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.”
The complete record
Every one of 1,055 lines we hold for Richard Boyd Barrett, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 9 of 22.
“Now, it wants to extend the fire, death and destruction all over the Middle East in a way that is now threatening the entire world. We said if you do not sanction this regime, we will all pay a price. Now, literally every single person in this country is paying a price for the bloodlust of Trump and Netanyahu in their pocket. Twenty thousand Irish people in the Middle East are paying the price with their security, having to shelter and flee from the fallout of the death and destruction Israel and the Trump Administration are inflicting. The Irish Government cannot condemn it but worse it is complicit in it by allowing the US military through Shannon Airport while it prosecutes this slaughter and while it threatens to set the entire Middle East on fire.”
“They now think they can do it again in Iran because they got away with it against the people of Gaza. They continue to get away with it by ethnically cleansing the West Bank, so they think they are going to get away with it in Iran and dominate and control the entire region. It is suggested that Donald Trump does not know what he is doing, but he knows exactly what he is doing. He is going to make America great again. This is about the US empire and doing what it did in the past in El Salvador, Chile, Nicaragua, Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan and what it is doing with America's and the West's cat's paw called the Israeli State, the genocidal regime that has been ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people since 1948 and has now reached the level of committing a genocide.”
“What has that got to do with anything other than bringing death, destruction and horror to the world? There is a lot of interesting commentary saying that the Americans and the Israelis do not know what they are doing or what the end game is. It is totally wrong. They know exactly what the end game is: they want to do to Iran what they did to Gaza. They want to extend the genocide that we witnessed for the last two and a half years in Gaza into Iran. They want to destroy it. That is what it means when they attack schools and murder schoolchildren, and they attack football stadiums, just like they destroyed all the hospitals, all the schools, all the universities and all the water infrastructure and killed 75,000 people at least in the genocide in Gaza.”
“The failure of the Government, and the Minister and Minister of State who spoke for the Government today, to condemn the attack by Israel and the United States on Iran is an absolute disgrace. The world is now paying a price for the bloodlust of the psychopaths who run Israel and the psychopaths of the Trump Administration who are attacking Iran and setting the entire region on fire, precipitating economic consequences for literally everybody in the world. The Irish Government cannot bring itself to condemn that. It cannot bring itself to condemn the slaughter of 160 innocent schoolgirls massacred by the Americans and the Israelis. In the last two hours, a 12,000-seat football stadium in Tehran was destroyed by a US-Israeli attack. A football stadium, which also had swimming pools, cycling facilities and dormitories, was levelled.”
“Why does he allow people to be evicted? Why does he allow landlords to reset rents up to the highest levels when there is nowhere that can be afforded by average working people looking for a roof over their head?”
“Seriously, young working people looking for accommodation are goosed with this Government. The Minister says supply is the answer. I am on the budget scrutiny committee. The Department of Finance in the Future Forty report is projecting that supply will not reach the level where it is possible, theoretically, that prices could come down until the end of the 2030s. We are stuck. Suzanne, who is looking to get from an overcrowded situation and is facing those rents, is goosed until the end of the 2030s. Another couple I am dealing with, who have two kids, got a notice to quit and are now living with neighbours. They have to wait until the end of the 2030s. We can actually control rents. They do it in other countries. Why will the Minister not control rents? Why does he allow rents to reach these unaffordable levels?”
“It is unbelievable. Average incomes in this country are €55,000 to €60,000. Many if not most people earn less than that. Take-home pay is €3,300 to €3,600 a month after tax. If you are looking for a three-bedroom apartment in Dún Laoghaire, you will not find anything below €3,000 today. Most of them are €4,500. I will read out a few figures in my area: €3,800, €3,050 and €3,650. More than 100% of the take-home income of the average worker is needed for the rents that are being looked for today. Suzanne, whose family is in an overcrowded two-bed, is looking for a three-bed. She is paying €1,700 and that is what is available for her and her two kids. She is going to end up homeless or staying in overcrowded accommodation, as are many people. It is an impossible situation and the Minister has got nothing at all to say to people.”
