Richard O'Donoghue
Limerick County · Independent Ireland · Ireland
“The crucial point is that the HSE environmental health service examined the matter, visited the community and requested a public health investigation into the complaints. The public health section denied it. One part of the health service was looking for an investigation but the Department's public health section denied it.”
“I have a copy of that investigation. The Tánaiste and I met CEPA a number of years ago and we discussed these complaints. The Taoiseach is on the record 13 years ago saying that there are health implications to wind farms. There is something that I want the Tánaiste and all other Members sitting around the House today to do.”
“I thank the Tánaiste. The issue here is the inconsistency. In the Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown area, all noise complaints received by the local authority are investigated by the HSE.”
“Today, I am raising the issue of wind farms and their health implications. A number of weeks ago, I was copied into a serious letter from the Communities and Environmental Protection Alliance, CEPA, to the Minister of Health. I am informed that there has been no response, not even an acknowledgement.”
“I would also like to have the Minister for Health there to meet these people and to see if we can relieve concerns and meet young people and their families' entitlement to a night's sleep. This cannot go on for more years. We have been talking about this for years. We must think of the health implications and how we can help.”
“It has been proven without doubt that there are health implications to wind turbines in certain areas. I am not against wind turbines in areas where they do not have health implications, but this one does. So, when the Tánaiste is giving his reply, I want him to think of the children and families this is affecting.”
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“Garda Tom Flavin was suspended from An Garda Síochána in 2018. He has been cleared of all 22 charges. It took the legal system seven years for a Garda investigation. He has now been reinstated. He had his sergeant exam done before he was suspended. Seven years were lost to a Garda investigation and others are ongoing. How long does it take for the Garda to investigate itself? We did without eight gardaí in Limerick because it took so long. Can this be sped up? When justice gets it wrong, it should have to reinstate people to their sergeancy and all the other things lost out on in the seven years they were investigated.”
“They are here to deliver for, and ensure accountability for, the people of Ireland. They want to make sure taxpayers' money is invested in infrastructure that is delivered on budget and on time. That is what we stand for in Independent Ireland. That is what we came together for in Independent Ireland. I want the Minister to take up the offer, and I have offered it more than once. Take up Independent Ireland's offer. Let us help to deliver houses.”
“Planning permission fees have been reintroduced even though they were scrapped to allow for inflation costs. Everyone who is building now has to pay planning permission fees. There is now a VAT rate of 23%. Some 20% of a mortgage for a house is VAT; it is tax. People pay tax when they are working so they can afford a mortgage. They pay a planning permission fee to build their own houses, if they are in a position to do so. Then they pay VAT to the Government, which ends up being 20% of their mortgage. For a house costing €400,000 or €500,000, €100,000 in tax is being paid. Independent Ireland has given the incentives to the Minister. They come from the experience of businesspeople who know what they are doing and who are here for the betterment of the people of Ireland.”
“It took me eight weeks to get a letter from Irish Water, even though online it says it has a green flag, to deliver 30 houses for the Minister and the people of Limerick. The Minister says Uisce Éireann is accountable but it is not. I spoke to more people in departments who did not know where Limerick or Pallaskenry were. I had to get onto this department and that department. That means administration eats up a lot of the money that should go to delivery. Why does the Minister not take up Independent Ireland’s offer to help him? It is in this Private Members' motion. Yet all the Minister came back with were 28 amending proposals - a copy and paste of other stuff. We are not here to fight the Minister; we are here to help him with the experience we have.”
“There are people in here who have been involved in the construction of pipework and would give their experience for free. We can help deliver this for free. Yet the Minister looks at these departments, which are going around in circles. I will give one example of Pallaskenry. There were 28 emails and 20-odd phone calls between the council and departments. They went around in circles in order to get Irish Water to return to me an A4 sheet of paper that had gone out of date and that would allow a person to build 30 houses that would help the Government’s delivery of houses. It took them eight weeks. It says online that it has a green flag. That system was developer-built. It had a capacity for more than 300 houses. In that area, only 80 houses have been built since that system went in.”
