Paul Murphy
Dublin South-West · People Before Profit-Solidarity · Ireland
“The Minister of State assured us we are bound by international law but then went on to talk about the fact that he wants to deploy troops outside the framework of international law. That is why the Government is getting rid of the triple lock. All the triple lock does is ensure that we only can send troops in line with international law.”
“The case for MetroLink south west is extremely strong. There are 350,000 people living between the Luas red and green lines. That is who will be served by this.”
“Hopefully the junior Minister will be able to clarify. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, said earlier to Deputy Ó Laoghaire, "The people I speak to do not like the fact that Russia has essentially removed, or will remove in the coming months, all our peacekeeping troops from UNIFIL".”
“I, too, want to ask about the senior Minister. This came up at the Dáil reform committee last week. It is very peculiar that a senior Minister is here and has answered previous questions on the triple lock today and then – no offence meant - we have the junior Minister answering these questions, which precisely prevents the continuation o…”
“Its defence is that we should not worry because the Government is only going to send them as part of an international force. I do not think anyone here thinks the Government is going to invade a country all by itself.”
“It is there in black and white in the programme for Government and the Government needs to live up to its commitment to do a new, properly independent feasibility study. I appeal to the Minister of State to ask the Minister for Transport to meet with the metro south west group which has been doing such excellent campaigning on this issue.”
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“To respond to the climate crisis and the cost-of-living and fuel crises, we need to rapidly roll out as much public transport as quickly as is possible. That is not what is currently happening. Dublin Bus is sitting on 50 new electric buses. They are expensive and very good quality presumably but they are sitting there not being used because of a lack of appropriate infrastructure. The oldest new electric bus has been sitting there since November 2023. We have owned this bus for two years and five months. It is not on the road. It is not being used. Why? One reason is the lack of charging infrastructure and Broadstone buses cannot charged during the day because the grid is overloaded.”
“In response to the fuel crisis, other countries are rolling out additional services. Some are making public transport free, which we have called for for a long time. The Government did not provide any funding for new services in this budget. Will it reverse that decision in light of the fuel crisis? Will it provide additional funding for new services to be rapidly rolled out to alleviate the fuel and cost-of-living crisis and to enable us to get off the reliance on fossil fuels as quickly as possible?”
“The Minister has said there is no policy of his predecessor's "I, Daniel Blake" policy, which was withdrawn and is not being implemented through the back door, in terms of targets to refuse applications or make it harder for people to access illness benefit and invalidity pension.”
“In that case, I do not know whether the Minister or Department has carried out any analysis of this area. What is the explanation for the decline in the number of recipients of invalidity pension? The number was about 55,000 in 2015, which rose to 59,000 in 2020, but the figure has fallen year on year to a low of just over 55,000 in 2024. There has been an increase of only 1% despite the population having significantly increased over ten years. The number in receipt of carer's allowance is up from 62,000 in 2015 to almost 100,000 in 2024, a 56% increase. The number in receipt of disability allowance is up from about 120,000 to close to 170,000, but the number in receipt of illness benefit has fallen.”
“I wonder whether there is some sort of policy or approach being implemented to push people back from receiving what they are entitled to.”
“In this case, the woman is often in so much pain that she cannot leave the house. Sometimes, she might be well and can function as others can, but on other days she cannot even open her eyes. She is obviously not in a position to find work. There is a question as to whether this case is illustrative of a wider approach of delaying appeals. The woman has made the point that she has the capacity to fight, contact a Deputy, write letters and do those things. However, she acknowledges that plenty of people cannot necessarily do that and, when confronted with a wall of delays and refusals, might just give up. Is this part of a policy? It is interesting that the number of recipients of invalidity pensions has fallen at a time when the population has increased and the number of recipients of other payments has increased.”
“I ask the Minister about the long delays in invalidity pension appeals. I am aware of one such case but I wonder whether there are others. In this particular case, the original appeal happened in January 2025. It is now five months since there was an appeal to the chief appeals officer but there has been nothing back. This woman clearly cannot work. She has extreme migraines that mean she often cannot get out of bed. She can barely take care of herself.”