“The Minister has introduced legislation allowing landlords to reset rents upwards, which is unbelievable when rents are already unaffordable for the vast majority of people and we have an unprecedented homelessness crisis. Does the Minister have any plans to make rents affordable in the private rental sector or is he just admitting this is a Government that is about increasing rents in order to benefit landlords who profit from the housing misery that results from unaffordable rents?”
“The Government just straightforwardly capitulates to these people because they are profiting from it, and then our society picks up the pieces in terms of our young people's well-being and mental health being assaulted by these toxic algorithms to the detriment of children, young women and vulnerable groups in our society and generally to the detriment of our society in creating a divisive toxic atmosphere which is getting ever worse. The Government should be ashamed of itself for doing this and for the priorities it has decided on but, as I said, there is a consistency in its policies.”
“Anybody who knows anything about young people knows that. Young people, by and large, as all the polls show, do not want this stuff force-fed to them. They want to make their own decisions. Banning it is not the answer. It is about standing up to these guys and not letting them profiteer by force-feeding the poisonous stuff to our young people. Coimisiún na Meán was recommending that in the first draft of the online safety code, but it took it out because of the lobbying of the companies. We know that because it is on record that they lobbied to take it out.”
“Do not get me wrong, I sometimes have problems with the decisions that RTÉ makes, but my God, give me RTÉ over X, Meta, Google and Facebook any day of the week. While RTÉ is being dismantled and privatised and its work is being outsourced essentially to be replaced by these guys that profit from pumping this poison at our society, our young people and so on, we will take the money off public service broadcasting and hand it to these companies. We will not say boo to them in terms of regulating stuff that the Government acknowledges is harmful, but we will not do anything about it. Even Coimisiún na Meán, which the Minister of State said is dealing with it, recommended turning off these recommender algorithms. We are not in favour of a ban, by the way. Children will get around a ban. It will actually make it more attractive.”
“Profit comes first, despite the most obscene crimes and the most horrible things being done, turning our world into a very dangerous place. The Government will prioritise the profits of the people who benefit from all of this. That is frankly shameful. Not only, by the way, will we not do anything about it, but we will also give them money to do it with research and development tax credits. We will give them €1.4 billion. There was another €300 billion in the previous budget. We will give them the money to research to how to do this to our children. That is what we are doing. I was at the press briefing of RTÉ workers yesterday who were fighting to defend their jobs and public service broadcasting.”
“There is a direct line between the Government voting down this Bill, its refusal to act against the social media and IT companies - not exclusively but mostly American multinationals - and its refusal to impose sanctions over the genocide in Gaza or to condemn what the US and Israel are doing in Iran and setting the entire Middle East on fire. It will not condemn it for the same reason, because it does not want to upset the US empire. That is it. It does not want to upset these big obscenely wealthy multinational companies that profit from this sort of divisive toxic material or the big military industrial complex that profits from setting the Middle East on fire or profits from allowing, and indeed arming and supporting, Israel's genocide in Gaza.”
“The Ministers say, "Well, yes, there are some harmful aspects to this, but the status quo is what we are doing. We're going to vote down your Bill and maintain the status quo ", as if anything is being doing about this, when nothing is being done about it. Anybody who cares to go online right now will find that out. The Government has decided to do nothing. It is clear what is being prioritised here, which are the profits of companies that profit from this hateful, despicable material and make money from promoting suicidal ideation, eating disorders or hate. That is evil. What some of these companies are doing is the definition of evil. The Government has decided to prioritise their profits ahead of the well-being and welfare of young people, children and women. That is shameful.”
“I am baffled by the speech of the Minister of State, and the Government should be ashamed of itself. It has really shown its true colours. It is paying lip service to the issue that is at stake, which is the well-being, mental health and safety of the children, young people and women who are victims of this toxic misogyny, which is not just online, as we have discovered. It gets translated into brutal physical reality, as will be evidenced in the protests that are taking place in UCD today. The Minister of State acknowledged all the horrible stuff that is directed at women and politicians. The algorithms are designed to promote self-harm, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, hate, misogyny and hatred against trans people. We can go through the list of toxic content.”
“They are being told, having believed they would be working relatively close to where their children go to school and so on, that they could be sent to another side of the country and not even got a job with the HSE. This is a shameful way to treat these young people. Can the Taoiseach intervene on their behalf?”
