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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“I debated with Deputy Barry Ward on the radio this morning and he was trying to make some sort of separation between technology that would go to the Israeli military that is complicit in the genocide, and technology that would go to the Israeli military that is not complicit in the genocide, in the midst of a genocide. Fair play to David McCullough who made the point that even they were contributing to the technology that helped them to pay the soldiers, they were complicit. If we were sending the Russian Government biros, it would considered be unacceptable complicity with what Russia is doing in Ukraine but we have a surge in exports from this country approved by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment to the Israeli military while it is carrying out a genocide. That is absolutely shameful.”
“African people were being slaughtered by Europeans and fair play to Éamon de Valera and the Oireachtas of the time, they imposed sanctions. What is this Government doing? It is approving licences for a state engaged in genocidal slaughter. It cannot have been the case that the people who approved those licences were not aware at the time that it represented a massive surge to go from €1 million in one year, €85,000 in another year to €12 million and then €20 million. That is a massive increase in the exporting of that technology to the Israeli military.”
“He enforced financial, commercial and other sanctions against Italy because as a country that had come into existence in a struggle against imperialism, Éamon de Valera and it seems the Oireachtas of the time knew it was a duty of a State born of a struggle against colonialism, ourselves victims of colonial genocidal policies which lead to things like the Great Hunger and all of the horrors colonialism visited on us, to impose sanctions. They were not worried about whether there was going to be economic blowback, and we were a poor country then. Éamon de Valera and the Oireachtas of the time said we had to act against this. It was deemed at the time to be genocidal, with Africans, by the way. Take note, Bertie Ahern.”
“The Italians used, in one of the first instances of chemical warfare, mustard gas and other chemical agents on Abyssinian combatants and civilians in violation of the Geneva protocol; bombed Red Cross hospitals, tents and ambulances; massacred approximately 30,000 people in Addis Ababa; targeted clergy and intellectuals; burnt villages; slaughtered livestock; and destroyed thousands of churches. This happened in 1935 but it sounds familiar, does it not? It sounds very familiar. What did Éamon de Valera do? I am not a fan of Éamon de Valera but he instigated sanctions and they were passed by the Dáil.”
“It would be very rare that I would favourably quote Éamon de Valera but I am going to quote something he did favourably. It may be of interest to people in this House and the wider public to know that possibly the first ever instance of this State sanctioning another state for war crimes was initiated by Éamon de Valera in 1935 because of what, at the time, were viewed to be the genocidal crimes of the Italian regime in Abyssinia, today called Ethiopia.”
“All of this happened in 2024 and then a Bill all of a sudden pops up with a section that was not included in the original draft scheme of the Bill, saying that from now on, the Industrial Development Agency, IDA, and Enterprise Ireland do not have to notify the Government if they are supporting companies doing business in this area. That absolutely stinks and it looks like a cover up of Government facilitation, although sort of hiding it, of industries profiteering from selling technology to people like the Israeli military and God knows who else. If it was just the Israeli military, which is committing the most heinous crimes, that would be bad enough. This is outrageous. Deputy Devlin was quoting Seán Lemass and waxing lyrical about him, his development policy and so on.”
“It was described in the most innocuous terms, although there was a giveaway line at the very end, which states "it does not affect existing Government policy on military neutrality." I wonder why the Government felt the need to say that. There is a connection between these two things. In the wider context, Ireland does about €3 billion worth of trade with the State of Israel and is one of its biggest trading partners in Europe against the background where Israel is in the dock for genocide and the most horrific crimes. There are arrest warrants out for Netanyahu and Gallant. Israel is in the dock for apartheid, the annexation of Palestinian territory, and ethnic cleansing. It is not stopping; it is escalating what it is doing.”
“The Irish Government now wants to reduce the obligation on companies which might be engaged in the production of that kind of technology from having to seek Government authorisation. To me, that stinks to high heaven, particularly given the fact that this was not in the original draft scheme of the Bill. When the Minister spoke he said the proposed amendment allows the agencies to support financially and non-financially enterprises in the DSR sphere. DSR sounds totally innocuous. It was not even spelled out in the Minister’s speech, so we will just pass by it. What does it mean? Sure nobody is watching this debate and nobody is asking what that might mean.”
