Richard Boyd Barrett
Dún Laoghaire · People Before Profit-Solidarity · Ireland
“It is absolutely incredible that about 50% to 57% of all professional artists in this country live on or below the poverty line - three times the level of poverty in Irish society generally.”
“On a global level, the consumption of electricity by data centres is due to go up elevenfold by 2030. They are hoovering up the water resources and electricity resources of the planet. There will not be much human creativity, art or music if we have no water and no energy. That is what is going on with these people.”
“St. Joseph's Centre in Shankill is the largest care home dedicated solely to dementia care in the country. SIPTU members feel compelled to take industrial action tomorrow because of the failure of St. John of God's to recognise the work and duties that they do.”
“These people actually want to replace human beings and human creativity with AI. That would literally be the road to disaster for humanity. Some people think about AI as if it is cutting edge and the most advanced thing possible, but AI is like the Neanderthal.”
“Against that background, we are seeing these billionaires who run AI looking to steal en masse all of the artistic and creative output of humanity and to profit from it. The artists rightly are asking what the Government is going to do to prevent them making a bad situation for most artists and performers even worse.”
“I thank Deputy Ó Snodaigh for bringing this motion forward. As Deputy Paul Murphy indicated, People Before Profit is very happy to support and commend all the artists, organisations, musicians and so on who are campaigning to bring this forward.”
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“We have Government bodies saying how the ageing population in this country and lack of young people is becoming a massive problem because the working population is declining as a proportion of the overall population, and I am on the Committee on Budgetary Oversight which is studying this. We are getting older so we need immigrants in order to sustain the working population to be able to pay for pensions and all of the other things we need. It makes no sense to be leaning into this stuff and suggesting that immigrants or asylum seekers are somehow causing a problem. This is a Government essentially trying to deflect attention away from its failure to address the housing crisis or indeed its culpability for that crisis in the first place. When we look at the numbers, we have 149,000 in inward immigration.”
“Michael Taffe, in a very good article I would encourage people to read on the perverse logic of the Government’s immigration policy, details how every serious study that has been done anywhere in the world shows that the benefits of inward immigration far outweigh the negatives in any country, as was the case with the Irish going abroad. This is true here and it is true everywhere. The economic benefit of people coming into a country is multiples of any of the costs involved. This should be obvious when we look at the contribution immigrants to this country are making to our health services, construction, hospitality and to retail. This country would not be able to function without immigrants. We are facing labour and skills shortages in every single area of Irish society and these are people who want to contribute to our society.”
“This is just brutal stuff; it echoes what Trump is doing. It leans into all that stuff. We heard statements from the former Minister of Finance. who left to join the World Bank, to the effect that there are too many immigrants in Ireland and so on. That is just leaning into both the stuff to which I refer and the toxic agenda of the far right. The truth about immigrants coming to this country is that the number of asylum applicants is tiny. It was down to 13,000 last year and 18,000 the year before. It is a tiny proportion of the number of people coming into the country in the first place, which was 149,000 in 2024. It is a very small number.”
“I have still not received a response to the communications I sent to him about Bilal. His family were worried that he was going to have a heart attack. He did have a heart attack and was in ICU. Thankfully, he is out of prison. This is a man who is working. His employer wants him to continue to work. He is contributing. There is nothing good about deporting him or deporting another family I have also been asked to mention. Deputy Bacik mentioned them earlier. This is the family of Titilayo Oluwakemi Oyekanmi and her three sons Samuel, Joseph and Genesis. She was training as a healthcare worker, had a QQI level 5 in healthcare and hoped to work as a care assistant. One of her sons was just about to do his leaving certificate. They have been packed up to be deported and thrown out of the country.”
“This is a man who is contributing to our society. There is no value for him or his children in deporting him. I warned at the time his case arose that his health was in danger. I have written to the Minister, who sitting there looking at his phone, three times about Bilal.”
“He was not documented, so he probably did not have everything that was necessary for him to be deemed fully legal. However, he is contributing and wants to continue to contribute to American society. We are all rightly appalled that he should be treated in this way because we understand that he is going to contribute in the same way that as millions of other Irish people who have to the countries all over the world to which they have migrated. People then say that too many of these people are coming to Ireland. The hypocrisy and double standards are appalling, and the human consequences are terrible. I raised the case of Bilal Butt here earlier this year. Bilal has been living and working here. He has two children who were born here and who have lived here all their lives. He was locked up for 50 days pending deportation.”
