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upper floors and long-stalled redevelopments leave this part looking neglected while retail has shifted elsewhere and been replaced by fast food shops that dilute its char…”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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“I have raised this with two previous Ministers for justice. Now that a UN special rapporteur has condemned the practice and has highlighted the damage it does to the wider justice system, will the Tánaiste demand that the Chief State Solicitor defend the justice system, or at the very least will the Minister for justice meet with the target of these SLAPP litigations?”
“This week, the UN special rapporteur on environmental issues has written to the Government and to the Chief State Solicitor's Office seeking urgent action in relation to court proceedings which order An Garda Síochána to hand over confidential complaints for use in a defamation case. He stated that the Chief State Solicitor must oppose that action. He has stated that it would imperil the right of citizens to confidentially engage with gardaí in the future. A citizen in Meath has challenged alleged environmental damage by a large quarry company but he has been hit with two SLAPP litigations and is threatened with three more. These litigations are not designed to be heard but they threaten financial ruin on the individual and they completely tie that individual up for years. The aim is to shut campaigners up.”
“The destruction of the people of Gaza is happening because it is being facilitated by many people in the international community. The Government facilitates the sale of Israeli war bonds and is therefore facilitating the funding of the gruesome horror that is unfolding every day. I ask the Government to stop that facilitation, take a decision, show leadership on this issue and save people's lives.”
“The Israeli regime is starving people and using famine as a weapon of war. It is also trying to humiliate the people of Gaza by providing very restricted food programmes and then killing people who seek to feed their families from those programmes. I have never seen such gruesome violations of human rights unfold in real time in my life. Some 54,000 people have been killed, 70% of them women and children. I never thought I would witness the international community in cahoots with such large-scale human rights violations. Many are in cahoots, but many others are silent on this issue. Ireland is not silent, I admit. The Government has sent out strong messages, but there is an equivocation here. It sends out messages but supports Ursula von der Leyen. It recognises Palestine but allows for bonds to be sold for the Israeli war machine.”
“At the moment, about 340 members of the 125th infantry battalion are deployed in Lebanon. What does this mean and what kind of engagement has the Irish Government had with the US Government? Recently, the Tánaiste, Simon Harris, said that “by recommitting to the UNIFIL mission Ireland is sending a clear message that we support peace, we value stability and we care about the people and communities of southern Lebanon.” Where is our commitment now if, in fact, it looks like the US is going to bring that particular mission to an end in southern Lebanon? Will the Minister reply to that very serious development within the Middle East? Israel is dropping bombs on hospitals, schools and tents. The IDF is atomising the bodies of small children with armaments that are funded by Israeli bonds.”
“Cuirim fáilte roimh an rún tábhachtach seo agus gabhaim buíochas leis na Social Democrats as an rún a chur os comhair na Dála inniu. I want to focus on one particular issue. It has been reported in the media in the Middle East that the United States and Israel have agreed the United Nations interim force in Lebanon will cease its operations in southern Lebanon. It has also been reported that the US Government has decided not to renew UNIFIL's mandate and Israel reportedly did not disagree with it. A vote on the mandate in the United Nations Security Council is expected to occur in the coming months. That is a very serious issue. Irish troops have been part of the UNIFIL mission for many years. Since 1978, 30,000 Irish troops have served within that mission and 47 have lost their lives.”
“Dan O'Brien recently published the number of visas that are being issued in this country versus the number of houses that are being built. In 2023, 80,000 residency visas were issued. We cannot keep issuing visas at such a level without affecting rents and prices. We must get to a situation whereby we reduce the number of non-essential visas being issued to ensure that we do not put the same pressure on house prices and rents in the future.”
“The idea is that the Government is looking to increase rents to increase the level of supply, but it could do that another way very simply. In the North of Ireland, there is no VAT on construction. If the Government were to zero rate VAT on construction in this country, it would increase the level of market activity and reduce the prices for families who want to buy homes. That would bring more builders into the sector and make it easier for people to buy homes instead of investing in Uisce Éireann. A representative of Uisce Éireann told me at a committee meeting that it will not be able to fill the gaps in water infrastructure that are stopping the building of houses before 2050. That was an incredible statement from Uisce Éireann I raise the following subject because nobody else is raising it in the Dáil.”