“It is of course because it is absolutely damning. The end user for dual-use technology is the Israeli military machine, engaged in a genocidal slaughter of the people of Gaza. In January of the year it is doing this - slaughtering tens of thousands of people in the most horrific way, levelling Gaza, some of its leaders, such as the deputy speaker of the Knesset, saying it is okay to kill everybody in Gaza and describing the Palestinians as human animals and everybody knowing what is going on - the International Court of Justice, ICJ, gave a preliminary ruling saying it believed there was a plausible case of genocide taking place. In that year, the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment approved a surge in exports to the Israeli military from this country.”
“Following that fight, we discover in Niall Sargent's article in The Currency this week, which people can read for themselves, that between 2020 and 2024, approximately €35 million worth of export licences to the Israeli military were granted by the Department because it had to get a licence and approval and so on. Most of that happened in 2024, the year of the genocide committed by the Israeli military. In 2020, the export licences to the IDF were worth €1.5 million. In 2021, they were worth €84,000. These are not meaningless sums. In 2022, they were worth €1.8 million and in 2023, the year the genocide began, they jumped to €12 million. In 2024, they jumped to €20 million. Why is it that The Currency has had such a hard time eliciting that information from the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment?”
“To be clear on why that should worry us, I refer to the following in the briefing document from the Oireachtas Library and Research Service: "There is a notable implication of the proposed Section 8 of the Bill which, if enacted, would allow the enterprise development agencies [that is, State agencies] to engage with and support industries primarily associated with defence, without Government approval." We are debating this legislation in the same week that The Currency website published an article after 12 months of battling with the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment to get information about Government approvals for dual-use technology going to the Israeli military.”
“In making that fairly strong charge, I refer to section 8 of the Bill, which deletes the current requirement for companies engaged in defence and security technology to notify the Government and seek its approval to engage in such activity. That provision was not included in the draft scheme and nobody know it was there before it appeared, all of a sudden, in the Bill.”
“I want to ring the alarm bell in respect of this legislation. Its introduction represents a sleight of hand whereby an apparently benign and innocuous Bill that is supposedly about supporting enterprise and industry is, in fact, a Bill that is being used to smuggle in something much more sinister. That is what is happening with the Bill. If I am right about that, it proves the Government absolutely cannot be trusted with Irish neutrality, cannot be trusted not to engage in war profiteering and, even worse, cannot be trusted not to actively be complicit with genocidal crimes being committed by the likes of the Israeli state.”
“We need to develop offshore renewable wind and renewable energy, but it should be us who are doing it. The beneficiaries should be us, the owners of the sites. The site selection should be based on what is best for our Irish society, the environment and biodiversity. The benefits should accrue to the people of Ireland - and, for that matter, the environment - but not to private companies that decide which sites they get and get to run away with profits. We are paying for the infrastructure while short-circuiting the right of stakeholders to actually have any meaningful say in all of this. If they get in the way, they will be bullied and threatened. That is what has happened to the fishers.”
“I suspect the same is going to happen with giving away these sites. It is wide open for the same kind of speculation. We put in the infrastructure for them. We drive the fishers out of the way. We short-circuit any proper planning process. They are the beneficiaries, but they do not actually have to do anything. The Government is leaving it up to them as to whether we will get the offshore renewable energy at all, and they can just sit on it. They can flip it. They do not have to do anything, but the Government has left it in their hands. We are bending over backwards. We are displacing fishers and bullying and threatening them in the courts to the extent that they are fearful that they may lose their houses. That is outrageous. The whole thing is a flipping scandal.”
“The Government just says, "no, they can select the sites, we will put in the infrastructure for them, and they will run away with the profits". That is what is actually going on. By the way, there is no obligation that the supply will come back to us or that we will benefit in terms of price or anything else from these private concerns that selected their own sites, which the Government gave them the right to do. We are going to pay for the infrastructure. Where have we heard all this before? This is happening on sea, but I have a vague memory that this happened on land as well. In fact, it is the basis of all the rotten corruption that existed in this country in terms of developer-led stuff. The Government will do anything for the developers. What do we get out of it in the end? We get housing that nobody can afford. We get speculation.”
“It should not happen at the expense of other people's livelihoods, biodiversity and sensitive environments like the sandbanks. These are very rich environments and the spawning grounds for fish, shellfish and so on. They are also the main area where phytoplankton, which produces oxygen, is found. One of the main sources of oxygen and one of the main carbon sinks are sandbanks. If the Government is concerned about protecting marine biodiversity and having the marine protected areas, it should want to designate such areas. Instead, it wants to give it all away to private developers to make profit out of our natural resources at the expense of biodiversity and, in this case, at the expense of the rights of fishers to continue their traditional livelihood.”
