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.”
The complete record
Every one of 1,527 lines we hold for Paul Murphy, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 12 of 31.
“It means the public is funding €100 million a year. Will the Taoiseach commit to end the mass slaughter of badgers? We need to move to 100% vaccination and have implementation of biosecurity measures to actually deal with the problem.”
“Last week at the public accounts committee we heard that the Department of agriculture last year killed 7,735 badgers. It killed over 60,000 badgers in the course of the past decade even though they are supposedly a protected species. They are first trapped in snares causing internal organ damage, ruptured bladders and disembowelment. Pregnant and lactating badgers are killed leaving their cubs to starve to death. Snaring badgers is banned in Scotland and Wales. Two-thirds of people want it banned here. We are the only country in Europe which funds the large-scale slaughter of badgers. The truth is they are scapegoats for the spread of bovine TB. We have a programme that is killing more and more badgers yet the incidence rate goes up and up. It is over 66% at this stage. The EU refuses to fund this programme any more.”
“We need paid climate leave, maximum temperatures at work and recognition of temperature-related illness as occupational disease.”
“The Minister of State is satisfied that strong protections already exist. He should look at the evidence. Unite carried out a survey. Is the Minister of State satisfied about the 48% of workers who went to work during Storm Éowyn who said they did not feel safe? Is he satisfied that 53% of those who worked outdoors during the storm felt their employer had not taken all reasonable precautions to make their work safe? These are unionised workers. That means it will be a lot worse for non-unionised workers. If the Government does not give people legal protections, it is leaving them prey for their employers to put pressure on them to make them work in unsafe conditions. We need a legal obligation on employers to have graduated alert-based responses. We need a legal requirement that, where work is required to cease, workers are paid as usual.”
“His dad Mark told us at a press event last week that his son would be alive today if legislation like Unite is seeking had been in place then in the North. I hope no more workers have to die on this island before we have workers' rights legislation to protect people from extreme weather events to ensure their employers cannot put their lives at risk in order to maximise their own profits.”
“This is very simple. We need extreme weather legislation to protect workers. We do not have it now and the result is workers' lives and health are put at risk. One worker responded to the Unite survey about how their employer acted during Storm Éowyn stating: The company were more interested in production than employees' safety. Because there is no clear legislation around extreme weather events, it is left to employers' discretion to do what they want. Unfortunately, employers only concern is profit so they will choose to ignore weather warnings if it suits their agenda. This is going to be an issue more and more. It is an issue now and will be an issue tomorrow. Tragically, it was an issue for Matthew Campbell, an electrician who was killed in 2018 while working in a forest during Storm Ali.”
“There is an unprecedented budget surplus for the Government but at the same time, the Oxfam wealth report shows the rich in this country are getting richer while the rest are getting poorer. Eleven Irish billionaires have the same wealth as 3.5 million Irish adults. That is obscene and yet the Government refuses to even consider a wealth tax. All of it is enraging, all of it is unfair and all of it is unjust but all of it will continue unless we stop them. That is why we have to mobilise with the affordable Ireland campaign.”
“The Government had more than enough money in the budget to give hundreds of millions of euro in tax breaks to landlords, developers, fast food chains and Google, which walked in the front door of the Department of Finance, had a meeting with the Minister for Finance and said it wanted an increase in the research and development tax credit. It was a case of "a benefit of €300 million for us, yes no problem" in the same budget where the Government cut incomes for ordinary people. The Government never has enough. It is always hard choices for ordinary people with never enough to ensure they can afford to live unless, of course, an election is coming and the Government wants to buy people's votes with a few one-off cost-of-living payments.”
“It proves the inextricable connection between the Government abandoning even a verbal commitment to climate action and the legal targets it has signed up to and making ordinary people pay the price for the cost-of-living crisis. Real climate action and cost-of-living action go hand in hand. It is the same with rents. Ordinary people pay more so that landlords and big business can make more profits. Our loss is their gain. The Government acts like Robin Hood in reverse - stealing from the poor to give to the rich. It is not because it does not have the money.”