“The number of children families are having is collapsing at the moment because families are forced to delay having children because they cannot get a home. The Government is shredding the fabric of Irish society at the moment. It should be mortified and humiliated. It should be apologising to the Irish people but it is not. Instead, it is jacking up rents on hard-pressed families again. It is the objective of this Government's plan to increase rents for families. The idea that we have to increase rents to provide more is nonsense. The plan also prioritises the rental sector over the house building sector, which provides people's homes. If the plan works, it will put families into competition with big international investors to buy up those scarce homes.”
“I cannot think of another minister in the world who was, in part, the author of two eye-watering housing inflation spikes and one devastating crash. The Government is in reverse in practically every single housing indicator in the country. The housing crisis is damaging so much of Irish society. It is impoverishing renting families and making mortgage slaves of other families. It is damaging the economy because businesses cannot get workers and is driving wage inflation. It is damaging the mental and physical health of the many people who are homeless. Members of generation rent are forced to emigrate to Australia and Canada. Incredibly, the housing crisis is also changing the very nature of the Irish family.”
“This is a record-breaking Government for all the wrong reasons. Under Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independents, there is record-breaking homelessness, as well as record-breaking house prices and rents. Rents, incredibly, have doubled since the bottom of the crash. This must be the most pro-cyclical Government in the history of the State. Deputy Micheál Martin was a member of a Cabinet that crashed this country. His actions led in part to a significant spike in house prices and rents in the noughties. His policies led to the crash, which gutted the value of people's homes. Incredibly, Deputy Martin, in partnership with Fine Gael, has pursued policies that have led to an eye-watering peak in rents and house prices.”
“Under Standing Order 35(3) Aontú proposes we amend the Order of Business to remove the lines referring to the motion regarding the proposed negotiations between the European Union and Kazakhstan and replace them with "Statements on nursing homes, to conclude after 1 hour and 50 minutes". It is absolutely scandalous what has happened in this country in terms of older people-----”
“Táimid ag iarraidh díriú isteach ar go leor athruithe ag Céim an Choiste agus níos déanaí ach is céim chun tosaigh é agus táimid ag iarraidh go mbeidh sé curtha i bhfeidhm go luath.”
“The idea that companies would close and then reappear very quickly, a number of years later, with the same people, the same board of directors and so on and carrying out practically the same work but having shed their responsibilities to workers is another three-card trick that should not be allowed. Every worker in this country should have a constitutional and legal right to become a member of a trade union. Trade unions are a natural part of the balance between employers and employees. If that relationship is imbalanced and if either side has too much power, workers' rights will not be fulfilled and businesses will not be able to trade and operate properly. The fact that this right is denied to many workers is still a problem in the law. Guím gach rath ar an mBille seo.”
“Another issue that has caused significant damage is the issue of bogus self-employment. A large number of people, especially in the period from ten years ago up to five years ago, were employed forcibly as self-employed people. This reduced employers' responsibilities in respect of sick pay, holiday pay and other supports. It also cost the State hundreds of millions of euro because the State lost PRSI and tax contributions as a result. The Government had an enforcement section within the Department but there was precious little enforcement ever. I would struggle to say whether any prosecutions came out of that whole period. Whatever legislation is put through here, we need to make sure there is strong enforcement and that companies are not allowed to separate resources from responsibilities.”
“That was done in a large number of cases and the Government never sought to enforce anything. I refer to La Senza, Paris Bakery, Clerys and Debenhams, which was the latest example. That was facilitated by providing for a corporate veil. That corporate veil allowed companies to hold two separate legal identities for different aspects of their business in certain situations. Clerys was restructured in 2012. In 2015, the operations element of the company became insolvent while the resources element did not have a responsibility to look after the workers. This obviously left workers stuffed as regards their incomes but it also left the State on the hook to a great degree because the State had to step in to provide funds for workers. That is still a major difficulty in this country.”
“Workers cannot be expected to give loyalty, effort and work to a company if that company does not protect those workers in return. I welcome aspects of the Bill but one of the big difficulties I have is that there is not enough enforcement in this country. All the legislation will not make a whit of difference if the Government does not enforce it. In my experience, there has been a complete absence of enforcement in this country for many years. I first became a TD at a time when there was an avalanche of tactical insolvencies in this country. For many years after the crash, many businesses traded in a manner that did not allow them to meet their responsibilities to protect their employees or tactically separated resources from companies that were exposed to responsibilities to their staff.”
