Rory Hearne
Dublin North-West · Social Democrats · Ireland
“I thank you, a Leas Cheann-Comhairle, for your work and support during the year and thank all the staff here. I wish my colleagues in government the best of luck over the summer and respite from our robust engagement. We look forward to going at it again in the autumn.”
“The Dublin public will be very upset when they realise their fire fighters and emergency response service are at risk of being split and downgraded.”
“I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward this motion. It is important to have a discussion about the context of education costs and back-to-school costs. Of course, the context is massive inequality in this country.”
“However, what it is actually doing is throwing families into even more stress on top of not being able to pay the basic bills. In my constituency to respond and support families struggling with back-to-school costs, the Finglas voluntary food and family support service, Feed Our Homeless, last year organised help for families with a pop-u…”
“A second tier of child benefit would lift 55,000 children out of poverty but the Government will not do it. It costs the same as what it has given in tax breaks to developers, investor funds and large fast-food giants. Childhoods pass quickly. No child should have their future limited by poverty.”
“The Government is ramming through planning legislation this week that will exempt sheds out the back without proper scrutiny. It is satisfied with handing our young people to vulture landlords. The Government is now offering a future of renting a shed out the back with no rights whatsoever.”
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“The family finally got the assessment of need and got the report in November. Prior to that, they had applied to the NCSE for a special school place but, because they had not got the report in time, the NCSE told them they are ineligible for a special school place. This is shambolic. There are thousands of people who have been told they are ineligible, despite their children needing these places. We need action on this.”
“They can see what their children are losing out on. Imagine watching your child and knowing their potential is not being supported because they are not able to access the services they need and should have, as a right. As a wealthy country, they should be provided. We are failing children with disabilities in our health system and our education system. While special classes and schools are needed, the services and resources have to be available within the schools and the health services. One family emailed me today. They asked not to be named. Their younger son is six years old. He has been diagnosed with an intellectual disability. He has been waiting for two years for an assessment of need from the local primary care centre. It was delayed because there was no psychologist in place.”
“I have worked with another constituent, Rob McMahon, in relation to his son, who is still waiting for a special school place. He said the waiting lists are growing longer. He has a question for the Minister. Have any more staff been taken on to get through this? This question is directly from a parent whose child has additional needs and autism. He said the Minister talks about early intervention being key but parents are not seeing that. That is the reality on the ground. They are not seeing that early intervention that can support their children. That is why there are protests outside the Dáil and families taking action and highlighting this. They can see what is happening to their children. Their children are being let down while other children go to school. It is so difficult for them.”
“I want to talk about a number of people from my constituency with whom I have been working. While changes are happening, we need to be careful. Parents and their children have been suffering. They have been neglected and there is a huge issue with trust. In these changes, there will be a real need to bring parents and families along. The big concern is that the changes are another way to avoid taking responsibility and delivering the services needed in schools and primary care, as was mentioned. One family with whom I have been working is that of Gráinne Carney. Her child has autism. I reached out to her. She said that even with the assessment of need, which she has not got, the local CDNT does not even have a psychologist. Even if someone gets the assessment of need, where will the services come from? This is the real challenge.”
“It is wrong that the Government is signing off on legislation that will potentially place the needs of international corporate landlords over the housing needs of renters and people in this country. I will not be voting for it. I am deeply disappointed that the Government continues to push through a regressive agenda of sweetheart deals for investors over dealing with and supporting workers and renters in this country.”
“There is a real risk that if this agreement is put in place, an Irish Government that attempts to legislate to improve housing standards or to control rents further or to control evictions further could be liable in terms of damages from Canadian companies in the housing market. I do not think the seriousness of this can be overstated. There is a need to protect renters and workers. Could we see, in the future, corporate landlords suing for loss of profits off the back of legislation on rent caps, tenants’ rights, eviction bans and standards of rented accommodation, or suing if the Irish State decided it wanted to impose affordability requirements or purchase the properties to ensure they were rented out affordably?”
“Will this impact the ability of the Irish Government and the Irish people, through the Government, to regulate and impose laws on institutional funds part-owned by Canada, for example, and, in general, by overseas foreign owners? For example, one of Ireland's largest corporate landlords, IRES REIT, was set up by a Canadian real estate fund. The concern is that CETA will not only reduce workers’ rights and lead to further pressure not to ratify measures like collective bargaining but also skew the market even further towards vulture funds and usher in what is essentially a freeze on regulation.”
“I researched that in the past and the issue of the financialisation of housing - that housing has turned into a global asset and the value and use of that asset is not as a home but as something used in global wealth funds as an asset on their balance sheets. They are not so much concerned about whether it is even rented out or used but it is the value of that asset in the fund. There is real potential for CETA to impact negatively on this area in further reducing the rights of Irish renters and tenants. It feels like the Government is doing nothing but chipping away at people in terms of the cost of living - people cannot get a home - and even in its prioritisation of investor funds with tax breaks. The concern is this will add another layer of investor funds having a power and influence over our Government.”