“Outside the Dáil today, there was a protest by a large number of mostly young people who are newly qualified paramedics. The Taoiseach may have seen that they gathered a petition over the weekend. About 10,000 people have signed it. For the last three years, they have been doing a degree to become paramedics and they have also been working part time for the HSE. When they were brought in through a recruitment campaign in late 2022, into this degree course and into the part-time work, they were given the clear understanding that they would be given permanent contracts. This was reiterated as recently as December of last year. All of a sudden, they have had the rug pulled out from under them and they have been told they have to reapply in a competition for their own jobs. They are absolutely gutted.”
“Will the Government make sure it does not make another mistake in having something written top-down by people who do not understand the issue?”
“Parents, SNAs and school communities protested over the misguided move by the Government to take a significant number of SNAs from many schools across the country, a decision it had to backtrack on because of the outrage. They want to know they will not be in the same position in a year's time when the same issues happen again. Will the infamous 2014 circular, which they believe should be torn up, be rewritten with the input of the parents, SNAs and school communities so that the same dire mistake is not made again? The Government has committed to withdrawing the circular and rewriting it. Will it get input from the people who matter and know how the circular should be written in a way that guarantees the right of children with special needs and school communities?”
“We need an emergency debate on whether our airport, Shannon Airport, is going to be used by the US military to prosecute what is a flagrantly illegal military assault on Iran, which has set the entire Middle East on fire and which is being conducted with a regime, Israel, that is in the dock for two and a half years of genocide.”
“It could stop evictions, put in real rent controls, take aggressive action against people who are land-hoarding and speculating, prioritise the provision of more social housing and raise the thresholds. There are a lot of things the Government could do, but it just does not seem to care. It seems as if the Government just wants to normalise this horrendous situation.”
“The only meaningful thing the Department has done is to guarantee that people's prospect of finding private rented accommodation in my area, the whole of south Dublin and huge parts of the country is now going to be totally impossible because the rents will all go up €3,000 or €3,200. It was very hard before, but now it just will not happen, so the likelihood of those people escaping from homelessness is gone. Everything the Government is seen to be doing - not lifting the thresholds and not controlling the rents - is making it more likely people will stay in this homelessness misery, in conditions that are totally unacceptable. The Government could do something about it.”
“They went in for the few lotteries for cost rental but of course they did not get them because there is massive oversubscription for those. Then there is Ben, a very nice young man in his 20s, who came in to see me. He is working for the council but his income is €1,500 over the threshold, which, by the way, has not been moved for three years. He has been on the housing list. He has to pay €250 every two weeks in maintenance to his partner, but that is still assessed against his income. If that was not assessed, he would be below the threshold and he would not be knocked off the list. By the way, his partner is being assessed on the same money he is giving to her, which is double counting of the maintenance. I think the Minister of State gets the point. Where is the effort to stop people being homeless?”
“She has been waiting over six months for a HMD form to be assessed. This is affecting children, families, older people and women and children fleeing domestic violence. There are also those people who go over the threshold. Ian has lived in private rented accommodation with his partner for over 14 years. They were paying €2,300 a month. They have been issued with a notice to quit and are becoming desperate because they cannot find anything within their price range. As you might imagine, €2,300 a month pretty much stretches them. Now, of course, rents for the same property will be over €3,000. They are marginally over the limit for social housing and therefore are not entitled to HAP or any assistance or any prospect of a social home.”
“We were in touch with the council but nothing could be found for her. She is now staying with a family member in Waterford. We have families and children and older, sick and vulnerable people who are in homeless accommodation, are homeless or are facing homelessness. Then there are those suffering from domestic violence. I will not mention the names here. A woman who has two children was viciously attacked by her ex-partner who is awaiting trial for the attack. Her youngest child witnessed the attack and is traumatised. He has attacked her apartment also, despite a protection order. She tried repeatedly to get priority housing through the council but to no avail, even though she is fleeing domestic violence. Another woman escaped a violent abusive partner and has been couch surfing between two homes.”
