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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“It had a report that found it had no failure, but then it later accepted liability. It raises questions whether there are any lessons learned into the future for the organisation. Scouting Ireland is in receipt of public funds and I am asking whether any possible pressure can be applied on Scouting Ireland to do the right thing, apologise to Aoife’s mother for its failure and commission a new report.”
“This Saturday will mark the tenth anniversary of the death of Aoife Winterlich who was a 14-year-old girl. She went on a trip with Scouting Ireland. The trip went on an unplanned excursion to Hook Head during a storm, which was not properly supervised. She fell in the water and drowned. A report commissioned by Scouting Ireland found there was no failure in its duty of care. Last year, however, after a long time, Scouting Ireland finally settled a court case that Aoife’s mother took against it and accepted liability. Since then, Scouting Ireland has refused to apologise for a failure of duty of care. In correspondence with Scouting Ireland, it says it is sorry for the loss of her daughter but it refuses to apologise for any failure in its actions. It has also not relooked at its report.”
“Therefore, do what they are asking of the Government and introduce an emergency, one-off winter payment. It is very simple. That is what I am asking. It is a political choice for the Tánaiste to do that or not to do that. I do not know if he is suggesting that by doing that somehow all the jobs will flee the country. Is that the type of scaremongering he is engaged in? He can make a choice not to deprive these people, many of whom are living in deprivation, and not drive them further into poverty when we are a rich country with a substantial budget surplus.”
“-----the point. Can the Tánaiste answer a yes-no question? Did his budget make almost everybody in the country poorer, "Yes" or "No"? Did his budget affect those who are poorest the worst by the budget, "Yes" or "No"? Did his budget leave disabled people substantially worse off? The answer to all of those questions is "Yes". I am interested in hearing the Tánaiste try to spin how the answer is "No". He asked what I want him to do. He has a substantial budget surplus and in that context he should not be making disabled people poorer. That was a mistake made in the budget. The Tánaiste presumably agreed to it. I am appealing to him in the days running up to Christmas to use the resources he has to reverse that decision. Do not make disabled people poorer next year.”
“The Government is telling them everything is great and that it has actually improved disability services. All the organisations are screaming at the Government saying they need an emergency winter cost-of-disability payment. The Irish Wheelchair Association, the Disability Federation of Ireland and Access for All, will be together next Tuesday outside the Dáil from 12.30 p.m. to 2 p.m. Please, do not continue to be Scrooge, do not continue to be the Grinch and give this little amount back into people's pockets.”
“It is going to be a cold, hard Christmas for a lot of people. The cost of 1,000 litres of home heating oil has shot up, yet in a country with a massive budget surplus, a rich country, the Government had a budget that made everyone poorer except if they were a fast food giant, a multinational corporation or a developer. In particular, t hit the poorest and most vulnerable the hardest, the bottom 10%. As a result of the withdrawal of one-off payments they had an income decrease of 4.4%. The next 10% had a loss of 3.9% and then there was the particularly cruel approach to disabled people. The Government abandoned the promise to introduce a permanent cost-of-disability payment and then withdrew the one-off payments. They are not going to take this lying down.”
“Altogether over €1,400 has been taken from the pockets, not put into the pockets, of disabled people. Yet, the Tánaiste still thinks he can go to the public and say, "Don't worry; we're still going to put money back in people's pockets." The excuse before the budget, from the Tánaiste's predecessor as Minister for Finance, was to say we do not need cost-of-living payments because "inflation has now returned to normal rates. We now know that was a load of nonsense. He is now in Washington where he is on over €600,000 a year. I am sure he is not bothered by the cost of groceries, but ordinary people here are left with the highest inflation in two years. They are out preparing for Christmas, and they are seeing the reality of still-soaring grocery prices with over 4% food price inflation and 3.3% energy price inflation.”
“There is quite an incredible display of cognitive dissonance here. The Tánaiste went to the media and told them he is going to put money back in people's pockets. He then comes in here and he is asked on behalf of disabled people who are crying out for this to put money back in their pockets via a winter emergency measure, with a one-off payment, and he just bats it away. He did not engage with it at all. These are the people that the Government made poorer, not just a little bit poorer, but a lot poorer. They are €1,400 worse off as a consequence of the budget. It cut the disability support grant, a loss of €400. It cut the living alone allowance, a cut of €200. It reduced the fuel allowance, a loss of €160. It cut the October double payment, a loss of €254. It cut the electricity credits, another loss of €250.”
