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 states: Acting in accordance with the faculties granted by decree of the Sacred Congregation of Religious and in response to the request of Brother John Kevin Drummond of St. Helen's Province, Ireland, the Governor General, being away from Rome, the Vicar General, with the affirmative vote of the General Council, now declares that Brother John Kevin Drummond is freed from the obligations of his vows. Brother Drummond is therefore released from his vows, but it is never reported to the Garda. The church later denied any knowledge of what had happened and it concealed the evidence it knew about it for years. The Catholic Church knew all about paedophile priests and brothers. It was and is complicit in the endemic rape and sexual abuse of children.”
“Please accept my sincerest apologies for the harm I have done to the Congregation and pray for me that I may make up in some way the harm I have done to these boys … I have been changed from Limerick where it happened to the above address [the Christian Brothers in James Street, Dublin 8] Then there is a letter to the vicar general enclosing Brother Drummond's confession. It states: I have a little more trouble for you - we are getting more than our share of it these days. … Our Council voted unanimously that he should be dispensed and let go and we would be grateful if you could do the needful in the matter as soon as convenient - of course there is no immediate hurry; if there were I suppose we could give him leave of absence in anticipation of the dispensation coming... The third document is one signed by the vicar general.”
“They recently came into the possession of church documents that reveal exactly what was going on in the church, the knowledge that those at the top of the church had and the fact that they did nothing apart from move around some teachers and priests who they knew were abusers. The first letter is from a paedophile Christian Brother to his superiors in the Catholic hierarchy. Dated 24 February 1970, it is from Brother John Kevin Drummond and is addressed to Brother Loftus, head of the Christian Brothers' training college. It states: It is with deep regret that I send you this application for a dispensation of my temporary vows. I have interfered sexually with some of my pupils and I cannot in conscience allow myself to remain in the Congregation - much less to go back to the classroom, knowing that the same thing could happen again.”
“I welcome that the commission is being established. There are real issues with the very long delay in getting here. There are issues with the timeframe proposed, which is another delay. There are very serious issues with redress and, as I read through it, there are issues with how survivors' testimonies are to be treated. If I get time, I will come back to all that. I pay tribute to all the survivors. I have met survivors of Creagh Lane school in Limerick a number of times. The abuse they suffered is obviously horrendous and it has had a devastating impact on their lives.”
“Focus Ireland put it correctly in saying, "Government policy favours the vacant-possession sale on the market rather than the protection of the existing tenant". Will the Taoiseach reverse this cruel policy, properly fund the tenant in situ scheme and prevent a new tidal wave of homelessness?”
“The tenant in situ scheme is the only thing that lies between thousands of families and homelessness. The Government, by starving councils of funding for it, is, in effect, abolishing the scheme. It is incredible. Dublin City Council's programme is now officially over as it has run out of money. Fingal County Council is the same. Carlow County Council has now run out of money for its scheme. South Dublin County Council is just about to run out of money. I am sure other councils are only a matter of weeks or months away from being in the same place. South Dublin County Council still has 700 expressions of interest from families who are in this situation and for whom there will be no funding to prevent them going into homelessness.”
“Higgins, described as a dangerous drift towards NATO that puts us behind the shadows of previous empires within the EU and that this flies in the face of the views of the vast majority of people in this country who want to retain neutrality and who follow James Connolly's line of neither king nor Kaiser? Today, that is neither Washington nor Brussels nor Bejing nor Moscow.”
“In June, Ursula von der Leyen agreed a new security and defence partnership between the EU and Canada, which is a member of NATO. This will enable Canada to engage in joint weapons procurement with European countries, including Ireland, those who have signed up to ReArm Europe and the so-called safe instrument. Von der Leyen and Canada announced that NATO remains the cornerstone of their defence and that, "Our aim will be to help deliver on our capability targets, including through our defence industries, more quickly and economically and with enhanced interoperability in ways that deliver mutual benefit and reinforce the European contribution to NATO." Would the Taoiseach agree that this new partnership between Ireland and Canada is part of what our President, Michael D.”