“That is what the attacks on the poorest in society and disabled people in the budget were about. They are making it harder for ordinary working class people to have a decent life. They will hike up rents for council, approved housing body and housing assistance payment tenants, and now for every private tenant too. They will roll out the red carpet for data centres, which means driving up electricity costs for everybody else. The only way ordinary people's bills are going is up. Further increases to regressive standing charges are planned to fund the expansion of the grid for data centres. The Commission for Regulation of Utilities' price review 6, published before Christmas, allows for charges for householders to go up by 28% and costs for data centres to go down by 20%.”
“This week, we have the rip-off rents Bill. Last week, we had the Social Democrats' motion for an emergency winter payment for disabled people shamefully voted down by the Government. The lesson is that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Lowry lackey Independents who prop them up will not do any of this unless we force them to act. The launch of the affordable Ireland campaign recognises the fact that this right-wing Government will only take action on the cost-of-living crisis if it is forced to do so. Left to their own devices, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the right-wing Independents will do nothing to make Ireland affordable. In fact, they will do the exact opposite. That is what the rip-off rents Bill is about. It is about deliberately increasing rents even faster than the already unaffordable rents that we have.”
“They are to cut energy costs by introducing energy credits and abolishing standing charges; to cut and control grocery prices; for above-inflation pay, social welfare benefits and pension rises, including finally introducing a living wage; for an emergency payment for disabled people and carers and a permanent cost-of-disability payment; to abolish fees for public services, including college, childcare, health, and general practitioner care; and, finally, to freeze and cap rents and build public housing. We will be on the streets for the first time, as Seamus mentioned, with a focus on the call for an emergency payment for disabled people and carers on Saturday, 28 February, at 1 o'clock in Parnell Square. The last couple of weeks, or any week that one pays attention to, to be honest, tell us a lesson.”
“That is a campaign that will be launched together with, supported by and involved with a broad coalition of disabled people's organisations, trade unions, students unions like Aontas na Mac Léinn, civil society groups, the Irish Wheelchair Association, the Disability Federation of Ireland, Unite the Union, Postgraduate Workers' Organisation, the Irish Traveller Movement, the National Women's Council, the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed, and the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament. What unites us is a determination to make Ireland affordable. We all deserve a country we can afford, not this rip-off republic, and not a society that caters for the wealthy but leaves everyone else struggling to put food on the table and keep the heat and lighting on. The affordable Ireland campaign has six very simple demands.”
“I thank Deputy Seamus Healy for tabling this excellent motion. People Before Profit obviously fully supports it. Next week, though it was supposed to be today but was cancelled because of the orange weather warning, Seamus, People Before Profit, Sinn Féin, other left Independents, the Social Democrats and the Labour Party will be launching the affordable Ireland campaign.”
“There is no need for it. They can simply sell in any case, with the tenants in situ , without forcing their eviction. The only reason to allow it is to maximise their sale price. There is also nothing to stop a landlord taking on a short-term loan in order to say it is falling due and therefore use this loophole to sell.”
“Citizens Information states, "After these 6 years, the tenancy ends and a new tenancy can begin." If a further Part 4 tenancy is legally a new tenancy, then section 8(e)(ii) appears to say that a dwelling that was previously rent-controlled for the previous six years - all those rents - will be reset to market rates. Can the Minister specifically answer that question? The final issue I want to raise is about section 14. It allows for so-called small landlords to carry out a no-fault eviction on grounds of sale if they would use at least 15% of the proceeds to pay off some or all of a debt that they owe which is falling due within nine months of the eviction date. That appears to me to be a massive loophole that will allow buy-to-let landlords to evict tenants on grounds of sale when they are coming to the end of their mortgage term.”
“to which section 5(4)of the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2021 applies", which means it does not apply to further Part 4 tenancies of unlimited duration. I cannot see that it states specifically anywhere in the Bill - I look forward to the Minister's reply - that it does not apply to further Part 4 tenancies that are not of unlimited duration; in other words, the situations where the tenants moved in prior to June 2022. If you moved into your home in April 2020 and you are coming to the end of a six-year Part 4 tenancy, which will expire in April 2026, assuming you are not evicted first it will automatically become a further Part 4 six-year tenancy at that point. Where does it say in the Bill that this further Part 4 tenancy is not a new tenancy?”