“Donald Trump is scapegoating people such as asylum seekers and migrants to deflect anger away from the failure of people like him and the billionaires he represents to address the cost-of-living crisis. He is scapegoating vulnerable immigrants, people seeking asylum or those who are undocumented, including Irish people, in the most horrendous way. We have seen the consequences of that now with Seamus Culleton being treated in what he described as a modern-day concentration camp. That is what Trump is about. This Government is leaning into that stuff. What it is doing is not as absolutely blatant and obscene as what he is doing, but it is leaning into it and the human consequences are appalling, just as they are for Seamus Culleton. The latter is working in the United States.”
“At lunchtime, hundreds of retired An Post workers and Eir workers protested outside this House about the fact that even though An Post asked that a 7% increase in their very meagre pension entitlements be approved and signed off on by the Government as far back as October, it still has not happened. For inexplicable reasons, Ministers and the Government are sitting on this when these pensioners, who worked hard all their lives and have been hit with the cost-of-living crisis, have not got the pension increase they were expecting. Can the Taoiseach confirm that the Government is going to sign off on this and that they will get their pension increases?”
“It is short notice but a protest has been called tomorrow for 5.30 p.m. outside of the Dáil. I urge people who are angry at this Government's failure to address affordability in rents and the housing crisis to get out and demonstrate against the decision of this Government to ram through the Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026 and impose a guillotine. There will not be proper scrutiny of it. Most of the public do not understand how far-reaching and detrimental this Bill will be in jacking up rents and a Government that is facilitating landlords driving up rents even further.”
“It is also only the beginning of Affordable Ireland's campaign to mobilise against this Government and to demand that the benefits of the economic growth in this country in terms of housing, food and energy prices, as well as incomes that actually sustain a decent standard of living for people become the priority.”
“The cost-of-living misery suffered by working people, by pensioners, by those with disabilities and by students is being caused by a Government that is prioritising the profits of people who are actually benefitting from all this. For example, in the budget the Government gave out €300 million extra in just one tax giveaway for research and development, most of which will go to massively profitable multinationals. These are the priorities of this Government. It is to look after the rich, big business and those who make profits and whose incomes are made from dividends, while screwing working people, the least well off, people with disabilities, students and the vulnerable in our society. That is why we say that we need to mobilise and why the demonstration on 28 February is so important.”
“What is the other side of the coin to these attacks on the vulnerable, the least well-off and working people? It is a profits bonanza. Between 2013 and 2023, corporate profits in this country went up 300%. Tesco profits last year were €185 million, up 54%. SuperValu profits were €134 million last year, which was up on previous years and big dividends were paid out the shareholders. ESB profits in the first half of 2025 were €424 million, which was up on the previous year that was also a record level of profits. Cairn Homes recorded €150 million in profits, up 32% on the previous year. Glenveagh Homes had €132 million in profits, up 86% on the previous year.”
“Child poverty is at shocking levels with 190,000 children suffering child poverty. Some 298,000 people are in arrears with their electricity bills. I could go on with the horrible list. That is a litany of what is being done to working people and people with disabilities, who lost, according to their own assessment, €1,400 as a result of the cuts in one-off payments, emergency payments and so on. This is the reason they are going to be on a very angry demonstration on 28 February. Due to the Government's failure to deliver a cost-of-disability payment, they are going to be on the streets demanding the winter payment and demanding a cost-of-disability payment. Incredibly, the Government took €1,400 of them in the budget, which is absolutely shocking.”
“House prices are up 8.1%. Rents have gone up 40% in the past six years. Motor insurance premiums are up 17%. Toll charges are up. Local property tax is up. Student fees are up, and childcare fees still continue to be a second mortgage for those who have to pay them. I could go on. People are being crushed and it is not just us saying it. The Parliamentary Budget Office confirmed that the Government's budget made things worse and that general poverty will increase as a result of the budget. Child poverty will increase to 15%, poverty among the elderly will increase to 17% and the poorest 20% of the population will see their incomes fall. We have record numbers of people contacting the Society of St. Vincent de Paul looking for assistance with the energy bills they cannot pay.”