“The new cost-of-living crisis underlines the need to get to 100% renewable energy as quickly as possible. For Ireland, that means developing offshore wind. It is quite incredible that for the past 20 years, successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments have been in power and have failed to add any offshore wind energy to the grid. We have less offshore wind energy today than we did 20 years ago, despite all the talk of climate crisis and so on. Why? It is because the Government is relying on the private market and ignoring the lessons of our history, that large-scale energy projects should be publicly owned. It is a point the Minister, Deputy Chambers, made in his budget speech, praising the role of a fledgling State in building Ardnacrusha. We had 80% of our electricity from renewable energy at that point. We had energy security.”
“I do not mean these in terms of family members but in terms of the idea of these becoming long-term rentals. It is clear if we check the record that it is coming from Progress Ireland, which is funded by the Collison brothers. Seán Keyes, the head of Progress Ireland, has claimed this idea, saying it played a role in this coming through, illustrative of the corporate capture of this Government.”
“The World Economic Forum is a place where billionaires and multimillionaires gather together with Heads of Government and Ministers. It is a place where the policy interests of the billionaire class are transmitted to their political representatives, the likes of the Taoiseach. In this country, the richest billionaires we have, who obviously are not resident, are the Collison brothers. They, like many of the tech bros, share a libertarian ideology about deregulation of everything, so-called YIMBYism, which has the happy coincidence of also maximising their ability to maximise their profit. The Taoiseach denied earlier that the shed-sit idea has come from the Collison brothers. He might tell me where this idea did come from if not from the Collison brothers.”
“He still has a video up on Facebook saying it would give younger people and older people the option to live independently of the family home while retaining support of the family network. He told RTÉ he did not see it as a rental measure. Will the Taoiseach go along with this creation of a second class of renters or will he stop this corporate capture?”
“I want to ask about corporate capture of the Government, enabling landlords to build shed-sits with no planning permission, to rent them out with no legal protections, to evict tenants at any time with no right of appeal, no reason and no basis to go to the RTB. Where did this dystopian idea come from? A corporate think-tank set up by the billionaire Collison brothers. Plugging the idea two years ago, Progress Ireland boasted that there could be 350,000 such shed-sits, and it said they could be built based on whether rents were high enough to justify building one. This always had landlords' greasy fingers all over it but the Minister of State, Deputy John Cummins, claimed that it would only be for family members.”
“It just makes no sense whatsoever to move a sorting office for an area out of the area it serves, and particularly when it is staying in the control of An Post.”
“Will the Tánaiste join with me in calling for An Post to reverse the disastrous decision to move the sorting office for Dublin 16 out of Dublin 16, moving it from Edmondstown to Lucan. It makes no sense whatsoever. It is not clear where the public who miss packets and parcels are going to have to go to collect them. They may have to go all the way to Lucan to collect parcels that they miss. It certainly is clear that it will result in a worsened service for the public. The postal workers are going to be stuck on the M50 going between Lucan and back to Dublin 16. It is also clear that it is a disaster for the workers. Workers have built their lives around where they work. I was talking to one couple who both work there but one of them does not drive and they get there by bike. There is no way they are going to be able to get to Lucan.”
“The Green Party motion notes the rapid growth in data centres in Ireland will lead to increased household energy prices. It leaves out that it has done that already, including under the previous Green Party coalition, and it does nothing to fix it. Our amendments are about banning the building of any more data centres, taxing existing data centres to fund a €500 energy credit for households and making sure data centres pay the same price for electricity as households and not half price as they do currently. Our amendments also call for making public transport free and the expansion of bus and rail services. It makes no sense that during a fuel crisis, the Government is cutting taxes on petrol and diesel, which we welcome, but doing nothing to incentivise people to use public transport.”
“However, the only semi-concrete target mentioned is climate neutrality by 2050. The Government is also trumpeting an €18.9 billion investment in the national grid. What it fails to mention is that this will be swallowed up by data centres, just like they have swallowed up the increase in renewable energy in recent years. The Government has gone all-in on the AI bubble, so all this grid expansion will go to big tech too and it wants workers to pay for it through higher household energy bills. That is what People Before Profit's amendments are about. We say ordinary people should not have to pay for a climate crisis caused by capitalism. It is why we have always opposed the carbon tax - not just increases to it, but the entire tax. It is time to make big polluters pay.”
“Recently, a booklet called Sitka Spruce the Amazing Timber Tree was distributed to Irish schools. It included an endorsement from the then Minister of State with responsibility for forestry, waffling about forests being homes for birds and animals - not if they are Sitka spruce, they are not. These plantations are biodiversity dead zones and should never be promoted as a solution to the climate or biodiversity crisis. Deputy Michael Healy-Rae might have resigned but his cynical pro-business greenwashing attitude lives on. It is shown in the Government's amendment, which ignores the core demand of this motion, that is, for the Government to recommit to reducing carbon emissions by 51% by 2030, a supposedly legally binding commitment. Instead, we get vague waffle about being "fully committed to ... climate ambition".”