“Why are we not doing everything we can for these people, to let them play, study and access medical treatment in Ireland?”
“It is very simple: the Department of justice has refused to give the visas needed for children from Palestine to come here and play hurling. That can still be changed. It requires a Government decision to say, "We are going to grant the visas; it is the very least we can do." I urge the Government to act at this late stage. As well as the GAA players being denied entry, we know there have been real issues with medical evacuation of Palestinian children. Over the weekend, I learned that around 20 Palestinian students have applied for visas to attend college in Ireland from September and that only two of them have been approved. There looks to be a pattern here. By way of contrast, any Israeli citizen can travel visa-free to Ireland for up to 90 days. An Israeli child could travel to Ireland and play GAA here with no trouble.”
“That is deeply cynical when the cost-of-living crisis is deepening for ordinary people and when four in ten parents are cutting back on meals so their children have enough to eat. It is austerity for ordinary people, not for the landlords who will see their rents increase even faster or the property developers who will benefit from shrinkflation. We need to debate this in the Dáil instead of allowing the Government to normalise a return to austerity.”
“Let us have a debate on that so we can hear it. We heard this morning from the Government that we are facing an era of restraint - austerity, in other words. We had two pre-election budgets with once-off payments and now, after the election, we have a return to austerity budgets.”
“It is an incredibly stressful situation for these families, many with young children. With less than 24 hours to go, I appeal to the Government to intervene to pause these evictions until assurances can be provided about where these families will be transferred to. It makes sense for them to stay in the locality where they have connections, roots, employment and school places. I would appreciate a response from the Minister on that.”
“They want to remain in their current education and employment. There are kids currently in schools and so on but, like many others, they have been unsuccessful. Those who have made the difficult decision to accept transfer to other emergency accommodation are yet to receive any information on where this accommodation will be. Despite reassurances in their eviction notices that it will be provided, it still has not been provided. Now, as a result, the residents are reporting harassment by staff in their centre and told to pack up their things as new families will arrive on Friday to take their places. They have also been told that if they find themselves on the streets on Friday, they will not be eligible for emergency homeless accommodation while they remain under the care of IPAS awaiting transfer. That is some care.”
“I really appreciate that people are speaking out on behalf of vulnerable families who are being treated appallingly by this State. Six families live in my community in IPAS centres at the Red Cow Hotel and the Inchicore Suites. This Friday, tomorrow, they are faced with eviction from their accommodation. Today, less than 24 hours before they face this eviction, they have yet to be provided with the location of their next accommodation. I understand that this is happening to dozens of families all over the country at the same time this week. These are people who have been granted asylum so they are not unworthy or whatever. They have gone through the asylum process and have been granted asylum. They, like lots of people in this country, have been unable to find more permanent accommodation despite searching for it tirelessly.”
“It is a disgrace that a country among the most responsible for international emigration per head of population is about to inflict this on people in the same situation that so many Irish people faced before. Our Government lobbies year after year on behalf of so-called undocumented Irish immigrants in the US, pleading for them not to be deported and to be given a pathway to legal citizenship. I agree with that lobbying but the hypocrisy of that and how people in equivalent situations are treated here is glaring. At home, the same Government that lobbies abroad for the undocumented Irish is chartering planes to deport schoolkids ripped out of their classrooms, friend groups and communities in front of others, causing real damage to people. I want to raise a particular case on which I got a load of emails this morning.”
“They are the ones who are going to get punished. The regulation on safe third countries is also a travesty. It allows for people to be sent to so-called safe third countries that they have no connection to. This can include a country that they have transited to, perhaps in the back of a truck or a shipping container, but also countries they have not been to at all. We know what the weasel words of "safe third countries" really mean. They mean wealthy European countries deporting families to appalling conditions in places like Rwanda and Libya where they are very likely to experience extreme hardship and human rights violations. It is the European Union outsourcing its "immigration problem" by deporting people to horrific places where they are treated in awful ways.”
