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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“That is not what the figures indicate. Cairn Homes and Glenveagh are the two biggest Irish developers. In 2022, Cairn Homes made a profit of €81 million, at a profit margin of 13.1%. In 2023, that went up to €85.4 million and in 2024, it was up to €114.6 million, at a profit margin of 13.3%. There was a substantial increase in profits and a small increase in profit margin. Glenveagh's profit went from €52.6 million, at a profit margin of 8.1%, to €97.8 million in 2024, almost doubling its profits, with a profit margin of 11.2%. There was a substantial increase in profits. These people are making very substantial profits already. There is no viability gap. We already had the lowest VAT rate on construction work on new buildings, at 13.5%, and that is now going to drop to 9%. This is a massive giveaway to developers. That is all it is.”
“He brings it together in clear black-and-white figures that demonstrate that a robbery is taking place of the public. Fianna Fáil up to its old tricks again, together with Fine Gael. The profit margin is very healthy for developers, including for the construction of apartments. That is reflected in the Department of housing's own figures. The Minister for housing previously stated that if there was even a small profit, people should be building apartments. As can be seen, there is more than a small profit for two-bedroom apartments, urban or suburban; there is a €50,000 profit. What way have profits been going for developers in this country over the past number of years? Are things becoming harder for them despite the fact that prices continue to rise and they therefore need a tax cut to keep operating?”
“A substantial profit is being made on each apartment sold by developers. We can go to the Department of housing's own document, the Total Development Cost Study, which demonstrates that, in 2024, the developer margin for a two-bedroom urban apartment - the developer profit - was €48,605, a profit margin of 8.9%. For a two-bedroom suburban apartment, there was a profit margin of €48,587, or 9.7%. According to its definition of a viability gap, there is none because a profit is being made. In reality, it is about juicing the profits of the developer further. Developers have come looking for another tax break and the Government has said it will hand it over. Michael Taft, an economist, has done excellent work in pulling this together, drawing from the work of Orla Hegarty in particular.”
“We can see the cost of this tax break for developers in the budget documents. It is worth €390 million, a cost paid for by the public into the pockets of developers. When we listen to the rationale for this tax cut, the argument is not being made by the Government that this is going to bring prices down - that it will reduce VAT and that will be reflected in lower prices. Instead, the argument is, according to the Minister for Finance, "This reduction will help address the viability gap in apartment construction as part of a social policy to deliver more and higher-density apartments". Interestingly, the Housing Agency defines a viability gap as "where the cost of building an apartment, or a house is higher than its market sale price." There is no viability gap according to that definition. The cost is lower than its sale price.”
“I will focus on the tax break for developers in the budget. The reason I want to focus on it is that it is outrageous. It is a transfer of wealth from the public to those who are profiteering from the housing crisis. I heard the Taoiseach say the day after the budget during Leaders' Questions that this was not a tax break for developers. His saying it was not a tax break for developers reminded me of being down in the convention centre and hearing him say we did not bail out the banks. The VAT cut for the sale of new apartments is a tax break for developers. I read the papers at the weekend and stored this away in my mind. I read in the Business Post the headline "James Browne’s budget win – Persuading Donohoe to back developer tax breaks". If the media describes it as a tax break, it is clearly a tax break for developers.”
“Most importantly though, it robbed him of his childhood, it robbed him of his comfort, it robbed him of quality of life and it robbed us of the opportunity to make precious family memories with him. That, to us, is something we will never get over. People came out to fight for justice for Harvey, to fight against the wait he had to endure, but also because he symbolises all the children who have to wait. I mean the children who have to wait for scoliosis surgery, the ones who have to wait for appropriate school places, the ones who have to wait for assessments of need and the ones who have to wait for therapies.”
“Would they have had to wait so long if the consultants were not off performing unnecessary surgeries for profit? Will we ever know the truth? The other reason we are here discussing this issue is Harvey’s courageous parents Gillian and Stephen, who have never given up, never stopped speaking out and forced an uncaring Government to listen. If they had not spoken out and if thousands of people had not supported them and come onto the streets in August, we would not be here. At that protest, Harvey’s mother Gillian told the crowd: He had to have his whole life put on hold while he waited. We cancelled family holidays, cancelled our wedding, postponed his sister’s heart surgery as he sat and waited for a date for surgery. We had to watch him deteriorate, cry in pain, struggle to breathe and lose the sparkle in his eye over those 33 months.”