“The Minister of State listing off the crumbs that were given out by the Government to those who are being crushed by the cost-of-living crisis is utterly meaningless. I thank Deputy Healy for bringing forward this motion, which People Before Profit strongly supports, as it details the absolutely crushing assault on the cost of living for working people, the least well-off, people with disabilities and pensioners. Prices are up 23% in the past five years. Food prices are up 5% in the past year. Electricity prices are 24% higher in this country than the EU average. Electricity companies announced 10% increases just in the past year. Gas prices have doubled in the past five years. The average rent in Dublin is now €2,100 per month and rising. It is set to rise even further with the Government's residential tenancies rent hike Bill.”
“Then we were supposed to get 300 affordable homes. Now we are told that is not happening. In the place where this couple live - they are currently renting at €2,000 a month and cannot buy - we were supposed to get affordable housing which would actually give them an option. There is no sign of it despite the fact that the public put in €13 million precisely on the condition that there would be affordable housing, something that is now not happening. I want somebody to look into what I think is a scandal that leaves people like Saoirse and Darren high and dry.”
“Saoirse and Darren are a couple in their 50s, both of whom are working. They have been renting for 15 years. They pay €2,000 a month in rent in a big residential development in Cherrywood. Incidentally, their rent may get hiked because of the Government’s Bill. They have enough for a deposit and want to buy a home – a one- or two-bedroom home – but the banks will not look at them because they are in their 50s. What they need is genuinely affordable housing. The last bit of affordable housing in our area was 30 affordable homes in Shanganagh but there were 640 applicants and there are no more in the pipeline. Cherrywood’s developers were given €13 million of LIHAF funding to build it. At the time, we were initially supposed to get 40% of the development in affordable housing in exchange for that funding. That did not happen.”
“He said that only two of the Republic of Ireland's eight current PET CT scanners are fully or partly publicly funded and that there is a system where 75% of net national PET CT imaging capacity resides in private institutions. He has done a report on that. I do not know the detail of that, but that shows a worrying lack of those scanners in the public system, funded publicly rather than being only available in the private sector.”
“That shows a lack of planning to have a replacement programme that is organised centrally and that is ahead of the game rather than reacting afterwards and realising we have not replaced the machines and therefore the machines are breaking down, causing hardship for the staff providing the treatment and for those who are awaiting the treatment, often impacting on things such as childcare and their ability to travel back to where they live in other parts of the country. On equality of access, I will read the following from a report that was sent to me by a radiation oncology medical physicist. He was talking about PET CT scanners.”
“On the linear accelerators in the national replacement programme, the Minister has given me some answers. I got some answers from the HSE on the replacement programme. It is worth saying, while it is under way, that all in the St. Luke's Radiation Oncology Network, SLRON, are supposed to be replaced after ten years. Two of those will only be replaced when they are 19 years old, two will be replaced when they are 21 years old, two will be replaced when they are 14 years old, two when they are 18 years old, and two when they are 17 years old. All will be well over the ten years it is supposed to be.”
“I thank the Minister for that response. First of all, the inconsistency between the experience people have in different parts of the country has to be addressed as a matter of urgency. Indeed, I was conscious when I was getting my own treatment that people were coming from different parts of the country. There was a place available for them in St. Luke's to stay, but it was not provided by the State. To the best of my knowledge, it was funded by the Irish Cancer Society. The Minister can correct me if I am wrong on that. Services such as where people could stay should not simply be dependent on charitable organisations raising funds. My understanding was that the place that people could stay overnight was not run by the hospital even though it is fantastic that it was there for them, but that is an aside.”
“While there is a replacement programme under way, those working in the services say that this is not centrally organised and is not being organised in advance, so we are responding to the immediate need but not planning for the future, particularly when there is a massive increase in demand projected over recent years. There is a lot more else I could say, but I hope the Minister will respond to some of those points.”
“There are worrying statistics and worrying instances of people not getting their cancer treatment in time. Early cancer treatment is critical. We have, for example, one hospital in the country where only 12% of people were getting cancer treatment on time. Ten hospitals missed their target of getting cancer treatment in time for their patients in half of the months of the year. That is a very worrying sign. I have also raised the fact that there needs to be, on behalf of those working, a national replacement programme for radiotherapy machines - linear accelerators - because 35% of our machines, which are supposed to be replaced every ten years, are now 15 years old or more, and 40% of our machines need to be replaced in the next five years.”
