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upper floors and long-stalled redevelopments leave this part looking neglected while retail has shifted elsewhere and been replaced by fast food shops that dilute its char…”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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“Personal responsibility is the engine of accountability and we do not have too far to look for where personal responsibility exists. In the private sector, in tens of thousands of businesses every day, people in their own work have to work to a certain standard. They have to work to ensure that they do not waste money and they have to meet the objectives of their particular business. If they do not, then there is a cost. They could be moved sideways, have their salary reduced or lose their job. That cost, however, is a catalyst to actual change in terms of accountability. The Government has proved beyond a shadow of doubt that it will not accept responsibility. This Government could be transformative in terms of accountability. It could enforce accountability from those is in the top echelons of the Civil Service.”
“We will have a blizzard of words but a drought of any real action. This is the real frustration. I am quite amazed that the Taoiseach has come in to this Chamber today and basically outsourced responsibility for Government waste. He said it is somebody else's fault and asked how the Government could be held to account in relation to it. It is that culture the Taoiseach has articulated today that is at the heart of the fiasco factory that the Government has become. My question to him is: how he will make it stop?”
“We were told it was essential enough to buy but not essential enough to actually switch on and for seven years the National Gallery searched for a room to fit this scanner. Columbus found the new world faster than the National Gallery of Ireland found a room in which to fit this particular scanner. It is absolutely incredible. There is a significant pattern. We have citizens to the pin of their collar in terms of the taxes they are being charged, the charges they are paying on a daily basis and yet we have this Government incinerating its taxpayers' money on a daily basis on projects that are going way over budget with nobody being held to account. People are sick and tired of it. People are furious with this. It is an incredible situation. There is no doubt now that we are going to have a review and there could have an investigation.”
“We will need to spend another €657 million on security upgrades. We must remember that the current Taoiseach was in the Department of the Taoiseach at that time. He spent €15 million on PR that particular year when the National Cyber Security Centre got €5 million for its total budget, which is an incredible situation. We have had €2.5 billion on the children's hospital, 67 vacant OPW properties and 4,000 empty local authority homes, all during a national housing crisis, bike sheds, security huts, the WRC wall, the great wall of Tara, €7 million on an Arts Council IT system that never materialised, and now we have the latest instalment of the Government's waste, which is the National Gallery of Ireland burying a scanner for €120,000.”
“The Oireachtas spent €808,000 on a printer that could not fit into the print room. It then spent €230,000 fixing that room in order that it could be fitted in. It also spent €12,000 to store the printer until it could be installed in the print room. The Government spent €22 million on ventilators that never worked and a further €50,000 on storing them. One hundred electric buses were bought but did not move an inch for 18 months because someone forgot to buy electric chargers for them. Some €300 million has been spent on metro north and not a shovel has been put into the ground. A total of €2.5 billion has been spent on compensation on adverse incidents or mistakes that have happened in the health service over the past ten years and we have seen the cyberattacks so far cost the State €100 million.”
“The Government has collected €2.2 billion from M50 tolls since 2008, according to a report on "The Pat Kenny Show" this morning. The two bridges were built for £58 million. The toll company made back all of that money in just one year of tolls. It then sold those bridges to the State for €600 million. The State has charged the people using them €2.2 billion in that period. It is incredible that last year, commuters paid a whopping €212 million on M50 tolls. These are tolls that this State owns. This is a tax on work. It is a tax on the Minister's constituents and people who cannot access public transport. The Government is now operating it as a cash cow. It is jacking up the tolls on bridges that we have paid for 31 times over at this stage.”
“Like nuclear power, it has a significant increase in severity in respect of humanity. We are treating it as a fait accompli . This is a mistake. We need to put AI under the democratic control of nation states.”
“It is only in the hands of those who can afford it. The Internet has already radically transformed the way our society runs. For example, a fire was lit under the Arab Spring by social media, which led to large wars and large movements of people. Social media is already rewiring the brains of children and young people alike and driving people's emotions through algorithms. We have no idea what AI will do in terms of all of that. It is a significant threat to the labour force. It will wipe out many jobs in an uncontrolled manner. Music, art, creativity and education are all under significant threat. AI is not being driven by democratic needs but by commercial needs. It does not have a moral compass. It is like nuclear power in many ways. It depends on the hands of the people it is in.”
“You can bet your bottom dollar that he did not generate that particular answer himself. AI obviously offers solutions but there are significant threats to society in relation to it. The Minister of State mentioned that it can potentially help in climate change but there is no doubt that AI will be a significant element in making climate change worse. It is an extremely energy-thirsty sector that will radically increase the number of data centres that have to be created throughout the country. AI is also a threat to democracy. It will enhance the manipulation of people. Deepfakes and misinformation will significantly distort the operation of a democracy. It will be impossible for people to know what is real and what is not real in democracies in future. It is not an equal opportunities technology.”