“It is to remove the water from the sewerage systems and give more capacity back to the units, which at the moment the Government cannot help. I am talking about existing systems that are at maximum capacity that the Government is not allowing planning permission for. If it removed and separated some of the water, we could build more houses at the same capacity on the same systems that are there. All some other systems need is an extra tank. An extra tank would mean extra capacity, which would allow the cycle to go over a longer term before it is exported back into the waterways. That is another solution. Irish Water is not giving the Government solutions. Why? It has multi-million euro contracts. It says what needs to be invested in.”
“We want to help the Government but it comes in here with proposals, which are a copy and paste, to business people who know how to deliver. The Government could use our experience to help to deliver houses for people who need them. There is a simple solution: all public housing should be under one plan and materials should be bought in bulk, which is cheaper. When you bulk buy anything, it is cheaper. It should be one-size-fits-all. All houses should look the same - end of story. If someone wants to paint their house a different colour, that is fine. A standard size house would mean delivery would be cheaper and we could deliver faster as the Government would be bulk buying. That is one solution. On sewerage infrastructure capacity, I have given the Minister the solution.”
“We are accountable and deliver for our businesses to make sure that not only can we help ourselves through our businesses, but we can help the people who work for and with us on delivery. That is what Independent Ireland stands for and that is the difference between us and the Government. It is all about departments. The Government puts paperwork, legislation and guidelines in the way of delivery. We are talking about €2.2 billion going to Irish Water or Uisce Éireann, or whatever you want to call it these days. There is no accountability or delivery. I have given the Minister solutions as to how we can help. I thank Deputy Fitzmaurice for putting this Private Members' motion together, with the help of John Campbell, Mark Nolan and the rest of our group. Why did we do it? We are passionate about delivery.”
“I thank the speakers who spoke in support of this motion. However, I saw the reply from the Minister and the 28 proposals amending what we proposed. They are a copy and paste. That does not give me any encouragement that the Minister is listening. What does Independent Ireland have that the Government and Department do not have? We have common sense. The Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, said on the floor of the House last week that the majority of common sense is coming from this corner. Why is that? Why do we know about delivery? Deputy Michael Collins has a business background; he is self-employed. Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice is a business person. Deputy Ken O'Flynn and myself are business people all our lives and we are still in business. Why?”
“They could not see a future for themselves and they could not see funding to allow them to build a life here, so they went to other countries. How many have left? Teachers, doctors and nurses are all leaving. They are Irish people with Irish passports. They also should be allowed to vote in presidential elections. I am 100% saying that if a person is Irish, they vote. If they are from Ireland and living abroad, they are Irish. If they are not a citizen of any other country, they are Irish and they should be entitled to vote. That is the way that Irish people should have it. I am old school, and I will always stay the way I am. There are Thirty-two Counties in Ireland, not Twenty-six Counties. I will treat it that way for as long as I have breath.”
“I am a believer. I grew up believing there are Thirty-two Counties in Ireland, not Twenty-Six Counties. We are the island of Ireland. Call me old school; that is the way I was brought up. People from the North of Ireland can run for President but would not be able to vote for themselves. They are from Ireland. It is the island of Ireland. That is the bottom line. How many people who have left these shores and gone to Australia, Dubai and all the other countries are not citizens of the other countries? They hold an Irish passport. They are from Ireland and leave the country for five or six years to make a life for themselves or get a few pounds together to come back home. Are they allowed to vote in presidential elections if they are not in Ireland? They have left these shores because they could not be looked after here.”
“Instead of "RTÉ Investigates" going in, let us see whether it works and whether people are happy in the settings they are in and rate a lot of the nursing homes that are providing excellent care. We could rate them on that, promote the good ones and weed out the bad ones.”