“The EU's and our Government's get-out clause is that designating a country as safe is supposedly "without prejudice to the specific challenges faced by certain groups in the country which may merit particular attention." However, are the people most likely to be fleeing here or elsewhere and seeking asylum, taking this desperate step of leaving their family, their community, the country that they know behind, not precisely the ones who are likely to be facing persecution? They are the human rights defenders, the LGBTQ people, the political activists and the members of ethnic minorities. However, they are then going to be subject to this accelerated process. There is no special recognition of the specific challenges faced by those who are actually likely to be the ones fleeing and applying for asylum.”
“The EU, in its own documentation on the regulation, makes the following admission: Human rights defenders, political activists and opponents may face arbitrary arrest and torture, and may be targeted with measures such as travel restrictions and asset freezes. [...] Human rights challenges in Egypt remain significant, particularly in relation to the protection of fundamental freedoms, governance and the rule of law. That does not sound very safe to me. How is it safe? For a trade unionist, a political activist or a human rights defender, Egypt is not a safe place to try to do any of those things. That is obvious from reading the Amnesty reports, Human Rights Watch reports or other reports which will outline the truth about Egypt as a very authoritarian dictatorship.”
“It is an authoritarian dictatorship with arbitrary detentions happening all over the place. It persecutes journalists and does not have free and fair elections. Political activists are routinely rounded up. A point someone made to me when I was in Egypt is that you do not see Palestinian flags in people's homes in Cairo. Why is that? It is not because the people do not support the Palestinians; it is because they know that the Sisi regime will round up people showing a Palestinian flag because it is seen as a political act. It is why the Egyptians could not allow the global march to Gaza to proceed because of the danger it would send a message to their own people that they should have the right to protest.”
“The regulation further states that if the recognition rate is 20% or lower, it serves as an indication that applications from that nationality are likely to be unfounded. Even assuming for a moment that Government decisions are always legally correct in their own terms, which again I do not believe, what about the rights of the 20% of people from those countries whose claims were recognised prior to this regulation? Their equivalents in the future will be faced with an accelerated process, a higher burden of proof on them to prove their claim in a shorter space of time and, in reality, a harder time getting their application for asylum approved. One example of these so-called safe countries that we are adding to the list is Egypt. I was in Egypt recently and it did not seem to be a country without fundamental human rights issues.”
“In other words, whole families and individuals, including children, will be deported back to countries they have fled to face persecution, torture and even death. The basis for designating countries as safe is inherently flawed. It is based on current recognition rates for people applying for asylum from those countries. The regulation we are being asked to approve states that there is, in general, no risk of "persecution or serious harm", within the meaning of Regulation No. 2024/1347, in Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Morocco and Tunisia, as well as the potential EU candidate Kosovo, as shown by the very low recognition rates. This is clearly not an unbiased standard as it assumes that there are no or very few injustices in how the system currently operates. I do not believe that is true.”
“We in People Before Profit are strongly opposed to the two safe country motions we have before us and that I will focus on in the time available. These are draconian motions that designate countries with appalling human rights records, such as Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, as safe. The motions allow for people to be deported to so-called safe third countries even when they have no connection to that country. Once a country is designated as safe, a yellow-pack accelerated asylum process is used. Member states can apply border procedures, which in essence means that they can incarcerate people without trial in border detention camps and the whole process has to be completed within three months. The speed of this process obviously means that miscarriages of justice will be far more likely.”
“I have pursued this with the DRHE and with the Minister through parliamentary questions. The only way for her to access the higher rate is to become homeless again, which clearly makes no sense. Does the Minister agree that we need a change in this area, which could be done by way of ministerial order, so that people like this woman and many others in the same situation could access the higher rate without having to enter homelessness again?”
“As the Minister will know, there is a two-tier system in place in respect of homeless HAP. Those who entered the scheme after July 2022 are able to access a higher rate than those who entered before that time. This has resulted in an unjust situation where people are faced with the prospect of renewed homelessness in order to be able to access the higher rate. I will give an example from my constituency. A young woman who works very hard every day lost her car because she had to sell it. She spends over an hour on public transport to work on a farm every single day. She cannot afford to pay her rent any more. She is currently on a homeless HAP rate of €990 per month. If she was to access homeless HAP today, she would be entitled to €1,215 and could pay her rent but she is not able to access that rate.”
