Paul Nicholas Gogarty
Dublin Mid-West · Independent · Ireland
“As I have mentioned in the House before, if a border poll passes by 52% to 48%, the legal threshold of the Good Friday Agreement is met but the social consensus is not and moving 800,000 citizens into a new state against their explicit, democratic will does risk causing civil unrest.”
“We also have other gaps that are much smaller, like a ten-year phased transition, reducing the net annual cost to between €2.5 billion and €3 billion. We then had the middle figure of about €11 billion. We actually do not know how much it is going to cost but we do know it is going to cost something.”
“For example, adopting a single currency, getting rid of the exchange rate volatility and the transaction costs for cross-Border businesses are all advantages.”
“I would be loath to call a border poll right now because of the risks associated with that, but if a border poll did occur, the State would have to be prepared for the huge structural disruptions that would follow, so we have to start working now - that is why this debate is welcome - without arrogantly presuming it is going to become a r…”
“I have been listening to this debate in my office since Deputy Currie started her contribution. I always follow these debates on Irish unity with interest as someone who wants to see a united Ireland by consent.”
“Some have been mentioned in this House, such as a devolved regional assembly in Stormont to preserve local governance for the unionist community, a shared bill of rights protecting the dual Irish-British citizenship, and re-evaluating our relationship with the Commonwealth.”
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“I am in two minds as I contribute to this debate. On the one hand, as my colleague said, we are here to celebrate what Europe is supposed to stand for. This year is the 75th anniversary of the Schuman declaration, which laid the foundation for European integration. From the early days of the European Coal and Steel Community, there were efforts to integrate everything to the point where it went beyond the mere pooling of coal and steel production under a single authority to a situation whereby the resources that were used in war could no longer be used separately and could not be used by member states against one another. The evolution continued with the development of what is now the European Union.”
“Some time back, the Garda vetting review group was tasked with examining the current system to see what improvements, if any, could be made, while ensuring continued appropriate and robust checks on people taking on positions of trust working with children and vulnerable persons. While I would be interested in hearing the timeframe for the report, if officials have it to hand, the main thing I want to know is whether there is a plan in the terms of reference to deal with the perceived pointlessness of people having to apply for multiple Garda vettings, such as where a teacher is also a sports mentor or volunteer at a summer camp. Surely, where a person has not come to the attention of the authorities and has met a high standard in working with children, one accreditation should suffice. I hope this has been examined as part of any review.”
“As we have seen with other legislation, the Bill can be tweaked on Committee and Report Stages. We need to send out a signal that we are taking this issue seriously and doing what we can to call out Israeli atrocities.”
“The total Israeli blockade on humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip has now passed 60 days, in what the United Nations human rights chief, Volker Türk, has described as a "new unseen level" of humanitarian crisis. A recent report by Amnesty International stated that Israel was carrying out livestreamed genocide in Gaza, routinely targeting civilians and engaging in torture and enforced disappearances. We are on the third day of hearings by the International Court of Justice into Israel's obligations to Palestinians. The Government's intervention in that case was very welcome but it seems that since the St. Patrick's Day visit to Trump, we have been cowed by US pressure. Will the occupied territories Bill come before the Oireachtas by the end of this term?”
“Is it the case the owner of a hardware store has to take a personal defamation claim, even though the complaints are made against the corporate entity, which is the hardware store? Where is the dividing line?”
“I am generally supportive of this Bill and, unlike some of my colleagues, I see the rationale in not having juries for certain types of defamation cases. However, I have a query about the corporate entity issue, which is a follow up on what other Deputies said. Let us say there is a chain of hardware stores - let us call them Fianna Fáil hardware - and it is owned by Joe Bloggs. Let us also say Fianna Fáil hardware had a couple of defective pots of paints or whatever, but because it is the only hardware store in the town where it sells, the sales do not decrease. Right-thinking members of society, however, are starting to shun and avoid Joe Bloggs who owns the hardware stores.”
“Similarly in regional distribution we are not looking enough at the midland towns and possibly even a new town to be planned from scratch. We have to do it piece by piece and in an integrated way.”
“Clonburris, for example, has one full size GAA-rugby pitch and five soccer pitches for an eventual population of 25,000 people. That is all that has been put into the framework plan. If that is what we are going by at the moment, then we need to deliver things a lot better. Every type of housing needs to be a strategic development zone. Newcastle in my area has a local area plan but it is not worth the paper it is written on because, again, one cannot tie in the schools and the infrastructure alongside the housing. We need to look at that. We also need to focus on our cities. I have said this previously in other contributions. Dublin should have twice the population within the canals. We must look at how to change the planning laws to make it easier to repurpose business units and commercial units.”