“At the moment we write to the Minister through parliamentary questions and we write to the immigration service, but we just get boilerplate answers that do not facilitate them. Can more practical assistance be provided to them with a point of contact in the Department in order to be able to give more assistance to people in those sort of circumstances?”
“I accept entirely the point about Israel's role, and the Jordanian authorities have also presented an obstacle to this. I have met with many Palestinians who are here who have family members, be it brothers and sisters or whatever, stuck in Gaza in this absolute horror. I agree that we do not want to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Gaza but we also do not want to say "No" to people who want to come and join their families here. These people come to us, and I am sure the Minister has also heard many awful stories. These people have lost many members of their families, they are trying to get out and they are trying to join their families that are here. What should we tell them?”
“Ideally we would have a dedicated contact point to assist with some of the more challenging cases that come to us so that people can make whatever application they need to make.”
“When Putin invaded Ukraine, the Irish Government was clear in its welcome to Ukrainians who were fleeing a brutal invasion and war. The Palestinian people for two years - longer in reality - have been facing absolute horror and they continue to face it. It is fine to say the information is all on the website, but the Minister and I know that many of these cases are quite complex. We write to the Minister and then we are told that, for example, guidance cannot be provided on visas applications that have not yet been submitted. In many cases, however, what these people need is assistance in making the best application they can. We need practical guidance on how to advise people of their visas options. We do not really have that knowledge.”
“It is a simple question. We have all seen the horror and genocide in Gaza over the past two years. Despite the so-called ceasefire, it continues. There was an attack on an apartment block last night, with children murdered again by Israel. We have all been contacted by people who have connections to Ireland in various ways and who are looking to get out of Gaza and become refugees to resettle in Ireland. It has been difficult to help those people. We have had sympathetic responses from the Minister and the various people we write to, but little practical help.”
“After housing costs, 57% of HAP tenants and 43% of local authority tenants are already living below the poverty line, as are a third of private renters. Tenants are already protesting the rent hikes and they will show the political establishment what they think of it in next year's by-elections. Disabled people and carers are also fighting back. The budget took upwards of €1,000 out of their pockets in nominal terms - worse in real terms - and they simply cannot afford it. They are calling for an emergency cost-of-living payment before Christmas so they can put food on the table and keep the heating and lights on. They will be protesting outside the Dáil next Tuesday to demand their rights.”
“The cost of 1,000 litres of home heating oil has shot up by €80 in the past month alone, affecting nearly a million households. Last week, the Government voted down our People Before Profit Bill to retrofit private rented properties, condemning hundreds of thousands of households to drafty homes, high energy costs and high carbon emissions long into the future with the headline that inflation figures do not even account for housing costs. They are going up too, dramatically in some cases. If you are a Dublin City Council tenant or a HAP tenant, you are facing rent increases of up to 50% from April and the plan is to roll this out across the country. The Government knows that too but it does not care.”
“During the last budget, the then Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe, claimed there was no need for cost-of-living payments in the budget because, "inflation has now returned to normal rates." He said inflation would be around 2% this year. What a load of rubbish, gaslighting people that the cost of living was actually becoming more affordable, when the dogs on the street know that it is not. He has now swanned off to Washington to be on €600,000 per year and is not bothered but ordinary people are left with the highest inflation in two years, with over 4% in food price inflation and 3.3% energy price inflation. It will be a cold, hard Christmas for many people. Economists are saying this will last for six months.”
“There was a meeting of the housing committee to discuss these issues. It invited various officials from the Department of housing and was told they could not come yet because their line Minister is not yet responsible for this.”
“The programme for Government says the Government will move responsibility for the Multi-Unit Developments, MUD, Acts to the Department of housing from the Department of justice and establish a unit in the Housing Agency to regulate owners' management companies, OMCs, to ensure effective governance. That is important work that needs to happen. The problem is that it is not happening currently, but it has been agreed. Effectively what is holding it up is that, as a result of the Mulcreevy judgment, the primary legislation needs to be changed. At the moment, the MUD Act refers to the Minister for justice and not the Minister for housing. A simple amendment is needed to change the reference to the Minister for housing. Until that happens, all this work of regulatory oversight of OMCs and so on is simply not taking place.”
