supporting greater EU-NATO co-operation".”
“This Saturday, disabled people and the Affordable Ireland campaign will be on the streets demanding an emergency payment after the Government took over €1,400 from them in the last budget. So far, the Government has refused to concede. There is no money for disabled people. There was no money for SNAs until people power forced the Government back. There is no money for electricity credits. What is there money for? There is money to develop an Irish arms industry and to give to the French arms industry. The French media is reporting that we will spend €1 billion of public money on armoured vehicles, tanks and a Howitzer. The Thales Group, which supplied weapons to Israel for the slaughter of Palestinians, will be the main recipient. It is part and parcel of an agenda of militarisation and dismantling neutrality.”
“That was what happened in the intervening 40 minutes, which raises a question about whether this applied elsewhere as well.”
“I thank the Minister of State and I would very much welcome the idea of a meeting. I also invite him to come and visit the school and meet with the principal, teachers, SNAs and so on. On the bottom-line point, what happened in the 40 minutes between the letter removing the SNAs and the letter saying that no SNAs would be removed was that the principal contacted the NCSE to say that all the parents' questionnaires that the NCSE had asked the school to fill out, that the parents had gone to fill out, as explained, and that the NCSE had supposedly taken into account in making its decision could not have been taken into account because the school still had them and they were all still sitting there. We saw them when we visited the school. The principal still has them at this stage.”
“This is not in line with a rights-based, regulation-first approach,” the idea being that there were too many SNAs and staff members to assist these children, when these are children with profound difficulties who may often need multiple adults. I add to that that the environment is not a purpose-built space but a shared campus. There are 600 kids and students on this campus and many cars coming and going. I saw videos of buses arriving, kids trying to get off and cars pulling in and out. It is a dangerous situation where multiple staff members are needed to keep children safe. That needs to be taken into account.”
“People power has forced the Government into a retreat on SNAs. That is extremely welcome. However, the underlying problem of the basis allocation of SNAs and the insufficient number of SNAs remains. This special school in Tallaght illustrates the problem precisely. It received a letter on 11 February saying its allocation would be reduced from the 2025-26 academic year. It was withdrawn on the same day, but the rationale presented is quite telling. It is based on primary care needs. That is the basis. In other words, it is primarily medical as opposed to other needs. I quote, “based on the evidence presented at review, many references to multiple adult-to-learner ratios were noted.”
“The truth is that the expansion of data centres has deepened our dependence on fossil fuels. They have outpaced the renewable deployment. They have strained the grid. They have hoarded power connections. They have built gas generators on site. More and more are burning fossil fuels directly. They have stalled decarbonisation and deepened their dependence on fossil fuels. Sometimes we see greenwashing statements by the likes of Google and others claiming that AI is going to be a net climate benefit and that we should not be worried about all the fossil fuels we are burning as a result of it. A new Friends of the Earth report finds that 74% of claims about AI's climate benefits are unproven, serving the profits of tech and fossil fuel industries while downplaying the major climate harms of generative AI.”
“I find it remarkable that Ministers and Ministers of State are still answering questions about climate inaction by saying "Oh, don't worry, we've got legally binding targets." The Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, is sitting beside the Minister who said we are not going to meet these targets, so how can it still be an excuse to say that when we raise inaction by the Government or action in the wrong direction? His senior Minister has literally said we are not going to meet those legally binding targets. He is making a joke of these targets.”
“Not only are they far off their targets, which are going down, but their emissions are going up dramatically, largely because of investment in AI and the massive energy usage that goes with that. They are also miles off their supposedly adjusted figures. The real figures are going high.”
“The new digital and AI strategy is not about climate change. I think there are five references to climate in the entire document. It is not about protecting children or artists. It is not about any of those things. It is about a commitment to "strengthening Ireland’s position as a digital leader", seemingly without regard to the negative impacts AI is having in our society. The Minister of State has confirmed the Department has not even done an assessment. The Government's approach is to go full steam ahead with AI. It suggests we have to embrace this technology and do what the big tech companies are telling us without even assessing the impact that will have on our climate. The emissions of all the big tech companies, including Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft, are through the roof.”
“This Government is probably one of the most pro-AI in the world. The Taoiseach has compared AI to the invention of the printing press. The Government has swallowed the Kool-Aid of big tech seemingly with no assessment of the impact it will have on our ability to achieve our climate targets. I know the Minister has said we are not going to achieve them anyway even though they are supposed to be legally binding. Has the Department carried out an assessment of the climate impacts of AI?”