“Tommy has macular degeneration and is almost completely blind in one eye, with deteriorating sight in the other. He also has type 2 diabetes. The thought of these people going into a hostel in town is disgusting. Gary has been living in private rented accommodation for years. In his current place, he has been on rent allowance for 14 years. The council is disputing how long he has been on the list. He has chronic arthritis and rheumatism but neither that nor his age qualifies him to be prioritised by the council. His attempt to be prioritised has been rejected. Older people are not on choice based lettings, CBL, so he has no idea how long he will wait. Joan is aged 84. Her husband died a few years ago. She lived Dún Laoghaire all her life and she was evicted on 20 January.”
“There is no chance of even the HAP as an outlet. As difficult as it was to find a HAP tenancy previously, now there will be no HAP properties available within the limits or anywhere even close to them. We also have the older people. Tommy and Bridie are a couple who are being evicted from the home they have rented for the past four years. They are aged 69 and 77, respectively, and are absolutely terrified of what is coming down the line. They have been on the older person's housing list for seven years. The council has given them no reassurance, telling them they are No. 38 on the list. Obviously they are terrified as older people, at those ages, that they will end up in emergency accommodation. Both of them have health issues. Bridie has had part of her lung removed as a result of cancer and her breathing is affected.”
“These people are all on the lists for two-bedroom or three-bedroom properties. There are almost no three-bedroom units in the pipeline in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. The private developers are mostly building one- and two-bedroom units and are not really interested in three-bedroom homes because they can get more one- and two-bedroom units on a site. Families are in absolutely dire situations and the Government says it is its priority. What is it going to do for these families? The tenant in situ scheme has slowed to a snail's pace, so for those facing eviction that one possible hope for some of them is not available. Let us think of people trying to find a HAP tenancy in this situation. Rents in my area for a three-bedroom home are now at €3,200. Any tenancies that end will now all go up to that level in my area.”
“Vera submitted multiple consultant letters urging the council to house them. The children are really suffering in the homeless accommodation. She submitted a medical priority form, a HMD form, ten months ago but it still has not been adjudicated on. The family are in absolute crisis. The list goes on. Julianne has been homeless now with her two children for more than two years and is in her second homeless accommodation. She is currently sharing a bed with her nine-year-old son. Her daughter, who is 14, is now refusing to go to school. Saoirse has been in a hub for a year. She came in to me and described how she has been suicidal. Her son has autism. She is on a list for a two-bedroom property but is still awaiting to be processed on the HMD form. The list just goes on. This is just a snapshot of cases I am dealing with in my office.”
“Caoimhe has been eight and a half years on the housing list. She has three children aged nine, four and two. They have been living in damp and mouldy homeless accommodation for almost ten months. Her two-year-old was taken to hospital with pneumonia during the winter. She was previously in homeless accommodation in 2021. She found a HAP property and lived there for four years but was then made homeless again. Her daughter, at Christmas time, asked for only one thing from Santa - a home of her own. It is just disgusting that she and her child are going through this again. Vera and her partner have three children, two of whom have disabilities. They have been in homeless accommodation in Monkstown for over six months. The HSE has visited and deemed the accommodation inappropriate for disabled children.”
“She has three kids aged ten, four and two. Her ten-year-old has additional needs and her two-year-old has a heart condition. She will be homeless on Saturday when she has to hand back her keys on foot of a notice to quit because her landlord is selling the property. She has done nothing wrong. This will be the third time in five years that she has been made homeless. Suzanne grew up in care with no family support network. She has been on to the council repeatedly about her situation and is told it does not even have homeless accommodation for somebody who has been nine years on the list and facing her third stint of homelessness. She has been told she will probably have to ring the emergency hours homeless number when she is made homeless on Saturday. It is despicable that Suzanne could be in this situation again with her children.”
“I do not know if the Government is willing, even now, to use the word "emergency" to describe the absolute disaster that is facing so many people in housing crisis situations or who are actually homeless. The Government has allowed the situation to deteriorate and get worse. It seems to me that the Government actually wants to normalise the situation and get us used to it. The media at this point will probably sort of ignore this debate now because even they are being inured to the idea that there is just going to be a permanent state of housing misery in this country. I want to use the brief time available to me to highlight some cases. I get so exercised about this issue because of the people who come to me. I will give a few examples just to highlight the failure of the Government. Suzanne has been nine years on the housing list.”