“It looks fantastic. It is a great plan with great graphics. If one reads it line by line and bit by bit, it has so much to offer but we all know it is aspirational without the investment. I give the example of water infrastructure. We need massive investment in water infrastructure to facilitate housing. The plan references offshore energy potential. We need massive investment in our ports. To work towards it or to progress towards it is not enough. We need tangible achievable objectives. The housing targets have not been met before so I am still a bit sceptical about what is in this plan but I am more sceptical about the delivery of infrastructure alongside housing. In my constituency, I have seen two strategic development zones, Adamstown and Clonburris.”
“The Commission went through all these notifications to ensure compliance and this is where the regulation needs to be amended. Essentially, if the Dáil approves the motion, it means we can apply the amended recast European insolvency regulation, ensuring that Ireland's insolvency laws align with the updated scope of the European framework. The amendments make no substantive changes to the regulation but the efficient treatment of cross-border insolvency and of debtors with their centre of main interest in an EU member state requires regulation to reflect domestic insolvency laws. The proposal allows this regulation to be continued. As the Minister stated, it adjusts the legal framework of the member states on insolvency by the time of its application. This is why it is a three-month process. It is a rubber stamp and I support it.”
“I am grateful for a few minutes to speak on this very technical but necessary rubber-stamping of amendments to Regulation (EU) 2015/848 to modify its Annexes A and B, following the changes in seven EU member states, as the Minister outlined. It will ensure that the regulation continues to facilitate effective civil and judicial co-operation at EU level. The Minister mentioned that we must do this within three months and this was issued in February. It is important and technical. In July 2022, Slovakia notified the Commission of recent changes to its domestic insolvency law introducing a new preventative restructuring procedure as well as a new type of insolvency practitioner. This was followed, as the Minister outlined, by notifications from Spain, Estonia, Malta and Italy in 2022, Belgium in July 2023 and Luxembourg in January 2024.”
“I refer to sections 3 and 13, parts of section 14 and sections 15 to 18, which relate to the independent appeals process. There is a lot more to be done. While I am here, I will welcome the establishment of a special school in south Lucan. This will initially take 30 students. It is very welcome. However, without the overall framework through which we can properly assess needs, we will still be catching up. I know there have been arguments made that the requirements for special education have changed and that some aspects of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act have to be reviewed but I believe it has ultimately come down to finance. We need to find that money to invest in our children.”
“That is short enough, but it is sufficient to say that I support the motion. I have been around as an elected representative for a long time and was involved with the education committee when the original Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act was enacted. As others have said, it is shocking that so many aspects of that legislation still have not been enacted. I was checking my notes as I was starting to speak and the only sections that have been enacted are those regarding the promotion of an inclusive approach to the education of children and the establishment of the NCSE. That was very welcome but I have heard reports from my own area of assessments done by the NCSE as to what is required not meeting the demand on the ground. Many other sections of the Act have not been brought into effect.”
“It only makes sense to increase the journey time if you are actually increasing the number of people using the service. I take that point. It needs to be pushed and tried out.”
“While I have been told in meetings with the NTA that there will be additional carriages put on, those carriages will be taken from improvements to the northern line. They will be second-hand carriages. The roll-out of the DART+ South West could be in 2027 or 2028. The overall train service is poor. Adamstown had a designation of no more than 1.25 car spaces per house. The whole idea of Adamstown is to encourage public transport and active travel. In this context, it makes absolute sense for Adamstown to be an intercity hub to go to other areas. It is worth trying at peak times. Put on one stop-off to Galway, mar shampla, or Cork and see how it works and see whether that increases the number of people using the train service overall.”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as ucht a fhreagra. The reply mentions that there could be up to five minutes' delay. The whole selling point for Adamstown and Kishoge was that we have four tracks. Some of it was part of the strategic development zone scheme, as was the Phoenix Park tunnel interconnection. To put this in context, the people currently living in Adamstown and Lucan are badly served by the train service. In the context of the suburban routes, I receive numerous complaints with regard to overcrowding, the lack of convenient times and the inability to get to the likes of Grand Canal Dock at the weekends. We have had an announcement from Iarnród Éireann that services along some routes, including those servicing Adamstown and Kishoge, will be curtailed up until October.”