“Three weeks ago, I asked the Taoiseach to set up an Oireachtas committee on the issue of AI. He said "No" and that he has no responsibility for the issue. This is a big mistake because this issue is of such importance that we need the whole of the Oireachtas working towards it. We talk about minute procedural issues, which affect nobody, forever and a day in this House, yet the biggest issue looming in society at the moment is AI and we just have this debate on it. While I welcome it, it is not nearly enough. The Minister of State's speech was so pro AI you would think it was generated by AI. That might sought outlandish, but it is interesting that in the previous Dáil I received a reply on retrofitting from the former Minister, Eamon Ryan, in ancient Greek.”
“I also want to make reference to another individual who has been spoken about in this debate, namely, the young man who lost his life after entering a river in Galway. The series of events surrounding that particular night are incredibly concerning. We often hear stories of people who present themselves seeking help but do not get the help and, unfortunately, go on to commit suicide. We must get to grips with what is happening. CAMHS are crumbling around the country. There is no doubt we are suffering from a lack of recruitment as a result of the lack of proper pay, terms and conditions. We must ask ourselves why there is such pressure on children in modern society. We must start to tackle the causes of the mental health issues in our society.”
“They ask what medicine he gets or whether he has had his injections but are told absolutely nothing. He was sectioned twice in the run-up to Christmas. Each time, his overnight admission was made voluntary so he could sign himself out. The family were very disappointed about that. On 3 February, he was again sectioned and brought into hospital but he was signed out when he assaulted somebody in the hospital. The family collected him from the Garda the next day and brought him for a walk in the grounds of Maynooth University, where he seriously assaulted a number of individuals, one of whom is still in hospital and may lose the sight in his eye. Damien is now in the medical wing of Cloverhill Prison. The family feel that not enough was done to help this situation and that much of this was preventable if they got the help they needed.”
“I wish the Ministers of State good luck in their roles in this important space. I will detail the experience of Damien. He has had schizophrenia for the past eight years and has been in hospital for a number of months in those years. In the past year, things have got worse for the family and they have gone to great lengths to get help. Their son is in the fields until 3 a.m., up to his eyes in muck and battling demons and devils. The family have found Damien eating his own excrement and vomiting. They tried to get him into a day hospital but he cannot cope in such a setting. They have been getting very little sleep. The mother had a stroke and the father is now on antidepressants. They are told nothing by doctors because Damien is an adult.”
“When you burn through so much money, there is a cost. The amount involved would have paid for 25 homes and we could have put 75 people into those homes. It would have paid for 600 scoliosis operations. It would have paid for six CAMHS teams around the country. Not only is the Government burning up taxpayers' money, it is taking away that critically needed cash from the people who need it most.”
“There is a policy sometimes on the part of senior Ministers to hear no evil and see no evil and to say "Oh, we didn't know what was happening." The Tánaiste mentioned that before. It is the responsibility of a Minister to know what is happening in his or her Department. You cannot insulate yourself from crises such as this by pleading ignorance over and over again. That is not an excuse when it comes to waste. We do not even have the opportunity to bring the former Minister, Catherine Martin, before a committee of the Oireachtas because 11 weeks after the election, there are no committees. I understand it is unlikely that there will be any committees for a number of weeks, which, again, shows us the dysfunction of and the glacial pace of accountability within the system. This is not a victimless crime.”
“We have stated that there should be a junior Minister in the Department of the Taoiseach to report on live contracts to make sure they are not going over budget or over time in terms of delivery and that this person should report to the Taoiseach on a weekly basis in order that there would be full oversight of what is happening. Of course, this has not been done. We have stated very clearly that there has to be a cost to senior civil servants in terms of this waste. That cost should be up to including the loss of a person's job. If there is no cost involved, there will be no change and we will be talking about this forever.”
“We have loads of people who are getting massive wages to oversee the spending of State money - citizens' money - and nobody is doing their job. Week after week, people are cursed to wake up to the next instalment of Government waste. People have had enough of this. People make jokes about the bicycle shed and the wall around the WRC. It is not a joke. What is happening to taxpayers' money is disgusting, and we cannot tolerate it any further. We in Aontú have stated that it should be written into the contracts of senior civil servants that they have a responsibility to mind taxpayers' money.”
