Pearse Doherty
Donegal · Sinn Féin · Ireland
“I move amendment No. 1 to Seanad recommendation No. 2: To delete from the row dated "1 September 2026" down to and including the row dated "1 May 2030" and substitute the following: " 15 July 2026 €502.88 €502.88 €371.85 €371.85 €371.85 €0.00 €210.45 €172.14 €167.25 €79.17 €11.48 14 October 2026 €502.88 €502.88 €371.85 €371.85 €371.85 €0.…”
“Next week, this House will rise, the doors of Leinster House will be locked and Ministers will head off on their summer holidays. Their parting gift to ordinary Irish people across the State will be to have locked in fuel price increases that will hit them in their pockets.”
“That is not acceptable and it is why we in Sinn Féin have tabled this amendment to say that these price increases should not be going ahead and that prices should be properly monitored at the appropriate time.”
“This is tied to the latter amendment and I will speak further at length on that. Recommendation No. 1 deals with the diesel rebate scheme, which operates within a window that closes on 1 October.”
“Hope is what we rely on when we have no control. It is not a substitute for prudent economic planning. There is zero certainty here. There are no guarantees that the Strait of Hormuz will remain open or that global supply lines will not be choked tomorrow morning.”
“As if that were not good enough, the Government is not just hitting people with increases on petrol and diesel. On top of that, it is going to hit them with an increase in the cost of home heating oil, natural gas and a basic bag of coal.”
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“The latest increases in food prices expose the Government's bogus justification for ripping away the cost-of-living supports. The ESRI was very clear: lower-income households felt worse off as a result of the budget. We can argue over and back all the time but the lived experience is very clear. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald stood here earlier today and outlined that 70,000 more households cannot pay their electricity bills than the same time a year ago. This is not us saying it, but the CRU. These are families. They could not fit into Croke Park and the Aviva together. That is just the additional number of people in the past year who cannot pay for their electricity. Whatever the Minister might say, suggesting the Government is doing this, that and all the rest, 70,000 more people are worse off. Those are the bare facts of it.”
“Inflation is 50% higher than what the Government had forecast. It claimed prices were stabilising and that was the basis for the Government pulling the cost-of-living supports in the budget. The ESRI said that the budget resulted in income losses for the average Irish household. Will the Tánaiste accept he got this badly wrong? Will he bring forward a cost-of-living package that so many families desperately require giving the prices that are being charged to them in different guises, whether shopping, insurance or many other examples?”
“They do not pay any tax on rental income, the €3,000 they rent out the properties for. This is why they can pay the Government's tax. We cannot get away from the fact that hundreds of properties that should be available to families to start off their own homes are being snapped up by vulture funds. Ban the practice. Stop tinkering around the edges. I hear the Tánaiste is not even considering any other policy bar reviews. The facts speak for themselves.”
“The stamp duty measure was introduced back in 2021. Does the Minister know that vulture funds purchased more homes last year than they did in 2021? He said the trend is going down every year. That is not true; the figure actually increased in 2022. The 293 homes purchased are homes that people are queuing for and want to have as their family home, their forever home, and vulture funds are buying them up because they have unlimited means. The Minister can splice and dice this any way he likes. He promised he was going to end this practice, which can be ended. Stop tinkering about the edges, and ban it. Stop imposing taxation on vulture funds because they have unlimited means. Does the Minister know why? It is because he provided them with a sweetheart deal.”
“It appears now that he has tolerated 293 of them being bulk-purchased last year. The measures are not enough. The measures were in place all of last year. What is the Minister going to do, or is this, again, just something Simon says? I would ban vulture funds bulk-purchasing homes. It should be stopped. It is immoral. There is a crisis that the Government parties have created and the Minister is now facilitating vulture funds to snap up hundreds of homes every single year, and we are supposed to have cold comfort that the trends are going down.”