“I thank Deputy O'Gorman and the Green Party for tabling the motion, which we support. We have also tabled two amendments, which I will mention later. The main point is that history will not treat this Government kindly, if history gets to be written. Maybe that is what it is counting on. One after another, the Government is ripping up its climate commitments relating to LNG, data centres, public transport, nitrates, marine protected areas, MPAs, forestry, you name it. The Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael-Lowry lackey Government is going backwards. It is no coincidence this is happening. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and whoever is in government with them serve the interests of big business. That is who benefits from the expansion of data centres, extending the nitrates derogation and locking us in to fossil fuel dependence on LNG.”
“There is lots in the roof report carried out by Morris Roofing and Cladding. The key point is the roof has gone beyond economic repair due to its nearly 50 years of age. The fundamental problem is the school is over 50 years old and needs a new replacement building. That is not just the opinion of some teachers, students or parents but of the architect originally appointed by the Department 12 years ago. There is an additional issue in that when the new school building opens, there will be 36 extra places in special classes, which obviously for the children in the area, and for the Minister of State given his particular responsibilities, is an extra reason to get this happening as quickly as possible. I re-emphasise the point about a meeting with the Minister and officials.”
“It still has no formal acknowledgement of that or a timeline for that. We know the Department got it. I asked the officials at the public accounts committee last week and they acknowledged they have it but it is simply not acceptable. The school is looking for a meeting with the Minister and the officials to map out a timeline to ensure these children get a suitable school building as soon as possible.”
“This is very simple. The school building, as it is, is simply not fit for continued use. There are serious health and safety concerns. When we visited there was very clearly water still coming through and sitting on top of tiles. You could see water coming in beside an interactive electric panel, which clearly represented a danger. A couple of years ago there was a partial ceiling collapse while children were in a class. There is mould. It is simply not suitable as it is. What is frustrating is this was recognised in May 2014. An architect appointed by the Department of education recommended a complete rebuild for both schools yet we still do not have substantial progress. This has been a real saga, the latest step being in July of last year when full 2a plans were submitted by the school.”
“We will not allow ourselves to be intimidated from supporting protests by the presence of some far-right agitators with their own agenda who are simply trying to hijack and misuse people’s anger. We make no bones about supporting effective protest. I have heard the Tánaiste say on multiple occasions that the package brought forward the other day had nothing to do with the protests. I do not think there is a single person in the country, including the Tánaiste, who believes that. No one believes it. The message the Tánaiste sent out on foot of his actions is that protest works and achieves results and concessions. That is a message to everyone. We want to see that built on by mass, effective – including disruptive – protest to force universal action for everyone.”
“I do not think the Government gets it. If it got it, we would not have seen the scenes we saw over the past ten days. That is a result of the Government not listening and not acting. One in five people is at risk of poverty. Two in five parents have skipped meals or cut back on what they are eating in order that their kids can have enough to eat. Hundreds of thousands of people are in arrears in on their electricity or gas bills. That is what drove the protests. The common cause I and People Before Profit make is with people who are fighting for action on the cost-of-living crisis. The core demand that emerged from the protests related to price caps. We were the only party calling for price caps. We introduced a Bill precisely two years ago in which we called for price caps.”
“When will it introduce universal measures to protect ordinary people from the cost of living crisis? It has cut the price of petrol and diesel. Will it make public transport free immediately? Will it bring in a €500 energy credit for every household paid for by a levy on data centres? Will it levy the owners and operators of private jets so that they do not benefit from the excise cuts?”
“Without a price cap, the cuts will be quickly swallowed up by the further increases in oil prices caused by Trump and Netanyahu's illegal wars, which the Government still has not condemned despite all of the talk of standing up for international law. It is the same old story. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have plenty of money for business but when it comes to workers and carers, out comes the poor mouth. The trade unions need to take heed. We are in a new period at home and abroad and a new phase of militant protest is needed. Workers do not need tractors to force the Government to listen. The most effective form of disruptive protest is the strike, a power that all workers have. It is clear that the Government can take emergency measures when it wants to or is under pressure to.”
