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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“It is good to have a few extra minutes to talk about this. Obviously, this legislation is about the National Oil Reserves Agency 2 cent levy suspension. That makes it 22 cent in total on diesel, 17 cent in total on petrol and another 2 cent reduction on home heating oil. As I have said and others have said, it is simply not enough in the current crisis. I know it is a geopolitical issue, but geopolitics hits people very hard, especially the most vulnerable. We had calls earlier in the year for a €400 support for people with disabilities who face additional costs. Imagine how they are faring right now with this. The excise duty cuts are not going to make up for the fuel price increases. The most vulnerable in our society are going to be affected by it. We need to do more.”
“It is massively more expensive to charge using these on-street chargers rather than using the domestic tariff. Could that be looked at in this context?”
“We have had a discussion about the immediate measures needed to help with the fuel crisis. We have also talked about the longer term investment in the grid network. I am talking about a couple of quick wins. Yesterday the issue of plug-in solar, which would put it into the household, was referenced. I would like to add to that by talking about the solar panels that you can put on your balcony and use to charge your devices. There should be some sort of a discount on them, or some sort of a grant should be available, so people can save those little costs that add up over a period. Second, in relation to EVs, at the moment a lot of newer estates do not have their own driveways. They are trying to put a cable underground. I have raised this before.”
“They are the ones at the forefront identifying problems as they arise and we need to resource that particular grouping in particular.”
“We do not have public sector workers living in areas where they are able to see what is going on in their daily lives as opposed to their working lives. When I raised the issue of antisocial behaviour in a Private Members' motion last year, the Minister gave a commitment that he would look at freeing up Garda time. I gave the example of a school where stones were being thrown at the school by people who are trying to rob bikes and the Garda response was "sorry, the car is in at the courts". Obviously, for antisocial behaviour orders, a sergeant or someone of a higher rank is needed to go in but a lot of Garda time is spent in court testifying when it could be done more efficiently through video. This would free up gardaí to operate on the ground. The key element of this motion is the reduction in community gardaí.”
“I welcome this brief opportunity to talk about Garda resourcing. I spoke very recently about how the actual number of gardaí per head of population is lower now than it was in 2008, which is a shocking indictment of the system. The Minister needs to get more gardaí into the system and obviously that means paying them, along with other public sector workers, a fair and decent wage and getting rid of the yellow-pack pay and conditions that were brought in during the times of austerity. Equally, we have to provide opportunities for gardaí to live and work in communities. We can possibly look introducing a Dublin allowance for people living in very expensive areas. In my constituency, the cost of affordable housing keeps going up because of demand. I have spoken about that before as well.”
“In the context of this fuel crisis, that is a reasonable ask at this stage, as are measures that can also support middle-income earners, especially pensioners who are just over the threshold but are going to be hit by the fuel costs. As others have mentioned, there are people who are dependent on home heating oil because they cannot get the piped gas. It is mainly in rural areas, but it also affects people in urban areas. In the longer term, as I mentioned when the Tánaiste was here previously, we absolutely need to move towards energy self-sufficiency and I would like to see that put on a wartime footing, with a five-year project rather than a 25-year project. For climate change reasons but especially for energy self-security, we need to move a lot faster than we are.”
“A week on from previous statements, the Government has finally come up with some measures, so I will be supporting them, like others in this House. However, that does not mean I think they are in any way sufficient. Hauliers have been dealt with and there is the 2 cent measure coming tomorrow with respect to storage, but the reduction in excise duty on its own is not enough. The cost of fuel has gone up by more than the amount by which excise duty is going to be cut. People in vulnerable situations need support. We had a discussion earlier this year about the cost-of-living allowance that is needed for people with disabilities. One of the calls coming from advocacy groups was that the fuel allowance should be extended to people on disability-related payments and that the season would be lengthened to 32 weeks.”
“With this serious and growing public health threat, what additional measures and resourcing will the Government provide to curb the online sale of dangerous medicines, protect vulnerable people and ensure safe and affordable access to legitimate treatments?”
“The Taoiseach may have seen the latest figures from the Health Products Regulatory Authority, HPRA, which are a cause for concern. Last year, for example, more than 750,000 units of illegal or fake medicines were seized and the number of individual packages separately purchased by members of the public rose by a whopping 180%. There was a 30-fold surge in fake glucagon-like peptide-1, GLP-1, weight loss products, for example, and also a sharp rise in seizures of pregabalin, which is a drug with legitimate applications, such as for epilepsy, but which can kill when misused. The HPRA, to its credit, has shut down thousands of online listings but the problem is still escalating.”