“Without the authorisation of a central bank, these bonds could not be sold. That is over €400 million. Does the Minister not accept that he should act, that declaring this a genocide has consequences and that he should do everything in his power? The Central Bank has said it will adhere to any financial sanctions or restrictive measures that are imposed under law. Therefore, the Minister should instruct the Central Bank or we should change the law. We need to stop the sale of genocide bonds.”
“Every time we raise this issue, we get the same response from the Government, which is, basically, to ask why we are not thanking it for all it is doing and for not being as bad as the western states that arm, fund and enable this genocide? I am sorry. We, and the public, have a higher standard of no complicity in the genocide. That is not only a moral standard; it is a legal standard. Under international law, all states have an obligation not to assist in any illegal situation, such as occupation, illegal settlements, apartheid or genocide. The Irish Government itself recognises that genocide is happening. Does the Minister not see that providing access to EU markets to fundraise to support genocide is a violation of our obligation not to assist? It is true the Central Bank does not endorse this but it authorises it.”
“We know that there is an email from the Israeli Ministry of Justice previously talking about a confidential phone call with the Minister and the Minister saying that the Government would block the occupied territories Bill. Now, here we are again, with the Minister blocking action to stop funding the genocide. What will it take to shift the Government on this? What will it take for the Minister to act?”
“Let me quote a Central Bank worker: When over fifty-thousand people – seventeen-thousand of them children – are dead, murdered in their homes, schools, hospitals or killed trying to escape the slaughter (Rafah, Jabalia, Khan Younis, etc.) I must admit I find it difficult to discern the difference between the Bank’s official line – ‘we are guided by the law and if the requirements under the prospectus regulations are being met, we must comply with the law’ and the defence claimed by Soldier F, the perpetrators of genocide in Rwanda, Cambodia, Sudan, Myanmar the defendants at Nuremberg – ‘we were just following orders’ – the Superior Order defence. The same applies to a Government which has twice now voted not to end this complicity. It is incredibly unfair to put the workers in this situation because of the Government's failure to act.”
“The Minister has previously and repeatedly defended the authorisation of the sale of Israeli bonds by the Irish Central Bank. We know now from the Central Bank that €418 million was raised by Israel in these war bonds approved by the Central Bank between October 2023 and April 2025. That is a quarter of all funds generated globally by these bonds. How many bullets did that pay for? How many missiles did it pay for? How many bombs did it pay for? Does the Minister accept that it is time to stop this complicity of the Irish State in genocide?”
“Yesterday, 94 Palestinians were killed in Gaza. Forty-five of them were killed while waiting for aid from the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Today, so far, 87 people have been killed, and every day has a similar horrific number of casualties. In just one month, 600 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,200 have been wounded by Israeli fire near aid distribution sites. A new low in this genocide is the use of aid as a weapon to ethnically cleanse large parts of the Gaza Strip and to assemble people in order to be shot down in what is being described as a death trap. People saw the horrendous pictures from Monday of a café and the people inside it blown to bits. It has been reported that a 500 lb was used by the Israeli military to do this.”
“Every time I raise such issues or there is an "RTÉ Investigates" programme, the Minister says he is looking into the matter but nothing ever seems to happen in regard to actions against the farmers who are guilty of abuse or in terms of improvements to the legislation.”
“Pigs are highly intelligent, sociable creatures. The farms were selected at random and all of them demonstrated horrific conditions for pigs. They were in a desperate state. Dead pigs were just lying there, as were pigs that were severely injured and heading towards death. Pigs were trapped in very small spaces. They are in grim indoor spaces and they never go outside in their whole lives. Some 3.5 million pigs are in conditions like that and are slaughtered in Ireland every single year. Pig farming takes place on a very small number of farms. There are approximately 260 pig farms in Ireland. What we have is a mixture of breaking existing laws and laws that are inadequate and allow poor conditions to persist. The Minister might tell us what is being done about that.”