“The standard is the smile on their faces when they see you coming in and they say you are welcome. We have gone into nursing homes that are going industrial. They push them in, pack as many as they can in, have a limited number of staff and provide the minimum amount of community spirit in the place. If there are too many people in one nursing home in one setting, it becomes institutionalised. In smaller settings, which are smaller nursing homes, people seem to be happier. Why do we not put a cap on numbers so that nursing homes cannot have any more than 25 people? If they do, they need to have a separate setting, even a separate floor or whatever they have to do. That is the community. The community is built around the people in there and the care is built up.”
“I was in a nursing home that gives excellent care but it was an older nursing home. HIQA officials came in and said one of the bedrooms was four inches too small for its standards. The person who was in the nursing home said, "It is perfect, I love it and I am happy there." They had to remove the elderly person who was in that room, spend €20,000 to move a wall four inches because of HIQA standards, rather than going in and asking the person if it was acceptable to them, if they were happy there, if the nursing home was doing everything in its power to protect them and if they were looking after them and all their care. HIQA officials did not ask that; they looked at a book and decided the room did not meet standards. The standard is the care of the patient.”
“The report by "RTÉ Investigates" makes me sick to my stomach that this could happen. I look at the nursing homes around Limerick and other nursing homes I have visited. Through social events that we do, such as vintage events, we recreate lives of people who are in the nursing homes. We bring in some of the older stuff to them and see what the nursing homes do. I have been at a lot of nursing homes and we have done this. None of the bigger nursing homes, those with 100 beds or that, do this. The community nursing homes, the smaller ones with 25 beds all the way up to 50 beds, have done this. What is that telling us? Are we getting to a point now where companies buy out nursing homes and are just asking how many people they can get in and how many they can look after? It is a money trail rather than a care trail.”
“The solution here is to dissolve Uisce Éireann, give the water infrastructure back to the local authorities where we had no problems. Get developer-led infrastructure and when it is done, hand it back to the local authorities to maintain it. Uisce Éireann cannot deliver with the money it is given. There is no accountability and no budget and that is why we are not getting delivery. I want to help the Government. Send me into any of the projects for which it has given the Government the figures and I will offer solutions. The existing plants could be modified to keep going until the Government has the money to invest in them so that we can build more houses on existing systems. I can help to deliver the project on time.”
“It took 29 emails, 36 phone calls and eight weeks. It said it had to go back and do an analysis on the system. Everyone knows that for a sewerage system, the analysis is done on a weekly basis to know how the plant is working. However, it took that amount of administration, going through all the different layers and going around the house twice, to send us an email with an A4 sheet of paper. How does the Government expect to get delivery at that rate? How does it expect to meet its targets on that basis? I have offered solutions before. I can stand on this side of the House and criticise all day long. I would be justified in doing that but I am also giving solutions to help the Government to meet its targets. It is one thing to stand here and criticise but another to say you have a solution.”
“I contacted Uisce Éireann regarding 42 houses being built in Pallaskenry to help the Government to meet its housing targets. On the website, it stated that Pallaskenry was a green flag, ready to build. We contacted Uisce Éireann and advised it we had an out-of-date letter for the 42 houses so we could deliver for the people, through the Government. I do not care who delivers them as long as the houses are there. It said it was sorry but it had to do research on the plant. This plant was delivered by a developer who is no longer developing. The 42 houses were being built for the people of the local area to meet the Government's housing target and to put roofs over people's heads. I will tell the Minister of State how long it took to get an A4 sheet of paper on which all it had to do was change the date.”
“If they are not, they are out of business because they are not playing with the taxpayers' but playing with their own money. They have to deliver it so they have to make a profit. They can make a profit but we have agencies looking for millions upon millions of euro, even up to a billion euro, from the Government to create infrastructure. If we audit what they are delivering and audit them against international contractors, they deliver 50% less. The Irish taxpayer who pays money for something is not getting value. If they make a mistake, there is no accountability yet they are moved and promoted up the ladder, rather than be told to get out because they cannot do what they are meant to do. Give me somebody who will deliver. I would like the Minister of State to look at Pallaskenry.”
