Peadar Tóibín
Meath West · Aontú · Ireland
“Lonely Planet. It did a review of Dublin and stated, "Once Dublin’s grand boulevard, O'Connell St has struggled with decline". It stated that vacant buildings, derelict upper floors and long-stalled redevelopments leave this part looking neglected while retail has shifted elsewhere and been replaced by fast food shops that dilute its char…”
“The Irish people are a generous and decent people and have been over the past number of years, with the provision of supports to people from Ukraine who are fleeing the war. This is right and just. The war unleashed on Ukraine is absolutely wrong. Aontú will support the reduction in the rate of payment under the scheme.”
“I am very disappointed to see that the Government, the Social Democrats, the Labour Party, the Green Party and People Before Profit will vote against an amendment that wants to means test the payment, as an amendment also did on the previous occasion, and put it on a level footing with other housing assistance payments.”
“Landlords are rational and they will make economic decisions to best suit themselves. Landlords have been more inclined to take on Ukrainian tenants over Irish tenants in recent years. This system is discriminatory. It gives an advantage to guests in the country over the people who have lived here for most of their lives.”
“Anyone who sat the leaving certificate economics paper just a few weeks ago will know that demand also has a role. It determines what rents are, the price of houses, etc. It is physics and maths and not ideology. We need to get to a situation where we equalise supply with demand.”
“A global study by TomTom indicated that it is the 38th most congested city globally, behind cities such as London, Toronto and Rome. The task force indicated that the Cork Luas system would be built. That Luas system is in planning and that planning is taking a long while.”
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“Will the Minister of State raise the issue of the shocking allegations being made by British intelligence against fishermen in this country about the cutting of cables off the coast of Ireland? Will he demand the British ambassador and Keir Starmer's Government provide evidence and information about these allegations, desist from making them and withdraw them? Will he also call out the objective behind these allegations? It is in some way to push Ireland into a European defence union, a European army or NATO, three options which are extreme threats to our sovereignty and independence. These are not just on an individual basis a besmirching of the names of these fishermen but, on a national basis, they are ignorant allegations that should be stopped straight away.”
“It is absolutely wrong that British intelligence would make these accusations and I would like the Government to investigate those allegations. At the heart of this is black propaganda designed to create fear about Ireland's defence and to push Ireland into a situation where it is seeking to join a European army and a military alliance, which is obviously against the interests of this country, against neutrality and against our good name as peacekeepers in the international community. I ask the Minister of State to address this issue and to make sure he defends the name of Irish fisherman and stands up against British intelligence.”
“I wish to raise neutrality in the European context. Incredibly, there was an article published in The Times in the last few weeks that reported an allegation made by British intelligence that Wexford fishermen have been approached by the Russian army to pull cable-cutting tools behind their trawlers to cut Irish cables. It is an incredible allegation that besmirches and blackens the names of those fishermen. It basically states those fishermen in Kilmore Quay are in some way traitors and acting against the national interests of this country for money. I have spoken to our councillor there, Jim Codd, who knows these fishermen well and has been working with them through the times where they have their quotas cut and the Government has introduced laws that have reduced their ability to earn a living for their families.”
“That is really important. Look at the My Future Fund auto-enrolment scheme. It will start to bite this month for people who cannot afford their present situation. In terms of rip-off Ireland, will the Government reduce taxes on fuel and the cost of tolls?”
“First of all, real income fell in 2021, 2022 and 2023. We are talking about a marginal recovery on those particular years. The Taoiseach talks about fuel allowances. The Government is giving money with one hand but picking the pockets of people with the other. The Government is taking more in fuel taxes than it is giving back in allowances. What we are talking about here is the working poor. In the budget for this year, the Government increased income taxes on the squeezed middle. Property taxes will increase for homeowners this year. An Post, for example, is increasing the cost if its stamps. Rents and house prices are increasing significantly, not just because the Government will not deliver supply into the market, but also because its own rent cap policies have increased rents in recent times to over €2,000 a month on average.”
“The Government is using extra fuel costs and taxes as a stick to beat people out of their cars while refusing to provide a carrot of extra public transport capacity this year. At the start of this month, the Government also increased tolls on the M50 and other motorways. Some 160,000 people use the M50 on a daily basis because they have to. It is the busiest road in the country. Last year, we paid €212 million on tolls on the M50, not to a public private partnership, PPP, but to the Government because we own those bridges. We have paid €2.2 billion in tolls already on those two bridges that cost £58 million to build. It is incredible. We have bought those M50 bridges 30 times over. The Government is using them as a cash cow and as a tax on commuters and workers. Increasingly, the squeezed middle is having Government costs on it increased.”