“The same sort of short-sighted, politically motivated logic is what I assume prompted the Tánaiste to give the solemn promise he gave when he was Minister for Health that no child would wait longer than four months for a scoliosis operation. It is what should be the case, obviously. I am sure it seemed like a convenient thing to say at the time to get the heat off him as Minister for Health, but it was not true. What happened in reality was Harvey Morrison Sherratt was forced to wait 33 months for scoliosis surgery while the curve of his spine went from 75 degrees to 130 degrees. Many more children are still waiting as we speak. The latest figures show that 40 children have been waiting for more than six months for spinal surgery while their parents listen, appalled, to the never-ending stream of scandals emerging from CHI.”
“We should be clear on why we are having this debate now because I think some Deputies on the Government benches are confused about it. We are having it now because the Government tabled this motion. The Government chose to put down the motion of confidence this week in what is clearly, blatantly and openly an attempt to avoid scrutiny of its appalling record, especially on children's health, right before the presidential election next week. That is what is in the papers and that is what we can read. That is why we are here in this fashion today. It is a political stroke that is typical of this Government.”
“It allowed it to happen in order that some people could maximise their profits at the cost of immense ongoing distress for ordinary people.”
“Whose responsibility is that? That is on the State. That is on the current Government, which includes the same parties and some of the same individuals who are sitting in Cabinet today. The Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, presided over this crisis from the beginning and is still in there today trying to limit his Government's responsibility for it. We, in People Before Profit, fully support 100% redress for all those affected by this crisis. None of it is their fault. They must be fully compensated, and those responsible should be held to account, including the quarries, the block manufacturers, the builders who knowingly used defective materials and, I would say, the Galway tent Fianna Fáil Government that allowed it to happen.”
“Instead, we have a concrete levy that spreads the cost widely to those with no responsibility, while at the same time the victims are still not being properly compensated. We have to ask why this corporate impunity happens again and again. We saw it before with the developers and the banks that crashed the economy but were allowed to get off scot-free while ordinary people suffered years of crippling austerity. The same is happening here with victims of defective blocks while the quarries and the block manufacturers are getting off scot-free. There is also no accountability from the Government of the day. A 2017 expert panel report told us that local authorities were not given the funds by central government to enforce building control regulations. Building control authorities were unable to test construction materials in-house.”
“The root cause of all this distress is corporate greed and the failure of the Government to restrain it by properly regulating the construction sector. The same issues arose with the same dynamic in the case of the apartment and duplex defects from the 1990s onwards. Has anything fundamentally changed? The latest policy from the Government is to reduce apartment standards so developers can make even more profit. I am sure the same arguments about viability were made in the past as a reason not to properly regulate the construction sector and construction materials. By the way, viability just means profit, and giving more profit to developers. There is a real injustice here that those responsible have not been prosecuted, or even at the very least forced to pay compensation for the harm they have caused and continue to cause.”
“It is not accurate and it is not true. It turns out that a lot of critical expenditure does not qualify as eligible expenditure. There is an arbitrary cap on the scheme. The Government is being economical with the truth when it claims that early movers are not being penalised. Many of them cannot get retrospective payments and have been forced to accept a flawed scheme or nothing. That violates their constitutional right to equal treatment before the law and it must be addressed. The State's poor treatment of the victims here resembles what it tries to do to all other victims of State mistreatment and injustice. There are residential abuse survivors on hunger strike outside the Dáil because they have been denied access to healthcare.”
“The State cannot absolve itself of responsibility just by changing the name of a scheme and calling it a grant. Homeowners know the truth and will not be gaslit that this is some kind of present or grant from the State. That kind of language is fooling nobody. The Government's countermotion is full of weasel words that are designed to sound good, but on closer inspection they turn out to be full of holes, a lot like defective concrete. The Government amendment says that homeowners can get "grants for 100 per cent of eligible expenditure". That sounds good, but it is a message that is designed to reassure those who are not affected that they do not need to worry because the people affected are getting what they asked for. It tells them that if they hear any moaning, it is coming from people who are just being difficult.”