“We then have other media that are perceived to be on the social side. That is all very welcome. We need to make sure that it is maintained.”
“It is not just about this Bill; it is an ongoing responsibility for any democracy, especially when democracies are under threat across the world. We will need regular reviews and proper reporting systems and obviously the funding. I welcome this Bill's alignment with European standards and its commitment to independent oversight, but I hope Coimisiún na Meán will have the resources it needs in order that we can facilitate a diverse, pluralistic and fair-minded media going forward. I say that because we are massively under threat. We need a media we can trust. We need to be able to say that RTÉ has a particular neutral opinion and will not publish anything until it has checked all the facts because it is afraid of being sued. Gript media might be seen as being a little to the right, but it has a valid voice.”
“I saw this recently in relation to my constituency where someone published misinformation online that was shared across Facebook and Instagram. That is the sort of stuff that spreads long before you are able to get the real story, and that can sometimes cause a lot of anguish. I know there is regulation of social media influencers by other means, but we need to get a little tougher in terms of the powers relating to that side of things. While it does not relate to this Bill, I want to refer to the social media companies in terms of what they allow to be published and how they regulate it. These companies have disinvested in proper moderation and fact-checking. They should not be allowed to get away with that. We need to go beyond what is in this Bill, because a vibrant diverse media is not a one-off.”
“It is no longer a career that I would encourage someone to go into unless they feel it is a vocation and they are at the top of their game. What I, as a politician as opposed to a journalist, have noticed is that in the old days, journalists would go to council meetings and would report on what happened. They would talk to people at the meetings and ask them questions. What I have noticed more and more is that stories tend to be printed by those who can send in ready-made press statements as opposed to by the journalists who have the tools to go out and find the stories and get behind them. That is something we have to watch out for as we go because journalism is under threat in light of the nature of the modern media age whereby we have social media influencers who display a lot less responsibility.”
“I learned shorthand, which I have forgotten, learned how to type on a clunky typewriter, and learned all about defamation law, the principles of good journalism and how there are different types of journalism. For example, there are colour writers like the inimitable Miriam Lord, who was there when I was training, and there is news reporting and opinion pieces, and we learned the difference between the types. These days, it has become more blurred. One thing I have noticed is the lack of ability of media outlets to raise money. I am talking about the over-reliance on advertising and the lack of purchasing of the old-style newspapers, which are in decline. It is difficult to try to fund proper journalism and to make it a career, particularly as journalists' pay is massively under threat and has been declining over the years.”
“A pluralist media is not just about preventing dominance at the top; it is also about ensuring that community voices, regional newspapers and independent digital outlets can survive and thrive. These have been challenged over the years. Many of the local newspapers, for example, are now in the hands of larger companies. I want to make a point from that angle. I know there is a European fund for reporting. We have seen in many local newspapers that content behind a paywall is made freely available by dint of this funding. This allows journalists to report on a wider range of relevant stories. I want to put on record that my background is in journalism. I went to what used to be called the College of Commerce in Rathmines, which is now TU Dublin.”
“It is all bells and whistles, or motherhood and apple pie, as long as we have an agency that is resourced to monitor that all of this is happening, and that the annual reports detail the legal names of providers and business groups, as well as the total amounts spent in each section. That is good stuff. However, while praising the Bill and what it is trying to do, we need to find a balance between regulation and putting costs on certain businesses - by that, I mean the smaller ones. We need a system that allows the public, the Oireachtas and the media to see exactly how decisions are made but at the same time, we need to ensure that the smaller local outlets are not unintentionally disadvantaged because of regulation.”
“There are also statutory requirements to adhere to legal obligations, such as requirements for public notices or advertising as Gaeilge freisin. To ensure non-discrimination, certain procedures are required. This has to be publicly available in advance. The criteria and procedures for awarding funds have to be published electronically before the award process begins. It requires the use of open and proportionate procedures for awarding contracts. All advertising campaigns must be based on a strategic brief that identifies clear communication goals and the target audience. Key performance indicators must be set for each campaign.”
“It is not just about passing legislation but it is about making sure that when this is enacted, Coimisiún na Meán is fully resourced. Regarding the area of state advertising, there are a few welcome things. Article 25 of the European Media Freedom Act, which this Bill facilitates, requires that public funds for state advertising and service contracts are awarded based on transparent, objective, proportionate and non-discriminatory criteria. This puts pressure on public and local authorities to consider certain factors when choosing where to place state advertising. Decisions must be based on the media outlet's ability to reach a specific target audience and also the cost effectiveness of advertising spend, as well as its geographical spread, so it is done across different regions, with local versus national.”