“It already increased the tax on petrol and diesel in the budget, only three months ago, and it increased the tax on heating oil and gas on families. In 2024, the Government took €4.1 billion in fuel taxes, the highest ever in the jaws of a cost-of-living crisis. The cost of filling a car is currently €19 more today than it was five years ago. That is not because of market issues or anything other than Government taxes. The Government is not finished with fuel taxes. It's aim is to increase carbon taxes for the next five years, irrespective of the economic circumstances of citizens at any given time. The Department of Transport has admitted in response to a freedom of information, FOI, request that there will be no new public transport capacity provided this year.”
“The Government is one of the most significant drivers of rip-off Ireland. Many of the costs affecting families currently are being driven up by the Government. To take electricity as an example, Ireland has one of the highest electricity costs in the whole of the European Union and the gap between retail price and electricity costs here is one of the largest in the world. The ESB is a semi-State company. It operates under Government policy. It is one of the biggest players in the market and is profiteering to the tune of €706 million in the jaws of a cost-of-living crisis. There are 300,000 people currently in energy arrears. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul has said it dealt with a quarter of a million people on its helpline calls before Christmas. This month, the Government increased the tax on petrol and diesel.”
“This Government through its public companies is delivering sewage wholesale into the water system, doing enormous damage to drinking water, bathing water and to the biodiversity that exists in many of the rivers in this country. Our water systems are sick because of this Government's lack of ability to build infrastructure. Contrast that with the billions of euro at its disposal. We have nothing to show for the billions of euro we have received over the past two decades, except incompetency.”
“It took two hours for people in Meath to get to work in Dublin today because of the lack of a rail line Noel Dempsey promised in 1996 that if we are lucky will be completed in 2036; 42 years from concept to completion. It was built in three years in 1896 with picks and shovels. That is the compare and contrast of this Government's inability to build infrastructure now compared with what it was in the past. Sewage being deposited in rivers and in the sea in this country is an absolute disgrace. If it were farmers, business people or any other sector of society the State would be down on them like a ton of bricks. There would be massive fines and real pressure put on those individuals to make sure they are cleaning the water before it gets into the rivers.”
“That has had a negative effect on our ability to bring industry into the county and to create jobs and therefore business rates that go into the development of community facilities, including such things as playgrounds. Even in places like Enfield, Ballivor and Summerhill we have had tanks of water being driven into those towns to deliver water to individuals. We have had cafes, shops and restaurants closing for full days with the loss of that income because of the lack of water delivery. This has not been happening for a week, a month or a year. It is happening for well over a decade. It is astounding that Fianna Fáil cannot do infrastructure. It is a disaster when it comes to infrastructure. As a result, there is major suffering in society.”
“In the past two years there have been 125 water outages in the Trim area. That is incredible. That is Third World standard. It is developing country standard delivery of infrastructure. It is incredible. During Christmas gone by a whole swathe of Trim had no water for three days over Christmas. This is not a luxury product we are talking about. For people with disabilities, older people and people with young children, this is an absolute necessity and yet the Government has not been able to deliver that water into the infrastructure on time and when needed. It is not a once-off; it is 125 times. Water infrastructure in the whole of County Meath is massively underdelivered.”
“At the same time the Government is looking to take water from the acting chair's constituency in the Parteen basin and pump it to Dublin, a project that will cost billions of euro if it happens on time at all, rather than fixing the problem that exists. Most people's first instinct, where you are losing product and replacing it, is to fix where you are losing it, so you do not have the added cost of generating more of the product to fill what is being lost. The first responsibility of a government is to keep the lights on and put water in the taps. Right now, this Government is famously failing to keep the lights on. There are many electricity outages throughout the country at the moment, which are hardly being reported. It also needs to put water in the taps. I will give an example from my constituency in County Meath.”
“I asked its representatives how long it would take them to fill the gaps in water infrastructure that are currently blocking the building of homes in Ireland. They said, as if it were a positive, that by 2050 they will have those gaps filled. For at least another 25 years, we will have the absence of water infrastructure preventing the building of homes in Ireland. The housing crisis is going on so long that people have nearly become used to it. However, it is still shocking to think the housing crisis could be rolling on for another 25 years. Another element is the massive level of leakages that are happening. In the Dublin area we know that 35% of water that is treated and pumped through the system is being lost through the haphazard infrastructure in the Dublin region.”