“The Minister promised us he was going to end this practice. He has just told the House that nearly 300 family homes were bought up by vulture funds last year, and he is going to keep it "under review". Under his watch, the Government is sitting by and allowing vulture funds to buy up family homes, a practice he promised over and over again that he would end. A total of 293 homes that should have been bought by ordinary workers and families last year were snapped up by corporate landlords and vulture funds. What happened to the Minister claiming he was going to stop all of this? When he was Taoiseach, he wrote to the finance Minister saying not enough was being done to stop the bulk-purchasing of homes. He argued that bulk-purchasing of homes needed for first-time buyers could not be tolerated.”
“This Government, Fine Gael in particular, has a long history of welcoming in the vulture funds to snap up Irish homes. Only because of rightful public anger at vulture funds bulk-purchasing homes a number of years ago under the nose of ordinary workers and families have we seen any pressure put on, and action by, the Government. The Minister committed that this practice would end. Has it ended or is it still going on? If it is still going on, how many family homes were bulk-purchased by vulture funds last year and in previous years?”
“The vast majority, 250,000 people, do not use them. The reality is the insurance companies have not done anything on this issue. If private insurance companies are unwilling to provide insurance cover, the State needs to address that. Across the European Union, there is a recognition and acceptance that the State needs to step in where the sector fails. Is the Government going to deal with this issue and does it have a potential State-supported scheme on the table?”
“The problem is that we have been hearing the same thing for the past ten years regarding task forces, multi-agency groups and the rest. That is all fine. We have to do some of that work to get the results and ideas. However, the Minister of State talks about his plans delivering but ten years on, they have not delivered for these households. Thousands of houses and businesses across the State have no insurance and are at risk of flooding. That is the problem here. The Government does not have a concrete plan. Last year, when we raised this issue, Fine Gael went away and met with the CEOs of insurance companies and told them they should improve the level of cover for areas with demountable flood defences. Let us park demountable flood defences, however, because only 4,500 people use them in the first instance.”
“Right now, we have a situation where private insurance companies pick and choose who they will extend flood insurance to. We do not allow that to happen with health insurance companies. We do not say they are allowed to only pick people who are healthy, young and all of that, but we let flood insurers get away with this. What is the Government going to do? We can roll back the tapes ten years. In fairness to the Tánaiste, when he was the Minister responsible for the OPW, he said we needed to deal with this issue. However, ten years on we are still not dealing with it and there are still no solutions. When is the complacency going to end?”
“Lack of access to insurance can affect communities and businesses in a very real way. The Minister of State mentioned the Central Bank report. In 2024, it reported as follows: "The occurrence of a severe flood could leave households and businesses with high levels of uninsured losses, impairing economic recovery from a flood event"., It concluded that there is "a serious risk of complacency". Everything the Minister has said is more of the same complacency. Indeed, when the Tánaiste, who is seated beside him, was Minister ten years ago he talked about flood insurance. Ten years on, nothing has happened. We have the same situation over and over again. The Minister of State is talking about more high-level reports, meetings and so on.”
“This question relates to flood insurance. We have seen floods destroy homes, communities and businesses alike. The Central Bank's figures show that 290,000 buildings in the State are at risk of flooding and that the owners struggle to access flood insurance. Almost 100% of those have either limited cover or no cover at all. This does not even include properties at risk from coastal flooding. What actions is the Government taking to make sure that flood insurance will be available to everyone who needs it?”
“The profiteering in this sector needs to come to an end and come to an end very quickly. Ireland needs a migration and international protection system. We need one that is fair, efficient, humane and, crucially, enforced. However, this Bill does not deliver that. Instead, it locks Ireland into a pact that undermines sovereignty, ignores our unique circumstances, overestimates State capacity and risks repeating the very failures that brought the system into crisis. Sinn Féin believes Ireland can do better by making decisions in this House, planning properly, supporting integration and enforcing rules fairly. For those reasons, we cannot support the Bill.”
“New centres should only be located in areas properly resourced to accommodate them, not in communities that are already struggling. Site selection needs to be based on a pre-assessment of community capacity, including access to GPs, school places, transport and existing levels of disadvantage. At the same time, we cannot ignore the scale of profiteering that has been allowed to exist under this Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Government. It is eye watering. An estimated €1.2 billion of taxpayers' money was spent on IPAS accommodation in 2025 alone. Bed-per-night rates are skyrocketing. They are up 68% in two years. A small number of private operators under this Government are making millions while communities are left in the dark and services are being overwhelmed. The Comptroller and Auditor General has been scathing in relation to this.”