“A new defence co-operation agreement with Britain is to be signed soon. Members of the House of Lords are saying it will mean a stronger defence relationship between Ireland and the UK. The Taoiseach himself has said there must be very close co-operation with the British when it comes to security. Does he really think that is what Irish people want? Has he forgotten that our neutrality originates from an anti-imperialist struggle against Britain, a struggle Fianna Fáll once fought for? Can he tell us what will be in this new military agreement? Britain is increasing its military expenditure by £67.7 billion. It is an active participant in the genocide in Gaza. Are we going to be expected to massively increase our military expenditure, too, as part of this new agreement?”
“I tabled a written parliamentary question to the Minister for Defence who replied that a business case is being prepared. However, is this not a simple decision that the cut should be reversed?”
“Will the Taoiseach withdraw the very cruel cut that has been imposed on Defence Forces reservists? Up until September, they were not paid a large amount; it was €92 per day for the vast majority of working operations in which they were involved. However, from September of this year, this was withdrawn. It makes no sense. It comes in a context whereby there is a target of increasing the number of reservists to about 4,000, given there are less than 2,000 currently. Like I said, it is only €92. This is not a huge amount but it has rightly been seen by the reservists as a very mean cut whereby they are not getting paid for what they were previously getting paid for. They are currently getting paid for a much more narrow range of activities.”
“What type of drink do you like? On Tinder, what was your profile then? Were you experiencing a lot of erections? What else did you experience in terms of sex drive? Can you describe what it is about your penis and balls you notice or don't like? Are you happy receiving as well as giving? Are you capable of receiving an orgasm? Would you use a strap-on or sex toys? This is not the type of approach we should have. We should have an informed, consent-based transgender healthcare model led by GPs and nursing staff in primary care. We should look to Catalonia, which has an informed consent model in primary care that has been successfully in use since 2012, with a 36-day waiting list and 71% of adults receiving HRT on the first appointment, compared with the decade-long waiting list trans people face in Ireland.”
“They are asked inappropriate and invasive questions that have very little to do with gender identity or medical transition. In some instances, trans people have been denied important gender-affirming healthcare if they were diagnosed with ADHD or autism or for not answering inappropriate and sexualised questions in a way deemed correct by the clinic. Yesterday, Transgress the NGS put online an interview, the existence of which I knew of but had not seen until then. It is shocking in terms of how invasive and inappropriate the questions being asked are. This should not be happening in a proper national gender service. These are some of the questions asked of someone seeking bottom surgery: Can I ask you a bit about your mental illness? When was the most serious episode of mental illness that you had? Were you drinking at the time?”
“We have one gender clinic offering transgender healthcare to adults in Ireland and that is the self-appointed national gender service based in St. Columcille's Hospital in Loughlinstown. It has wait lists over ten years long and sees fewer than 160 people a year. The NGS and its model of care were not approved by the HSE or the Department of Health. The service's name was chosen by itself. It is a clinic within the Ireland East Hospital Group, not a national clinic. It is no surprise that there were no trans voices involved in the creation of the NGS. Those running it do trans people a disservice by lobbying against any reform of this broken system that treats trans healthcare as something to be restricted and pathologised. In this clinic, transgender people must undergo a dehumanising and humiliating assessment process.”
“We see the dog-whistling that is going on in terms of migrants, asylum seekers in particular, and any marginalised group. It may be that the formerly progressive face of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael has been abandoned. That is why the activism from below pushing for rights to mean something and for decent healthcare is so important to understanding that an injury to one is an injury to all and that in fighting for trans healthcare, we are fighting for a decent national health service that provides quality public healthcare for everybody in this country, regardless of their particular needs. The truth is Ireland is failing badly. We are the worst country in the European Union for availability and accessibility of transgender healthcare.”
“I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward this important motion. We in People Before Profit will, of course, support it. My thanks also for the tireless activism of many trans activists, including those in Transgress the NGS, Trans Healthcare Action and TENI, who are pushing for rights to mean something and for decent healthcare in this country for trans people. Last weekend, I saw a TD who wanted the public to pay for a €1,000 La-Z-Boy chair for him suggesting that investing in trans healthcare is a waste of resources. If investing in healthcare is not a good use of resources, I do not know what is. Perhaps we should just get La-Z-Boy chairs instead of healthcare. It should be clear to anyone paying attention that the Government is no friend, or certainly no guaranteed friend, of trans people.”
“UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese said that US multinationals were embedded in an economy of genocide, and so are we. The Uplift reports says that the benefits of foreign direct investment, FDI, revenue are achieved at the cost of direct complicity in genocide and human rights violations. These are the wages of FDI, the political and moral price Ireland is being asked to pay for its economic prosperity. A US secretary of state once said that the deaths of half a million children in Iraq was a price worth paying for US objectives. Our Government is making the same genocidal choice. By refusing to implement sanctions on Israel, it is deciding for all of us that the price is worth it. It is selling our souls for US investment. This Bill would put an end to that by imposing comprehensive sanctions on the State of Israel.”
“An excellent investigation by Uplift into Ireland's trade with Israel finds that it is most likely funnelled from Intel's facilities in Israel through Ireland via transfer pricing for tax benefits. There we have it. Just like with the Central Bank's shameful facilitation in the selling of Israeli war bonds, Ireland's complicity in genocide is due to our role as a tax haven for international finance and US multinationals. The same report provides numerous other examples of this disgusting complicity. One is that Israel's Unit 8200 uses Microsoft's Azure cloud platform, with data stored in the Netherlands and Ireland, for a mass surveillance system that collects recordings of millions of Palestinian phone calls, daily information used to prepare air strikes. This is information held in Ireland in our data centres.”
“We are introducing this Bill today because the Government has failed to put its money where its mouth is. On Palestine and Gaza, it is all talk and no action. Sanctions by Ireland on Israel would make a real difference because, shamefully, Ireland is now the world's second largest importer of Israeli goods. During the genocide of the past two years, trade between Ireland and apartheid Israel has exploded from €198 million in 2020 to €3.24 billion in 2024. These are not consumer goods. If they were consumer goods, then the Irish people who have stood steadfast with Palestine, marched week after week and taken direct action would have boycotted these goods. Over €3 billion, or 92%, of this trade is in so-called electronic integrated circuits and micro-assemblies.”
“He could talk to his councillors across the country and tell them not to vote for these rent increases. The Government could properly fund our councils. If it does not, it will face a mass campaign of resistance to this. The issue of the rent hikes will become a central issue and the by-election in Dublin Central will potentially become a by-election about these unfair rent hikes.”
“On Monday night, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Labour, the Green Party and right-wing Independents all voted to raise rents on the poorest households in Dublin city. These are council tenants, AHB tenants, HAP and RAS tenants who do not even get any maintenance from the council and who are all set to have their rents increased from April. There are plans to do the same across the country. This is pointed towards in the Government's housing plan, including in South Dublin County Council. The rent is being increased for cold, damp, uninsulated and overcrowded homes. This is forcing families with adult children trapped in their childhood bedrooms to pay higher rents. Some 43% of council tenants and almost 60% of HAP and RAS tenants already live in poverty. These increases will put them over the edge. The Tánaiste could stop this.”
“The Government wants people to think that there is a flood of asylum seekers coming into this country when, in reality, the numbers have come down and down. In 2022, asylum seekers and refugees numbered about 80,000. That was halved the next year. It was almost halved the following year. It will be just over 20,000 this year. They are not the cause of the housing crisis. This is a trick that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the establishment parties, assisted by lots of the media, are trying to pull on people. People should not fall for it. The problems remain the same, as they were before. Those responsible remain the same as those that were before, namely, those who profit from these crises and the Government that facilitates.”
“It states: People certainly don't become indifferent to society's most pressing problems that continue to cause huge pain, but they do become less politically responsive when they've heard the same thing said over and over again. Other issues invariably come to the fore and compete for their attention. The issue of immigration is doing just that. By the time the next election rolls around, housing could find itself on a par with immigration as the big concern in conservative Ireland. If that happens, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will be in a better position to muffle the inevitable accusations of failure on housing and infrastructure. There you have it, in black and white. The Government is implementing cruel policies against migrants because it wants to problematise the issue of immigration.”
“There is policy after policy to make people's lives harder: cutting the accommodation recognition payment, cutting the accommodation for Ukrainians, leaving asylum seekers on the streets while there were and continue to be empty beds in the system, snatching families for deportation and now making asylum seekers pay up to €1,000 a month for completely inadequate accommodation. What is all this about? John Deasy, in the Business Post at the weekend, gave the game away. People should be aware about this. People should go and read this article. The article, by John Deasy, a former Fine Gael TD, is entitled, "Opposition parties bet on housing backlash, yet voters keep calling their bluff".”