“It is going to affect most people and there are worrying signs that cancer is increasing in prevalence. There was a report in the last couple of weeks by the Irish Cancer Society and the OECD that while it is often associated with older people, there is a very concerning rise of cancer in people younger than 49. There are a lot of issues you could bring up. The Irish Cancer Society produced detailed reports that are asking about investment in resources, infrastructure, services, staffing and so on in a range of areas such as prevention, genetic services, costs of cancer screening, early detection, timely access to treatment, children and adolescents living with cancer, the end of life, and capital investment and infrastructure. All of those need to be addressed. The Minister is probably familiar with them.”
“The statistics on cancer make it clear that it is an issue for absolutely everybody in this country. Every three minutes in Ireland somebody will get a cancer diagnosis. That means 44,000 people this year will be diagnosed with cancer. We have, unfortunately the second highest ranking among EU member states for new cancer diagnoses. Tragically, more than 10,000 people a year will die as a result of cancer. Ireland also unfortunately has the third highest rate of cancer mortality in western Europe. Central to the concerns of those in the Irish Cancer Society and those who work in our cancer services is that the expected increase in cancer diagnosis that will take place between 2015 and 2045 is 100%. That is against a background where already 50% of people will be affected by cancer in their lifetime. This is a serious issue.”
“I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this Topical Issue for debate on world cancer day. I thought it was important that this Dáil should mark world cancer day and discuss the issue of resources and funding for cancer services in this country, not least because I had a cancer diagnosis last year and have undergone treatment. I am very grateful to the cancer services and to all the fantastic people who work in it: the doctors, the nurses, the allied health professionals, all the people in our cancer and health services, and indeed the people who are working and researching things like cancer treatments and cancer prevention and advocacy groups like the Irish Cancer Society. They all deserve our gratitude and their work deserves to be highlighted on this important day.”
“Even in the case of those who are marginally protected, the landlord now has an incentive to kick them out and get the rent up to the highest level. What the Government is doing is unbelievable. It is disgusting and shameful and will make the housing misery a lot worse for a lot of people.”
“It is also not entirely clear that the protections the Government claims are in place are working. Accommodation not being suitable to needs can still be grounds for eviction. People can be evicted for being in overcrowded accommodation. There will be new reasons for eviction, even under the so-called protections, such as cases where there are too many people living in a property. People may have had a kid or have a new partner who has kids and is in an overcrowded situation, and that now grounds for people to be evicted under the Bill. Of course that will happen. As landlords find other reasons for evictions, then will then have an incentive to drive up rents. The Government has given them an incentive.”
“Rents have gone up by 41% in the past six years. If rent is reset every six years, 60,000 to 70,000 new tenancies will potentially go up by 40% every year. That is shocking, on top of the already obscene rental levels that are completely unaffordable for ordinary people. That makes a mockery of the so-called protections, including the security of tenure measures, because if rent is unaffordable and there is a churn of tenancies about every three and a half years, anybody looking for a new tenancy will be faced with completely unaffordable rents that could be up to 40% higher than the already unaffordable levels. They will have absolutely no chance of being able to afford those rents. All the while, the guys in Zurich, New York and Antwerp, and our own homegrown landlords, will be raking it in from these unaffordable rents.”
“It is actually a spreadsheet in Zurich, New York or Antwerp more so than a builder looking at a site in counties Longford or Roscommon and deciding what is happening here. That is it. The Government is dancing to the tune of speculators and investors in Antwerp, New York and Zurich, and of course we have our own home grown greedy landlords as well. The Government will put up what are already the most unaffordable rents in Europe to even more unaffordable levels. Our rents are 30% higher than the EU average and the Government wants them to go higher. In Dublin, the average rent is now 50% of the after tax income of the average worker. That average is brought down by the fact that there is still a small number of slightly lower rents. When everything is reset to the highest level of market rent, that average will jump.”
“The explanatory memorandum, regarding the purpose of the resetting upwards of already unaffordable rents to market rents, states: "The aim is to encourage investment in the rental sector by ensuring that rents in respect of long standing tenancies do not fall behind market rent". For the very few people out there who might have half affordable rent, the Government is to make sure they cannot even have that. We have to make sure, in the interests of the investors, that everybody is paying the highest possible rent because that is what the investors need. The Minister admitted the same logic is behind the Government's thinking when he said earlier this year that housing is about international markets.”