“We are breaking the records pretty much every month in terms of the hardship and suffering being imposed on families, children and individuals in homelessness, facing homelessness or in crisis housing situations. It seems to me that the Government is normalising this. There can be no other explanation for allowing the homeless figures to climb to the levels the Government has allowed, in a housing crisis that has been acknowledged. It took a while for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Governments to acknowledge it. I remember when some of us were using the term "crisis" back in 2012 and 2013 and we were being dismissed. Eventually there was an acknowledgement, more than 12 years ago, that there was a crisis, not an emergency.”
“I have asked for this debate for weeks on end at the Business Committee. Finally, we got there but it takes this long just to get a debate on what is an absolute disaster. The Minister for housing, Deputy Browne, said when he came into office that child and family homelessness was his priority. The Government has repeatedly said this is the biggest social emergency facing it. Yet, tomorrow, we are going to have the new homelessness figures and the likelihood is those figures will reach close to 17,000 people in emergency accommodation, maybe even exceeding that figure, with 5,000 of those being children. The likelihood is that those figures will reach close to 17,000 people in emergency accommodation and they may even exceed that figure, with 5,000 of those being children. It is an obscene level of child and family homelessness.”
“The Government hammered those people in the budget by taking €1,400 away from them. Will the Government concede their demand for an emergency payment before the demonstration on Saturday?”
“This Saturday at 1 o'clock in Parnell Square, disabled people, disability groups and the Affordable Ireland Coalition, of which I am a part, will be mobilising in a protest, demanding that this Government relent and concede the demand for an emergency disability winter payment of €400 for those with disabilities and, beyond that, implement a cost-of-disability payment. A young man named Jack, who was at our press conference yesterday promoting the demonstration, was on the radio today describing how he had to buy an extra duvet because he does not want to turn on the heating as he is afraid to the cost. He gets anxiety attacks when he has to go to the shops. He has additional energy costs because he has to power his wheelchair. He is facing all these cost-of-living pressures.”
“Why are we rationing access to the education necessary to get people qualified to provide the services that children with special needs need, and that we need in the schools? It is unbelievable. Basic things need to be done, but if the Government trusts and listens to schools, does not see this as cost containment and does not see children as numbers, there might be some chance the schools will believe the Government is not going to have them in the same place in a year's time.”
“The schools want educators involved in the rewriting of that circular. We need commitments on that, and we need a recognition. We need the therapies in schools, not pilots. By the way, we need to create the places in higher and further education in order that people who want to be qualified can get qualified. I happen to know somebody who has a master's degree and a bachelor's degree and applied for the UCD course in psychology. There were nine places for 270 applicants, so she did not get it. There were 270 applicants but only nine places. We need hundreds of these people. Why are there only nine places in UCD for clinical psychology? There is about the same number for educational psychology and counselling psychology.”
“If the Government had started with that, it never would have come up with the misguided policy. The misguided policy was because of fear that the Government might have to put more resources in. That was the actual reason, and now the Government has been forced to put more resources in anyway because of the revolt. However, schools do not trust the Government not to do the same in a year's time because they have been let down so badly. They need reassurance that the Government has learned its lesson from this, that it is going to trust schools and that it is not going to treat people like numbers when it is rewriting the circular. It is an insulting circular that talks about anybody who does not have medical needs as having challenging behaviour. That is like a throwback to the 1950s and the badly behaved children.”
“The Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, was in my former primary school, Johnstown national school. It was at the epicentre of these cuts and was to have its SNA numbers cut from nine to 3.8. All the schools in the local area were there at a meeting. The Minister was saying that an awful lot more people are being diagnosed with special needs and asking if it was because we did not identify them before or if it is because there are more. I thought to myself that while she was asking an interesting philosophical question, it did not make a damn bit of difference to what is actually needed, which the school knows. If you listen to the school, the SNAs and the teachers, they know what is needed. We should believe them because they are not making it up.”