“There are significant downsides to the increased role of institutional investors, corporate landlords and large global equity funds in our housing market. Part of the reason they are here is not to solve our housing crisis but to use our tax system as a way to minimise the tax they pay. It is also, of course, because of the huge rents they can charge. I spoke to someone recently who claimed - we need to look at this - that apartments are left vacant because the value to these global funds is not so much the rental income but the value of that asset appreciating over time. This is not unique to Ireland. It was highlighted, for example, in London.”
“Coming from the committees, it is hard. Deputy Quaide has outlined our many concerns in relation to CETA. Today, my inbox has been flooded with messages from constituents encouraging me to vote against amending the Arbitration Act. As pointed out, there is no EU deadline that requires this Government to ratify the Act. The Government is jumping the gun and no one is asking it to do so. It is another example of this Government catering to investor funds and prioritising deregulation over welfare, services and the needs of people. I want to talk in particular about the biggest social and economic crisis this country faces, namely, the issue of housing. I have highlighted for many years and made the case that investor finds in the area of housing have been given an oversized role in this country.”
“We are going to zone more land for housing development but there are already significant amounts of zoned land across the country. We have 80,000 planning permissions that are not being built. The issue is not lack of zoning; it is the lack of development led by the State. We are going to inflate land prices, lead to speculation and ultimately come back to the housing needs and demands assessment, having excluded the half a million people stuck in their childhood bedrooms. Are they going to be included in the new housing needs and demand assessment? Is their housing need going to be included, and is the need of all those in hidden homelessness going to be included? These are the questions that need to be answered on this.”
“We are now six years in, and there are still planning issues that have not been dealt with, and I know there are more coming down the line. What it says to me is that Fianna Fáil has not taken this seriously. Neither has Fine Gael. They have not got on top of it. I read through the infrastructure plan released today and at least it had the honesty of saying that at least six of the 12 biggest barriers and blockages to the delivery of infrastructure are down to the Government itself, the State itself and how they operate, including slow processes, slow approvals and funding uncertainty. What we need to hear is what change these regulations are going to make, and particularly around the issue of land that will be zoned, as I have raised with the Minister before.”
“To echo what my colleague has said, there is a need for a very clear plain language explanation of what is the rationale behind these changes. I was at the committee last week and while there is clearly a need to make changes they need to be explained. It is very frustrating for us as new TDs to come in here when we had heard from the previous Government, which the Minister was part of, that essentially the biggest piece of work on planning in decades and decades, possibly since the foundation of the State, had been done, and yet here we are now, back again, making changes that are opaque and unclear. What is the outcome going to be? Fianna Fáil has been in control of the Ministry of housing since 2020.”
“The Government has ignored it in this plan. We have put forward clear policy alternatives. Instead, the Government is clearly captured by the former Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael lobbyists who are working for the investor funds and the banks. It is doing the bidding of those who want ever higher rents and house prices while our young people are locked out of the basic need of a home, which is a fundamental human right. It is not mentioned once in the housing plan that housing is a human right. Where is the Housing Commission recommendation for a referendum to put a right to housing in the Constitution? It is at the heart of why we are in this mess.”
“Níl aon rud sa phlean náisiúnta tithíochta a thabharfaidh dóchas do na cainteoirí Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht. Caithfidh an Rialtas na cumhachtaí a thabhairt d’Údarás na Gaeltachta chun tithíocht a fhorbairt do phobal labhartha na Gaeilge. There is nothing in the plan that gives hope to the young people who are growing up in the Gaeltacht, who are there, who cannot get a home. Why is the Minister not willing to give Údarás na Gaeltachta the powers and funding to build affordable homes, which is what it could do? The future of our language is in jeopardy because young people cannot find a home in the Gaeltacht. The Minister has the power to do something on this. We in the Social Democrats have put forward many solutions, including the homes for Ireland savings scheme, which could provide billions in additional funding.”
“Is he unwilling to step up to the vested interests who profit from higher and higher house prices? There is nothing in this plan to tackle that issue. On housing in the Gaeltacht and the Irish language, níl aon tithíocht inacmhainne ar fáil in aon áit ar bith sa tír seo. Tá an cíos ró-ard agus tá na praghsanna tithe ró-ard leis. Tá pleananna agus beartais an Rialtais ag déanamh rudaí níos measa. Is ceart daonna í an tithíocht do gach duine sa tír ach tá na daoine óga ag dul ar imirce. Bíonn ar dhaoine óga bogadh ar ais go dtí tithe a dtuismitheoirí. Tá an ghéarchéim tithíochta sa Ghaeltacht ag cur ár dteanga i mbaol. Is cúis mhór díomá é seo do na pobail Ghaeltachta, a dúirt Conradh na Gaeilge agus BÁNÚ agus iad ag iarraidh réiteach a fháil ar an bhfadhb tithíochta sa Ghaeltacht.”
“I cannot get my head around how an Irish Government is willing to stand over tens of thousands of people being evicted into homelessness. It is utterly wrong. On the issue of starter homes, again, it is completely misleading for the Government to say it is going to deliver 15,000 starter homes. First of all, what is a starter home? These are grants. They are not actually affordable homes delivered. Where is the target for directly delivering genuinely affordable homes? There is also nothing in the plan to deal with what the Instagram account Crazy House Prices highlighted, namely, the massive issue of gazumping, bidding wars and the lack of transparency in the house purchasing process. Why will the Minister not make real moves to reduce house prices?”