“The pretence that the Government cares about the rental crisis and the unaffordable and obscene rents that are contributing to the housing crisis and misery that many people are suffering this country is being dropped completely. We have a naked admission with this Bill that the Government is representing property speculators, investors and landlords. It is trying to justify it with the most perverse logic ever, namely that it is going to raise rents that are already unaffordable in order to make rents drop. It is like the American military commander in Vietnam who said they had to bomb the villages to save them. It is the same perverse and Orwellian logic. I spotted it, as did Deputy Hearne, in the explanatory memorandum and in the Minister's speech where he admits this.”
“There is not the delivery we need of three- and four-bedroom units, and that is contributing directly to child and family homelessness being disproportionately bad in terms of keeping people in emergency accommodation. What is the Government going to do about it?”
“The number of people in emergency accommodation in this country is shocking but I want to highlight in particular the issue of family and child homelessness. The number of families in emergency accommodation has gone up by 100% since 2016, which is absolutely shocking. Many if not the majority of cases coming into me now of people stuck in emergency accommodation involve families with children, often with special needs, in there for long periods because of the lack of three- and four-bedroom houses. There is a problem with one- and two-bedroom houses but there is an even bigger problem with three- and four-bedroom houses because we are relying so much on private developers, who tend to build one- or two-bedroom units because they can make more profit from them.”
“I move: That Dáil Éireann, pursuant to Standing Order 33, and with effect from 5th February, 2026, approves the Ninth Report of the Standing Committee of Selection, copies of which were laid before Dáil Éireann on 30th January, 2026.”
“I thank Mick on behalf of People Before Profit and the Independents and Parties Technical Group for an amazing 32 years. This place would not be able to function without the hard work that you have done, and all of the ushers here, who are the unsung heroes of this place. Thanks for everything and enjoy your retirement. Enjoy the football, the golf or whatever it is you are going to be at.”
“Last Friday we had the monthly homeless figures. The numbers of those in emergency accommodation are still at absolutely shocking levels. I have been asking for a commitment to a debate to deal with homelessness figures and those in emergency accommodation. The Government is bringing in a residential tenancies Bill that will make rental accommodation even more unaffordable. This will drive more homelessness. We have been faced with a deadline for amendments to this very complex legislation of tomorrow at 11 a.m., before Second Stage of the Bill has even concluded. It is not acceptable to ram the legislation through in this way.”
“We need to stop dancing to the tune of investors in Zurich and so on in order to deliver the housing that we want. By the way, on my own personal record, for one of the developments we opposed, we said there should be more social and affordable housing because it was only getting 10%. We opposed it-----”
“We do not need a single further unaffordable home, not a single one. What we need is affordable homes. I did not say they should all be social. I said they should all be affordable or social. The problem is that houses being delivered with rents of €3,500 or for €600,000 or €700,000 are totally unaffordable to ordinary people, but are very good for investors. We are saying we need a State construction company to deliver the infrastructure that the Tánaiste accepts the Government is not delivering, and to deliver social and affordable housing. We need a no-fault eviction ban so people do not get evicted through no fault of their own into emergency accommodation, including, increasingly, older and very vulnerable people. We need to stop the speculation and land hoarding.”
“It’s actually a spreadsheet in Zurich or New York or Antwerp, more so than a builder looking at a site in Longford or Roscommon, that’s actually deciding what happens here. That is it. That is the policy. The investors in Zurich, Antwerp and New York, profit-driven, tell the Government to jump, and it says, “How high?” Meanwhile, the housing misery continues, with the most unaffordable rents, record numbers of people homeless, totally unaffordable house prices, speculation and land hoarding, as developers and investors sit on planning permissions, waiting for the Government to pass even more legislation in their favour, so profits can go up.”
“It is not planning objections that are the problem, as Mitchell McDermott said. We have 32,000 planning permissions that are being sat on. There are no judicial reviews, they have the planning permission, but they are not happening because of viability. What does that mean? It means profits - profits for your developer friends - or the lack of infrastructure, such as water infrastructure. We know from Irish Water that it is only being given enough money by the State for 30,000 units a year when we need 50,000 to 60,000 units. The Government is not putting in the infrastructure. What about the developers, landlords and investors? The Minister, Deputy Lawless, summed up the Government's policy earlier this month. He said: [Housing] is about international markets.”