“Of course, that happens in any case - on average, every three and a half years for most tenants, and every year for students in private rented accommodation. They are even more shafted by this Bill than everyone else. Another group getting doubly shafted are the HAP tenants and the homeless HAP tenants. Dublin City Council has already hiked rents. Councils across the country have already hiked the rents that they are paying to the council. On top of that, now they are going to be increasing the top-up they have to pay to their landlords. It is a shameful attack on the poorest households in the country. As I understand it, the Minister is saying this does not affect pre-June 2022 Part 4 tenancies. Section 8(e)(ii) provides that it does not apply to "a tenancy ...”
“The Government will only take action on the cost-of-living crisis if it is forced, so we need people power to force it. It seems to me that section 8(e)(ii) of the Bill potentially allows for rent hikes to market rates for existing pre-June 2022 tenants, whose Part 4 tenancy expires and who then enter into a further Part 4 tenancy for another six years. The Minister of State said in his opening speech yesterday that "Section 8 provides for a new national rent control in respect of new tenancies, that is, first-time tenancies between parties, created on or after 1 March 2026." That is supposed to reassure existing tenants that their rents will not shoot up yet, unless they move voluntarily or involuntarily.”
“It means that within the next few years, virtually all renters will be paying at least an extra €3,000 a year or an extra €250 a month. You would think the Government has no idea that we are in the middle of a dire cost-of-living emergency. People cannot afford to pay their rent, heat their homes, put food on the table or buy things for their kids. They already cannot afford to live. That is why People Before Profit, Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats, the left Independents in the Dáil and a broad coalition of disabled person's organisations, trade unions, students' unions and civil society groups are launching the affordable Ireland campaign next month. The key planks of that campaign are to freeze and cap rents and to build public housing.”
“I want to get into some detailed points about this Bill, some points that I do not think have been raised yet, including the double blow that is presented here for homeless HAP tenants who are already being hit in many areas with council rent increases. Before that, the basic point which cannot be driven home hard enough is that this is a Bill for rip-off rents. That is the purpose of it. It is not an accidental outcome of it; that is its purpose. The Government strategy, explicitly, is to get rents to rise higher in order to attract more investment. It is a landlord's charter written by a landlord's Government. It is designed to drive up rents even higher than the unbelievably high levels that they are already at.”
“The safety of working-class communities should not be ignored until tragedy strikes. That means far wider reaching preventative measures to protect our communities. It means banning the sale of scrambler bikes except to those who are in licensed clubs. It means investing in safety initiatives that target groups using scramblers. It means investing in diversion programmes, community outreach, sports and roads safety, which will go a lot further than having gardaí chase after teenagers on bikes.”
“It is an issue that particularly affects working class communities. It has certainly been an issue for the entire time that I have been a TD in Dublin South-West. It has been a scourge in working-class communities. People try to go for walks in parks or wherever and they face the threat of being run down by someone on a scrambler. I got an email just last week from a woman saying that on several occasions she was forced of the path while pushing her four-month-old baby in her pram as riders deliberately sped towards them and performed wheelies directly in front of them. Her eight-year-old daughter now refuses to go for local walks out of fear of these bikes. That is not new and not the first contact like this I have received. I have received many over many years.”
“First, I want to express my condolences to the family of the person who has died and those who were injured in what sounds like an awful crash in the north inner city. I hope there are no more deaths as a result. We are obviously here because of the tragic and awful death of 16-year-old Grace Lynch. I want to express my condolences to her family and friends. I also want to pay tribute to her mother, in particular, for the way that she spoke out so bravely and strongly and as a consequence we are now going to have Grace's law. Of course, it did not have to be Grace's law as this is legislation that was passed in 2023. A regulation could have been signed at any point since then but was not. It should not have taken this tragedy to force action by the Government because this is not a new issue.”
“We are two months on and the Government is just kicking the can down the road trying to avoid taking action. The Minister of State made the point about all these other countries having different legal frameworks. That is fine, in terms of their domestic legislation. However, the Government's argument has also been that the problem here is European law. European law applies equally to all European countries. If we cannot do services in Ireland because of European law, it cannot be done in Spain either.”