“To go back to the Bill, it is great that the EU principles of press freedom are finally going into Irish legislation. However, as was mentioned in relation to tackling the IT companies and social media, if we want to keep a transparent and pluralistic media, we also have to be serious about resourcing the body that will enforce it. I agree with colleagues who are worried about the Minister passing it on to Coimisiún na Meán. Coimisiún na Meán has already been given major responsibilities for online safety, broadcasting standards and other types of media regulation. We are now adding complex merger assessments, new notification powers and the oversight of state advertising into the mix. We have to ensure that these new roles have adequate staff and expertise.”
“We have heard this about other types of legislation but also in the context of the McCarthyite phrase that is coming into vogue again, that is, the chilling effect on reporting, or possibly in relation to social media, the chilling effect on fact-checking. We already see this on social media, where just two entities, Meta and Alphabet, are estimated to control over 80% of Irish digital advertising revenues as of 2024. We have seen how hard it is to get these and other social media companies to monitor and regulate their content. It has been hugely challenging, even at a European level. Sin sceál eile. It applies to traditional print and broadcast media as well but at least the level of regulation and penalties available there has been better applied to date, so we have not had the same types of issues.”
“This law is trying to remedy that, pushed on, as it is, by the EU framework law. That is why the pluralism-focused merger review required under Article 22 of the European Media Freedom Act is so important. It is not just about competition and market share but about bread-and-butter transparency. It asks the question and tries to seek out whether a merger reduces the range of viewpoints expressed, whether it over-focuses on sensationalism rather than facts, whether it gives one owner too much influence over public debate and whether editorial independence could be compromised, although not necessarily directly.”
“If it helps to safeguard the independence of journalism, it is hugely important and essential to any healthy democracy, in particular our small but healthy democracy. As I said, part of the reason trust in the free press is declining is that we have one of the most concentrated media markets in Europe. That means that every merger or acquisition has a disproportionate impact on the diversity of voices available to the public. Annual reports published by bodies like the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom consistently rank Ireland, a country with very high press freedom, as very "high risk" for market plurality. The 2024 data, which is the latest available, showed a 71% risk score for market plurality, primarily due to what is called the lack of quantitative limits on media concentration in Irish law.”
“I do not think there is too much of that in this country, in any event, so I would say that it will be freer of allegations of political interference. Down the line, there may be parties in government that are more inclined to seek to interfere in the political process, and we have seen that with the rise of populist parties across Europe. It is a good thing to have this set aside now in case, in the future, we have different configurations that might be less democratically inclined. We live in an age of misinformation and disinformation. Troll factories located in eastern Europe, Russia, Asia and all around the world are deliberately setting out to misinform, disinform, tell outright lies and increase the levels of distrust in our media.”
“I am a great critic of parking health issues with the HSE, parking transport issues with the NTA or saying, "This is a matter for the Garda Commissioner." It is very hard to get direct answers to parliamentary questions or hold agencies to account in the same way. Having a Minister directly involved in the media just provides ammunition to the conspiracy theorists, who call RTÉ and its ilk the "lamestream media", and basically perpetuate the increasing distrust in the media. In my view, it is good for the monitoring and regulation of the media to be one step removed from a Minister. When it goes to Coimisiún na Meán and if it works and does what the EU framework legislation intends, it may create a more transparent and pluralistic media, freer of political interference.”
“There is a general need for regulation, especially with the very small size of our market and the resulting tendency towards the overconcentration of ownership. It is true to say that for years, Ireland has needed a clearer and more independent system for assessing the media mergers that take place in order to protect editorial independence and ensure transparency in terms of how the State allocates advertising money. This Bill moves key decisions away from the Minister and into the hands of Coimisiún na Meán. I want to reference the comments made by other Deputies in the House with regard to moving decisions from the Minister.”
“I want to begin by broadly welcoming the Bill and acknowledging the important work it seeks to do in bringing us into line with the European Media Freedom Act. It is true and has been said before that Ireland is still considered to have one of the freest, and arguably the finest, presses in the world. We are consistently ranking within the top ten nations, according to the annual world press freedom index published by Reporters Without Borders. That said, the ranking has on occasion, experienced a few fluctuations due to concerns regarding, for example, legal threats to journalists, especially in the context of so-called SLAPPS that are often cited in connection with defamation lawsuits filed by politicians, political parties and certain business tycoons.”