“For people who do not understand it, RPZs are rent pressure zones. Where do we go? How did we get here in the first place? We got here because of a lack of infrastructure. What have we done over the past six years? I have been asking our Government to look at development-led infrastructure but what we did was that we set up Irish Water. Irish Water was set up to collect money for existing water products. It was set up to put in meters to collect money from people for the usage of water. It is now a runaway train. There is no accountability and no project is on time or in budget. What do we do to fix it? We go to people who can deliver infrastructure. When they deliver the infrastructure, they are on time and in budget.”
“We need the Department to invest more in Local Link to make sure it can happen. There are bus routes coming from the likes of Bruff, Kilmallock and Bruree. While there are services for people there, there are not enough. People in those areas will use that transport if it is provided. It is the private operators, which we need, that are providing it. We also need to look at licensing to increase the age for drivers. It is just about investment. There are drivers in the private sector, whereas the Government sector does not seem to have them because they cut people off at the age of 70. We have plenty of capable drivers who can drive buses after the age of 70.”
“In Limerick, Local Link is operating at capacity. To improve the system, people are looking for more services. Local Link would not be in our area were it not for private operators. We would not have it otherwise. I appreciate the investment the Department is putting into Local Link, but there is no joined up thinking. It is doing one route. It should be doing a figure 8 on all links such that when one route is done it links up with one spot where the other route connects to it in order that an operator can go from one to another and travel around different parts of the county. There have been 300 signatures from people looking for a Local Link service for Martinstown, which is J.P. McManus country. People in Bulgaden are looking for a Local Link. There are more than 300 signatures on this but we have not got the investment.”
“He can deliver the houses. It is a win-win situation for everyone. The Minister will get value for money because I have no problem with being a watchdog and letting him deliver. This is what I am asking the Minister to do: let me help him by showing him he is not getting value for money. This will allow him to deliver more houses through his Department. That is what I am asking, and I will help him. At any meeting he is attending or any place he is going, let me in for a day to listen to what he is being told. Let me take the projects apart and show him they do not offer value for money. Development-led projects are needed so the Minister can deliver more houses. I am here to help. I will criticise him if I have to for not taking me up on my suggestion. If he wants help, I will give him the help he wants. That is what I am offering.”
“If we take storm water out of the sewerage system, a lot of the plants that are under pressure will survive until the Minister can get funding to them. It is a simple fix to remove water where we can. All new developments can be separated at no extra cost. If we can deliver that now, we can use existing systems and allow more houses to be built by removing the storm water and letting it run into the waterways by means of an inverted system. That is all we have to do. It is a simple fix. It would help the Government deliver more houses until it gets the chance to upgrade the plants. During the winter months, we treat 70% water and 30% sewerage. When we have a dry summer, we deal 100% with sewerage and the plants are fine. Again, I am trying to help the Government to deliver. I will throw the ball in and the Minister can pull on it.”
“Let the developers put in the infrastructure and let Irish Water take it over when it has been built on time and on budget. That will help the Minister. All the budgets that come to the Minister are not factual. I want to help the Minister in any way I can by showing Irish Water up and showing that it is not offering value for money in order to allow him deliver more houses. I do not care if he gets the praise for it. Once the houses are built, I do not care who gets the praise. I want to help. I do not want to help with money being squandered when we could deliver infrastructure. I also want to see the infrastructure for the water supplies we have been talking about. I spoke here two weeks ago.”
“Ballingarry lost water for three days because an alarm went off and no one came back to check it. Pumps ran dry. We lost the water supply because someone did not go back to an alarm system that was being looked after by the local authority, and 1,000 houses were without water. We then had to pay for a new pump and run up the services again. The Croom water supply involved the use of five tankers a day for two and half months, which cost hundreds of thousands of euro because when the project started, no one checked where it would connect to. As a result, it went a few hundred thousand euro over budget and there was a need to use tankers to deliver water to a population of 2,500. Irish Water is not offering value for money, so why not look at a developer-led approach?”