“Other people's livelihoods are not supposed to be displaced in the process of critical infrastructure being developed. In this case, what is doubly infuriating about it all is who will be the beneficiaries of these developments for which the State is going to run the infrastructure, the cables and so on. Is it the State or the taxpayer? No, it is private companies like the French state and other European companies that have got the licences for a lot of these sites, which the developers selected. They were not done on the basis of benefit to the State. Do not get me wrong, we need offshore renewable wind and we need it on the east coast, but it should be done on the basis of the most appropriate and suitable sites.”
“These are hard-working people who had never been in a courtroom in their lives. They were terrified and were landed with costs. I was talking to one of them just now. He was one of the named people against whom Eirgrid took the case and they were talking about €80,000 in costs being made against these fishers. This is outrageous. I raised it a couple of weeks ago in the Dáil. The whole issue is that there is supposed to be consultation, but to me this shows the high-handed attitude that State bodies can have, rather than actually having a process where everybody is heard. One imperative to develop offshore renewable energy is that it is not supposed to displace other industries. That is my understanding of EU directives in this regard.”
“The need for these designations to come before the Houses of the Oireachtas is absolutely critical because I do not trust this Government not to bully its way through on things it wants, over the legitimate concerns of stakeholders, in these decisions. I want to highlight again an instance of this, which is very relevant and happened in the last few weeks. Fishers in Dublin Bay, who have been fishing for a very long time and earning their living, have been bullied in the most disgraceful way by EirGrid. EirGrid wanted to do a survey and, without any consultation with the fishers, sent them a notice a week or two before the survey instructing them to get their fishing pots out of the water because it was going to do a survey. The consequences were that the fishers were taken to court. They were terrified.”
“Associating women's right to have a termination and to control their own bodies with some sort of criminal act is an absolute disgrace and should be struck from the Statute Book. Regarding the issue of fatal foetal abnormality, the fact that women and couples, when they have a wanted child but when it has a fatal foetal abnormality, have to go to Britain for abortions is absolutely disgraceful. My ex-partner and I lost a child to fatal foetal abnormality. We are strongly of the view that it is up to parents as to how they deal with that situation. If they feel they cannot go through the trauma and they need a termination rather than face it, that is their choice, and it should happen here. The idea that people are to be sent abroad still is an absolute disgrace.”
“People Before Profit believes that it is a woman's right to choose and that we should trust women to make choices about their bodies, lives and futures. That is it; anything less is not good enough as far as we are concerned. However, we understand the logic behind the Social Democrat's Bill. It takes us at least a step forward from where we are in that it is essentially trying to make provision in line with the review that was promised when the referendum was passed, which the Government has and which it has refused to act on. On that basis, we are happy to support the Bill. The three-day waiting period is an insult and is exacerbating the difficulties in accessing termination that women in the country are having to endure. The criminalisation is an absolute disgrace.”
“The Government will not do it because it seems to think it is okay that people are profiteering off the cost-of-living misery that ordinary people are suffering, or maybe it is a commitment to market dogma, or both, but it has failed us.”
“Why on earth did Fianna Fáil bring it in? It did so presumably because it thought we might need it some time, but it has never used it and it refuses to use it, even though this is the definition of an emergency in terms of the cost of energy. There is a war going on and prices have gone through the roof and people cannot people pay their bills because of it, and there are the price hikes that have made energy unaffordable. Why on earth do we have something on the Statute Book that was designed for exactly that situation but we refuse to use it? We should impose the price controls that that consumer protection legislation empowers the Government to use.”
“We had it before and it worked, and we should not have fixed what was not broken. We had good electricity prices. The ESB was a fantastic company. Then, a market dogma and claptrap were introduced and we have paid a bitter price for it. Half a million ordinary people, as a result, are in arrears on electricity and gas. That is where it ends, with super profits for the energy companies. Let us go back to what we used to have, which was a company that had a not-for-profit mandate and where there was not massive profiteering. I also believe we just need to introduce energy price controls. We have them. We do not even need new legislation for this. Fianna Fáil, for all the criticism I have of it, brought in legislation, the Consumer Protection Act, which actually empowers the Government to impose price controls when there is an emergency.”