“We supported the asylum and migration management regulation because it allows Ireland to return applicants to the member state where they should be properly processed. We supported Eurodac because we believe that access to fingerprint data assists with vetting, child protection, tackling trafficking and enforcing decisions. Those measures serve Ireland’s interests. What we opposed - and continue to oppose - are measures that undermine Irish sovereignty, impose rigid procedures and fail to account for Ireland's realities. Protocol 21 exists precisely so Ireland can make those distinctions. This Government chose not to. One of the clearest symptoms of failure in the current system is the way IPAS accommodation has been imposed on communities without planning, assessment or engagement.”
“Those failures fall at the Minister's feet and the feet of this Government. The committee also raised serious concerns about the impact of this legislation on Tusla and the civil legal aid system. Both are already stretched and at breaking point. Tusla is responsible for some of the most vulnerable children in the State, including unaccompanied minors. Children have gone missing from care. There are known risks of trafficking and exploitation. Yet this Bill piles new obligations onto Tusla without addressing those failures. The same applies to legal aid. Accelerated procedures mean nothing if people cannot access timely, effective legal advice. Speed without fairness is not efficiency. It is injustice. Let me be clear. Sinn Féin did not oppose everything in the EU pact.”
“He has been in the job now for over a year and despite the headlines, he has very little to show for it. Decisions are taking too long. The median processing time was 15 months in quarter 3 of last year. Appeals are taking longer still. The latest figure we have showed that processing times are over 16 months. That is the longest they have been in four years. We are going backwards not forwards. This means that it is now taking two and half years from beginning to end to process an application. Let me spell it out because it is an important point. We did not need to sign up to the EU pact to sort out the delays in processing applications. We do not need and did not need the pact to fix the delays in the appeals system. We definitely do not need the pact to stop the wild profiteering.”
“Yet officials could not say how much the State may be liable for. For 15,000 applications, staffing projections rise to over 1,500 people. For 18,000 applications, it is nearly 1,800 people. In mid-2025, there were fewer than 1,000 staff across the relevant bodies with vacancy rates already above 10%. We already have excessive delays. Decisions are already taking far too long and appeals even longer still. Now the Government proposes rigid EU-mandated deadlines without the staffing, infrastructure, or legal supports required to ensure fairness. That is how a system collapses. That is how states end up with fines for failures that were entirely predictable. We do not need the EU pact to fix the issues in the Irish international protection system. There are glaring problems that the Minister has failed to address.”
“Yet officials acknowledged at the committee that there was no meaningful consideration of the common travel area when opting into this pact, despite repeated Government claims that most applicants arrive via that route. That is extraordinary. By tying Ireland fully into the EU system, the Government reduces the flexibility of future Irish Governments to respond pragmatically, including bilaterally with Britain, to changing migration patterns. It ties the hands of the Irish State and it does so unnecessarily. Even setting sovereignty concerns aside, which we do not, there is a more immediate problem. The State is not ready for this. The justice committee heard directly that failure to meet pact obligations could expose Ireland to infringement proceedings and significant daily fines.”
“That flexibility was central to securing public consent for the Treaty of Lisbon. People voted on the understanding that Ireland would retain control over sensitive areas like migration, asylum and justice. This Government chose not to use that flexibility. Instead, it signed Ireland up wholesale to a pact that transfers decision-making power away from this State and into EU-level mechanisms even where those mechanisms are ill-suited to Ireland’s position. That is a political choice; it is the wrong choice. Ireland is not a typical EU member state. We are not part of Schengen. We share a common travel area with a state outside the European Union. We have a land border with a non-EU jurisdiction.”
“It was unanimous, cross-party and clear but the Government brushed it aside. Why bother with scrutiny if Ministers have already decided the outcome? It is also disgraceful that the Minister is not allowing the proper scrutiny of this Bill where the justice committee was also very clear that it wanted to do scrutiny of this Bill on Committee Stage in the committee. The Government is now scheduling this Bill before the Dáil next week. Second Stage of this Bill is to conclude on Thursday afternoon but the amendments for Committee Stage have to put in by Thursday morning. It shows the Government for what it is. Ireland has a legal right under Protocol 21 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to opt-in or opt-out of measures in the area of freedom, security and justice on a case-by-case basis.”