“We will be sharing time. We will each have three and a half minutes. There is a housing crisis. We need to deliver houses. I am offering my services to the Minister, as I have offered them to other Ministers, to help to deliver houses. I do so in light of the experience I have and the knowledge I have that Irish Water is not providing value for money. It will not deliver the infrastructure needed to deliver houses. That is a fact. With all the millions and billions it is quoting the Government to deliver infrastructure, it has now been proved that Irish Water has not come in on budget on any of the contracts I have seen. I will give a small synopsis of what has happened since the local authorities stepped away from water services and Irish Water stepped in.”
“We are talking about inflation. The local property tax could be done away with. The councils could be supplemented by the extra tax being taken at source. If a person is living in a town or village that has been without infrastructure for years, because with active travel the money is put back into the cities and not into the counties, there is not a level playing field. Send the money back out to the counties and look after the people with the extra taxes they are paying.”
“Today, the same house, with the same square footage, costs about €200 per sq. ft and the Government takes €54,000. In four years, the tax take from somebody building their own house has increased by €21,600 based on a 2,000 sq. ft house. On top of that, people have now to pay the planning permission fees of €5,000 or €6,000 and a local property tax. The Government has increased the tax by €21,600 on top of the planning contribution fee. The increase has gone to almost €35,000 at a time when people are fighting inflation. A house that was costing €240,000 now costs €400,000. That is an increase of €160,000 that must be paid for the same house. Out of that, the Government has taken an increase in the tax take. How much can people manage? Their mortgages are now gone to 30 years or 40 years in order to try to put a roof over their heads.”
“To return to the business at hand, the local property tax is a fund for the local authorities. I do not want to see the local authorities without the funding to carry out different infrastructure works within our areas. However, if the local property tax had to go tomorrow morning, there are still funds to replace it with what the Government has been taking from people building their own houses. The waiver for the planning contribution fee has been removed and it has been reintroduced. A person building a 2,000 sq. ft house has to pay between €5,500 and €6,000 to build their own house, on top of a local property tax. Four years ago, the charge was €120 per sq. ft. The Government at the time, on VAT alone, was making €34,500 from a person building his or her own house.”
“I am the chairperson of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight, and I am delighted to be Independent Ireland's first chairperson. An invitation to the Minister to attend our meeting next Tuesday was sent by the clerk to the committee. We had facilitated the Minister, in that he could not make it two weeks ago. We changed people around and other people appeared before us. However, we got a note back saying the Minister's officials were not available on that date. I do not accept that. With all due respect to the officials, it is the Minister I want. If they are missing, that is fine. I want the Minister, Deputy Chambers, and the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, to attend our committee. It is a very important committee. We are talking about budgets and oversight. I hope the Minister will be in attendance, with or without his officials.”
“The Government can build a bike shed for €336,000 and it is brushed under the carpet with no accountability, but a family resource centre has to get three quotes to spend €500. That is not transparent. If the Government is leading with this, it should lead by example. If it is good enough for an employer and an employee, it has to be good enough for the Government to work within the same regulations.”
“That only changes one thing, namely, the cost of opening the doors. It increases wage costs, which is good, but the problem is that the increased wage does not go any further because the cost of everything people are buying has been inflated. The Government needs to look at the model it is using. It is one thing to increase the minimum wage and put extra money in people's pockets, but if it does not get a person anything extra, it is not an increase but an inflationary cost, which costs the companies to keep their doors open. The only person who gets more out of inflation is the Government. If we look at the watchdog over Government spending we see the bike shed outside. I had a visitor from a family resource centre with me a few minutes ago. The person said if the centre spends €500, it has to first get three quotes.”
“I was in the Seanad a few minutes ago where the Minister, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, was speaking. I brought to his attention the need to protect SMEs when I was first elected. Independent Ireland has been calling for the protection of SMEs since the start. The Minister has said that any person who employs someone in an SME should be looked at. While SMEs may not contribute as many benefits as the multinational companies, they are still wanted in this country in order that the entire country works. It has taken four or five years for the Government to see that. Why does Independent Ireland have such an issue with this? As an employer, I see it myself. In the hospitality sector, I see employers who are trying to keep people going. What we are seeing, however, is legislation being passed all the time and tax and VAT rates being changed.”