“According to the Central Bank, we need 50,000 to 60,000 houses a year in order for the Government to meet its 2030 targets. There is not a hope in hell of reaching the housing need that has been agreed on by many bodies, including the Government.”
“I am amazed that the Tánaiste is trumpeting success in light of the housing disaster that people face in this country. Tomorrow, we will have the end-of-month figures for homelessness. At the end of December, 16,996 people were homeless. A record number of people, including 5,321 children, were living in the misery of emergency accommodation. Whatever the figures are tomorrow, there will be an unacceptable level of homelessness. Next week, the Government plans to bring in a Bill that is going to lead to some of the most, if not the most, unaffordable rents anywhere in Europe being increased even further because market rents will then dictate what any tenancy that ends can be set at. Market rents are currently €2,600 a month and in much of Dublin they are more often €3,000 or even €3,500. These are shocking levels.”
“There is no way a €60 million to €80 million handout should be given to big private investors when there is no town centre in Cherrywood and when grassroots sports are desperate for money for sports infrastructure.”
“While the town centre is not being built and grassroots sports groups and so on are crying out for facilities, a group of private investors, and I believe this is being entertained by a number of Departments, want to build a private ice rink for ice hockey. I spoke to the Irish Ice Hockey Association and it is not even in favour of it. Its representatives say for a fraction of that, they could build an ice rink, which would be good to have in Ireland but this is going to be given to private investors at massive cost when there is no town centre and when grassroots sports, including ice hockey itself, are starved of the money necessary to provide sports infrastructure for the people living in places like Cherrywood and in the wider area. I want this investigated.”
“Cherrywood in south Dublin is one of the biggest residential developments in Europe and the biggest in Ireland. It is a new town. There is going to be 25,000 to 30,000 people living there. The whole thing was conditional on the development of a town centre with community facilities, supermarkets and all the rest of it. The private developers who built the houses and made big profits are refusing to build the town centre on which the whole thing was predicated and are trying to put the State over a barrel on the town centre the community needs for this new town. They are just refusing to build it and are refusing to build bridges that were committed to. At the same time, I understand a group of private investors have asked the State for between €60 million and €80 million to build an ice rink and stadium in Cherrywood.”
“Uber and other taxi app companies have been at the transport committee this week. Across the world Uber makes enormous profits by driving down the amount given to taxi drivers and driving up the cost to passengers through add-on charges and dynamic pricing. Taxi drivers have been forced to protest about this. What they have proposed to benefit the driver, the passenger, the taxpayer and the wider public is that the NTA should have its own app so we do not have profiteering, surge pricing or attacks on the income of taxi drivers. The NTA should have a booking app that provides information on what taxis are available and transparency in terms of fares and that protects the incomes of taxi drivers to ensure we have a proper, safe, regulated, affordable, effective taxi system. Will the Taoiseach listen to the taxi drivers?”
“If they do not do so, they will not have enough to pay for groceries or pay their bills. What the Minister said was just extraordinary. The Government should do the right thing, reverse the disgraceful attacks on the incomes of those with disabilities that the it instigated in the budget and, finally, recognise the right of people with disabilities to real equality. Real equality means giving them a cost-of-disability payment to allow them to participate equally in our society.”
“What flipping planet is the Minister living on that he would say that. It is absolutely outrageous. Does he know that about 500,000 households are suffering from energy poverty and that people with disabilities suffer disproportionately as a result of the things to which I refer? This is not rhetoric from the Opposition; these are evidence-based assertions regarding the facts. Any TD who is in touch with people in their area and who talks to people with disabilities knows that people on lower incomes and those with disabilities, with all the additional costs they have, amounting to between €12,000 and €15,000 a year, are disproportionately hit by energy poverty. It is a very real choice for people with disabilities to have to make the decision to turn off the heating.”
“It is going to mobilise, and I hope there will be a massive protest to send a message to this Government that disabled people want the emergency payment of €400. It is absolute pittance compared with what the Government has given to developers and big, obscenely profitable multinationals. The cost-of-disability payment is something for which we in People Before Profit have been advocating for many years. That is in recognition of the enormous additional costs of disability. They are also evidenced based. People with disabilities are not making this up. I credit my colleague in Sinn Féin Deputy Louise O’Reilly, who she pointed out to me that the Minister stated that the Opposition should be careful about using inflammatory suggestions to the effect that there is a trade-off between heating and eating.”