“At its core, this legislation gives effect to the Government’s decision to opt into the EU migration and asylum pact. Sinn Féin has been clear and consistent. The vast majority of that pact is not in Ireland’s interests. Our position is straightforward. Decisions on migration and international protection should be made in Ireland by an Irish Government accountable to the Irish people and shaped by our own circumstances and responsibilities. What is most disappointing - and frankly most telling - is that this Government ignored a unanimous, cross-party recommendation of the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration. After detailed pre-legislative scrutiny, that committee explicitly recommended that the Government reconsider opting into the majority of the EU migration and asylum pact.”
“Tá spriocdhátaí daingne socraithe ag an Aontas Eorpach agus, gan a dhóthain foirne nó tacaíochtaí dlí againn lena gcur i bhfeidhm, táimid ag tarraingt fíneálacha gan stad orainn féin as na sáruithe a bheidh le teacht. Tacaíonn muid le comhoibriú praiticiúil, ar nós Eurodac don ghrinnfhiosrú, ach diúltaíonn muid roimh smacht a chaitheamh amú. Teastaíonn córas ó Éirinn atá cothrom agus éifeachtach, córas atá múnlaithe ag muintir na hÉireann go háirithe. This Bill is not about fixing a broken system. It is not about fixing what is broken in Ireland's international protection system. It is about locking the State into a framework that will shape migration and asylum policy for years to come with serious interventions and implications for sovereignty, capacity, fairness and public confidence.”
“Ní réiteach atá sa Bhille seo, ach géilleadh ar ár bhflaitheas. Trí glacadh go hiomlán le comhaontú imirce agus tearmainn an Aontais Eorpaigh, tá neamhaird déanta ag an Rialtas ar fhírinne an tsaoil sa Stát seo, is í sin ná nach bhfuil muid mar chuid den limistéar Schengen; tá Teorann againn leis an dTuaisceart; agus tá comhlimistéar taistil againn leis an mBreatain. Tá Sinn Féin soiléir gur chóir go ndéanfaí na cinntí faoin inimirce i mBaile Átha Cliath, seachas sa Bhruiséal. Ní féidir linn tacú le creatlach a chuirfidh srianta ar rialtais eile amach anseo agus a dhéanann neamhaird ar bhuairt a léirigh an coiste um dhlí agus ceart san Oireachtais d’aon ghuth.”
“I will say it again: the Government should admit that it got it badly wrong and what it needs to urgently do is end the price gouging, get costs under control and, crucially, bring forward a cost-of-living package without delay.”
“It should not make things worse through Government action. Second, Government needs to do its job and tackle price gouging; reform electricity pricing; mandate large supermarkets that operate in Ireland to report their profits; take on the banks and insurance companies; support my legislation that would ensure transparency; cap rents; and stop vulture funds snapping up properties ahead of families. These are just some of the proposals we have put forward and we can give the Government many more. Third, the Government needs to put in place supports. That means bringing forward a cost-of-living package because people should be able to expect that in the face of a cost-of-living crisis, when the Government has the resources in the form of billions of their euro, the Government will step in and help.”
“They are still being crucified by energy bills, food prices, insurance and childcare. The list goes on and on and people at home know it. The Government needs to show some humility and admit that it got this badly wrong. More importantly, it needs to wake up to reality and bring forward a cost-of-living package. Right now, the Government is just refusing to help. It is not just refusing to help; it is actively making things worse and harder on people. Instead of supporting people, it has made things worse. It is jacking up rents, increasing college fees, hiking taxes on family homes and increasing the cost of home heating oil, petrol and diesel. The list goes on. Any Government with a serious intent of protecting people from inflation has to do three things. The first is do no harm.”