“Let us remind ourselves that last year saw not only the continuation of the genocide in Gaza, but a record number of home demolitions, settler attacks and orders for new illegal settlement construction in the West Bank. That is all continuing this year. The urgency of this Bill has never been greater. Since the so-called ceasefire, well over 500 Palestinians have been killed. Yesterday 18 Palestinians were killed. It is the position of the foreign affairs committee that the Government should include the question of services. It is the position of this Dáil, which the Minister of State did not vote against. The whole Dáil voted for a motion two months ago to say that it should include services and should be enacted before the end of the year.”
“Simon Harris tries to hide it a little bit but Micheál Martin is completely open; I can quote it. The Government is watering this down and reneging on an election promise made by both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. It is trying to find some legal advice to hide behind. It does not work because Spain, an EU country, is implementing a ban on services traded with the occupied territories. How can Spain do it under European law and yet the Irish Government is not able to do it?”
“Why has the Attorney General's advice changed? What legally has changed? The ICJ decision that all states must abstain from entering into economic and trade dealings and prevent trade or investment relations with Israel stands. That was the basis on which the previous advice of the Attorney General was made. In the previous advice of the Attorney General, he made no distinction between goods and services because legally in international law there is no distinction between trade in goods and services. Instead, he made the point that it would be a political choice to exclude services. The Government is making a political choice to exclude services to bow down before what Trump is asking for. Micheál Martin is quite open about it when he says it in the Dáil.”
“Those people may well be liable for prosecution and should be prosecuted, which is fine. Is the investigation into X itself, which is the machinery that is being used to produce these images? We should return to a point where we turn off the toxic algorithms. Spain is taking action on the toxic algorithms. Will the Government agree with our Bill to turn them off by default for everybody and turn them off for all children?”
“Let me be clear: I am not saying the Government condones the production of sexual abuse material. I am saying it does not want to do anything about it because it does not want to annoy or harm its relationship with big tech and big tech investment here is more important to the Government than standing up to these people. That is what I am saying. I want to ask a precise question. The State can, under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998 and the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020, take criminal action against X. We do not have to wait for the European Commission; we can take criminal action, as is happening in France. Are the Garda investigations into X as opposed to people who may have used Grok to produce those images?”
“Is there a criminal investigation into X or is the State simply kicking the can to the European Commission instead of launching criminal investigations against the app it could under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998 and the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2000? Both of those laws are crystal clear about the criminal liability of directors and officers of corporate bodies that distribute sexual abuse imagery. The Government is also failing to act to protect people from the torrent of toxic content coming at them from social media algorithms, including the promotion of misogyny, self-harm and eating disorders.”
“After she met X representatives, she put out a press release repeating X's claim that "Grok, as integrated on the X platform, has been disabled from removing or reducing clothing on individuals worldwide." I asked the Minister of State whether she had checked whether that was true. It turned out she had not checked and it was not true. X lied to the Minister of State and to the Government. Now, they are giving two fingers to this Parliament by refusing to attend a committee meeting today. Right now, anyone in Ireland can still create sexual abuse imagery through X using a VPN. The Minister of State also told me that the Garda is criminally investigating private individuals who use Grok to create sexual abuse imagery but she said she did not know if any criminal investigations were under way into X itself.”
“When Deputy Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach if those in X responsible for enabling Grok to produce sexual abuse imagery would be arrested, he scoffed at the idea. He suggested that to do so would be like 1984 . Yesterday, French prosecutors raided the offices of X in Paris as part of their investigation into its creation of child sexual abuse images and image-based sexual abuse of women. They have also summoned Elon Musk personally for questioning. Is it 1984 in Paris? Last week, I questioned the Minister of State with responsibility for artificial intelligence about her engagement with X since this scandal broke.”
“In November 2012, Elon Musk wrote to Jeffrey Epstein: "What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?" Epstein was already at that point a convicted child abuser and Musk was looking for an invitation to the island where horrific child abuse by ultra-rich paedophiles took place. Musk has turned Twitter into a machine for the mass production of child sexual abuse imagery and image-based sexual abuse of women. We know the horrific, traumatising impact this abuse has on victims. It is why image-based sexual abuse, including through the use of deepfakes, was made criminal offence six years ago but the Government's approach to big tech appears to be see no evil, hear no evil.”