“That area has a much smaller population than the already growing Adamstown population of 12,000 people. I ask the Minister of State and his colleagues, in discussions with the NTA, to look at this, particularly as he has his hand on the lever, so to speak. I will talk more about departmental funding after the Minister of State’s contribution. There is a pressing and worthwhile need to at least have morning and evening peak stop-offs at either Adamstown or Clonburris, although probably Adamstown in light of the existing population. Try it out, see how it works and see whether it increases the numbers using our intercity train services.”
“In that context, there is a huge catchment area for train use but such usage will only be encouraged if it is convenient. I know quite a few IT professionals – there is a diverse demographic in the Adamstown area - who car pool regularly every week in order to go to Galway to do their work. Some people drive rather than car pool, however. They are clogging up the roads when they could get the train. No one is going to spend 40 to 50 minutes on a bus going to Heuston station to then get the train back out again. There is a pressing need for these towns on the outskirts of Dublin, although they are in Dublin, to be treated in their own right as part of an intercity service. I note that, coming from Galway, there is one stop-off in the morning at nearby Hazelhatch and Celbridge.”
“If you were to start in Adamstown and try to get a train to the likes of Galway, for example, it would probably take between 40 minutes and one hour to get to Heuston Station or you would be doing a lot of waiting around trying to time a journey in the other direction. Adamstown definitely has a need for an intercity train station or, if not Adamstown, Kishoge, which is in the Clonburris strategic development zone. While Adamstown has 8,000 houses, Clonburris will have between 8,500 to 11,000. Adamstown’s projected population is 25,000. Clonburris could have anything up to 30,000. Adamstown is a lot more developed. Some €4 million was wasted on the redevelopment of the Kishoge Station because it was not opened in 2009 when it could have been to cater for the existing population of Lucan. The wider Lucan population is almost 60,000.”
“Maidin mhaith, a Aire Stáit. Is lá álainn é ag deireadh mhí Aibreáin. Ceapaim gur lá iontach é le dul ar thuras traenach. Is é sin an t-ábhar I am talking about today. It is a great day for a train journey but if one lives in the newer areas in my constituency, such as Adamstown, and if one is an IT professional who needs to go to the likes of Galway, one has to go all the way back into Heuston Station or wait a long time to get a connection to Portarlington. It really is not worth one's while so we need an intercity stop. There is always a question as to where an intercity route would stop in suburban areas. About 12,000 people live in Adamstown. It is a strategic development zone that has a larger population than Portarlington, which has a train station, and Kildare town.”
“Despite experts telling them that there was not a need for operations, individual practitioners overruled that and said, "Doctor knows best. You have to listen to me." If root-and-branch reform of how these types of operations are managed does not take place in the next couple of months, there will be serious consequences. The motion mentions what happened prior to 2021. As Deputy Lawless asked, has anything happened since the information came to light in 2023? We need to find that out because we are talking about potentially tens of thousands of surgeries, as the wording of the motion states.”
“That is why the Minister has an opportunity on this occasion. On hip surgeries, in some ways it is slightly different in that specific hospitals seem to have been worse than others. This relates to a fundamental lack of oversight of the individual practitioners and management structures in those particular hospitals. It ties into the wider debate about corporate governance in CHI. My colleague, also named Paul, mentioned that of the 147 cases the majority related to Cappagh, which has a smaller cohort of operations. A number of cases relate to Temple Street. The fundamental point is that no matter what hospital was involved, parents and children suffered unnecessarily as a result of the opinions that were given.”
“I thank colleagues for tabling the motion. This is an important issue. It was good to have a wider contextual debate on what went on in CHI earlier. To recap, I take on board what the Minister said during her contribution. I did not get a chance to come back to it during that debate but I will do so now. We need accountable and deliverable movement in the next couple of months due to the fact that this has been going on for so long. I take in good faith what the Minister set out to do, but I hope that will end up happening. The Minister said it could be anyone standing here, which I take on board. Successive Ministers have had to face what came at them. It is not the job of the Minister to micromanage. Therefore, it is more about what the response is when the information comes out.”
“She has a narrow window of opportunity to take meaningful action or else, as she will be aware, people will be calling for her resignation also. Hopefully, the Minister will take the bull by the horns. The issues are too serious to let this rot continue.”