“The Government pulled energy credits even though bills were higher this year than they were the year before and more people than ever are struggling but the Government did not care. Insurance costs are through the roof. Car, home and health insurance - you name it, it has gone up. What else has gone up? Bank profits, developer profits, insurance profits and large supermarket profits. They are all raking it in. Both the International Monetary Fund, IMF, and the European Commission have told us that corporate profits drive inflation but this Government does not want to know. The Government looks at corporations making record profits and gives them bigger tax breaks, all while ordinary people pick up the tab. The reality is that things are getting worse and people are under more pressure than ever.”
“Food price hikes are still racing ahead of general inflation in a way that cannot continue and ordinary workers and families are getting crucified. They are hit hardest because they spend a large share of their wages just trying to put food on the table. Parents trying to keep and feed their families on modest wages are drowning and this Government looks the other way. Energy prices are completely out of control. Ireland has gone from being one of the cheapest for electricity to being one of the most expensive. Hundreds of thousands of people right now are behind on their energy bills and it seems the Government does not care. More than that are able to barely just keep up and are trying not to fall into arrears. This was all because there was no election.”
“It is how it justified handing out all the tax breaks to investors and developers, giving nothing to workers. Prices have not levelled off. Inflation is 50% higher than the Government forecast on budget day. Its projections that it built its budget on now look like wishful thinking. We are now seeing prices going up and up, totally out of line with targets and what we see in other European countries. Despite all of this, the Government has dug in its heels and refused to act. It is still turning a blind eye to the fact that people are working every hour God sends them and still cannot keep up. People have been left struggling through the winter months by a Government that refuses to help. Inflation figures do not come close to showing the real pressures people are under.”
“I will begin, as others have, by expressing my condolences in regard to the person who lost their life in the awful tragedy, the accident on Talbot Street today. Our thoughts are with the friends and family of the deceased. We wish those who are recovering a speedy recovery in hospital. It was a terrible tragedy this afternoon. I also thank the Deputies involved in bringing forward this motion because Government has failed to end the rip-off and get prices under control. To make matters worse, it brought forward a budget that left people worse off. It claimed prices were stabilising and things were getting better. That is how it justified abandoning ordinary workers in this year's budget to look after those at the top. That is how it justified pulling cost-of-living supports like energy credits and disability payments.”
“I have spoken to many of the patients myself. If it was not for this flight, they would not be able to avail of their cancer treatment. They cannot even book flights after the 26th of this month because there is no contract in place. This route is not a luxury; it is a lifeline. This is a Government contract. It is a public service obligation. It has to serve the public and not the airline. I am asking the Tánaiste to commit that the Government will not enter into this contract until the midday service is secure.”
“The new contract about to be signed by the Government for public service obligation, PSO, flights from Donegal to Dublin will mean a loss of afternoon flights. This is a public service obligation; it is supposed to serve the public but it is not. We know the people of Donegal are rightly outraged at the new proposed contract. Flights from Donegal to Dublin in at 8.30 p.m. and coming back from Dublin at 6.30 a.m is ludicrous. Nobody is demanding that. It will not work and there will be ghost flights. This is a €17 million contract. The midday service has worked for decades. It is why nearly 10,000 people have signed a petition in 48 hours. This is being led by a charity that provides support for over 500 people who depend on this flight to get their treatment in Dublin because we live a nine-hour return journey away by road.”
“What is going to be different this time? Please do not recite the weather again. What is the Government going to do differently this time to fulfil the promises that it made to communities ten years ago that have seen repeated flooding and families having to clean out debris, their houses and their businesses, with no action from Government on the horizon?”
“These are areas that are prone to flooding, identified by a specialised report, and none of those 148 have been completed. Some are not even in design stage yet. That is not the here and now. That is ten years on.”
“Let us look at what the Tánaiste is responsible for. He has been a Minister in Cabinet, indeed even Taoiseach, during flood after flood. Each time, communities were told that action would follow. He talks about the new buzzword "the here and now". I am talking about what has happened in the last ten years, because people were promised that there would be action from the Government. Does the Tánaiste know how many schemes have been delivered since he made the promise in 2016? It is not 56; that number goes back to 1997. Did he know that? That is 30 years ago. Since the Tánaiste became a Minister, promising people that his Government would take action, only 17 major schemes have been completed. One hundred and forty-eight schemes have been identified.”