“For more than a decade we did not even keep up with the depreciation of our capital infrastructure, never mind building the new infrastructure. The second thing is that there has been a massive increase in population. The infrastructural capital we have is coming under enormous pressure from the population increase. The third element is the lack of accountability in the system. Due to the lack of accountability in the system, there has not been the necessary pressure to make sure infrastructural development is happening. That is having a large effect on society. In terms of housing, water infrastructure has an enormous impact. Uisce Éireann appeared at the infrastructure committee a couple of months ago.”
“This is having an enormous impact on people's lives. On a range of different issues now the fabric of society is being negatively affected by the Government's inability to build infrastructure. For years I have noticed that when an election comes up the Government does not want to talk about the subject of infrastructure that affects people's lives. It is much happier to launch a tax cut at a certain rate to get on the front pages of the Sunday papers before an election. The Government has never taken infrastructure properly seriously over the past number of years. A number of things are happening. After the crash, the Government for ten years had the lowest spend on infrastructure in the whole of the European Union bar Romania. Only Romania beat us to the bottom rung of that ladder for infrastructural spend.”
“One of the biggest problems of this Government over the past ten to 15 years has been its absolute inability to build infrastructure. Probably the biggest legacy element of the Government is that it cannot deliver necessary infrastructure and could not deliver it on time. Regardless of whether we are looking at housing, healthcare and hospitals, transport infrastructure like motorways, rail lines and roads or water infrastructure, it is a hallmark or fingerprint of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that they simply cannot deliver infrastructure. One of the reasons for that the fact most of their Ministers are simply passengers on the bus. They are reading press statements delivered by the permanent government, they are not in charge of the direction of Departments and they are not driving the situation for people.”
“I wish to raise the decision by Paschal Donohoe to excessively fund the World Bank to the tune of €10 million. There is potentially a serious conflict of interest in relation to this. That a former Minister for Finance would provide an extra €10 million of funding in excess of what the World Bank sought and in excess of what his own officials in the Department advised, an increase of 33% in funding just seven months before he landed a job worth €600,000 a year, is highly problematic. When we ask for money for people with disabilities or carers, the Government says there is no magic money tree yet there seems to be a magic money tree when it comes to funding organisations such as this. Will the Taoiseach join with Aontú in seeking that Paschal Donohoe makes himself available to the finance committee to answer questions on this?”
“Will he support a boycott of Mercosur beef, which operates at a lower regulatory standard, in this country? Will he make sure there is proper labelling of Mercosur beef so Irish consumers can make that choice?”
“The Taoiseach’s record on Mercosur has been a disaster. Last week saw one of the most incredible flip-flops in political history. One day, the Taoiseach was in support of Mercosur, saying it could be of benefit to the State and the next day he came out against it as well. I am not sure if that flip-flop came as a result of instability within Fianna Fáil and the backlash from its TDs or because Fine Gael basically outmanoeuvred Fianna Fáil just at the last minute also or because Italy gave the Taoiseach cover to make that change. It is fiercely cynical in relation to what is happening to farmers. Mercosur is an existential threat to farmers in this country. Will the Taoiseach help to lobby MEPs throughout the European Union to persuade them to vote against Mercosur?”
“It beggars belief that at a time of climate crisis, we will be bringing in Brazilian beef, which is produced in an environmentally unfriendly way, by which forests are burnt down and land is overgrazed, not to mention the environmental cost of transporting all that beef from South America to Europe. Will the Government stop speaking from both sides of its mouth in terms of Mercosur?”
“Today the Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, stated that the Mercosur deal held many benefits for the Irish farmers and the wider economy. He said that for Ireland, Mercosur could be a significant beneficiary. This is incredible. It is the Minister of State putting up the white flag of surrender in terms of Mercosur. It comes just a few days after the Government put up the white flag in terms of the Irish fishing industry. Make no mistake about it, the Mercosur trade agreement will damage the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of farmers in this country. All the fine words about COP mean nothing if we are going to facilitate or allow Mercosur to go through.”
“Planning, permitting, licensing, tendering and judicial reviews here are among the slowest in the whole of the European Union. While the Taoiseach's Government has announced plans, they are not ambitious enough and I do not believe they will be implemented in a timely fashion.”