“I reiterate once again that we have to be more proactive in terms of our energy self-sufficiency. This current shock may or may not have been predicted. We had a discussion during Leader’s Questions a month ago on what Ireland was doing in terms of the despotic Iranian regime/ There is no love lost in terms of wanting to see it gone. Equally, however, what the Trump Administration and Netanyahu have done is counterproductive, and it is impacting on all of us. This reinforces the argument that we have to double, treble or even quadruple our efforts on energy self-sufficiency and ramping up renewables, not only wind, but also wave, tidal, solar and producing green hydrogen. We have to treat it like a war-time situation. If this eases off, something else will come down the road.”
“I take on board what the Government said about not having a knee-jerk reaction to fuel prices. We are in a very volatile situation and who knows which way it is going to go over the coming months? At the same time, there is some space for some sort of interim coverage. I would say it is going to be coming, to be quite honest. I would like more proactivity in terms of the timescale of what the Government is doing. Ultimately, as others have referred to, the companies have pushed the prices of petrol, diesel and kerosene up at a rate never seen before. I can only see it as price gouging. The companies will argue differently. We have to look at ways of clawing that back over a period of time. There is an argument in the medium term for the excise duties but I am initially thinking of electricity bills especially as well as home fuel costs.”
“There have been suggestions that in Denmark people have found ways of getting flavoured vapes through other means so we will have to be able to police this going forward anyway.”
“I support the Bill. In terms of the general debate, we had the discussion already on Second Stage in terms of having everything put together in one piece of legislation and I will not go back into that. There has been a lobby coming through about the flavours and the suggestion that people will go back to smoking tobacco. I suppose the key point to make there is they are already used to the tobacco taste and smell, so why would it make them go back? I take on board what Deputy Rice said about menthol because we already have menthol cigarettes but the whole idea about getting rid of the flavours is to stop young people getting into vapes, which the evidence has shown they are getting into in their own right, separate from ever thinking about smoking. We should not be fooled by the campaign. We should get on with the legislation.”
“It is better than leaving people in legal uncertainty, but unless it is met with resources, it will be just a stopgap. I wish the Minister of State well in bringing this legislation forward. It is not a field in which I consider myself an expert or in which I am particularly knowledgeable, but others on the committee know more and I hope they will put forward amendments, which the Minister of State will look at in due course. to make the Bill as strong as possible and I hope that she provides the resources.”
“I am sure the Minister of State will say the resources will be applied over the coming years, but often those promises have not been followed up sufficiently quickly. It is something to take on board because we do not want to replace one flawed system with another that looks better on paper but leaves vulnerable people without adequate protection. My key point is resourcing. The Decision Support Service needs sustained investment. The courts need additional capacity. People in the system need accessible information and consistent support to ensure their views, preferences and free will are entirely taken on board so that things are not just put into the legislation but exist in the real practical application of things. I welcome the Bill.”
“If extensions are granted, there should be very strict time limits. I do not know if anyone here in the Chamber has spoken about an ongoing consistent review but the committee has discussed the question of set periods of time. Second is a question which relates to training in the past or, more important, going forward. Will professionals in healthcare, social care and in the legal field apply the functional capacity tests in a uniform way? Will the resources be put into training to make sure that, in all sectors, these decisions will be made in a measurable way? Obviously discretion is needed in certain instances but it should not be left to an uneven process, on the basis of either region or sex. If we do want this very welcome rights-based system, we have to invest in it.”
“The courts could have been asked to absorb this kind of surge of complex reviews in many cases without getting the additional resources they needed. I do not know that for a fact. I am not totally familiar, but it has been suggested that the courts were not getting the resources to deal with it over a period of time. Maybe the Minister of State would come back on that. The main criticisms have been that the system was under-resourced from the word go, so if we are moving forward with a new model, there is a question of whether it will get that resourcing. If the legislation is to work as intended, the extension mechanism will need to be managed, for example. It cannot be a rolling deferral. People have been waiting for a long time to exit the system, which we have all acknowledged is outdated.”