“What we are seeing, in Europe and in this country, is a ramping up of anti-migrant policies and anti-migrant and racist rhetoric, to be clear, not policies that would make the lives of any ordinary person here any better. It is purely performative cruelty. You almost cannot turn on the radio these days without hearing the Government announce some new policy to attack migrants to make their lives harder. We now have embedded journalists on deportation charter flights. There has not been a single deportation flight that the Minister for justice has not tweeted gleefully about. It is disgusting.”
“What we are talking about here is a €12 billion fund to effectively raise the walls of Fortress Europe. Fortress Europe, with its militarised borders, plans to spend some of that money to pay so-called third countries with dubious human rights records and records of repression of opponents, such as the repression of the Kurds in the case of Turkey, to take some asylum seekers that come to Europe. Fortress Europe is a system that was responsible last year for the death of over 2,000 people. Over 2,000 people died in the Mediterranean. I hope we all remember the picture of the two-year-old boy, Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a beach. People saw in him their own children and thought this was horrific and we could not allow this to happen. Not only is it continuing to happen, but it is getting worse and it is funded by our public money.”
“With dogs dying on the tracks, freezers for dead dogs at every single racetrack across the country, and a quarter of Irish racing greyhounds dead before their third or fourth year, how could ordinary people possibly be happy with it?”
“Of course, some of the same TDs stood up in the Dáil in 2011, like many here today, speaking about how great this cruel industry is. Internationally, people are moving to ban greyhound racing - Wales, Scotland, New Zealand. Instead, we are funnelling more and more money into an industry that would not exist without it. Last year I raised the fact that almost 3,000 of the 12,500 racing greyhounds born in 2021 were already dead or unaccounted for just three years later. How high is that number now? A report commissioned by the Minister has said that the welfare of racing greyhounds in Ireland is an "existential issue" for the industry. Of course it is.”
“Does it assure decent pay for workers in the sector? Of course not. The vast majority of this money goes to prize money, public money paid by the State tax-free into the pockets of the wealthy owners. The horse racing owners are a who's who of the richest people in this country. The Department of agriculture itself allows that €75 million of this money, over three quarters, can go into prize money. We do not have to look very far to find some of these owners, in particular greyhound owners. The greyhound racing scandal of 2019 highlighted by the "RTÉ Investigates" programme "Greyhounds: Running for Their Lives" highlighted the fact that 14 sitting Fine Gael TDs formed a syndicate and bought a racing dog, Swift Starlet.”
“This is the 12th time I have been in here and asked to vote for a huge amount of money to be handed over to the horse and greyhound racing industry. This year what we are asked to vote for is €100 million, about €20 million to greyhound racing and about €80 million to horse racing. To put that in context, that is close to the total funding for Sport Ireland. It is more than three times the amount of core funding given to the 87 different sports bodies in this country, adding together the GAA, the FAI, Swim Ireland, Athletics Ireland and Special Olympics Ireland. It is a yearly scandal now decades long. This is €100 million to a gambling-fuelling, addiction-fuelling industry. Where does the money go? Does it fund the welfare of horses and greyhounds? Does it fight the scourge of gambling addiction?”
“The budget was a savage attack on disabled people. It took over €1,000 out of the pockets of disabled people and betrayed the promise in the programme for Government to introduce a permanent annual cost-of-disability support payment. The last time I asked about this, the Taoiseach claimed the cost of disability would be looked at in the next budget. The cost-of-living crisis is now. The cost-of-disability crisis is now. Some 70,000 people who are disabled or have a long-term illness are living in poverty. That is one in three. I have been inundated with emails from disabled people asking for winter cost-of-living and cost-of-disability payment. Many will be forced to choose between heating and eating this Christmas. They also want a permanent cost-of-disability payment without further delay. The Taoiseach has billions of euro in surplus.”
“The question is whether the Irish Government has made any representations on his behalf and whether the Taoiseach has sought to ensure that his basic rights as a prisoner and a defendant are defended as opposed to being ridden roughshod over like many other Palestine protesters.”