“The farrowing crates and sow stalls are so narrow that the sows cannot turn around or move more than a few centimetres. They are in there for long periods to ensure they never get a moment's break from suckling the 15 piglets that are now regularly born in each litter. Has the Minister seen the footage and how does he respond to it?”
“What provoked me to introduce this Bill was undercover investigations carried out by the National Animal Rights Association and Animal Rebellion Ireland. There were two separate investigations on six different farms, chosen at random. Video evidence was produced, which I watched. It was horrendous. The Department has been sent the footage but I do not know if the Minister has had a chance to watch it. I encourage him to do so. Sick and dying pigs with open wounds and weeping open sores were left to suffer and die in filthy conditions. "Enrichment" was just a metal bar and the pigs were clearly starved of any real enrichment. Pigs had their tails painfully docked or cut off right up to the root, although tail-docking is supposed to be banned, other than in limited circumstances. Up to 95% of Irish pigs still have their tails docked.”
“Last Tuesday, I introduced a Bill to ban pig mutilation, sow stalls and farrowing crates, which the EU has already committed to phase out and for which the Minister is already giving grants to farmers to move away from. The question is whether he will take a lead on this, as the Government did under pressure from campaigners on fur farming, where it moved ahead of the rest of the European Union to ban fur farming. Will the Minister act now to ban the most inhumane practices in the pig industry?”
“I will finish with some other words of Bob Vylan that have not received the same coverage. He said: We, like those in the spotlight before us, are not the story. We are a distraction from the story ... We are not the first. We will not be the last. And if you care for the sanctity of human life and freedom of speech, we urge you to speak up too. Free Palestine.”
“It provoked more investigations into artists speaking up against genocide and more attempts to conflate protests against genocide with antisemitism. In the US and across Europe, Ireland included, we are seeing the spread of authoritarianism to shut down, oppose and prevent criticism of and opposition to Israel. There has been a crackdown and criminalising of peaceful protest. It will only be a few more days before Palestine Action will likely be officially proscribed as a terrorist organisation in Britain. Last week, many of the peaceful activists I was with for the global march to Gaza were in Brussels to demand that the EU suspend its trade association agreement with Israel. They were violently suppressed. Irish activists were arrested and carried away for simply singing a Palestinian rendition of "Bella Ciao".”
“It is another week of unspeakable horror in Gaza, with scores of people killed every single day, many of them - maybe most of them - while queuing for food. Another week of aid being used as a weapon of war against starving Gazans by the Israeli, US-backed, so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Another week of distraction, reframing and excuses by most of the western establishment who enable, fund and arm this genocide. "Death, death to the IDF". That should be a statement of good sense. Dismantle the army that is responsible for this slaughter. Support Palestinian resistance to genocide and occupation. It speaks of the upside down world in which we live that Bob Vylan chanting this simple slogan was treated as an outrage.”
“These were cut by 20% in 2022 as a temporary cost-of-living measure and then kept, just like student fees. In light of the Government saying we will not have another cost-of-living package, is it also saying transport fees are going to increase, just as is threatened in terms of student fees? Can the Minister of State give a guarantee that public transport fees will not be increased in the coming budget?”
“It continues to force more and more people into long, car-dependent commutes because this is the only way they can find semi-affordable housing. It is greenlighting and subsidising new domestic flights to Derry rather than building the railways we need. The programme for Government promises to act on the recommendations from the all-island strategic rail review. Which of the recommendations will actually be implemented within the lifetime of this Government? What share of rail in passenger journeys will result? When will we see new railway lines like metro south west? At the very least, will we see simple, obvious things done by 2029, including new train stations on existing lines in Ballyfermot and Cabra and more trams on the red line? Another way of encouraging a modal shift to public transport is reducing fares.”
“It is based on getting 560,000 electric vehicles on the roads by 2030, when there are currently around 73,000 such vehicles. Between 1990 and 2021, passenger car numbers increased by 178% and transport emissions more than doubled. To reverse this situation, what is needed is a massive modal shift away from car dependency, whether fossil-fuelled or electric, to public transport and active travel. In light of this, the target in the review to increase the tiny 3% share of rail in passenger journeys to a slightly less tiny 6% is unambitious. Yet, this Government is unlikely to come close to this target. This Government is allergic to public investment on the scale needed to provide fast, free and frequent public transport for all.”