“All the market claptrap and dogma did not lead to prices going down and did not benefit the consumer. The prices went up almost immediately. Profits for the ESB and all the other energy players went through the roof and have consistently continued to go through the roof since then, as have prices for ordinary householders. We went from being under a regulated market that was not for profit, where the ESB controlled the market and we had the lowest electricity prices in Europe, to being deregulated, privatised and with the highest electricity prices in Europe. That is what happened. It is obvious when you look at the profits being made that that is the problem. We need to take that sector back into public control, not because it is a good idea coming from the lefties but because it worked.”
“I find it grimly amusing to go back to 2011 when Eamon Ryan fully and finally deregulated the Irish electricity market and read what he said. He said that competition was going to be good for the consumer, that we were going to have competition in the market and that prices were going to go down. He said the consumer was going to benefit. This process had started under Fianna Fáil. I think Mary O'Rourke was the Minister back in 2001, and then Noel Dempsey. The Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Act 2001 removed the not-for-profit mandate of the ESB. Eamon Ryan finally removed all regulations on price in 2011. It was all based on private competition and how deregulating the market would benefit the consumer because competition leads to prices going down. However, the exact opposite happened.”
“There is immediate stuff, which I am sure Sinn Féin would agree with and that others have articulated, about energy credits and the cuts that were imposed in the budget this year, but this Bill is obviously an attempt to deal more structurally with the whole issue of price hikes, profiteering and price gouging. It would be good to monitor pricing, and we need to monitor it, and this Bill has provisions on protection against unfair pricing and so on, but it is still predicated on a privatised and deregulated market. I believe the problem is the privatised, deregulated market. If we look at electricity, what has happened is absolutely clear. I said this to Professor John FitzGerald today in our committee and, surprisingly, he agreed with me. I will be careful to say he agreed with me "to some degree".”
“I thank Sinn Féin for introducing this Bill on electricity regulation. People Before Profit is happy to support this, which is a serious attempt to address the issue of the energy price hikes and the energy poverty that has resulted from those as well as the price gouging and profiteering of energy companies. The idea that there would be a body in legislation that would monitor price gouging and price levels is an admirable one and we are happy support it and see it go to the next Stage. I have to be honest, though, and say that we need to go a lot further than this.”
“The pay, conditions and the situation in our health service are so bad that the service cannot recruit people and has to rely on outsourcing. Working in the public health service is just too unattractive to nurses. The last thing we need is recruitment embargos. We need a recognition from the Government that it has been underfunding and under-budgeting for our health service. Quite frankly, it is scary that the Government is talking about recruitment embargos as a response to its failure to acknowledge the amount of money it needs to put into our health service and into backing our nurses and other healthcare workers. "Hear, hear" for the nurses but the Government needs to step up to the mark.”
“Last year, this all became very tangible for me rather than being somewhat abstract. I was in the hands of the nurses who were looking after me when I was in a difficult spot. It is then that you realise just how important they are and how much they do for you. We then find that nurses are treated in this way. The Government is now talking about recruitment embargos again. I cannot believe it. When we have unsafe staffing levels and the union has been campaigning to place a legal obligation on the State to ensure safe staffing levels, we are back to recruitment embargos. The Government has given no real clarity as to whether these will impact on nurses and the front line and therefore on patients, the quality of services and all of the rest of it. The Government has consistently underbudgeted for health. That is why we get overruns.”
“It is obviously good that we are at least getting this opportunity to talk about the issues affecting nurses but it is pretty rich given the issues highlighted by the INMO at its conference, including stress, burn-out, unsafe staffing levels and student nurses. I do not know how many years ago it was that we had motions about student nurses and the number of them who were contemplating leaving the country because they felt it was not doable for them because of the way they were being treated and what they were facing in the Irish health service. Many of them were leaving the country and going to Australia or wherever. All of those issues that the INMO have been campaigning about all of these years remain with us. Really, nothing has changed. A quarter of nurses are needing to see their GP because of the impact the job is having on them.”
“On Thursday, People Before Profit will bring the Sanctions against the State of Israel Bill before the Dáil. It asks the Government to act on its obligation under the Genocide Convention to prevent the commission of genocide by the State of Israel. It is an obligation we have. It calls for comprehensive economic, financial and trade sanctions against a state that is guilty of genocidal actions. Is the Government intending to support that Bill given it is a signatory of the Genocide Convention? The Bill also refers to our commitments under the Rome Statute as well as to other international legal obligations.”