“That is an incredible answer for any Government to give. I honestly believe that there is a culture of waste that is coming from the top. One of the pivotal issues of the general election campaign was the Tánaiste stating that he did not sign the contract for the national children's hospital. This culture of evasion, dodging, delaying and obfuscating is coming from the top and is seeping into every level of the senior Civil Service. Let us look at the number of people who are involved. We had a senior Minister. Where was the oversight? We had junior Ministers. Where was the oversight? We had Secretaries General. Where was the oversight? We had directors and chairs of the Arts Council. Where was the oversight? We had an audit committee in the Arts Council. Where was the oversight?”
“The Tánaiste says there should not be a consequence-free zone. This Government is a consequence-free zone. This Government is an accountability-free zone when it comes to waste. You speak about the Arts Council IT waste as some kind of shock, as if you are a passenger on the ship of State. You are at the helm of the ship of State in the context of these issues. I could spend the full day here giving a litany of Government projects in respect of which there has been waste, week after week, in the past four or five years. There is deep frustration among taxpayers at the level of Government waste. The Arts Council incinerated €7 million of State funding. We have nothing to show for that. What we have is a Government - the same Government that was in place a few weeks ago - shrugging its shoulders and saying it does not know what happened.”
“I have argued in this Chamber and committees for years that Fine Gael should want to collect more corporation tax instead of the bargain basement corporation taxes the Minister's party stood for for a long time. What actions is the Government taking now and is it going to completely outsource its actions to the European Union-----”
“Foreign direct investment, FDI, is considered a transitional economic policy. It is usually developed from a non-developed economy to try to get into a developed system. When that economy has developed to a good stage, most economies then try to develop indigenous economy because it is usually much stickier and less mobile as regards threats internationally. Obviously, they use strong indigenous economy and a decent FDI input. This country has never moved on from FDI in terms of its economic policy and, therefore, has left itself significantly exposed. The Minister's Government continues to do that by not ensuring we have a strong indigenous economy.”
“For 2023, income tax was roughly €33 billion, corporation tax was the next largest, at €24 billion, and VAT came in at about €20 billion. Those figures and the figures the Minister has just outlined show that there is a significant exposure for this country. Because of the potential changes with the US Administration, we could be looking at significant job losses, significant corporation tax losses and a significant fall in income taxes in this country, as well as austerity being brought into place because of the lack of taxation within the budgets to be able to pay for the services that have been built up over recent decades. What actions is the Minister taking with the US Administration to make sure that those tax bases do not evaporate over the next while?”
“Ireland is the most exposed country in Europe as regards the potential changes in tariffs and corporation taxes with the United States. We are enormously exposed. Our dependence on a bargain-basement corporation tax economy which has been built up by the Government over the past ten years means we are now under significant threat. What actions is the Minister taking to engage with the US Government on the tariff issue and the corporation tax issue?”
“Is it any wonder that we have that culture in some elements of our administration, when it is being led by a Government that is steeped in exactly the same culture of waste and largesse? The culture is rotten from the top. The leadership is giving the example that taxpayers' money is there to be burned and enjoyed. That is one of the reasons the children's hospital has taken decades to build at a cost of €2.5 billion. The Government is showing the wrong example to the rest of the State. It is ripping off the taxpayer and incinerating taxpayers' money. It has to come to an end.”
“All the Bill does is solidify the new arrangements between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independents by creating as many goodies as possible for those TDs. The fact is that a junior Minister will now get the salary of a TD of €113,000, with a top of €45,000 and another potential top up of €32,000 in travel expenses. A junior minister will now get approximately €200,000. A super junior Minister will get approximately €204,000. It will cost the State approximately €5 million in total. Is there any wonder we have a culture among some elements of the administration of this country that seeks to build a bike shed for €350,000, a security hut for €1 million, a WRC wall for €500,000 or a great wall of Tara for 11 years?”
“They say to start as you mean to continue. By God, this Government has done that. The first thing the Government did after the election was to spend weeks and weeks talking to itself about the creation of a government. When it came back, then decide to vote to give itself two weeks' holidays. When it came back from that, it decided to create an enormous number of extremely high paid jobs for a record number of Ministers across the country. To underpin the direction of travel for this Government, it has now decided to delete the scrutiny that would normally happen for a Bill such as this. Let us call a spade a spade. This is a Government on the make. This is a bloated Government steeped in a culture of having its snout in a trough. The idea that 40% of the TDs opposite all now have a highly paid position is incredible.”
“I will raise immigration and address the following issue with the Minister for Justice. It is an important issue. It was reported in the Irish Daily Star in October 2023 that the subject who was charged with the stabbing of three people in Stoneybatter overstayed an expired visa and was charged with an offence contrary to the Immigration Act that year. One of the big problems for the Government over the last number of years has been the number of people who have received deportation orders or have overstayed visas and have never left the country. It appears that if this individual was removed from the country when immigration law was broken, he would not have been in Stoneybatter with regard to the alleged incidents as such. That is a very important issue.”