“The year 2024 was the hottest on record. Temperatures were 1.6° above the historical average. Europe is now in the grip of another heatwave. In France, 300 people have been hospitalised, and two people have already died from the heat. They will not, unfortunately, be the last to die this summer across Europe. We urgently need to stop pumping more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Fossil fuels must be completely phased out as fast as possible. This is what the science demands. We know transport is our second biggest emitting sector, contributing 21.5% of total emissions in 2023. The EPA predicts this will increase to 21.6% by 2030 with the existing measures. It is doubtful, however, that the target for those existing measures will even be reached.”
“I raised yesterday how the Government is simultaneously trying to push children with mild general learning disabilities out of special schools and into mainstream education, which creates a need for more rather than fewer SNAs. This makes no sense. Will the Government consider it and ensure that SNA support is increased rather than decreased?”
“I want to raise the inexplicable decision to cut SNA hours at Firhouse Educate Together National School. The school is already struggling to cope, with only eight SNAs catering for more than 90 children with additional needs. One parent wrote to me to tell me that her son started in the autism unit and with the amazing support of his teachers and SNAs was able to transition to a mainstream class and is proof of how early intervention and the correct support can help a child to integrate with his mainstream peers. She said the school needs an increase in SNA hours to give every child equal access to education as a basic human right, yet the Department is proposing to cut the SNA hours needed for inclusion and mainstream classes.”
“Inclusion, when done without the proper supports, is not inclusion, it is just displacement." PBP councillors and activists are working with the affected school communities to organise campaigns to oppose this Government's attacks on schools for children with MGLD. We demand an immediate pause on all redesignations and proper resourcing of all education so all children have access to school places appropriate to their needs in their local communities, as is their right under the UNCRPD.”
“It is the Government failing to provide adequate supports and then pitting children with different needs against one another in a battle for resources. By all accounts, the 30 MGLD schools are working well. They are making a huge difference to the children who go to them and they should be left as they are but with additional resources provided as needed. There must be no question of forcing children out of these places and into mainstream schools in order to free up places for children with complex needs. One mother who wrote to me put it very well. She said: "It risks putting children like mine back into a system that already didn't work for them.”
“I welcome the long overdue publication of this report. AsIAm has pointed out that it is worrying to see references to amending the Education Act, which could delay the action we need to see. All parents know, and the Government acknowledges in all its statements, how crucial timely intervention is, but for many it is not delivered. I will take the opportunity to raise an important related issue. It was referenced already, so I will be interested to hear whether there is a response from the Minister of State. It is the proposed redesignation of mild general learning disability, MGLD, schools to focus on students with complex needs. One of those is Scoil Eoin in Crumlin, which many children from Tallaght attend. It seems to be a classic case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
“We did not wait for the European Union when we banned fur farming, we did not wait for the European Union when we banned wild animals in circuses and we do not have to wait for the rest of the European Union when it comes to banning pig mutilation, sow stalls and farrowing crates. The pig industry in this country is relatively small. Only a small number of pig farmers would need to be compensated for hardship when these inhumane conditions are banned. They can and should be supported financially to transition to other less damaging forms of agriculture. It is simply unacceptable for the profits of a few to be prioritised over the welfare of so many. Some 3.5 million pigs are forced to live and die in inhumane conditions in Ireland every year. This has to stop and this Bill would stop it.”
“It cited an EU Commission review of EU animal welfare legislation. As part of that, I was told there is a commitment to phase out the use of individual animal confinement, including sow crates and stalls, in line with scientific evidence and pending the outcome of an impact assessment. The Department also said it is taking measures to promote and move away from the use of sow farrowing crates and stalls. This included through grant aid to pig farmers. The Department, therefore, acknowledges that these practices are bad and should be phased out, but it is still dragging its feet. As campaigners and ordinary people, we need to hold those feet to the fire and force it to act.”