“It is an absolute disgrace that Jack Chambers and this Government are threatening essentially a return to austerity and cutbacks across Departments and trying to imply that because extra money had to be found for special needs, this has to be done. That is a cynical divide-and-conquer tactic when there are alternatives. The Government had underfunded special needs and was forced to acknowledge that. It could find extra money rather than cutting other Departments by taxing wealth and profits in this country. That is the elephant in the room that is never discussed.”
“This is a minimal step that says young people, including those doing apprenticeships, should not be paid less than the minimum wage. The minimum wage should be a legal right and entitlement.”
“Huge numbers of people who want to work in the area of construction and to take on these trades are just leaving the country, even if they do qualify, because they do not feel valued. It is absolutely inexplicable that we expect apprentices to accept this. The average age of an apprentice is 23. Many of them have to pay rent and have children, relationships and lives but, in their first year, they are expected to live on about half of a living wage and less than the minimum wage. It is inexplicable. There are also lower rates of social protection for younger people. We are sending the message that we do not care and that we do not value our young people. It is no wonder that many of them are leaving the country.”
“To follow on from Deputy Murphy's point, one of the biggest obstacles to solving the housing crisis and the chronic deficits in infrastructure in this country is the lack of skilled tradespeople. We are making it difficult for young people to qualify in these areas by allowing these abysmally low rates for apprentices, particularly in the first and second years of their apprenticeships. These rates are just over €7 and just over €11 respectively, both of which are below the minimum wage. This means that apprentices are dropping out, often to work in fast food chains. They are not doing this because they want to but because the pay levels are so low. It also sends the message to our young people, which many of them are unfortunately acting on, that we do not really value their work at all. They are leaving.”
“We need to hear from the employers of workers in the National Ambulance Service, because that is what the Government is. We need to hear from the Minister for Health to explain why ambulance workers feel they have not choice but to go on strike because of the failure of the Government to recognise they are vital healthcare professionals.”
“It is a transfer of wealth from working people who cannot afford a house or cannot afford the rents into the pockets of rich people who have done nothing except own a piece of land that has been rezoned. This week, I heard of the case of a clerical officer working in the Civil Service, who is earning €32,000 and has four children. He should be below the social housing income threshold limit but he gets family income supplement as his income is so low. If he gets this year's increment, due this summer, he will be thrown off the housing list and will not even be eligible for HAP. He is on €32,000 and has four kids. The workers get screwed; the rich get richer. That is what is happening in this country.”
“So, overnight, somebody who owns that land and has done absolutely nothing is made a multimillionaire by the rezonings that are happening all over Dublin at the moment, courtesy of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Is that a victimless crime? No. That extra money that has gone into their pockets - millions of euro because of the votes of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and, in some cases, Green Party councillors and others - goes onto the prices of houses. That is why the prices of houses and rents are so high. That is where they get their money from. It does not come out of the sky. It comes out of the price or the rent you pay. That is how people get rich overnight. It is not magic.”
“It is more than twice than what all the workers earn between them. How much tax do they pay? Some €23 billion. The rich earn far more and pay far less in tax. Workers earn less and pay more between USC, excessive electricity and energy costs, carbon taxes, you name it. Profits go up for the super rich, they pay less tax and we get more billionaires, while workers are screwed to the wall with the cost of living. How do these things happen? I will give an example - rezonings. The Government is rezoning land all over the place. The value of the rezoned land is going up, from about €160,000 per hectare when it is zoned for agricultural use to €1.6 million when per hectare after it is rezoned. Actually, when the land is sold on the market we are probably talking about more like €16 million.”
“Some 1,400 people in Ireland have more than €47 million each while 20,000 people in this country have more than €4.7 million each. If we adopted a wealth tax, as Oxfam has proposed, on just that group of 20,000 people, it would raise €9 billion. Let us imagine what we could do with €9 billion for the cost-of-living breaks that working people need. There is a similar picture on profits. Profits are up 300% in the past ten years. In 2014, total profits before tax amounted to €95 billion. In 2023, they reached €318 billion. Here is the real kicker. The total earnings of every one of the 3.3 million workers in this country comes to €130 billion. That is all the wages together. How much tax do those 3.3 million workers pay on that income? Some €32 billion. What are the total profits of the 170,000 businesses in this country? Some €318 billion.”