“However, if the farmer went to the local creamery and asked for five or ten tonnes of fertiliser, the creamery booked that online but it did not go through the business in that area. It went through an online portal which showed the books in that creamery to be less viable. We need to make sure this type of thing cannot happen here. We saw what Debenhams did here. Other major stakeholders in this country have done something similar. If we are to protect workers, we need to make sure that if a person orders something online from a local company, it goes into the local company's books and does not show up in a sister company and thereby undermine the company in the local area. We need to protect local companies and make sure workers are protected.”
“The Protection of Employees (Employers' Insolvency) (Amendment) Bill 2025 is a crucial piece of legislation. I will start off by looking at how Debenhams managed to pull the wool over the Government's and its employees' eyes, and leave this country with no accountability. It set up a UK sister company and set up online. All its online business was imported into this country through a UK company, which showed in the books of Debenhams that it was dropping and dropping. That was not only done by Debenhams. It was done here by different companies. Even in the creamery sector, there are companies such as Dairygold and others that tried to downsize and close down the creameries. They proceeded to go online in order that farmers could book their stuff online.”
“Israel is trying to take the people of Gaza out of existence. Nobody has a right to take away anyone's existence. Anything we can do to make a change, we must do. The one thing we need is to be united in this Chamber to make sure we make a change. We need to find a solution and go outside whatever regulatory body the Minister of State is trying to protect. We need to give leadership and show people in Ireland that we are willing to stand up and say that enough is enough. The Minister of State would like to do that. He would like to find a way forward in order to do it. All Members would stand with the Minister of State if he found a solution. We need to make sure that we stand up. We need to show that we do not stand for women, children and people being bombed in hospitals. We stand with the people of Gaza.”
“There has to be a way for us to change things, stand up and show the world that Ireland, in its integrity, is not standing for this. The EU is lacking. The Government is worried about sanctions being taken against us if we stand up. Something has to be done, however. As a parent, a grandparent and a brother, I am of the view that have to make sure we stand up for people. We have to find the one thing that might show leadership to other countries. If it means going hungry for a week, maybe we need to do that in order that people realise what is happening. It is genocide. We see in our history books that 1 million people died here in the 1800s. People were displaced. The scars from that still survive, carried on over generations. What will the scars for this generation in Palestine be like?”
“What everybody has said has been repetitive. Everyone is on the same page. I believe the Minister of State is also on the same page and would like to see what we can do. Can the Minister of State imagine if anyone in this House had to go hungry? We can walk out the door, go into a canteen and eat. Imagine he was here, looking at the food, while starving, knowing that his brothers, sisters, mother and father are dying around him. That is where the genocide comes into it. Nobody in this Chamber has been untouched by this. I am not targeting the Minister of State. We said throughout the pandemic that things could not be changed because the legislation said so, but we managed to change it and things changed. We were able to get things done.”
“Did they do it for financial reward or did they do it as best practice for the children involved. This report will actually show that.”
“There are fantastic people across the network of hospitals. Then, we get a minority who take advantage, but that goes back to management. It has to go back to management, and there has to be accountability. Some members of management have resigned now. It is not enough. We need to make sure there is accountability for what happened to those children and their parents. One thing we should look into is the fact that it is criminal activity if operations that did not need to be carried out were carried out for the reward of money. If this was embezzlement on the part of a company, people would be looking at the money trail. Why not look at the money trail of this and go back to those consultants who took on those operations that did not need to happen?”
“Accountability is at the very heart of this. The Minister is new to her role. She has hit the ground running, and I appreciate that. However, what has happened in Cappagh and Temple Street hospitals is unforgivable. There has to be accountability. We can look at it and nod our heads all day long, but at least now we are going the right direction. There will be no more hiding for anyone. My first speech in the Dáil was about the management in University Hospital Limerick, and it has finally changed. They have a big task ahead of them, but it has changed. I now have somebody who will answer a phone to me. I have a Minister who will answer a phone to me. I have management who will answer a phone to me, and they will listen when it comes to what is happening within the hospital system. There are some fantastic consultants out there.”