“He has lectured workers, disabled people and carers that he has to be responsible and careful with the State's finances. Of course, that did not stop him finding €700 million for tax cuts for fast food chains and the hospitality industry, €400 million for property developers and €300 million for Google. It has not stopped him from finding €220 million down the back of the couch to give to hauliers and farmers. Some of the excise cuts will trickle down to workers, which is welcome. It would not have happened without the protests. We have called for a price cap for years and we introduced legislation in that regard over two years ago.”
“The fact that five years into a cost-of-living crisis the Government is still ignoring the demands of workers, carers and disabled people on the cost of living is truly outrageous. Prices have gone up by almost a quarter in the past five years, but the Government decided that the cost-of-living crisis was over as soon as the general election was. That is why it used the budget to withdraw the cost-of-living measures that it used to buy the general election. That included a cruel €1,400 cut for disabled people. That was a targeted measure. Since taking over as Minister for Finance, the Tánaiste has ignored the very reasonable and modest request for €400 emergency payment in order that people can pay their winter heating bills.”
“It has been a bad week for the Government; it is been a good week for people power. The fuel protests caused the resignation of a Minister of State and the sudden appearance of the young Turks of Fianna Fáil. Those protests led to the majority of the Government being reduced and the Government being destabilised. That is before we get to the by-elections in just over a month's time. It is often said that power comes from the barrel of a gun, but in this country it often seems to come from the cab of a tractor. The message that people will take, correctly, from the Government's response to the protests is this: if you do not take militant protest action and if you are not representing landlords or big business, the Government will ignore your demands, no matter how reasonable or justified they are.”
“She did not use any information she had about their data as a result of working there; she was simply talking to clients who support them, given the support they provide for them, asking them to sign a petition and for their address on a petition. Supposedly that is a breach of GDPR. That is blatant anti-union victimisation. I ask the Taoiseach to condemn this victimisation. Ms Borwick is in the Gallery. That she should be suspended is an action that should be utterly condemned by the Government. The Minister for Health needs to meet with these workers and instruct the HSE to treat them properly.”
“I thank the Ceann Comhairle. I have raised with the Taoiseach before the Northside Home Care Services workers who have been taking industrial action since January. Some of them are in the Gallery. He knows what the issue is here; it is about pay equality. Some of these workers have worked for 25 years and are getting just over €15 an hour. Others are on minimum wage and getting 30% less than others for doing the same job of providing vital care to approximately 500 people on a daily basis. What I raise today is the outrageous victimisation of their shop steward, Sonya Borwick, simply for standing up for the workers she represents. She was suspended yesterday on utterly spurious grounds. Supposedly she breached GDPR by asking people to sign a petition.”
“The Taoiseach said, when he was in the US, that there was no strong evidence that Trump was using Shannon Airport to pursue the war in Iran. What does he mean by that? Has he inspected any of the planes? Has he evidence? Every single day, there are US military plans going through Shannon. Where does the Taoiseach think they are going? They may not be going directly to Iran. They are going to the Ramstein air base in Germany and then on from there into the Middle East. It is time to follow the example of other European countries, some of which are even NATO members, and stop allowing the US to use our airports.”
“The backdrop to the wars, the genocides and the interventions we have seen over the past number of years is the rivalry between the declining power of the US and the emerging power of China. That is the context in which the Government has tried very vigorously to draw Ireland more and more openly into the US-led NATO camp. We can see now in terms of the war crimes being committed in Iran what that means. It is why the vast majority of people defend our neutrality, want to protect our triple lock and do not want to see us involved in US-led wars. It is why people will be on the streets at 1 o'clock on Saturday demanding the protection of our neutrality. The rubber hits the road when it comes to the question of Shannon Airport.”
“If people do not take militant protest action, it will ignore their demands no matter how reasonable and justified they are. It does not want to know. The trade unions have to take heed of this as they enter into pay talks. We are in a new phase of militant protest. Workers do not need heavy machinery to force the Government to listen to them. The most effective form of disruptive action is the strike and that is the power that all workers have. If they use that, they can fight not just for higher wages but for universal free public services, real rent controls, increases in social welfare payments and universal measures on the cost-of-living crisis, including breaking with the reliance on fossil fuels which is what has gotten us into this crisis in the first place. The most immediate thing that can be done is free public transport.”