“There is no training in infection control or the correct way to use PPE in some of these hospitals. There have been allegations of many other generally unsafe practices. These are allegations but they need to be thoroughly investigated as soon as possible. Even without these allegations, we already know that Children's Health Ireland is a total mess. The acting chief executive and the interim deputy chief executive have both stepped down from their roles. Most recently, the chairman of the board of management resigned. The whole board needs to be reconstituted and management reassessed. This cannot be claimed as a Government achievement; it is a Government failure. I congratulate the Minister on her appointment.”
“Protected whistleblower disclosures suggest, for example, that chemotherapy procedures for children at Crumlin are being cancelled because the IT system is totally inadequate, with on overdependence on dodgy Wi-Fi and no wired connection. Whistleblowers have also claimed that a failing Wi-Fi system over a number of weeks meant they had no PCs or printers to make and administer chemotherapy. This is shocking if it is true. We have also heard stories of surgeons at Temple Street and Crumlin children's hospitals routinely starting operations on children without the help of vital X-rays to guide them. Other allegations include staff being allowed to work without Garda vetting, a failing back-up PC in an intensive care unit at Temple Street children's hospital and, allegedly, a further 324 unresolved IT issues because of an IT dispute.”
“Children's Health Ireland is a publicly-funded hospital group in disarray. We have had the ongoing issues with spinal surgeries, the shocking use of non-medical grade springs for scoliosis, which my colleagues mentioned so I will not go into it even though it is such an important issue, and the massive waiting lists. Later, we will discuss the large number of unnecessary hip surgeries, which again raises questions about clinical judgment and governance. Added to this, we have had alarmingly high infection rates in certain hospitals, which should never be allowed to happen. We then have the IT systems issue.”
“Will the Taoiseach commit to bring in meaningful measures to reduce the circulation of nitrous oxide for non-industrial purposes, further restricting its sale and seriously prosecuting those involved in the distribution of this harmful substance?”
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. Yet, this is what we keep doing in relation to the scourge of nitrous oxide usage. The latter has led to serious injury and death in this country and is now a major source of litter in our communities. So far, it has been left to the Revenue Commissioners to deal with the issue. In that context, they seized 55,000 large canisters last year. The HSE focuses on giving advice to parents on a harm-reduction fact sheet. Otherwise, we rely on section 74 of the Child Care Act 1991, which relates to selling things to under-18s. That is not enough. This scourge is growing in our communities, so more is needed from a legislative and resourcing perspective.”
“If we are trying to spend the money in a targeted way, it has been suggested in a number of circles that we have to focus on key towns for redevelopment around the country and ask where we can increase the population in the best way. Obviously, as I have mentioned in a couple of contributions, we also need to focus on Dublin city centre, which has massive potential for redevelopment. The key message I want to send during my brief contribution in this debate is to invest, invest, invest, and borrow, if necessary, because it is in our strategic long-term interests.”
“We had some discussion yesterday on other aspects of Irish Water. I mentioned the ageing infrastructure and the fact that we have high levels of leakage - 40% overall, although 16% in newer, fast-growing areas like my part of south Dublin. However, some pipes, particularly in the city areas, are more than 100 years old. We need that general investment. That is clear. As others have said - we had this conversation with regard to the money coming from Apple, for example - we need to invest billions of euro in our water infrastructure, not just because of environmental directives and EU regulations on clean water and proper wastewater treatment facilities but also because of the housing crisis.”
“Perhaps we could even do what the Americans did during the Second World War and encourage some of the Irish Americans disillusioned with their fragile US democracy to come to Ireland and develop our own collaborative knowledge base within the EU. Out of every crisis comes an opportunity. Our current model will not end suddenly overnight, but it is unlikely to go back to the way it was before and so we need to start moving in new directions. Let us get some ideas together and try some strategies. Some might work, while others will not. We must collaborate. Let us think bigger.”
“Why can we not reorient and revitalise our potential as a data storage location by ensuring we have excess energy to export at all times and a back-up green hydrogen solution? Why can we not be at the forefront of green aerospace and shipping? We could be at the forefront of the revolution using electric cargo and electric short-haul planes, rather than letting other countries develop the technology. If not along with them, then maybe we could do this in partnership within the EU. In Weston in my constituency, for example, I heard there might be a trial of pilotless planes that have electric engines. Why can we not be the Irish version of Finland's Nokia, which was huge back in the day? Why can we not develop our own pharmaceutical capabilities and gain an intellectual advantage? Where are the next 20 great Irish inventions, for example?”