“What does the Taoiseach say about the slide into authoritarianism happening across much of the western world, which is driven by attempts to suppress criticism of the genocidal State of Israel, and the use of anti-terror laws?”
“I presume the Taoiseach saw the news ten or so days ago about the UK High Court's ruling to the effect that the proscription and banning of Palestine Action as a terror group is unlawful and disproportionate. The court also directed that it should be overturned. It was heartening to see the scenes of many protestors being released from prison. They are heroes. They are not criminals. They are people who have put their bodies on the line to try to stop the war machine responsible for a genocide in Palestine, but there are still many Palestinian activists who are in limbo and in prison. The UK Government has maintained the proscription of Palestine Action and intends to appeal the ruling. In Ireland, many Palestine solidarity activists, including those in Palestine Action, are still being dragged through courts on trumped-up charges.”
“There was no clinical benefit to having the biopsy. The issue is that this is happening widely. We appear to be doing much more biopsies-----”
“Over the summer, I met with Kirsty and Barry, who told me a heartbreaking and deeply troubling story about how their son Brody had been treated at Children's Health Ireland, CHI. He was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, DIPG, in May 2024. This is a very aggressive brain tumour that is inoperable. Children are treated as palliative once they are diagnosed. He then had a very invasive and dangerous procedure of a biopsy. As a result of the biopsy, he had a massive brain haemorrhage. His brain swelled to such a degree that the back of his skull had to be effectively cut off. He walked into the operating theatre in full command of the use of all his limbs and so on. After the operation and the biopsy, he could only move one of his eyes and he never learned to walk again. The biopsy was unnecessary.”
“It is a funny sort of pause because the cuts were not going to come into place until September anyway. The Minister of State said it is a review of suspending it but it is not like there were going to be cuts and now they are paused. Some of these schools may still face the same cuts come September. The Minister of State is not giving any guarantee that will not happen. Can the schools that went through the wringer in this very difficult environment and were granted an extra SNA now plan on the basis that they will get an extra SNAs or two or whatever or can they not be guaranteed that at this stage? In the pause and the review of the process, is the fundamental toolkit, the basis on which the allocations will be made, being looked at or is it just the individual schools?”
“All of the other stuff, like being unable to cope in a classroom, being autistic or being overwhelmed in a classroom, is not being counted. The fundamental issue here is the policy. The cuts need to be reversed but the policy also needs to be reversed.”
“The protest organised by parents for next Wednesday at 5 p.m. outside the Dáil is going ahead because they do not just want a pause; they want the cuts to stop. They want proper support for their kids. The other point I want to make is that this matter is being treated as if the cuts have come out of nowhere. The Government is shocked to hear that all of these SNAs are being cut, but this is the outworking of the policy. Ms Ciara Reilly has written really excellent pieces on her Substack outlining that effectively since 2024 the policy has been to move away from a model where the SNA's job is to facilitate children being included in education towards more of a healthcare assistance model. As a result, entitlement is being based pretty much only on significant primary needs or, basically, medical needs.”
“We need universal access to social housing, which is the idea that people pay what they can afford to pay - they pay a percentage of their income, and they get decent quality accommodation. That should not be too much to ask.”
“Instead, this is being used as a reason to hike up rents in Dublin City Council. They will try to do it in South Dublin County Council. It is happening across the country because it is being pushed for by the Government, which is attacking some of the most deprived communities by making them pay more. For HAP tenants it is hitting them twice because they will pay more in a top-up to a private landlord because of Government policy and more to the council as tenants. It is all linked to a strategy of effectively getting rid of differential income-based rents. If you read the Government strategy, it is about merging council and social housing with cost rental over time. That is the opposite to the direction we need to go.”
“Our Bill is simple. It would make social housing universally available. It is the opposite to what the Government has been doing. The Government has effectively, for decades, been copying Maggie Thatcher by cutting the amount of social housing being built and then ensuring they shrink the pool of people who are eligible to apply for it. It has done that by refusing to increase the income limits in line with average wages. The result is that only the poorest and lowest paid households, those that are on social welfare, are eligible. It concentrates deprivation in social housing. It leads to social issues and contributes to a financial crisis for councils when they say they are not raising enough through rents to cover maintenance. Universal social housing would mean higher paid workers paying higher rents, easily covering maintenance.”
“How it got that is not exactly clear because the Medical Council has said it did not issue any certificate of good standing for him.”