“That is without taking into account the personal toll and the personal cost - the mental health burden and so on - of that process. IS 465:2018 must be urgently replaced with a fit-for-purpose standard that follows the science. In its countermotion, the Government says that the defective concrete blocks scheme is not redress or compensation; it is just a grant. Why would it say that? What is the logic of that when there has been a campaign for redress, when everyone calls it "redress" and when redress is what people understand it to be? The Government is saying it to try to wriggle out of responsibility for the crisis. That is why. It is saying it to deny the lived reality of thousands of homeowners whose walls are crumbling, whose children are living in uncertainty and whose lives are disrupted by the lack of regulation.”
“Schools, health centres, community buildings and other critical infrastructure have also been built with defective blocks and the Government is doing even less about it. I hope that it does not take a tragedy, such as a total building collapse, to force it to act. Engineers Ireland has confirmed that IS 465:2018 is not fit for purpose. It is scientifically unsound. It arbitrarily excludes many homes with concealed structural failures. Why is it still being used? Is it because it saves the State money, for now? This is incredibly short-sighted, just like the so-called "light-touch regulation" that caused this crisis in the first place. It will end up costing the State more in the long run when homes have to be remediated multiple times because remediation was not done properly the first time around.”
“As Deputy Ward outlined, they worry that their ceilings will come down and their homes will fall down around them. They are listening out for cracking sounds at night. How anyone can be forced to live like that by this State is outrageous. They are forced to move out during storms. The partial repair works that are done do not fix the problem. People in this situation and facing this horror day in, day out are having to go into debt to fund repairs themselves. They are being given the run-around over and over by representatives of the State who are meant to be helping them but instead deny, obfuscate and gaslight them. An elephant in the room here is that it is not just private homes that are affected.”
“I remember when this issue emerged, there were attempts to divide and rule the country by saying that people in Dublin do not care about this issue. The Government does not really try that any more. Those who would see this injustice continue do not try it any more because it is clear that broad public support is with those who are affected by defective concrete. There is a sense of just how awful it is and of the injustice that has been done to them, as well as the responsibility of the State for that injustice and the necessity for a proper and genuine 100% redress scheme. The motion, which is comprehensive, clearly outlines what the real issues are. Families are being forced to wait for years for redress and remediation in crumbling homes. They are suffering immense emotional, psychological and financial distress.”
“I thank Deputy Ward for that excellent speech and for his campaigning. I also thank the campaigners he is connected to. It is a rare day in the Dáil that a motion is signed by the entire Opposition. That speaks to the injustice that is being inflicted on people here. It also speaks to the incredible campaigning that has been taking place for years. I have had the pleasure of meeting many of the campaigners. I spoke at one of the massive marches that happened in Dublin. I also got the benefit of their assistance in working with people to establish a similar 100% redress campaign for those affected by apartment and duplex defects. These campaigners are always generous with their time and advice. They look to help others even though they have enough problems of their own in terms of what they face when go home, as illustrated by Deputy Ward.”
“The World Health Organization, the CDC in the US and the European Environment Agency treat wildfire smoke as a major public health hazard. The EU directive requires member states to provide representative protective air quality information to the public but here we have an actual incident over a period of two weeks in Cherrywood where families are enduring exposure without meaningful monitoring, warnings or health advice. We need to do better.”
“A total of 80% of households reported persistent coughing or sore throat; 70% reported headaches or migraines; 65% reported sleep disruption from night-time smoke; 40% reported stress and anxiety about health and safety; and 25% reported nausea, fatigue or eye irritation. Children were affected in at least 60% of households. I will outline some of the personal stories of residents. One resident said that, "Even with windows sealed, my toddler woke up coughing and needed a doctor". Another remarked that, "We spent €400 on a purifier but our baby still woke coughing. The heat made it unbearable", while another resident described, "I woke at night thinking the house was on fire. The smoke inside was so strong". One other resident said, "Our newborn was exposed during her first three weeks of life. This is unacceptable in a modern country".”
“I thank the Minister of State for his answer. He might acknowledge himself that there is not much in his response relating to the incidents residents have experienced and the petition they have launched. By the way, they have sent all the data to the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill. I will outline some of the key findings from the survey conducted by residents, which give a picture of the problem residents in Cherrywood are facing, but it can also be a problem for people all across the country or anywhere where gorse fires can impact on air quality. A total of 60 households responded to the survey, of which 100% reported smoke entering indoors despite them keeping their windows shut, with exposure lasting ten to 14 consecutive days for most of the households.”