“I thank the Labour Party for the motion and for suggesting that we should have a mini-budget to address the cost-of-living crisis. We agree with quite a number of the measures and some were in our alternative budget. It is a fact that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. While a cost-of-living crisis is going on for working people in this country, where half a million people either are either in gas or electricity arrears and are crushed by the USC, carbon taxes, energy price hikes and food price hikes, the rich are getting richer. The year before last, there were nine billionaires in Ireland. Now there are 11. The wealth of those billionaires went up by €13 billion last year. Just 11 people's wealth went up by €13 billion.”
“This makes it very worrying about their treatment. The family appeals again to the Irish Government to send monitors to the trial, which is an absolute travesty of justice. The European Union is showing complete moral bankruptcy in the face of genocide, the worst crime it is possible to commit. Next week, the Sanctions against the State of Israel Bill will come before the Dáil. It states that because Ireland is a signatory to the Genocide Convention, it has a legal obligation not just to punish the crime of genocide, but to prevent it, and to use all reasonable means to do so. The Bill calls for across-the board-economic sanctions. Will the Government support the Bill next week when it comes before the House? I very much doubt it.”
“It presides over an apartheid regime, according to every serious human rights organisation, and since 2016, it has been collectively punishing the two million people of Gaza with a criminal siege. Then we had the genocidal massacre of the past few years. Who provides the weapons? The European Union and, to a very significant extent, Germany. As we speak I have just had a message from Mimi Tatlow-Golden. Her son, an Irish citizen, was with four other people protesting against Elbit Systems, the major provider of weapons to Israel to commit genocide against the Palestinians, in what was an act of civil disobedience where there was no threat of violence to anybody. His mother was saying that in the court at the moment the judge is likening them to terrorists and organised criminals, and really setting them up as horrible, dangerous people.”
“Even before the genocidal assault on Gaza, Israel had shown itself to be the world's number one enemy of international law. It refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but we all know it has about 200 nuclear weapons. Israel does not think that law applies to it. Trump thinks it is okay to bomb Iran, as does Israel does, because Iran might have nuclear weapons but Israel will not even sign the international treaty to restrict their use. Since 1948 when it ethnically cleansed nearly 1 million Palestinians, Israel has denied under international law the right to return that Palestinians have, leaving millions of Palestinians displaced all over the Middle East. It has a law explicitly denying the Palestinians the right self determination and has granted that right only to people of the Jewish faith.”
“That should hardly surprise us because Ursula von der Leyen, a former arms seller when she was a minister in Germany, selling arms to all and sundry, has argued for the rearmament of Europe and for massive increases in European expenditure on weapons. This is what Europe is actually doing. By the way, it spends four times more on weapons than Russia. Then add to this the trillion dollars the United States spends. Clearly, militarisation and spending money on weapons does not do anything to deter war. That is very clear when we look at the balance of global arms expenditure. Where this notion of commitments to international law or any kind of values is exposed as complete nonsense is when we look at the European Union's relationship with the State of Israel and at the crimes Israel is committing.”
“The Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, lauded the European Union as being a place of values. He talked about its commitment to international law and to the rule of law and was somewhat aghast that people suggested Europe was guilty of a move towards militarisation. I put it to the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, that if he was to characterise the major value of the European Union currently, it is precisely that it is the biggest contributor to a massive increase in global arms expenditure, which is now up to €2,887 billion, which is €2.8 trillion. The biggest contributor to that increase, with a 14% increase last year, is the European Union.”
“When is it going to deliver childcare costs of €200 per month for everybody? At the moment, it is failing a lot of parents very seriously.”
“I suspect quite a few people voted for Fine Gael in the most recent election because it promised that it would reduce childcare costs for everybody to €200 per month. It has spectacularly failed to deliver on that promise, which is a very serious cost-of-living issue for many. To give the Minister one instance, this week, in my area, I have been inundated by emails from parents whose crèche provider has pulled out of core funding. To cite one case, their monthly fees have gone from €1,500 up to €2,400. They are already paying a mortgage; that is now a double mortgage. There are many others like them. The Government said it is going to deliver 800 State-led crèche places. One of those crèches is in my area of Shanganagh. It is now very clear that those places are not going to be €200 either, despite the Government's promise.”