“I do not know if the Minister knows that climate scientists are now saying this is likely to begin in 2063. AMOC is already weakening. There is lots of evidence to indicate AMOC is already weakening. A high-risk event, even if there is a low likelihood of it happening in the next 20 or 30 years, is something we need to plan for. The year 2063 is not that far away. There are people who are taking up a farm now who could be affected by the collapse of AMOC. Are we looking at things like drought resistant crops, nature-based solutions, early warning systems and community resilience building? These are all measures recommended by Professor Peter Thorne, chair of the Climate Change Advisory Council's adaptation committee. What work is the Department doing on those?”
“Met Éireann said that an AMOC collapse would be a high-impact, transformative event with severe consequences. Obviously, the consequences for agriculture would be very severe.”
“What is the contingency plan? The Minister says he does not treat AMOC in isolation. That is good, but does he treat it at all? The national climate change risk assessment explicitly states that events such as the collapse of the AMOC are not addressed in the scenarios used within the NCCRA. The assessment does not account for this type of scenario. What is the contingency planning? It will be utterly devastating. It is a sign of the severity of the climate catastrophe. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, said it might happen by 2100 or later. Now, it could begin to happen from 2050. There was a report in June by Dutch scientists who said the collapse of AMOC could see Dublin experiencing temperatures of -22°C, with one day in three out of the entire year having sub-zero temperatures.”
“Over the past few days, we have seen how unprepared the State is for even moderately extreme weather, with the likes of yellow weather warnings and Storm Chandra. My question is about something much more severe, which is what contingency planning the Minister has in place for Irish agriculture if the AMOC, which includes the Gulf Stream, collapses, as researchers now believe is likely to start happening between 2050 and 2063.”
“Fourth, all provisions on family reunification have been removed from the Bill. The Minister may say they have not been finalised yet, but that is completely unacceptable. They are some of the most important protections and must be included in primary legislation so they can be scrutinised by the Oireachtas and vindicated by the courts. Family reunification is too important to be left to ministerial regulations or departmental policy. It is a question of fundamental human rights. This underlines the point that the rights of children are being trampled on and ignored by the Government. It does it to children with additional needs, teenagers with mental health problems, children exploited by big tech and used for child sex abuse imagery, and vulnerable children who fall through the cracks. It is doing it again in this Bill.”
“The Government is on purpose creating a system that will not be fair in order to deport as many international protection applicants as possible, as quickly as possible and to hell wit the consequences. The Minister knows what the consequences will be. Even under the previous system, applicants have been deported to their deaths. In 2014, Mohamed Sleyum Ali was deported from Ireland to Tanzania where he was attacked and left to die within hours of arriving. Last June, a Congolese human rights activist disappeared after being forcibly deported and handed over to the authorities at Kinshasa airport by An Garda Síochána. This Bill will lead to more refugees being deported and then tortured, disappeared and killed. The Bill even allows for this to happen while appeals are still under way.”
“It should go without saying that they do not deserve to be treated like criminals simply for exercising their human right and legal right to apply for asylum. Second, the Bill fundamentally undermines the right to legal representation by providing only for access to so-called legal counselling. What "legal counselling" means, we do not know. It is not defined by the Bill, but we do know for certain that it does not mean access to proper legal representation because the Bill clearly does not provide for that. Third, it imposes a series of much tighter legal timeframes without providing the resources for them to be met. It is no wonder that the Legal Aid Board is raising the alarm about its ability to cope. This apparent negligence is, of course, deliberate.”
“Protesters are especially at risk, criminalised as terrorists and allowed to starve to the point of death in Britain, brutalised and hit with trumped up charges by An Garda Síochána here. It is no coincidence that this appalling Bill goes hand in hand with plans to create additional covert surveillance and interception powers for An Garda Síochána, all in the name of national security, a term the Minister's Department refuses to define, presumably so it can be interpreted as broadly as it likes. I will go into some of the worst aspects of this Bill in more detail. First, it introduces a new system of border detention to be imposed even on the children of international protection applicants. People Before Profit is fundamentally opposed to this. Migrants are not criminals. Their children are not criminals.”