“There always needs to be a balance between the rights of employers and the rights of workers to make sure that employers can build their businesses and make a profit and a livelihood for themselves and to ensure that workers are not exploited. The stated objective of this Bill is "to amend the Protection of Employees (Employers’ Insolvency) Act 1984 ... [to protect] employees in the event of the insolvency of their employer". This is a good objective. It is obviously a tragedy for employers who have struggled to keep a business afloat to lose that business but they also have a moral responsibility to trade in a manner that allows them to fulfil their responsibilities to their employees in the event of insolvency and that has not always been the case.”
“Cuirim fáilte roimh an mBille seo. Is maith an rud é go bhfuil sé ag iarraidh cearta oibrithe a threisiú sa tír seo. Le fada an lá, ní raibh cearta ná cumhacht ag oibrithe in aghaidh go leor comhlachtaí. Dá bharr, chaill go leor dóibh a gcuid tuarastail agus a gcuid slite beatha. Aontú is committed to justice in the workplace and the right of all workers in Ireland, North and South, to fair pay for a fair day's work and fair living conditions. We affirm the dignity of work and the right of workers to equitable pay and working environments. Low pay and precarious work affect the lives of thousands of workers in this country. In many sectors, workers are treated without respect and have limited guarantees and paid hours.”
“The problem is that if war crimes and murder are only understood in the past tense, this means we can never act in the present tense in order to stop them. That is what is demanded of this country now. One of the problems we have is that the EU and the United States have underwritten the actions of Israel. As a result, they have allowed this to happen. The EU's response has been anaemic at best. Ursula von der Leyen strode the world stage at the start of this crisis saying that she gave full support to Israel in its time of need. Ursula von der Leyen distorted the foreign policy views of the Irish people at an international level. That is one of the reasons why it is wrong that we outsource so much of our foreign policy to the EU in regard to this matter. We need a situation where this country starts to use every tool.”
“I never thought that I would see a horrendous abuse of human rights such as that we are seeing at the moment. Some 70% of people who are being killed in Gaza are women and children. This figure is even higher if all the non-combatants are included. I am a student of history. I can never get my head around the fact that we see such horrendous situations in history, yet we see society go on as normal, as though nothing has happened. The proportionate response from society is never what it should be. War crimes seem to be only understood in the past tense, not the present tense. It was stated earlier that one day everybody will have opposed the murder of civilians in Gaza. That is an incredibly strong sentence.”
“It demands that we use every tool we have to make sure there is change and that pressure is brought on Israel regarding what it is doing at the moment. The Israeli Government has murdered 53,000 people. Hamas has murdered 1,700 people. Hamas is a terrorist organisation and it must release all the hostages. However, Benjamin Netanyahu has murdered 51 times the number of people that a terrorist organisation has murdered. Every life is sacred. We in Aontú believe that absolutely. The idea of a state murdering 51 times the number of people a terrorist organisation has murdered is absolutely shocking. I never imagined that I would see such death and destruction, that I would see Israeli bombs landing on tents, schools and hospitals, atomising the bodies of children.”
“In 1847, we saw famine used as a tool of ethnic cleansing in this country. The term "man-made famine" resonates at a far deeper and more visceral level here in Ireland than in any other country. The Times of London stated at the time that Irish people would be as rare as Indians in Manhattan as a result of the ethnic cleansing that was happening. The darkness of that famine even today throws a shadow over this country. Ireland is one of the few counties in the world where the population is still less than it was in the 1840s. Famine as a weapon of war is a war crime. As a result of our experience, this demands a response from us that is far stronger, far more real and far more effective than the response of the Government so far. It demands that we cannot sit on our hands or just use words in relation to this particular crisis.”
“Tacaím leis an rún seo agus molaim Páirtí an Lucht Oibre as ucht an rún seo a chur faoi bhráid na Dála. I thank the Labour Party for bringing this motion before the Dáil. It needs to be supported across the Chamber. The clock is ticking towards famine in Gaza. Those are the words of the head of the UN agency for Palestine. This is no natural famine or natural disaster; it is a man-made famine designed to clear Gaza of Palestinians. The term "man-made famine" resonates in Ireland more than in any other country in the world. In Ireland, we lost over 1 million people to a man-made famine. They were starved to death in horrendous circumstances. We lost well over 1 million people to emigration because of man-made famine. Families were ripped from their communities and their loved ones and forced to emigrate to other countries.”
“The questions around those two years have to be an asked and answered. Can it happen again? That is a big issue. I believe it can happen again. I submitted a parliamentary question to the previous Minister for Justice. We have the right to remove EU citizens of this country if they have criminal records. That number has fallen significantly over the past number of years. The only guarantee that this will not happen again is if we have truth and accountability, and I do not believe we are there yet.”