“Families were faced with spending hundreds of euro on HEPA filters, masks and so on. They want State agencies to prioritise schools and national groups in the provision of such protection and a clear national framework ensuring that the HSE, EPA, local authorities and fire services act together so that no community is left unprotected again. This is a serious issue. The research the residents have done is very impressive and proves very clearly that this is a significant issue that is going to reoccur and that we need a change of policy to deal with it, not least to be in line with our EU safe-level obligations.”
“The levels of PM2.5 of organic carbon, OC, were up to nine times the WHO limits. There was no effective protection or practical health guidance. Instead, there was deference to outdated protocols and distant air monitoring stations. Children, in particular, were left unprotected, as were vulnerable residents. What the residents are asking for is quite simple. They want formal recognition that gorse wildfire smoke is a direct public health hazard and updated health guidance and fire response protocols that reflect modern science and international best practice. They also want to see incident-specific monitoring located where fires impact. In other words, they want monitoring to happen where the fires are actually taking place. Residents want access to practical protection.”
“However, there is a significant issue here because this is not just regular smoke. There are extra particles in the context of gorse fires. The air monitoring stations that State agencies are relying on to say that everything is fine are quite a distance from where the fires took place and are quite far away from the affected homes. The residents themselves did a study of indoor air quality. They assessed the air inside people's homes and the results are striking. I have all of the data here and can send it on to the Department. The data confirms continuous toxic exposure inside homes for two weeks. These toxic levels were recorded inside homes that are just 10 m away from Cherrywood primary school. The school was obviously closed in August but if it had been open, children would have spent hours directly downwind of the smoke.”
“I have spoken to them and they have provided me with a document containing a detailed account of more than 20 interconnected major fire incidents, comprising over 135 recorded events and more than 150 fire-fighting operations within a two-week period in August. The fires repeatedly reignited within hours of being declared disposed but they were downplayed. The health hazard was downplayed, they were prematurely closed as incidents and their priority was downgraded. No public health warnings issued and no sustained escalation occurred. Residents were left continuously exposed until the weather conditions shifted. I submitted a parliamentary question on this and received an answer from the Minister and the HSE. Basically what we are being told is that nothing serious happened here in terms of a health issue.”
“I want to raise a major unaddressed public health failure. It is a local issue that arose not in my constituency but in Dún Laoghaire, but it has quite wide national implications in the context of climate change and the likelihood of an increased number of gorse fires. Effectively over a two-week period in August, repeated fires in Ticknick Park affected thousands of residents in Cherrywood but the response by the State agencies was completely inadequate. As a result, residents have had to get themselves organised. They have done an incredible amount of research, which I am happy to share with the Minister of State, and are demanding action. They have been working with our local councillor, Dave O'Keeffe.”
“Second, in relation to the investigation about the overflights, there is an examination ongoing for more than a year of something that is very simple. Is this just going to simply continue and disappear or are we ever going to get to the bottom of that and action to stop it? Third, I have heard the Taoiseach previously say that no airplanes with military cargo, weapons or soldiers are landing in Shannon Airport on the way to Israel. The Ditch has a story saying that on Sunday Simon Harris authorised a US military plane to refuel at Shannon Airport on its way from a US Department of War air base to the Nevatim Israel Defense Forces base. It was transporting soldiers or military cargo and it stopped over at Shannon Airport. That seems to me to be completely wrong. Was the Taoiseach aware of this?”
“I welcome the ceasefire. Any relief for the Palestinian people facing genocide is obviously welcome. I emphasise that a lasting peace will only be built on the basis of justice and there is still definitely no justice for the Palestinian people. My question relates to Government policy in this context. I am concerned that the various commitments that have been given in the context of pressure of a massive solidarity movement and massive public support for the Palestinian people will now be forgotten or kicked down the road never to happen. First, in relation to the occupied territories Bill, will the Taoiseach give a commitment that it will be passed and implemented before Christmas and will it include trade in goods and services, as the Fine Gael candidate for President has now apparently said she is in favour of?”