“The parents of children with special needs have spent every week, month and year of their children's lives fighting for adequate resources and for assessments, services and therapies they do not get most of the time. They do not trust the Government because it has failed them, and they cannot understand how it got to proposing the cuts it tried to implement last week. Simon Lewis, the principal of Carlow Educate Together National School, put it very well to me about a year ago and I said it at the time in the Dáil. When I asked him how the allocation issue could be resolved, he said to trust schools. It is as simple as that; we must trust schools, not operate on the basis of organised distrust or fear. This is what was going on if you listen carefully.”
“We have witnessed a nationwide revolt against the cuts that were being implemented to SNAs and, as a result of that revolt and the threat that it will escalate, the Government has backed down. That is a great victory for the SNAs, parents, teachers and school communities who stood up, fought back and refused to accept these misguided and frankly cruel cuts. However, as the Minister has been told, the protests are going ahead tomorrow. The reason they are going ahead, from talking today to my former primary school community and the principal there today, and to others involved in the protests, is that they do not trust the Government not to have them back in a year's time where we were in the past week or two. That is basically it.”
“If we are going to provide for children with special needs, for the mental health of young people and for mental health services generally, we need to rapidly recruit more people with the qualifications necessary to provide assessments and services. We are not doing it. Despite lip service being paid by the Government to the fact that it is, it is not actually doing it. I want to give the Taoiseach a dramatic example. I happen to know somebody who has a masters and a bachelor of arts, BA, in psychology and who applied to UCD to do a doctorate. There were 370 applications for nine places in clinical psychology. Everybody had to have a minimum of a 2.1 in a BA. Most of them had a masters and had experience but only nine got places in clinical psychology. There were 14 places in educational, I think, and a similar number.”
“Nothing the Taoiseach has said to date gives people the assurance that he has understood the problem that led to these threatened protests in the first place, and that he is going to make sure they will not be there again next year. What does he have to say to reassure them?”
“School communities and the organisers of the protest outside the Dáil tomorrow over the Government's threatened SNA cuts want the Taoiseach to know, and for it to be known, that those protests will be going ahead in many places across the country. Although it is clear that protests and the threatened escalation of those protests have forced the Government to do a U-turn on the planned cuts to SNAs, the principal of my former primary school, Johnstown national school where some of the most severe cuts were proposed, told me this morning that although the school is delighted the Government has backed off on these cuts, she has no real assurance that they will not be back there again next year. That is the feeling out there.”
“In the aftermath of 75,000 people have been slaughtered by Israel in a genocidal massacre and the so-called ceasefire, hundreds of people, including more than 100 children, have been killed and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian territories continues. The Government has reneged on its commitment to bring the occupied territories Bill before the House and pass it into law, and impose sanctions on the regime that is committing these crimes.”
“It is really not clear, but it seems as if the SNAs and, therefore, the children for whom they provide support and, consequently, all of the other children in their classes and all of the teachers, are still in the crosshairs. All we have is a pause because people expressed such outrage, anger and shock. I should mention another school in my area. All Saints, a small school in Blackrock, has lost its only SNA. There will be no SNA there at all now. That is absolutely unacceptable. The care needs of the children have not changed. They need the same support they had previously and we need that commitment from the Government.”
“Pauses are all very well, but these people are now in limbo, waiting to know whether the Government is going to abandon these cuts, which would be very severe, damaging and detrimental to the welfare of children with special needs, other children in their classes, SNAs and teachers. They all want to know that the Government is going to abandon these cuts.”
“The very angry and shocked protests of my former primary school helped to highlight the severity of the impact of the SNA cuts that the Government was planning. The Minister of State may have seen the protest by Johnstown National School on Tuesday evening on RTÉ. Of course, it was just one of many schools that experienced these attacks. Fair play to the teachers, SNAs, and parents who came out and protested. In that school alone, the number of SNAs was going to drop from nine to fewer than four. I met with all of the teachers, parents, SNAs and the principal of my former school this week. They were absolutely gutted and shocked. They could not believe that this would be even considered. They want to know what will happen now.”
“It means we do not have segregation. It means there is no stigma attached to social housing. It means that a large amount of revenue that is currently going into the pockets of corporate landlords who are profiteering from the housing crisis will come back to the State to maintain and build social housing. It is win-win-win for society and those who need housing. Of course, to build this level of social housing we need to State to start building. That is why we are in favour of a State construction company. This is a Bill the Government should support.”