“I support most of the elements within the Bill and the whole intention behind it because it deals with a real and immediate risk that people who are wards of court could be left in a legal vacuum because the system has not been able to complete all the capacity reviews in time. Of course, no one wants that to happen, and the legislation will hopefully give the courts the flexibility they need to prevent it. When we are in opposition, as others will say as well, we have to ask why we are here. The deadline in the 2015 Act did not just suddenly appear. As a State, successive Governments have had years to prepare for the transition away from wardship. The Decision Support Service was trying to do its best in these circumstances but, in my view, was not given the levels of staffing or funding required to meet the challenges.”
“I will follow up on what Deputy Lawless said about people coming into assets after a period of time. I do not think it is going to be overnight, as such. There have been studies, some of which are actually quite offensive, in which homeless people have been given money. I have seen this in the United States. One guy got in the region of $500,000 and it was gone within six months. There are, therefore, issues. If people are not used to handling money or other assets, there has to be some sort of process tied into that. I do not think it will happen overnight, but it is something of which to be cognisant. I listened to the Minister of State's contribution last night; I was in the Chamber for most of it anyway.”
“However, not enough people who are suitable for international treatments are using it for some reason and that needs to be encouraged. We still do not have full answers to the question of the huge number of cancellations since 2022 and they need to be addressed in more detail.”
“If the Minister is trying to go forward in line with the promises given a few weeks ago, she should be listening to the groups and trying to get the independent facilitator to do the scoping process and then go into the inquiry. When the process is scoped, I just hope that the inquiry itself will be 100% independent and transparent. As I have mentioned twice in this Chamber already, as have others, the children with scoliosis and spina bifida, their parents and the adult sufferers have all asked for certain things to be done while the inquiry is going on in terms of the levels of service being provided. I note that the waiting lists have gone down, which is welcome and credit is due to the Minister in that sense.”
“Following what Deputy Tóibín said, why is CHI still in existence? That is something that needs to be looked at. Obviously, we have to go through the 16-week scoping exercise, led by Remy Farrell SC. That is something that the advocacy groups do not trust. It does not meet the definition of what we would call an independent mediator. The Minister might call him a kind of a facilitator to get all the information together for an inquiry, but these are people who have been damaged by Children's Health Ireland and its predecessor. These are people who do not trust the system because the system has failed them and their children, and in some cases led to the death of their children.”
“Whether it is linking up with credit unions or community shops, the post office should be seen as the heart of the community. No matter what level of service or what proportion is mail, there should be a post office in every town and village even if some of them are operating on a part-time basis. There are ways and means of doing that by providing access to national services locally, such as collection points for certain types of public service cards, driver's licences, etc., or as a way of getting cash or foreign exchange even if it is by appointment the day before. These are all things that can be done. There are many towns and villages with over-the-shop areas that are derelict. Our policy in terms of bringing in direct investment should be to bring these companies and their workers to rural communities and spread them out.”
“Ar dtús, ba mhaith liom labhairt faoi mo Dháilcheantar féin. Is An Post about providing a community service or is it about being a for-profit company and making money? We are not talking about Leinster House bike shed-type of wastage here or but equally the service in my constituency has degraded. Postal workers have been asked to cover larger areas. We know that the letter side has declined but the number of packages is going up as others have said. We have to look at it as a community service model going back to the days when there was a same-day postal service across the country when we did not have motorised vehicles. With the wider issue of social cohesion in towns and villages across the country, especially in rural areas, we need to rethink the post office.”
“The studies are out there. It is not like every time we talk about studies from DCU or other institutions that we are learning this for the first time. We have known this for several years now. We fine them but the fines are not enough. The fines are not being paid. At this stage we should be taking the bull by the horns and saying that if they are not paying the fines, then they will be switched off. Why not have a European Facebook or TikTok where you have freedom of speech but also responsibility and regulation? Even on Facebook now they allow nicknames, and I have seen serious misinformation propagated about people taking their own lives that has been stated as fact and caused serious harm to families. It is being allowed because of nicknames. We do not have responsible moderators, so that will continue. We need to deal with this.”
“There was bullying through physical attacks, bullying by whispers in the corner and bullying by notes put through the letterbox. That sort of behaviour will continue because as well as being intrinsically good, we have intrinsically stupid and evil human beings as well. Social media has magnified that to multiple proportions. The techbros, the Metas, the TikToks, the Xs and Roblox are all governed by profit. The AI-generated material being spewed out, affecting our electricity grids and pushing up our energy bills, is making profit for them. It is equivalent to the 1950s when the Philip Morris company and other cigarette companies knew that cigarettes were causing cancer but they did everything they could to spew out misinformation. The companies involved in this know exactly what they are doing. They know exactly the damage.”