“In the budget, it was announced that 1,042 teachers will be hired, which will not cover the 1,046 teachers who will be retiring so it will not reduce the pupil-teacher ratio. The hospitality VAT rate cut cost the equivalent of hiring 7,800 teachers, illustrating where the Government's priorities lie. Will the Taoiseach commit to reducing class sizes?”
“Education is crucial to competitiveness. We will not have it without teachers, yet many schools are in crisis situations. I will give one example from my constituency. St. Mary's Boys National School in Rathfarnham is set to lose another teacher next year, having lost one in September, unless the Government commits to reducing class sizes. I have been contacted by many parents, one of whom wrote to say: My son is already in a class that exceeds the national average size. Without intervention, he may soon be placed in an even larger multigrade class, which would significantly affect the quality of his education. The school is currently just four pupils short of retaining its 16 class teachers.”
“If it excludes survivors from redress for these past wrongdoings, it is showing it has not learned lessons. It is obviously getting to a very grave situation when we are at 22 days for elderly people. I am asking if there can be an intervention here.”
“Other Deputies have already raised the case of the elderly, vulnerable people on hunger strike. I think they have been 22 days on hunger strike outside Leinster House. They are survivors of industrial and reformatory schools who are putting their health on the line to try to access justice for themselves and their fellow survivors. They were failed once by the State when they were committed to these heinous institutions and they are being failed again now. Their ask is very simple and very modest, to access a full Health (Amendment) Act, HAA, medical card and a full State contributory pension, based on what has been awarded to survivors of similar institutions but which these survivors have been excluded from. It is not enough that the State acknowledges it has failed survivors historically.”
“I have written to the Business Committee about, and raised with it, the need for statements and questions and answers with the Minister for justice on the scenes of Garda brutality we saw the Saturday before last, with the indiscriminate use of pepper spray and batons against peaceful protesters at the docks - people protesting in solidarity with Palestine. We need to hear whether the Minister for justice agrees with this or if we are going to go down the road of Germany and other countries.”
“We have evidence now that people are being ripped off by the energy companies, which are charging three times what they are paying for the electricity-----”
“He mentioned a bunch of things that have already been done. He is standing over the withdrawal of the cost-of-living supports, the impact of which will be deeper poverty. The budget was spoken about as a budget for child poverty. It absolutely was a budget for child poverty - increased child poverty. The Taoiseach should look at the report of the Parliamentary Budget Office, an impartial office, which states that income poverty rates nationally will have risen from 11.7% in 2024 to a forecast level of 13.2% in 2026 due to the withdrawal of the cost-of-living package. Income poverty rates will have risen most for the elderly, from 13.3% in 2024 to a forecast level of 19%. Child poverty will also increase. The Taoiseach's budget increased poverty in this State.”
“Earlier the Taoiseach posed the question as to what we were proposing to do to pressurise the energy companies to lower their costs. We have a Bill already to have price controls to stop the blatant profiteering. I put it back to the Taoiseach: what is he going to do? The answer, it appears, is "Nothing".”
“We have moved from the ESB being the sole publicly owned not-for-profit generator and supplier of electricity, the global success of the ground-breaking rural electrification scheme, which became a model around the world, and the lowest electricity prices in Europe to having the highest prices in Europe because of the neoliberal orthodoxy of the 1990s and 2000s, which meant that anything State-owned had to be broken up and privatised. This process should be reversed. We should renationalise the electricity market on a not-for-profit basis. Earlier, the Taoiseach asked what we are going to do to put pressure on the energy companies to lower prices. That is my question to him. Will he introduce price controls as proposed in our Emergency Price Controls Bill, something he has the power to do under the Consumer Protection Act?”
“There is to be no significant investment in the retrofitting we need to give people warmer homes and much reduced bills. There is also to be no change from the policy of households subsidising the data centres of the big tech companies. Households are paying for their hundreds of millions of euro worth of so-called capacity payments. The fundamental root of all of this is the so-called liberalisation of the energy market, the artificial creation of a market in which we must pay for the profit of all of these different corporations.”
“The cost of their profits is a crisis for households, one in three of whom is now in energy poverty. Those families are facing a cold, long, dark winter. They are facing electricity companies that, one after the other, have hiked their prices in recent weeks. Their worry is confounded by failure of the Government to do anything in last week's budget to protect them. The economists are very clear. The Government's budget will lead to an increase in poverty, particularly for older people and renters, who are more likely to suffer from energy poverty in poorly insulated homes. There are to be no energy credits despite the fact that people's bills are higher now than they were last year. There are to be no price controls to stop what I think the Taoiseach described earlier as price gouging.”