“If we ever have a case again where we have a design like the children's hospital, can the Government please not do it? Look at what we have done in Limerick: we built a box. People want boxes to be built because one can add onto a box or put a box down. They want care. Consider the cost of maintaining the children's hospital, with round curtains, round glass, and furnishings that have to be specially made. Given the cost of even trying to maintain an existing hospital, how many hospital beds could we provide for people by building a box design? All the other hospitals have been built like boxes and we can actually maintain them. The Minister's budget would go further to make sure that we can give more beds at a better price and more care.”
“I am trying to bridge that gap to ensure that if a person is out sick, hey or she does not have the worry of going further and further into debt, which causes worry for the whole family.”
“I thank the Taoiseach for his response and look forward to meeting with the Minister on this. I am under no illusions; there are many criteria under different payments the Government must consider under different circumstances. When it comes to people losing a loved one, however, and they are trying to survive, whether they have children, there are massive overheads, even with current inflation costs and the challenges facing people. It is something that should be legislated for. If we can, we should do everything to help people in situations like that. There are other more complicated criteria but if someone is widowed, whether he or she is working but has paid PRSI contributions, it should not matter. It should not interfere with the widow's pension if he or she is out sick.”
“It does not replace their loved ones but it helps them to try to cater for their families. Will the Government look at this? Will it introduce legislation to provide that people can receive widow or widower's payments if they work and are off sick? They should be entitled to their PRSI contributions, which they work to pay and to the widow's or widower's pension. This is what they are asking for. Can this be sorted out to make sure their families can survive? These are only some of the cases that were brought to my attention. Will the Taoiseach look at that?”
“It does not cover the loss of his partner but it helps him and his family to try to survive. If he is out of work tomorrow morning, he will not get a payment from his stamps if he is off long term, because he is in receipt of a widower's pension. Will the Taoiseach rectify this so that if people who work are off sick and do not work, they receive a payment? All the different criteria from different employers only cover people up to X number of sick days. Some workplaces then require people to claim illness benefit but that is based on PRSI contributions, or stamps, and people cannot be in receipt of two government payments. This needs to be rectified for people who work and get sick because they cannot survive. As I said, they are thankful for what they get to help them to survive.”
“I will talk about widows' pensions. Pensions for widows do not discriminate by age. Recipients can be in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s or any age. However, it is worrying for people. I will tell one or two stories. One is about a mother with three children whose husband died. They had a house with a mortgage and she is in receipt of the widow's pension for which she said she is grateful. However, if she is on sick leave from work, even though she is a PAYE worker who pays PRSI, she does not get sick pay because she is in receipt of a widow's pension. A father with two children whose wife passed away due to cancer has one child in secondary school and one in primary school. He worked all his life and continues to work. He is in receipt of the widower's pension.”
“You need to be able to make sure you can step in. You need to be able to make sure that you are not encouraging vehicles to drive in the middle of the road. Let there be biodiversity, wildlife and everything - fantastic - but we must also protect the people who are protecting the wildlife: our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers. Let them travel safely to school, to work, to our front-line services and to our carers. They have to be able to travel the roads safely. We must also respect the biodiversity and wildlife in this country.”
“I would like to see laws introduced in the case of health and safety. All local and regional roads where I live need a 1 m setback and hedges to be cut up straight. There are trees that are a danger to people travelling, walking and living on the road because ash dieback has set into them and they are rotting in the middle. I want to see them taken out for the safety of human life. I welcome biodiversity but I also welcome the health and safety of people travelling on our roads. If you have wildlife, they should be all off the roadways so you can actually see them. If you want to get into the parks or go across the fields to see them, yes. We need to make sure people can travel the road safety, whether they are cycling, walking, driving, taking their dog for a walk or just going out for leisure.”