“If that is the case, questions remain unanswered and there would be wide-ranging ramifications. The fact that he was a foreign national who came into this country, had 12 convictions in this State and committed two offences in the North of Ireland before he killed Shane and then committed crimes in Belfast after he killed Shane is incredible. The fact he came to this country with 12 convictions already for aggravated burglary, handling stolen property, road traffic offences, a defective vehicle, malicious damage and threat is also incredible. The fact it took the O'Farrell family to ask the Garda after Shane was killed to check with Interpol whether Gridziuska had previous criminal convictions is an outstanding and damaging dereliction of duty in the State. It is an incredible situation. For two years, he had the impunity of the State.”
“The door was slammed shut on the family by so many aspects of the State, including the Garda, the courts, the Probation Service, the DPP and the Department of Justice. One of the most ignorant ways in which the State slammed the door on the family has to have been the result of the scoping exercise, which blamed the death on Shane himself. That was a particularly dark aspect of the State's handling of this. I challenge incompetency in this Chamber regularly, but even I cannot believe the State could have been so incompetent as to line up so many aspects of damage in this situation. The only other reason Zigimantas Gridziuska could have been allowed to walk with impunity in and out of court for so long in this country has to have been because he was an informer.”
“I want to welcome the O'Farrell family and thank them. I want to mention two TDs who have done a great deal of work on this over the years for the family, namely, Deputies John McGuinness and Matt Carthy. That deserves recognition. To bury a child is in excruciating pain, one that no parent should ever have to experience. That should have been the limit to the pain the family experienced, but that was not the case. The State then heaped pain in a continuous battle against the family over the next 14 years. The O'Farrell family took on the State in what was probably the most persistent campaign I have ever seen, which has to have had a significant emotional and physical cost to the family, given all the work they have done.”
“What mechanisms are in the contract the Tánaiste signed off on to force the contractor to deliver these projects within the timescale and the price? There are none. The fact that there are none is because the Tánaiste, as a very well-paid Minister for Health, did not ensure they were there.”
“Calling it correcting homework is an understatement. I think the Tánaiste knows that, given that we could literally spend a full day with a litany of examples of overspending and waste across the whole range of the delivery of public services. Inertia, waste and blame-shifting are the characteristics of this Government. These are serious issues. Why? It is not only because it is incinerating taxpayers' money, but because these are really important public services and infrastructure that are simply not materialising for the people who need them. The Committee of Public Accounts heard this morning that BAM is only 60% through the progress it had promised to be even at this late stage. The committee heard that all the levers were being pushed to make the contractor deliver on this project, but what levers are there?”
“If he were the senior executive of a company where a project overran its schedule by five years and cost €1.5 billion more than it should have, he simply would not be working there anymore. Yet he is the Tánaiste of this State. I believe he is in his job because he is insulated by Fianna Fáil and Independent TDs.”
“In a statement to millions of people across the country, he said he was not responsible for the signature on that contract. Will the Tánaiste say whether he was lying to the people of Ireland on that day? Was he lying to the people watching that programme about whether he is responsible for this contract? This contract lacks an enormous amount of detail and this has allowed it to become a blank cheque for the contractor. It was designed to fail from the start. It has been acknowledged that the design was not actually complete when instructions were issued to BAM to begin phase B of the construction works in January 2019. This is an incredible situation on a project that is so large and expensive. The Tánaiste said the buck stops with him. What does that sentence actually mean?”
“The national children's hospital is a monument to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael waste and blame-shifting. Their figures are all over this extra spending of €1.5 billion. This money did not appear from nowhere. It has come from the pockets of hard-working Irish citizens and taxpayers. It is also not a victimless crime. In terms of opportunity costs, that €1.5 billion would have paid for more than 4,500 homes. It would have housed up to 18,000 people, which is more than the number of people currently homeless. The Tánaiste, though, is the blame-shifting expert in this country. Simon "it wasn't me" Harris is what we have in front of us at the moment. When he had a debate with me on national television during the election regarding this issue, he stated clearly he did not sign this contract.”
“I listened to the Tánaiste give Pearse Doherty an answer with regard to the national children's hospital. He was like an under-pressure estate agent furiously trying to sell an overpriced, extortionate and exorbitant hospital to an increasingly angry population at the moment. Nobody is arguing about the quality of the hospital; we are arguing about the price and the length of time it has taken to deliver. Leo Varadkar promised that it would be delivered by 2020 for €700 million, save for "an asteroid hitting the planet", yet it has ballooned to €2.2 billion. Today, five years after that initial opening date, there is still no confirmation about when it will open. The opening date has been postponed 15 times and I and many people do not believe it will be open by 2027 at this rate.”