“The initial investigation found that the Arts Council was not prepared for the scale of the IT project development and did not put in the right resources to deliver it. Where was the oversight by the Department? Where was the oversight by the Minister? Where was the oversight by the chair and director of the Arts Council. These people are well paid. Is it not part of their job to make sure taxpayers' money is spent properly? My worry is that Ministers will speak of deep frustration in measured, angry tones, that there will be reviews and perhaps even an investigation, and that the truth is that the incineration of taxpayers' money will continue as normal as soon as media scrutiny subsides and moves on to the next issue. This is an important issue and I do not see the programme for Government tackling it properly.”
“The Government spent €2.5 billion in 2023 on compensation paid in respect of adverse incidents in hospitals. The HSE has spent more than €100 million so far on the cyberattack and it is now likely the security upgrades that relate to that cyberattack will cost €657 million. Today, we learned about the next instalment of the shocking Government waste. We learned the Arts Council has spent €6.6 million on an IT system that was never delivered. It is an absolutely shocking situation. The Government is paying millions of euro of taxpayers' money for items that are not even delivered. The Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, was in the Department concerned under the last Government.”
“One of the most important characteristics of the previous Government was its complete waste of taxpayers' money over and over again. We heard Deputy Varadkar, when talking about the national children's hospital, say that, save an asteroid hitting the planet, the children's hospital would be built by 2020 with €700 million. The cost is €2.25 billion at the moment and we do not have an opening date. The Government spent €300 million on metro north and no shovel has been put in the ground yet. The Government spent €22 million on ventilators that never worked and is now spending €50,000 per year to store them in a shed. One hundred electric buses were bought and did not move an inch for well over a year because someone forgot to put in a planning application for the chargers for those buses.”
“Knowing, however, that the office of posh walls spends a lot of money on labour costs, no doubt the amount is three or four times that figure. A couple of weeks ago, the Tánaiste said he was going to overhaul the OPW. Can he tell me how that is going?”
“Go raibh maith agat. I have another example of the Tánaiste's Gucci Government wasting money. The Hill of Tara is one of the most important national monuments in the country. It is poorly served by the OPW in terms of an interpretive centre that is closed more than it is open and muddy paths for visitors. There is, however, a new addition. The OPW has been building the great wall of Tara and it has been building it for the past 14 years. It is an incredible length of time. Even in the context of the Government's glacial delivery of projects, 14 years must be a record. The OPW has told me it has spent €124,000 just on the materials for the wall, not including labour costs. It will not give me the labour costs.”
“If we look at a map of where those homes are, we will see they are in the west and the midlands, areas that have been forgotten by this country. Sixty per cent of the Ministers of this Government are based in the greater Dublin area. There is one Minister from throughout Connacht and Ulster. There is a direct correlation between this Government's focus, in terms of ministerial power, and the lack of actual power in people's homes. The Government is going to go ahead and build the North-South interconnector, which will put 90 m-high pylons across high land in the midlands. The Government is spending hundreds of millions of euro on a project that will be blown down in future. I ask it to refrain from that project.”
“The response of this Government to the storm is absolutely shocking. It took a full 12 days for this Dáil to meet after the storm. That shows how far removed the Government is from the needs of the people. The fact that not even a senior Minister has turned up for this debate is also shocking. In a parliamentary question I submitted to the Minister for energy a couple of days ago, I asked how many staff at the ESB are employed to reconnect homes, in response to which he stated he has no responsibility for that question. That is incredible. The Minister for energy has no responsibility for the reconnection of family homes to the energy system. Today marks two weeks since Storm Éowyn and 13,000 homes are still without electricity.”
“Illegal occupation and illegal settlements are the polar opposite of justice. Enforced illegal settlements are a form of violence. They are a source of grievance, strife and provocation. The question that this Government faces is how we can use our influence to bring about justice in the region. How can we use our influence to bring about peace there? The only way we can do it is through the use of the euro and economic tools. I urge the Government not to renege on the promises it gave to the Irish people just six or seven weeks ago regarding the occupied territories Bill and to fulfil its obligation, while it has the opportunity, to do right by the people of Palestine. The Government has an opportunity to put action behind the words it has used for so long with regard to what is happening in Gaza and Palestine.”