“Irish households are being ripped off by electricity companies. That is not just how they feel about it; that is a fact. We have it black and white from the International Energy Agency and I quote its report, which states the disparity in Ireland, talking about the gap between wholesale electricity prices and retail prices, was the largest in all of Europe, with the energy component of retail prices three times higher than wholesale prices. In plain language, the reason we have the highest electricity prices in Europe is electricity companies are engaged in blatant profiteering off of the backs of ordinary people. SSE Airtricity declared profits of €113 million to the end of March 2025; Energia; €33 million for the first quarter alone; and Bord Gáis; €39 million in the first half of this year. I could go on.”
“Figures from February 2025 show a waiting time of up to 46 weeks for a first consultation in Sligo, 37 in Longford, 34 in Tallaght, 31 in Kilkenny and 30 in Cavan, so this issue also needs to be addressed.”
“To tease that out a little further, does the Minister agree that a different threshold or abolishing the threshold entirely would be appropriate in cases where domestic violence is a factor or in family law cases like that for precisely the reason he outlined? Can the Minister provide any sort of timeframe for when this consideration is likely to be complete? I underline the point that it is not simply about the thresholds; it is also about the amount of resources and the availability of lawyers. Otherwise, people will be able to qualify, but if no lawyers are available and they end up on waiting lists forever, then it will not be worth a whole lot. The figures are quite striking.”
“I have not done the figures, but I presume if we were just to adjust the figure of €18,000 for inflation from 2006 we would end up with more than €23,500.”
“I agree this is a question of access to justice. Some people are being denied justice because they are just over the threshold and therefore cannot afford it. A woman has come to me whose daughter is dealing with an abusive ex-partner and is fighting for full custody. She is €50 per week over the current threshold and has therefore had to spend €45,000 on a custody case, which is horrendous. I note the Minister mentioned the figure of €23,500, which obviously comes from the majority report reviewing the whole scheme. I point out to the Minister and ask him to consider the fact that there is a minority report that argues that figure is still not high enough and will continue to exclude people who require the civil legal aid scheme.”
“The disposable income threshold for civil legal aid is only €18,000. Incredibly, it has not been updated since 2006. Think of all the cost-of-living crises and everything else we have been through since then. How much additional funding is provided for civil legal aid in the budget? Will it allow for the raising of the threshold very significantly and for abolishing it entirely in cases where domestic violence is a factor?”
“Heather Humphreys is not here today; she is no longer a Minister. If she was, I am sure she would be sitting over there nodding along and voting the budget through. She would be in favour of all these austerity measures; she did plenty of them herself. She would be happy enough. However, she is not here and I would say she is not happy enough now because she is standing in a presidential election. She is standing against one other candidate, an Opposition Independent candidate who has united the left behind her.”
“There is also a tax break for corporate landlords in the form of an exemption from corporation tax on cost-rental income worth €20 million. I thought the whole idea of cost rental is that the rental is equivalent to the cost. Where exactly is the profit meant to be coming from this? It highlights that profiteering is happening in the cost-rental sector, which makes sense of why cost rental is so unaffordable. Most people do not know this, but well-paid employees of multinational corporations here who earn up to €1 million a year get 30% of their tax back. That is great. There are nine people who are in receipt of that who are on more than €3 million a year. It is a tax break for some of the richest people in our country. I am sure there are more measures of corporate welfare that I could go into. I will finish on this point, however.”
“It is putting €681 million into the pockets of these in one of the greatest acts of corporate lobbying scammery that has ever been carried out. We could call it "Operation get behind the small café", but the vast majority of this money is not going to small cafés. It will go to the big chains, which are already making big profits. This has been a big exercise in them lobbying and then getting their way, with ordinary workers paying about €200 from their own pockets to cover the cost of this cut. Developers are also getting a VAT cut. That is great. This is the new way that corporate welfare is being done. There is a VAT cut for developers of €390 million. On top of that, they get an enhanced deduction for certain costs in the construction of apartments. The latter will cost another €125 million.”