“It is important that we start to match the number of people coming into the country with the resources we have available. If we do not do that, it will put pressure on society and make people feel that they are in competition for those scarce resources. That leads to the breakdown of the cohesion within society. I wish the Minister luck in his new role. We need to ensure we get to grips with this situation for the benefit of those who really need help and for the citizens of this country.”
“There are many good people from other countries doing fantastic work and making a great contribution to this country. Indeed, many essential workers are keeping our hospitals and nursing homes in operation. However, we are giving out many working visas and student visas that are not essential. Given the pressure on the system, it is time the Government began to row back on the number of visas being handed out. We added 100,000 people to the population of this State last year. That is the equivalent of the population of Galway city. Galway has a university, a hospital, dozens of schools and tens of thousands of houses. That level of infrastructure is not being built in this country annually. Dan O’Brien, who is a well-respected economist, has been writing about this.”
“If 80% of people are failing the asylum process, and the asylum process is costing €1.2 billion, it is fair to say that we are spending hundreds of millions of euro accommodating people who are not fleeing war and violence but who are, rather, moving to Ireland for economic reasons. While I believe we have a moral responsibility to try to protect people who are fleeing war and violence, it is clear from the Minister’s figures that many, if not the vast majority of, people involved in that process are not fleeing war and violence. We must send a strong message internationally that only people who are fleeing war and violence will be considered under the process. We need to say that this process is extremely strict and protective of the Irish system. Work visas are another important issue.”
“The principle of an Irish sea border has been accepted by the British when it comes to the movement of goods such as sausages and so forth. It is recognised that in order to maintain the integrity of European and British markets, an Irish sea border for certain goods is needed. We must ensure that an Irish sea border will cover the movement of people in the future. This would mean that people would apply for asylum at Belfast airport, Derry airport or wherever if they are coming to this island. It would suit the British because the flows of immigration go in both directions at different times.”
“There are no exits checks at airports or ports. Unless gardaí actually walk with an individual to the plane and sit in the plane with them, the Government does not know whether that person has left the country. That is a big problem. In the context of the management of immigration, the Border is a big weakness with which the Minister has to get to grips. That may be possible now because of the so-called relationship reset with Britain. There are approximately 270 roads that traverse the Border. The idea that spot checks are going to solve this is madness. If a person is stopped in Dundalk and brought back to Newry, they can get the next bus or taxi or even walk back across the Border if they wants. The only way to manage this is with an Irish sea border.”
“The latter may be the case, particularly as the message sent out from this country in the past four or five years was incredible. That message was that Ireland was a soft touch when it came to IPAS applications. People could come here and apply and it would take years for their applications to be processed. If someone's application failed, they could appeal and it would take years for the appeal to be processed. If that failed, they could get a judicial review that could take years to be processed. While people in this situation could be the subject of deportation orders, it was believed that these would more than likely never be enforced. For the past three or four years, the vast majority of deportation orders have not been enforced. A big problem within the system is that there are no exit checks at our borders.”
“That equates to €35,000 per person for the year, which is an incredibly high figure for what is permanent accommodation. The whole system, which makes a small number of people extremely wealthy in certain parts of the country, is damaging for local communities and the taxpayer. The Minister needs to get a grip on the cost of this process. I have submitted parliamentary questions to the Minister on the number of people whose applications under the IPAS system are failing. The Minister indicated that up to 80% of applications so far this year have failed. This means one of two things. Either the application process was not being implemented strictly or properly in the past two to four years - in 2022 only a quarter of first applications failed - or a new cohort of people are applying to IPAS.”
“The whole space is now rife with speculation and rumour. There is no doubt in my mind that certain investors are putting in applications for IPAS centres on properties they do not own. There are also applications for planning exemptions in respect of those properties. It is rumoured that one of the reasons this is being done is because it has the effect of knocking down the price of a site they may wish to buy. The owner of a site may feel pressured into selling if he or she thinks the property may be damaged as a result of speculation about its use. There is chaos in this regard at present. The situation must be rectified. A total of €1.2 billion will be spent on IPAS this year according to the reply to a parliamentary question I received from the Minister’s Department.”