“We believe that there must be the peaceful coexistence offered by a two-state solution in the region in the future. I am often asked why the Irish people feel such a sense of solidarity with the people of Palestine. The truth is that many, if not most, Irish people see themselves in the eyes of the people of Palestine. Irish people understand that our history allows to us to see that living next door to a large, brutal military regime has enormous consequences for civilians as well. It is really important that the Government starts to recognise the fact that we cannot continue to allow for those responsible for illegal occupation and illegal settlements to profit from trade with Ireland. Peace cannot be built without justice, and justice is a foundation stone of any future peaceful settlement between Israel and Palestine.”
“We believe sanctions are an important part of international pressure and this should mean the end of dual-use items that are often used for both military and civilian use by Israel. We believe there should be the conducting of ethics audits to ensure that Irish public institutions are in no way complicit or co-operative with links in regard to the occupation of Palestine. We need to do all we can to save lives and maintain human rights. Freedom of speech has come under pressure in many western countries in recent times as people have started to use that speech in the defence of the people of the occupied territories and Gaza. Aontú is a party with a very strong belief in freedom of speech. Aontú also completely opposes the vicious violence of Hamas.”
“We fully support the occupied territories Bill to ban trade with Israel's illegal settlements and the Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill to ban Irish State investment in entities complicit with the illegal settlements enterprises. Further, we will support all calls for an EU-wide ban on trade with illegal settlements. Aontú believes that Ireland should in no way give to the Israeli war machine. We seek to make sure that Irish airspace and airports are devoid of the transit of weapons components, tech surveillance and any other items that help the Israeli war machine to maintain its illegal occupation and commit war crimes against the people of Palestine.”
“Self-determination has been an existential question for Ireland for many generations. That is why generations of Irish republicans sought to fight for freedom against the British Empire 100 years ago and it is why parties such as Aontú believe in the full independence of the Thirty-two Counties of Ireland. Occupation is the denial of self-determination. The occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is absolutely wrong. No one should profit from Israel's occupation of Palestine. No one should profit from the denial of self-determination to a whole people. Yet, that is what this regime is allowing to happen at the moment. Doing business with those who illegally occupy another country reinforces that occupation. Doing business with those who deny self-determination to a people is complicity with the denial of a democratic human right.”
“Míle buíochas le Sinn Féin as an rún seo. The State of Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. The UN special committee to investigate Israeli practices has said that Israel's war on Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide. Some 70% of all people who have been killed in Gaza were women and children, and the figure is even higher for non-combatants. Aontú urges the Government to recognise that the ethnic cleansing of parts of Gaza, the banning of food, water and medical aid, the countless massacres and the countless schools and hospitals that have been bombed are war crimes. Aontú believes in self-determination. All nations should have the right to self-determine. Self-determination is a basic democratic right. It is not a philosophical question for the people of Ireland.”
“It is interesting that 89 days will have passed from the last time there were consecutive sittings of the Dáil until the next time it next sits on consecutive days. There is a slow, bureaucratic culture at the heart of this Government. That is also to be seen in practically every infrastructural project that is happening at the moment and it has consequences. This Government has the urgency relating to the national children's hospital.”
“Ministers had to wait for one day for their ministerial seals but there are hundreds of thousands of people in this country who are waiting for hospital and health treatment at the same time. It is interesting that so much of the Leinster House campus was festooned with gardaí when many of our citizens are dodging town centres because of the lack of gardaí in those areas. It is also important to say that many parents are lying awake every night trying to decide how they are going to make ends meet with the money they have. Yet, we have newly minted Ministers of State who are going to be counting €800 per day in salary for every day they work over the next while. One of the biggest problems I have with this Government is the fact that things are moving so slowly on so many different projects.”
“It looks like this is an east-coast Government. It looks like there is only one Minister from Connacht or Ulster in the Cabinet. Some 60% of the Ministers in this Government are from the greater Dublin area. That is not spatial development. The west is certainly not awake in this Government. It is incredible that the Cabinet is being named on the day the news broke that 30,000 homes were built in the State last year. Housing is the biggest issue affecting this country and the Government has been in reverse. When the new Taoiseach awoke this morning, on the day of his elevation, tens of thousands of people in this country awoke in homelessness. While the Taoiseach was in Áras an Uachtaráin, young families were in the airports, emigrating to escape the high price of rents and houses.”
“-----and there are many children suffering pain from scoliosis waiting for operations. Today, many children will seek help with regard to their mental health but will be refused CAMHS treatment. Eighty-nine days will elapse between the last time we had consecutive Dáil business to the next time we have consecutive Dáil business. The excuse of the Government is that it has to bed down. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been in government for ten years at this stage. Actually, Fine Gael is heading towards 19 years in government. The idea that they need to take two weeks off to bed down into these Departments is ridiculous. These issues are urgent. Show a little bit of urgency and ensure the Dáil is back and working next week.”