“Given the Tánaiste's record and the broken promises made during his years in government, what concrete action will he take now to ensure permanent flood relief is finally delivered? Will he set out clear decisions, timelines and funding commitments today for flood defences and emergency road repairs? Will these communities be asked to accept this and wait another ten years - another decade - and for another series of broken promises, clearing out their homes and businesses after every storm, while the Government recycles the same old promises, broken again and again?”
“Met Éireann does not build flood defences. Local authorities do not decide on national capital priorities. The responsibility rests with the Government and the consequences of this are being felt by communities across the State in Aughrim, Arklow, Enniscorthy and Bunclody, where repeated flooding has damaged homes, businesses and vital infrastructure. Years of cuts to local authority road budgets since 2008 by successive Governments of which the Tánaiste was a member have left roads in a dreadful state. Flooding and heavy rain are now finishing them off, creating a serious road safety issue in counties like Wexford and Wicklow. Last week in Bunclody, a school bus was forced to abandon its route when the road beneath it collapsed and 53 families were affected. This damage was foreseeable. It was warned about and it was avoidable.”
“This is not a failure of information; it is a failure of political follow through. In 2018, the Government completed a nationwide flood risk assessment. It knows where the danger points are. Nearly every county has flood relief issues and communities have been lobbying for action ever since. Yet, the figures are stark. There are 94 flood relief schemes that are described as ongoing, 68 of which have not even reached planning stage and 54 of which are not in active consideration at all. Many of these schemes were identified or progressed during the very years when communities were being assured by the Tánaiste that the Government was acting. Instead of accepting responsibility, the Government has blamed everyone but itself, the weather, local authorities, even Met Éireann has been thrown in for good measure.”
“This is happening on the Tánaiste's watch and it is not new. He has been at the heart of Governments for more than a decade now. He has been a Minister during repeated flooding events and, during those years, Governments of which he was a senior member repeatedly assured communities that permanent flood defences would finally be delivered. After the floods of 2015 and 2016 when communities were devastated, he was the Minister of State with responsibility for flood defences. Yet years later, many of the same flood relief schemes identified, prioritised or advanced during that period remain incomplete, with a significant number still stuck at planning stage, or worse, at design stage, rather than being built. This is the reality behind his record of broken promises.”
“Is iomaí pobail atá ag ullmhú do thuilte anois agus arís uile ina dtithe agus ina gcomhlachtaí. Tá imní orthu ar fud an Stáit agus tá siad ag mothú tréigthe. Tá sé seo ag tarlú roimh súile an Tánaiste agus ní rud nua é. Bhí sé agus tá sé i gcroílár an Rialtais le breis agus deich mbliana agus bhí sé ina Aire é féin le linn eachtraí tuilte arís agus arís eile. Le linn na blianta sin, thug Rialtais ina raibh sé ina bhall sinsireach dóibh dearbhaithe arís is arís eile go mbeadh cosaint bhuan ar deireadh i gcoinne tuilte, ach níl sé sin feicthe againn. Today, many communities are bracing themselves for repeat flooding of their homes and businesses. Homes have been destroyed and businesses have been wrecked. Families are once again clearing out the water and debris knowing this destruction was predictable and preventable.”
“Those are the facts. It is black and white. At the same time, the Minister thinks he is fit to chair the State agency charged with promoting Irish beef, which is produced to the highest environmental, welfare and food safety standards, at home and abroad. Only wilful blindness can stop him seeing the conflict of interest here. Farmers are the heart and soul of our agricultural industry. It is their hard graft that delivers good quality food and meats every single day to ever-higher environmental, animal welfare and regulatory standards. They know, and they have lost confidence in the chair of Bord Bia. The Government now needs to do its job and remove him from his position.”
“It is saying to farmers that their voice does not matter, their concerns do not matter, and it does not matter who is chairperson of Bord Bia and this Government does not think it is important for the chairman of Bord Bia to have the confidence of our farmers. That is an extraordinary position to take. The Minister even started talking down to farmers, saying that they were being misled and do not really understand the situations, and talking about farmers only being upset because they are being tricked. What is this Government trying to do? Is it really to accuse the largest farming organisation in the country of misleading its members so the head of An Bord Bia can be protected? The chair of Bord Bia is the head of a company that imports Brazilian beef. It is produced to lower standards and is subject to weaker safety requirements.”