“For 15 months, an Irish citizen from County Antrim has been held without trial in an English prison and has had his rights denied. Jordan Devlin is being locked inside for 23 and a half hours per day. He is being strip searched twice daily. His mail has been withheld, his visits are blocked and his calls are denied. His sister said, "They put him on public protection so he can't speak to anyone". She also said: They often don’t have vegetarian food so he can't eat. They're x-raying him and strip-searching him twice a day. He's freezing too. He is a Palestine solidarity activist. He is charged with regard to a protest action at Elbit Systems. Elbit is the largest supplier of weapons to the Israeli genocide. He denies all the charges. His trial begins today but his judge was swapped out yesterday with no stated justification.”
“She says that her strongest wish is that healthcare workers be enabled to make protected disclosures anonymously, including through a solicitor, as is standard practice in other jurisdictions. Finally, I will take a moment to correct the record in relation to one point I made with regard to the use of funds by Dublin Zoo to build an extension to the zoo director's house. To clarify, these funds came from unrestricted funds and not a public fundraising appeal. I stand over all the other remarks I made in relation to abuse of animals and harassment of workers at Dublin Zoo - this is about whistleblowers. I thank the whistleblowers who bravely brought these important matters of public concern out into the open at great personal cost.”
“HIQA found prima facie evidence that wrongdoing may have occurred and referred the matter to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland, NMBI. However, the NMBI incorrectly refused to treat the matter as a protected disclosure, solely because it had been submitted anonymously. It now wishes to treat it as a fitness to practice complaint, which would require disclosure of her identity. The NMBI requested consent to release her name to protect the nurse's right to fair procedures "as required by law.". This appears to conflict with the spirit and intent of current protected disclosures legislation, as well as the EU whistleblowing directive. To date, no investigation has been carried out and the nurse in question continues to have unsupervised access to non-verbal patients with dementia.”
“Briefly, I want to recount one whistleblower's experience who is in the Visitors Gallery, Margo Hannon. Margo was a healthcare assistant. She made a protected disclosure to the HSE regarding serious adult safeguarding failures, breaches of national infection control guidelines, deficiencies in end of life care and communications issues. That resulted in a three year investigation, which was not independent of the HSE, and at the end of which the HSE failed to publish or provide recommendations from the approximately 500 page report. Throughout this period, she experienced stonewalling, reprisals and ultimately, constructive dismissal. She made a second protected disclosure to HIQA anonymously regarding serious concerns about suspected gerontophilia and poor infection control practices by a nurse.”
“Steadfastly, these people do the right thing. Many times, we see on "Prime Time" or whatever some major scandal that breaks and it then becomes a major story in here, out of which some change begins to happen. Many times the public does not know that starts, in most cases, with a whistleblower who calls out the wrongdoing. These are also the cases we know off. There are people who have contacted me who have blown the whistle on various things and never get justice. They get harassed out of their workplace and never get what they have sought by speaking out. The problem with the Government's approach and its amendment is that it is basically saying, "Fair play to the whistleblowers but everything is fine here in terms of legislation". However, the reality of people's experiences is that everything is very far from being okay.”
“They see wrong being done, be it springs inserted wrongly into children, unnecessary operations on children, abuse taking place in our care homes, wrongdoings in the Irish Prison Service or abuse and mistreatment of animals and workers at Dublin Zoo. They see things taking place they know are wrong and decide that they will do the right thing about it. What opens up for them then is not really what they expect, in some cases. They go to do the right thing, they make a protected disclosure and then, in many cases, they face very serious consequences for their whole life. They face very serious harassment and we have correctly heard a lot about Noel McGree, who was evicted, with his family, into homelessness which flowed from protected disclosures about the Irish Prison Service, for which he was vindicated.”
“I thank those who brought forward this motion, which we support. I mostly thank and pay tribute to the whistleblowers who are in the Gallery and those at home and elsewhere. One of the privileges of my job is that I get to meet whistleblowers while they are in the process of whistleblowing. I get to work with them as they are trying to bring justice and do good in whatever sphere they work in. I have met a whole bunch of whistleblowers at this stage working in different areas of the world or industry. What is interesting is these are not people who are extraordinary to look at. They look like anybody else. There is not a sign above their head that says they are a heroic and extremely brave person. These are ordinary people who take a decision to do the right thing.”
“I move: That Dáil Éireann, pursuant to Standing Order 33, and with effect from 26th November, 2025, approves the Sixth Report of the Standing Committee of Selection, copies of which were laid before Dáil Éireann on 20th November, 2025, and appoints a member to a Committee accordingly.”