“The housing crisis has had varied and wide ramifications in Irish society. One of them is a serious fall in the fertility rate in this State. There has been a 30% fall in the number of births annually. There has been a 20,000 fall in the number of births annually since Celtic tiger times. Some 69% of people aged 25 years or under are living with their parents. Well over 40% of adults who are under 30 are living with their parents. That is changing the very nature of Irish society. The ability for adults to form relationships to have children is being deleted for hundreds of thousands of people. This is having massive ramifications. Schools are now noticing that there is a fall in the number of children being enrolled. An unbalanced demographic structure has serious consequences for our workforce and our pensions.”
“The Oireachtas and the public will be able to have a clear, factual picture of how the defective concrete remediation scheme is functioning. If the Minister is allergic to transparency and to measurability, then there is a difficulty. Why would the Minister fear transparency in relation to fixing what is an arduous process that so many people have been forced to go through?”
“Ba mhaith liom tacú leis an leasú seo. Ba cheart go mbeadh an córas iomlán trédhearcach. I support Deputy Ward’s amendments. From a homeowner’s point of view, in Donegal especially, this process has been a never-ending, complex bureaucratic nightmare. One of the key characteristics that exists with this Government is the glacial pace with which it delivers anything. Even when it decides what to do and sets its mind to do it, it is incredibly slow. From a governance point of view, transparency is very important. You cannot manage if you cannot measure. One of the difficulties in this process is the lack of transparency on delivery. Amendment No. 50 introduces full accountability and transparency into a system that has long been opaque by requiring the Minister to produce an annual report on the operations of sections 23A and 23B.”
“Some of that is happening because of the pressure on the limited capacity but some of that is happening due to the way the money is being paid out. Some builders are front-loading the costs so that they get the money at the start of the process and then have to wait long periods of time to get paid out as well. I support this amendment and I ask that the Government supports it as well.”
“Driving around Donegal I was struck that every second building, house, council building, crèche, or business was pointed out to me as the buildings with the cracks that are starting to get worse and worse. Because of that, many people are struggling to get accommodation. When there is a capacity problem of accommodation, you have inflation. This means that families are snookered even trying to get alternative accommodation for themselves in this regard. It is really important that the Government would get creative in ensuring first that there is extra capacity in terms of combination options for people and second that there are some efforts to create downward pressure on the cost of that accommodation to people. There is a big inflationary aspect for people who are looking to get works done.”
“It is hard to believe that it is 12 years since this crisis started to unfold. It is hard to believe that we still do not know how many homes, flats, offices, shops, farm buildings, etc., are impacted in the likes of Donegal or Mayo. It also is hard to believe there have been four attempts at rewriting this scheme over that period and yet we are still not at a scheme that is fit for purpose. This amendment speaks to the fact that so many people are snookered and have been left without any real options at the moment. In many of the situations people cannot sell or are struggling to get insurance and people are struggling to get mortgages currently because of the defective blocks and because capacity is being swallowed up with so many people being in such difficulties.”
“My worry is that other people watching this debate, the people from other counties who are not directly affected, will just nod their heads and think it is all right and the problem is being sorted out because there is money being spent on it. I appeal to the Minister opposite to listen to the TDs from Donegal, Mayo and other counties and to put himself in the place of an individual who has spent their life savings investing in building a home and is now seeing that home destroyed by a building material that was allowed onto the market as a result of the lack of regulation by a particular government and is then left to swing, in large part, for big chunks of the cost of that. I appeal to the Government to do the right thing and make sure it delivers 100% redress.”
“Yet, here we are in 2025 with a scheme that is deeply flawed and is not 100% redress. There is an enormous gap between the money that is necessary to do the work and the money that is being offered by the Government. This scheme is leaving many families with increased mortgages and debts. It is so difficult to operate that it is impossible for many people to use. I have no doubt that if the people of Donegal were swapped for the people of south Dublin or some other constituency on the east coast, the Government would take a far different approach. The Government is speaking from both sides of its mouth on defective concrete and redress. It is trying to pretend this is something it is not. The people at the difficult end of this, those living in homes that are crumbling around them and trying to get them rebuilt, know this is not true.”
“I also have no doubt that there is an enormous lack of accountability. There is no doubt in my mind that the system of light-touch regulation we had in this country over many years, which was overseen by Fianna Fáil, in large part allowed this defective concrete to be sold and put into the housing infrastructure of large parts of this country. Indeed, there is still not accountability in terms of the quality of construction products in the market at the moment. This problem is rife, not only in homes but also in much of the other infrastructure in this country. One of the big frustrations is that the people of Donegal in particular have expended so much energy and effort protesting and trying to get the Government to deliver the responsibility it has for this issue.”