“Now suddenly the Government, on a Sunday night, found over half a billion euro down the back of the couch. Some of that will trickle down to workers, disabled people and carers, which is welcome. It would not have happened without the protests. The Minister of State said on "Morning Ireland" that the cuts will be wiped away by the international price of oil going up further, which is as result of Trump and Netanyahu's illegal wars. This cowardly Government has still not condemned Trump or Netanyahu for their wars despite the claptrap about standing up for international law. It is often said that power comes from the barrel of a gun. In this country, it seems that power comes from the engine of a tractor. The message from the Government is very clear.”
“I want to remind the Government that the group which led the way on the cost-of-living struggle until the past week or so was disabled people. Outside the Dáil they again led the Affordable Ireland campaign protest a few weeks ago. Why were they to the fore? It was because they were the ones who were hit hardest in the budget with €1,400 worth of cruel and targeted cuts. For months, despite all of the pleading, protest, argument and stories about people having to choose between heating and eating, the Government ignored their request for a €400 emergency payment so that they could pay their winter heating bills. Instead, the Government lectured disabled people and carers that it had to be responsible and careful with the State finances.”
“The alternative is to have price controls to give people security and to stop profiteering and to let people know this is going to be the price. That is what we need to do. The Government has the power to do it. We have a Bill that we introduced two years ago to do it. People were on the streets over the past week demanding it. That has to be matched with universal measures like a €500 energy credit and measures to stop our reliance on fossil fuel immediately. We need to have free public transport. The force to do that is ordinary people. What the Parliament does, the streets can undo. That is what we have seen over the past week and that is what we need to see in the coming weeks to force meaningful action on costs of living to protect people.”
“The Minister of State, Deputy Dooley, was on the radio this morning and he was explaining why the Government has introduced this new package. He claimed, of course, that it has nothing to do with the protests or blockades; nobody believes that. Instead, he said it is because the measures that we introduced a number of weeks ago were wiped out by the international price of oil going up. How could he have known that this would happen? How could the Government have known? We warned the Government. We warned it in that debate that unless it introduced price controls, precisely that would happen. What will happen with the meagre 10 cent and nothing that has been given in terms of kerosene? What will happen to that? Quite likely, that will also be wiped out by an increase in the international price of oil. What is the alternative?”
“-----and it is a lesson for those in government. The people on the streets are more powerful than the people who are supposedly in power. We have seen the power of ordinary people in the past week, and this must now be the start of a new phase of militant, effective protest involving trade unions and communities-----”
“It looks like this Government will hang on to power for now with the votes of the Lowry lackey Independents. There is an important lesson for everyone in that. Do not trust these fake Independents. They are sheep in wolves' clothing. They are people who pretend to stand for the ordinary person, but in reality just seek to get into bed and into government with Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael. That is why we want a general election and a left-wing Government. There is another lesson here-----”
“On the rationale for not recognising long Covid as an occupational illness, it seems the Government makes a distinction between Covid and long Covid. The reason people have long Covid, however, is they got Covid, likely in the workplace. All illnesses are not treated equally. We have an occupational illness scheme that is different. As I said, if you contract HIV or hepatitis as a result of your work, you are treated in a certain way, as these are occupational illnesses. Long Covid should be treated the same.”
“There was a reference to the critical illness protocol, which "may provide supports for up to three years, where the relevant criteria are met." The problem is that many healthcare workers have been turned down for the critical illness protocol, with the HSE citing that long Covid does not meet the criteria. The employer needs to approve it. It can be dressed up in whatever way the Government wants but by shutting down the special scheme and not doing the long-term solution, which is making long Covid an occupational illness, it is throwing these workers who were on the front line, whose health was sacrificed for all our benefit and who put themselves at risk, to the wolves. We really are putting them in an awful situation.”
“The Minister responded by saying that this does not mean the Government will not support workers. He said that staff may receive full pay for three months, which is correct but we are coming to the end of that, followed by half pay for a further three months. People have their childcare bills, their mortgages and the costs of just existing in this cost-of-living crisis. They have a lifestyle based on their pay and will not be able to survive based on half pay. The Minister went on to say that they have the option to apply for temporary rehabilitative remuneration. That is capped at 37.5% of salary. You go from full pay to half pay and then down to just slightly more than a third of pay.”
“Is the Government trying to force people who are still very sick to go back to work when they are incapable of working and when, as Fiona pointed out, they could make mistakes in their work as a consequence of that illness, due to brain fog in particular, which would have negative consequences for patients? Does it want to force them to live in poverty by not providing them with a living income? We should remember all the thanks we had for healthcare workers and all the sacrifices they made for keeping our health service afloat, and support them by the simple measure that is in most European countries of recognising Covid and long Covid as an occupational illness. Why does the Government not agree to do that?”