“It is a frontal assault on human rights. In this case, it starts with asylum seekers, including young children, but if we tolerate this, our children will be next. The Minister is leading the charge in attacking the legal basis of the limited rights and limited legal equality that protect ordinary working class people and oppressed groups in this State, but internationally, he will be aware he is no leader. Internationally, he is following the lead of Donald Trump and the global far right. We have seen with our eyes in the US where this goes. First, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, came for illegal immigrants. Now, it is executing US citizens in broad daylight on the streets of America.”
“Reading through the Bill and reading the reaction to it something I could not fully understand at the time makes sense, namely, why the Government shamefully put its name to a statement led by Denmark before Christmas requesting the application of the European Convention on Human Rights to migrants be reviewed. In other words, these human rights are not human rights at all but will be selectively applied rights. The changes demanded here are so far-reaching that it is not really a review of the application of the convention that is being demanded but the wholesale disapplication of human rights to migrants. The socialist Tony Benn famously pointed out the way a government treats refugees is an indication of how it would treat the rest of us if it thought it could get away with it. That is precisely what is indicated by this Bill.”
“The civil society Coalition on the EU Migration Pact is made up of organisations like the Irish Refugee Council, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, the Immigrant Council of Ireland, LGBT Ireland and the Irish Network Against Racism and it has said, "This legislation will be a stain on Ireland’s international reputation, and it undermines the very core of what being Irish means". Everyone out there should know that in this Bill Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and your friendly, local, right-wing Independent TD are all legislating for the detention of children. Shame on them all. It should not take human rights organisations to tell us detention is never, under any circumstances, in the best interests of innocent children, but the human rights organisations are forced to scream this and still the Government does not care.”
“I cannot remember the last time a government brought forward a Bill that was so universally condemned by human rights organisations. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission has said there are "substantial gaps and ambiguities ... [in the Bill] in areas that directly affect the rights and safety of ... vulnerable applicants such as children and victims of trafficking". It also said that without clear, enforceable safeguards, which do not exist at present, the State’s human rights and equality obligations will not be met.”
“It is well-connected contractors and legal and consultancy firms getting millions of euro annually in Government contracts to charge the State through the nose for things the State should be doing directly. A key part of the answer to our infrastructural deficit is a State construction company to deliver the investment and projects we need. It should not be too much to ask in 2026 that, when it rains heavily, we should not have sewage flowing into our parks. I have been raising this issue for years about Dodder Valley Park and Balrothery Weir. What happened yesterday was entirely predictable. Again, sewage came flowing out because we got a high amount of rainfall. For years we have been pursuing Irish Water to invest in this. It has not been doing it. It says it is doing it now and is at stage 4. It simply is not good enough.”
“The national development plan is a plan for continued State failure to provide the basic services that working-class people need. There are no big new ideas in it. It is doubling down on a failed model of relying on the private market to deliver. It never has and it never will. Since I joined the Committee of Public Accounts, it has struck me that in 99% of cases, the scandals people hear about regarding waste of public funds are really cases of private companies ripping off the State. Hospital consultants set up private companies to profit from insourcing in the same under-resourced public hospitals they are paid to work in as public servants. It is happening in loads of hospitals, not just St. James's; it is also happening in Tallaght where €5 million has been spent on insourcing in the past five years.”
“They cannot wait because the cuts have been implemented now and the cost-of-living crisis is now. They need support right now.”
“We need to be on the streets, supporting disabled people and demanding budget measures that do not enrich the already rich and big corporations but, rather, give ordinary people a break. The very minimum of what is needed is to say to the Government to stop its attacks on disabled people and stop forcing disabled people even deeper into poverty. The Government must give an emergency winter payment to combat the hardship disabled people are facing today. After that, we must implement a permanent and decent cost-of-disability support payment, as we have included in our budgets for multiple years in a row. The people cannot wait. That is what the Government is saying to them, however. It tells them to wait until the next budget and not to worry because it will deal with it then.”