“It has gotten to that level. We can argue that young people are a bit more savvy about what might be AI generated or they might disregard certain bits of information more than someone in their 70s looking at a scam on Facebook. They have that level of digital literacy but they do not have discernment capability. They should not be exposed to dangerous content in the first place. In some ways, I was almost thinking we should be like Marty McFly and go back to the future, to the 1980s where we did not have all this IT. Unfortunately, we know the 1980s were a misogynistic and violent cesspit like we have today. The 1990s were just as bad. There was bullying in all shapes and forms. I remember in the 1980s somebody's underwear was photocopied in the school and circulated around on a piece of paper.”
“You see different allegations being made that are not factually verified about all sorts of people and all sorts of rumours going around, and that is magnified among young people. We have seen the toxification of young men and damage to young women as well. That will continue unless we actually regulate this, and this is the nub. Any motion or any Bill that has better discussion and brings it forward, even if we have to amend proposals in the legislation, is a good thing. The GDPR argument is constantly used. It is said that it is restricting people. There are groups like the Irish Council for Civil Liberties rightly saying that personal information and personal rights need to be protected, but there is a balance between rights and responsibilities here. We are fighting an existential war to try to protect this and future generations.”
“The whole point of stopping the kids from seeing anything is to make sure that kids do not have access to the information in the first place, which you either do by banning it outright, restricting it on certain platforms or creating an age verification system. It is possible to create an anonymised, randomised system that says, "Yes, I am over the age of 18. Now that I am an adult, whatever I want, as long as it is legal, is nobody else's business." No one in this Chamber is arguing that it should be anyone else's business, but in terms of children's access to information, kids as young as second class now have access to all sorts of disturbing content. I am not just talking about the eating disorder videos.”
“Almost a year ago, when I raised with the Tánaiste the issue of whether we should follow the Australian model and introduce a ban for under-16s, the Tánaiste, I think it was the second time he said it, and the Minister said it as well, said, "The era of self-regulation is over." Then today in the Chamber we heard the Government say its age verification system is not mandatory for users and not mandatory for the IT companies. That, straight away, is still self-regulation. The Government criticised this Bill by saying that the recommenders might be a little more dangerous if they were switched off because then the kids might see anything.”
“Mar a dúirt an Teachta Tóibín, tá a lán daoine óga ag iarraidh dul ar ais nó dul go dtí an nGaeltacht. Cad faoi na poist inar féidir le daoine oibriú an chuid is mó den am sna bailte cosúil le Baile Átha Cliath agus i mo Dháilcheantar féin, nó sna hubs? Tá a lán IT poist mar sin ann. Dúirt mé cheana go bhfuil an Rialtas in ann daoine ón Aontas Eorpach nó tíortha eile atá ag obair i réimse na teicneolaíochta faisnéise, IT, a sheoladh chuig na bailte siar ó Bhaile Átha Cliath cosúil le Tullamore, Athlone, an Muileann gCearr agus áiteanna cosúil leo seo. Tá deis againn mar sin oibrithe teicneolaíochta faisnéise Éireannacha a labhraíonn Gaeilge a spreagadh le bogadh chuig an nGaeltacht, más ó na ceantair seo ó dhúchas atá siad nó má tá Gaeilge líofa acu. Tá seans againn dul chun cinn a dhéanamh.”
“Ní bheadh aon Ghaeltacht ann gan cainteoirí Gaeilge. Ní bheadh aon daoine in áiteanna ar a dtugtar "Gaeltacht" orthu gan tithe. Sin í an fhadhb. Cé go bhfuil níos mó daoine ag foghlaim agus ag labhairt na Gaeilge toisc scoileanna lánGhaeilge i mo Dháilcheantar, mar shampla, agus in áiteanna eile sna cathracha móra agus i mbailte ar fud na tíre - ach amháin sna Gaeltachtaí féin - níl mórán tithe ar fáil sna Gaeltachtaí. Mar a dúradh, aontaíodh 22 togra ar bhonn traspháirtí in 2022 ach tá an Rialtas ag fanacht go dtí 2027 le ráiteas pleanála náisiúnta don Ghaeltacht a fhoilsiú. Tá easpaí againn anois, go háirithe ó thaobh airgid a chur i dtreo na seirbhísí cosúil le huisce mar shampla, agus ní dea-phleanáil é seo. Is mór dúinn níos mó tithe a thógáil agus dreasacht a thabhairt do níos mó daoine le fanacht nó dul chun cónaí sa Ghaeltacht.”