“The human cost of this whole crisis is absolutely incredible. I visited Donegal many times with my good friend Mary T. Sweeney in relation to this particular crisis. I visited many families in many homes who have shown me chimney stacks falling down and massive gaps in the walls of their houses. We have the incredible situation of children sleeping in rooms on windy, stormy nights in fear that the building is going to collapse. I have no doubt this is leading to significant problems physically, but the mental and psychological scars arising from the defective concrete crisis are immense. It has had an enormous impact on the people of Donegal, Mayo, Clare and other counties. The cost of those scars to society is unquantifiable. I have no doubt that many of those scars are going to wash through this generation of individuals.”
“The Navan to Dublin rail line is not included in the national development plan review as a project that will start to be built before 2030. It has no start date for construction at all at the moment. It is up to a future government to fund the construction of a Navan to Dublin rail line. No money has been assigned or ring-fenced for that particular project, despite the fact there are 90,000 people commuting from Meath at the moment, 60,000 of whom travel by car and add to the M50 crisis. The M50 is currently grinding to a halt. If the Government wants to help fix the M50 crisis, allow people in Meath to use public transport to get to work without pushing them into cars every single day.”
“How can people in Ireland have confidence, given the fact that our Defence Forces have been run down for so long and we can only staff one ship on the seas at any given time?”
“Can the Taoiseach categorically say that the Government is able to protect all of the EU leaders who will come to this country during the EU Presidency? Who launched the drones that were seen off Dublin Bay during the Zelenskyy visit? Why were those drones not dealt with? Where did these drones come from? Where did they retreat to? How come none of that information is known at this stage? Who was behind the drones? We have heard statements that it is likely that they may have come from Russia, but what evidence is there of this? One of the more memorable answers the Taoiseach gave to a question on national security in the previous Dáil, when the issue of the so-called Russian spy was discussed, was that he did not receive those briefings. He quite pointedly said he did not receive the information he should be receiving on that.”
“I have very little confidence about the Government fixing this. I believe it should put its money where its mouth is, make sure there is an attractive package and recruit the necessary people.”
“The Government is going to do an assessment of children so they can have an assessment of need. How do you assess a child before you give them an assessment of need? Is this not going to create another barrier which will slow down the process? It is a barrier that might actually keep children away from an assessment of need, make the waiting list go down and make the Government look better, but still bring no value to the child in receiving the services that they need. Regarding the level of funding, an Aontú parliamentary question about a number of different facilities and colleges found out that speech and language therapists were reduced from 370 in the last academic year to 355 in the academic year before the pandemic. The Government is going in reverse in the supply of students who will become the staff needed in these areas.”
“I believe it was deeply cynical. I believe that the Government promised to recruit but made no effort to recruit. The best way for the Government to say "No" is to say "Yes" and then do nothing about it. Cara went on with regard to trying to get therapists. She contacted a company from Britain. The company from Britain was very happy to help. We have the staff available to deal with the waiting lists, yet the HSE and the Government will not employ those staff. There are major questions to be asked about that. I know it goes to the issue of collective bargaining and so on within the public sector but we need to be able to target certain sectors where there is a low supply of staff with increased wages to make sure that we have better recruitment in those areas. The Government announced a new plan today. I believe it is really cynical.”
“That is thousands of children who are not getting the treatment that they need and thousands of children, as a result, who are not reaching the potential that they could achieve. On a human basis, that is absolutely shocking. It is incredible that Cara Darmody made an agreement with the Government that there would be a recruitment campaign large enough to make sure that the staff were there to do the assessments of need. This Government implemented a recruitment campaign, but it was incredible and something that I have never seen before, since it was practically secret and the target audience, the people the Government was hoping to recruit, did not know that it was even happening. Cara Darmody today, in a press conference, said that it was like the third secret of Fatima. Nobody knew about the recruitment process.”
“I too want to pay tribute to Cara Darmody and the tremendous work that she has done in achieving so much for children waiting for assessments of need. It is shocking that a 15-year-old girl has to camp outside Leinster House overnight for 50 hours in a storm just to make sure that this Government actually abides by the law. The Minister of State must feel mortification that a 15-year-old girl has to stay outside on a stormy night just to get what people are entitled to. The Tánaiste stated that he wanted to make Ireland the best country in the European Union to be a child. This Government is presiding over more than 18,000 children waiting for more than six months for an assessment of need. That does not even mean they have access to treatment, just that particular assessment.”