“If I return to work and made a error or omission that caused harm to a patient that would be entirely on me. And I dont think anyone wants a nurse with brain fog looking after them! I have dealt with a number of people and campaigned on the issue of long Covid in general as well as on the issue of occupational illness. It obviously has a hugely debilitaring impact on people. The costs are immense. Again, to quote Fiona, she said: "I travel to Dublin from Cork every 6 months to see Prof Lambert. All these appointments are between €200 - €250. I am grateful I have health insurance but all these consultant fees add up.My monthly meds are €80 every month. I'm very grateful though the DPS cover all my meds so there capped at €80. Gp visits are up to €75 a visit." What are these people supposed to do? What is the idea here?”
“She said: I can not put into words how debilitating Long Covid is. I will be sick 5 yrs come January. 3 ... friends will be sick 6 years come March. My life as my knew it has changed dramatically. My career and health is now in ruins. I suffer from severe debilitating fatigue. Some days it is choosing between going for shower or cooking dinner as well as fatigue I have tachycardia, brain fog, joint pain, muscular pain ,nerve pain, shortness of breath,headaches, nausea [and] vomiting, recurring mouth ulcers and tinnitus. I am doing my best to recover but unfortunately I'm not there yet so I need my pay protected till I am able to return. As well as being physically unable the brain fog a huge barrier. Right now I couldn't provide safe care to patients. As nurses we are accountable for our practice.”
“They have had serious impacts on their health, which I will go into, and have been abandoned by the Government. The special payments they were on were discontinued in December. They are now on standard public service leave, which gives them full pay for three months and in April, their payments will be halved. They will be left unable to pay their mortgages and their basic bills because the Government refuses to recognise long Covid and Covid as occupational illnesses. That is the answer here. If nurses were to get hepatitis or HIV as a result of their work, they would go on the occupational illness scheme. That is what should be happening to those healthcare workers who got long Covid. I will give some testimony from a woman, Fiona, who was in touch with me. She is a healthcare worker who has long Covid.”
“Deputy Quaide sends apologies. He was able to make it on Tuesday but not when it was rescheduled. He has been raising this issue consistently so I thank him. We all clapped in this Chamber, or perhaps it was in the convention centre, for our healthcare workers. I recall going outside my house, like people all across the country, to clap for our healthcare workers and thank them for standing on the front line during the Covid-19 pandemic, for putting their own health at risk for the rest of us and telling them we had their backs. However, it turns out we did not have their backs. Those workers are being abandoned by the Government. It is absolutely shameful. Healthcare workers got Covid and then long Covid, likely because of the work they were doing.”
“If it is ended, there could be 35,000 people suddenly trying to find private rental accommodation. The vast majority are women and children who would end up homeless, sleeping rough or trying to access totally overstretched emergency accommodation. We have a scheme that is cheap for the State and is providing accommodation for people. The idea that the Government needs to cut it back and try to bring it to an end makes no sense whatsoever. It just serves to pit ordinary people against each other and it would make the housing crisis worse.”
“The Deputy can look at the figures. It does not make any sense for landlords to use this scheme. I am not saying we will not find the odd case here or there. It does not make any sense because people can make more money in other ways. They can make up to €1,166 a month tax-free from the rent-a-room scheme. They can get €600 from this, and they are going to be able to get €400 in the future. The vast majority, 71% are people living in host homes so they do not have a whole property to go. If they have a whole property, obviously, they could get much worse than that. If the Government proceeds with the cuts, the result will be people exiting the scheme. We know that 86% of people say they could not continue to host without the ARP. We know this is because we are in a cost-of-living crisis that is getting worse.”
“The result of this, if the Government follows through and if there is not a significant change in terms of the number of people who are here, will be loads of people thrown into homelessness. It will make the housing crisis worse. If this is what happens, do not worry. We will be clear in terms of who has been calling for this and who is responsible for it which is both the Government and Sinn Féin, if they actually throw all these people onto the housing market and worsen the crisis. We know from the research by the Irish Red Cross that the ARP is not squeezing renters; trying to find a place to rent is. It is disappointing to hear Sinn Féin amplifying that misleading narrative, which comes from people on the far right who are opposed to all immigration.”