“We need to provide practical supports to Irish jobs at risk and invest in our SMEs. I acknowledge that Enterprise Ireland has already built up a team to look at individual strategies for various companies. It is great to see. I could be wrong, but I think I read somewhere that up to 200 or 300 companies were being looked at in this context. We need to develop this approach in the longer term as we reorient for a more sustainable long-term pathway. By sustainable, I also mean in a climate-friendly way, using cutting-edge technology. Last but not least, we need to invest in and develop our own innovations. We are years behind Scotland, Portugal and Denmark in terms of wave technology, as I said, but we can catch up and overtake those countries.”
“We also need to look at emerging Asian markets and examine meaningful and fair trade initiatives in Africa, our version of the Belt and Road initiative as part of an EU strategy perhaps but without the colonial hangover. We are in a good position as a European country because we were colonised. There is huge suspicion on the African continent about any European former colonial so-called masters coming in and trying to impose stuff. That is why there was openness towards China but, as with the Chinese, nothing comes for free. If we can get some kind of fair arrangement with Ireland at the forefront with our historical links to the religious orders, we should do so. It is more complex than that. I am just talking a little bit off the top of my head here, but it is worth sticking all these ideas on the board because we need plenty of them.”
“We also need to expand trade partnerships beyond traditional markets and develop existing ones outside the US and the equally risky China. There were some critics of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, but maybe we need to look at that great country as another English-speaking market with strong historical and cultural ties. Equally, I do not like the EU-Mercosur trade agreement but it might be forced upon us in some shape or form as part of the EU-wide trade agreement. We need to bite the bullet and come up with suggestions that will mutually benefit Irish and South American economies in a sustainable way. From a food perspective, there is strong potential to sell to Middle Eastern countries that import most of their food.”
“I also mentioned that it is a no-brainer to invest in and even borrow to achieve energy self-sufficiency. I will now focus on diversification. The model of Ireland's dependence on a few operators in a handful of business sectors to generate a massive windfall has served us well. It has been criticised over many years but, in essence, we made hay while the sun was shining. Now we see the clouds and we still have an opportunity to diversify before the downpour. We should engage with sensible people in the US Administration who seek to mitigate the current policy. Many Republican Party elected representatives from export-dependent states might be worried right now. We need to hold up our noses and continue to keep channels open with the highest levels of the Trump Government. Of course, where that will go is another story.”
“I mentioned in my speech earlier today that it is likely there will continue to be a long-term shift towards a more isolationist stance in the US, irrespective of who is in the White House. Therefore, how we adapt will have real consequences for Ireland as a nation. It might not happen with one big drop-off in revenue or a sudden, catastrophic loss of jobs, but the trend will show in due course and we need to be ready. In my earlier contribution, I called for a special committee to be set up and I reiterate that. Input should be sought from various experts in their fields to help to formulate a paradigm shift in how we do business globally, albeit transitioning in an incremental way because we still have revenues coming in the old way.”
“To continue from what I said earlier, if MAGA USA has a plan aside from Trump's ego and desire to exercise power, it could be that the tariff strategy is aimed at devaluing the dollar while also managing to retain it as the global reserve currency. I am not sure about that but it is a radical and risky strategy, if there is a strategy. It could equally be totally unintentional and be purely about reducing trade deficits and bringing jobs back, which is likely to happen quickly enough. However, if it is intentional and the dollar weakens too much, it could cause central banks around the world to diversify from holding dollars in their reserves. There could be a bit of bullying going on in the tariff bombast, trying to get a few countries to fall into line to suit US purposes, while ignoring others. Either way, Ireland needs to adapt.”
“We should be at the forefront and put some of our strategic reserves into that investment because for a small amount of short-term pain in terms of not having money to spend on other things, we will avoid having to spend up to €6 billion on those imports every year and, no matter what the world throws at us in global crises, at least we will have our self-sufficiency in energy. Countries like Iceland that have geothermal power are able to produce all sorts of foodstuffs no matter what sort of crisis the world is in. We are not as badly off as we are painting it. We do have potential and I will talk about that during the later debate.”
“In the debate later today, I will look at a few suggestions in that regard but I want to focus in the minute I have remaining in this slot on what we absolutely should be doing, which is investing in self-sufficiency in energy. Some 80% of our energy requirements come from imports. We should start making strategic investments in a big way to get rid of the requirement for oil and gas, either through green hydrogen or through renewables. I mentioned in a number of debates in this House that it is not just about offshore and onshore wind energy; it is also about wave technology. We are ten years behind Demark and Scotland.”