“The Minister of State is looking at me in a perplexed fashion but if you look at Fine Gael, its centre of gravity is firmly in south Dublin at the moment. Many counties that would have been traditional Fine Gael counties do not have a Fine Gael TD. That is the result of not standing up for citizens in terms of these international agreements.”
“We should be able to decide policy based on the decisions made by the Irish people through their representatives in the Oireachtas. It frustrates me regularly that many of the elected representatives of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael do not feel they owe their democratic loyalty to the people who elected them to this House. Many of them feel they owe their loyalty on these issues to the European Union at times and international organisations. That is a real mistake, and it is a pity. It also a fact that most people are waking up to around the country. It is one of the reasons Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are losing significant support in rural areas. In many ways, both parties are retreating to the large urban areas as a result of their decisions.”
“There has to be a system whereby the courts system in this country is based on the democratic decisions made in Ireland. If there are investor courts which lie outside our sovereign judicial system, the danger is that it creates pathways for major international corporations to use those courts to influence policy decisions in this country. Even if these corporations never take a particular case or never even win a case against the Irish Government, there is the potential that it creates a chilling effect in terms of Irish policy. Governments could use the excuse that they cannot make a policy decision because it would put them in danger of losing an investor court decision in the future. That is an incredible situation because it dilutes the democratic will of the Irish people.”
“The Government is speaking out of both sides of its mouth when it comes to Mercosur. The Government is unable to say exactly what it is doing to prevent Mercosur from going ahead. It has said it has certain concerns about it, but at the same time, MEPs are supporting it. Even Michael McGrath, the Commissioner, has come out in favour of Mercosur There is no real proof that the Government is using any of its leverage in the European Union to find the necessary qualified majority to put a stop to this. The Government is hiding behind the European decision-making mechanism in respect of Mercosur. Another aspect of Aontú policy is that we believe the judicial system, justice and the rule of law should be underwritten by the democratic decisions of this country.”
“The Irish Farmers Journal investigation in South America showed very clearly that farmers and businesses there were using hormones and antibiotics at a phenomenal rate. That is very damaging to Ireland for a number of reasons. First, it introduces beef that is unhealthy for people in this country. Second, it gives the producers of that beef an unfair competitive advantage, which reduces the price of that beef and supplants Irish beef in European supermarkets. That has the outcome of pushing more farmers into poverty. We need to be very careful that when we trade, we do so in a fair capacity and make sure we defend the environment, health and workers' rights in this country. In terms of Mercosur, the actions of the Government over the past number of years have been disgraceful.”
“We also support trade. We think trade is a good thing. Trade obviously lifts the standard of living of people around the world, etc. Trade also has its limits. Certain types of trade can be damaging to the environment and people's health. Unfair trade can be significantly damaging to workers' rights. If there are different standards and regulations in one jurisdiction and that jurisdiction is trading with another, it puts the other jurisdiction at an unfair disadvantage. As we mentioned, CETA, the transatlantic trade and investment partnership, TTIP, and Mercosur are all issues we have debated here over the years and all have come a cropper in terms of the disparity between regulations and standards. Different standards do a number of things. In terms of Mercosur, it is quite incredible.”
“Aontú believes in self-determination. We believe that no other country, organisation or external investor court will make decisions in Ireland's best interests as good as those we will make. It is the very nature of national interests, corporate interests, etc. that self-determination is the only way to guarantee that our national interest is upheld. We learned that the hard way with regard to British rule and people in this country hold sovereignty very dear. We believe in co-operation with other countries and, at times, it is necessary to co-operate on mutually beneficial issues. In many ways, our partnership with the EU has facilitated that. In terms of the centralisation of the EU in recent times, more power should be returned to national parliaments than is the case and we oppose the federalisation of the European Union.”
“It is also looking to put the Secretary of State in charge of what information can be brought to these investigations. It may even put senior RUC officers in charge of those investigations. People who were involved in the organisations that were involved in the collusion will investigate collusions. The Government has a chance to stop or change this. What efforts will the Government make to make sure the information is made available to the families and survivors who need it?”
“Today sees the publication of a significant report into British collusion in the killing of innocent Irish citizens. The report details how MI5 managed murderers and then sought to hide the truth afterwards. The Glenanne gang, who killed 127 Irish people, and was also made up of British Army, RUC and loyalist paramilitaries, is another example of collusion. In most countries, information such as this would be of the gravest priority but not here. The legacy Act, which was designed to let British soldiers away with murder, has been binned but it has been replaced by the British-Irish legacy framework document. Currently, that is going through Westminster. The British Government is seeking to build in protections for British Army veterans in relation to that.”