“I welcome the transfer of some powers and funding away from the Department of children to the Department of Justice. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth had a lot on its plate with Tusla, childcare, mother and baby homes, Green Party leadership and failed Government referendums in the previous Government. There is no doubt about that. There were huge problems in that Department in terms of funding for early childhood education providers, the massive budget to Tusla yet no real direction on how it was spent, and the disgraceful way survivors of mother and baby homes were treated in that time and stopped from getting redress. I wish to touch on a number of issues concerning the powers now vested in the Department. There is chaos in the country over the location of IPAS centres.”
“No one from outside the country should get any more than anyone in the country as regards the supports they get to live. That has not been the case and it has been a significant ingredient, if we are honest, in a lot of the anger and frustration that has built and bubbled up in communities. The Government's approach to this whole process has been one of chaos and it has damaged the cohesion that existed, unfortunately, in the past. I welcome that Sinn Féin has moved onto this ground as regards the common-sense element. It is important that we start to get mainstream political parties talking about the need for equality in the supports families get for accommodation. It is absolutely necessary that we have a means test in the system. It is mind-boggling to most people that it is not properly means tested.”
“He cannot bring his children into the emergency accommodation because there are ten other men living in it and he cannot gain access to a house which would properly accommodate his family. Many people are living in difficult situations and find themselves in competition with individuals who are given a higher level of support than they are to gain accommodation. Most people outside this House, the majority who are not worn down by ideology and just have a common-sense practicality to them, recognise that is absolutely wrong. Aontú has said from the start that we need to give shelter to those who need it, but we need to make sure the supports we provide do not provide a pull factor for people to come to this country or give someone an advantage over an individual in this country.”
“There is no threshold for the income that is earned by a person under which they can achieve this income. It is incredibly wrong that we have a situation where people in one house could earn €100,000 and gain this particular support and next door those on €30,000 do not gain this particular support. A tenant came into my office recently. She is a woman who has two children with autism and a baby on the way. She lives in a two-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a block of apartments. It is difficult for her to manage her family in that situation. She was in tears because she has another child on the way and cannot gain access to another house with better accommodation due to the housing crisis. A father came in recently who recently separated and is living in emergency accommodation.”
“This is one of the areas where there is a large chasm between where the people of Ireland are and where the political establishment in Leinster House sits. Most people want to be able to provide shelter for those who are fleeing war and violence and to be able to help people, especially from Ukraine, given the horrendous war happening there. However, most people want a level of fairness in the system. They want that two people living on the same street will not have a difference between them that gives one family an advantage in accommodation over another. They also want a situation where resources are given to those who need them, rather than to people because of the colour of their skin or their nationality. Here we have a payment which is given to individuals irrespective of the level of income they earn.”
“That the West Bank is being planted with illegal settlers and that this State and other states are buying products from those illegal settlers and allowing them to gain profit from the illegal plantation of those parts of Palestine is incredible. In many ways, if you allow people to profit from this level of murder and destruction, you are in some way responsible for it as well. The European Union has been a disgrace on this issue, it has been shocking on it and it is dragging its feet considerably on the EU-Israel association agreement. That should be brought to an end. This Government, while stronger than those of most other European countries, is not doing enough on that. We need to speak more strongly, more openly and independently of other people in the European Union.”
“I am quite shocked the West has not broken the blockade on food coming into Gaza. It is an absolute disgrace that the West is allowing this to happen and is not dropping food into Gaza. There is no doubt this is a genocide. There is no doubt either that this is not protecting Israel. Israel is foolish if it thinks murdering children is a protection of its people and its borders. The murder of children historically has been a force of radicalisation. It has been a force to make other people take up violence against the state committing those atrocities. Our own history echoes significantly with what is happening in Palestine, where there is enforced famine and state killings of innocent civilians. Irish people in the main see themselves in the eyes of Palestinians who are suffering in Gaza and the West Bank.”
“One of the reasons it is happening in real time is because it is underwritten by the European Union and the United States. Ursula von der Leyen strode the world stage distorting Irish foreign policy, distorting the views of the Irish people and she said the European Union would protect and support Israel. What is happening is incredible. We are seeing bombs land on hospitals, bombs land on schools and bombs land on tents. The bodies of babies are being atomised by armaments being supplied by the United States of America. That underwriting by the West is an absolute kick in the moral authority of the West that will be felt in the future. The West can never look to a conflagration or conflict anywhere else and speak with moral authority anymore as it allows this to happen.”