“The talk has been that down the line we may not get investment in newer technologies but there will not be a sudden drop-off or a total collapse of our economy. At the same time, it is a wake-up call because we do not know whether there may be a rebalancing in the House of Representatives and the US Senate two years from now and the Democrats bringing a little bit of common sense back into it. As the long-term shift in the US is going to be a little more isolationist in any event, we have to start looking to diversify. We cannot do it today but we can do it over two to three years. If there is a message I would like to send out, it is that we need to start possibly setting up a special committee on dealing with this crisis and inviting all the best experts in to it and looking at how we can move forward.”
“It will be different from the global crash in 2008, which some would say was exacerbated by the policies of the Fianna Fáil Administrations before that, but we are going to face testing times and we need to have strategies in place to deal with that. However, it is different and we need to have a balance between scaremongering on one hand and trying to have proper schemes to deal with this crisis on the other. Let us look first at the slightly more positive aspects, to which some speakers have alluded. The pharmaceutical sector in Ireland is massive and it is not entirely based on exports to the US. Even if a pharma tariff comes in and hits our exports in a big way, we are not going to have a massive relocation to the US because of the skill set and the base we have.”
“We have moved a long way since those days of live exports and people thanks to the policies of the Lemass Government at the time and in particular the great T. K. Whitaker. Ireland's economic policy to try to get manufacturing into Ireland was his brainchild. We got German and American companies, companies from the UK or anywhere else. We had a cheaper cost of production and the skills and Ireland built up a manufacturing base throughout the fifties and sixties. This morphed into IT and pharmaceuticals and because of that base we have a skill set. On one hand, we are going to face a lot of economic turmoil.”
“Go raibh maith agat. I welcome the opportunity to have this discussion. It is also good to know we will have a further chance to talk about the current Trump slump later today. It is widely known that in the 1940s and 1950s, the cliché was that Ireland's biggest exports were live cattle and people. Many of these people went on to create lives and send money back to Ireland from the UK and the US. These early immigrants who contributed to the United States in so many ways are part of the great diaspora that Trumps likes to talk up during elections, but then he treated Ireland people so disrespectfully on St. Patrick's Day by bringing that thug to the White House, which I referenced before.”
“We must accept the principle that once everyone has the fundamental right to water, there have to be behavioural incentives, rather than revenue-raising measures, to encourage people to conserve water. To me, it is pure and simple.”
“My young fella and a couple of lads I know from the GAA club were in Croke Park and picked up €30 worth of bottles that were just discarded. If the deposit were 50 cent per small bottle - we should leave the bigger ones alone because there are issues with people who are recycling at home already - people would be incentivised not to throw those bottles on the ground. It would halve the litter problem overnight if there was a proper charge on those bottles. Similarly in respect of water, we need to find a way to do this without penalising families or causing any sort of hardship. There are issues but we need to have an open and honest debate.”
“In that context, in line with so many countries around the world, the principle of paying beyond a fair reasonable allocation of water has already been set. There are numerous examples which I do not have time to discuss in the two minutes I have, but it has been done in multiple countries around the world. At the same time, there are issues. If you give a free allowance to people in a block of apartments, for example, but not to people in their own houses or people in group water schemes, who, as acknowledged, already pay, there will be a differential in terms of what people contribute. I want to go back to the money back on bottles in the old days. The current scheme is not necessarily fit for purpose. You get 15 cent back on the small bottles but a lot of people out there still throw them on the ground.”
“Water is a fundamental right, which means that irrespective of income or means the water infrastructure should be funded through general taxation. In this context, I fully support and reiterate the calls of colleagues for a referendum on water infrastructure and ownership vested in the people of Ireland. It is a matter on which I have previously tabled motions when I was a councillor. However, there is another angle to look at. Today, Uisce Éireann sent out a warning about low water levels and asked people to conserve water. Like it or not, we have a leakage problem. We get massive amounts of rainfall at the wrong times and in the wrong places, causing flooding, but we have a scarcity of drinkable water.”
“Finally, I will address the bus driver angle. Taxi drivers between the ages of 70 and 75 can drive a taxi, as many people have noted, but if they want to add to the service to transport kids to special schools, Bus Éireann does not let them. I know it is within Bus Éireann’s remit to look at that but maybe we should issue guidelines. We have the workforce ready, willing and able to provide a service that is clearly needed. I call on the Minister of State to please let the people who are capable do the service and give them a bit of meaning in their lives.”