“The Minister is making a mockery of the position by continuing to pretend not to see the massive conflict of interest that is staring him in the face. His appointment reflects the kind of due diligence we are coming to expect of Fianna Fáil. Last week, the Tánaiste, Simon Harris, said that his Government listens and engages, but it is not listening and not engaging. It is trying to delay and placate, hoping this will all blow over so it can make sure people at the top are protected and will not face any accountability. There is an absolute collapse in confidence in Bord Bia among farmers as a result of this debacle. The loss of confidence is spreading to Government because it is going out of its way to defend the indefensible.”
“This Government has shown us time and again that it is allergic to accountability. The Government has shown us that there is one rule for those on the inside and one rule for everybody else. Larry Murrin is well and truly under the protective wing of the Government. For the head of Bord Bia to be the head of a meat processing company that imports Brazilian beef is simply not acceptable. Surely to God some of the Government backbenchers already recognise that the position is untenable, and the Government needs to recognise the same. It is not just Sinn Féin saying this; farmers right up and down the State are calling it out. Larry Murrin is the head of an agency that markets Irish beef around the world and at the same time he is importing and selling Brazilian beef.”
“We need to ban rent increases. That is the legislation that the Minister should be bringing before this House - legislation that Deputy Ó Broin has drafted. The Minister should be making sure that rents are affordable. That is the legislation that he should be bringing before the House, not this shameful legislation that will jack up rents on tens of thousands of households right across this State every single year from 1 March onwards. This rent hike Bill needs to be stopped in its tracks.”
“We do not have to look too hard to find out that it is on the side of the big landlords, the developers who were handed the tax breaks, the landlords that are getting bigger tax breaks, the investors that pay no tax at all on their rental income and the banks that do not pay a penny tax, but renters, by God, are the ones that are going to have to pay under the legislation because the Government thinks that they need to pay more. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are never going to solve the housing crisis because they are on the side of those people getting rich off the backs of hard-pressed people - plain and simple. The only way to fix this housing crisis is to take on the vested interests, to invest in public housing and not to keep on bowing down to those same vested interests. We need to end this rip-off for once and for all.”
“Even after all their executive salaries and all their bonuses, they still absolutely smashed their profit targets and the Government gave them more tax cuts. When workers look at their payslips and wonder how they are going to make it stretch and how they are going to afford the rent, they should know that tax cuts that should have been theirs ended up in the pockets of developers and landlords. The Government does not stop there. It is not just about jacking up rents or handing out millions of euro of tax breaks; it is also making renters live in smaller and darker apartments. The Government wants corporate landlords to be able to charge thousands of euro a month for apartments that are just bigger than two car parking spaces. It is glaringly obvious whose side the Government is on.”
“This Bill is about increasing rents - plain and simply. Everything else is window dressing and Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and their band of Independents know this. They are making sure that the gravy train stays on the tracks and that the money keeps flowing upwards. This is the second time in the past few months that the Government has reached into the pockets of ordinary people to give more money to those profiting from the crisis. It handed out massive tax cuts to developers for apartments that were being built. We are talking about hundreds of millions of euro that should have been given back to workers. Instead, the Government shoved it into the pockets of developers. The largest developers are currently boasting gross profit margins of over 20%.”
“While most people are handing over more and more of their wages in rent and mortgage payments, other people are making an absolute fortune out of the misery of the housing crisis. For those people, this is not a crisis; this is a cash cow. For the banks, corporate landlords, investment funds and large developers, the housing crisis is not something to fix; it is something to feed off. It is something to keep alive at all costs. Those powerful interests want to squeeze every drop out of ordinary workers and this legislation is proof positive of that fact. The Government are the middle men for the vested interests. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael's rent hike Bill will allow vulture funds and big landlords to hike up rents to over 60,000 people every year. This will mean people paying thousands of euro more in rent from 1 March.”