“This country has not seen this level of evictions since the Famine times and the Minister is standing over it. In fact, his measures are helping it, as he knows. Why is he not implementing an eviction ban like the one we saw during the Covid years? It was done during Covid as an emergency. How is this not an emergency? Thousands of people are being evicted from their homes, including children. How can they look forward to Christmas now? Where is Santa Claus going to come to? What are their parents telling them? "We do not know where we are going to be." The Minister knows the impact of that on a child's life. He is destroying these children's childhoods and I am not saying that, as the Minister described it last week, as hyperbole. I am saying it because it is true and the Minister knows it is true, too.”
“There were 1,706 notices to quit issued in Cork alone, with 940 in Galway and 412 in Meath. In the Minister's own constituency, 356 notices to quit have been issued to renters so far this year. Where are these people to go? There are not homes for them to go to. All of these renters are individuals and families with their own stories. It is a trauma, as the Minister very well knows, to be evicted from your home. He and previous Ministers and taoisigh have claimed that these are not evictions but notices to quit. They are evictions just as much as the battering rams that battered our homes and battered people and tenant farmers out of their homes in this country during the Famine times. They are as much an eviction as they were and I am shocked that we are not seeing this as a tsunami of human misery, which is what it is.”
“to rent pressure zones to attract private investment back into the... rental sector"; "new planning design standards", and we know what they are, reducing standards; a reduction in VAT, which is a giveaway to developers; and an enhanced corporation tax reduction. The cumulative impact the Minister set out is a potential reduction of up to €160,000 per apartment. That €160,000 per apartment is the gift he is giving to developers and investors per home. Billions of euro in public money are about to be given to investors and what will young people in this country get? Very little, most of them. On the eviction ban, which is much needed, there is a tsunami of evictions going on. Fifteen thousand notices of termination have been issued to renters so far. I have gone through it by area. The Minister can look at it.”
“We have also know that every six years, the rent can be reset to the market rent. Last night, at the housing committee, a number of experts said very clearly that this is effectively deregulating rents and removing rent controls for new tenancies. What the Minister is actually doing in March is leaving existing tenants exposed to the ongoing risk of no-fault evictions and giving them no security of tenure, and he is exposing all new renters to what are effectively uncontrolled market rents every six years on a skyrocketing level. This housing plan is a slush fund for investors and developers and the Minister's new rental measures are a landlord's ticket to continue to exploit renters into the future. In fact, he set it out very clearly in his speech when he said the big changes are "changes...”
“The current renters, the hundreds of thousands of renters, get no extra protection. If they do nothing wrong, they will still be at risk of those evictions. There is nothing to stop landlords continuing to evict most of these renters on current leases into homelessness after March. The Minister has misled the Dáil and the public on what is happening. Second, he has said that by extending the rent pressure zones across the country, he is giving renters certainty in rent, but what he is actually doing from 1 March is that in the case of any new lease signed by a renter, he is effectively removing all the rent controls that are in place. He is removing the intertenancy 2% cap on rent so that when a new tenancy is set after March, it can be set at a market rent in most cases.”
“What is going to happen is his rental changes will squeeze renters who are already struggling to get by. I would argue that he has been deeply misleading in his claims on the new rental measures. He said here in the Dáil last month: We are severely restricting how tenancies can be ended by landlords. That is to ensure there is that security of tenure. I believe that you will see far less frequent notices to quit as a result of this security of tenure being brought in for tenants. This is untrue, is it not? The truth is that the hundreds of thousands of renters who are currently in leases will get no extra security of tenure after March. They will still be as vulnerable to being evicted on a no-fault basis if their landlord decides to sell as they are today.”
“The housing disaster, as the Minister is well aware, is worsening by the day. Unfortunately, the housing plan he and his Government have developed offers very little hope that they are willing to accept the utter failure of this and successive Governments. This housing plan is no radical reset. It is no radical transformation and, in particular, it offers nothing but words to the thousands who are stuck in homelessness, the 500,000 adults stuck infantilised in their childhood box rooms, the hundreds of thousands of renters, our young people who have emigrated already and the tens of thousands who will emigrate in the coming years, as they see no future here because they cannot afford the crazy rents or house prices. The Minister is about to deliver a double blow to renters this coming March.”
“Will the Taoiseach ask the Minister for Transport to get the NTA to listen to the communities and make the changes they need? These are elderly people, disabled people and students whose lives have been turned upside down.”
“I raise the issue of bus services and Bus Connects in Dublin North-West. For the public in Finglas and Glasnevin, it feels like BusConnects is more like bus disconnects. It has disconnected them from their schools, access to the city centre and work. I had a public meeting last week that was packed out. People are furious. Their lives have been turned upside down. They are completely reliant on public buses. Our bus stops have been removed from Beneavin Road. People are left waiting for buses that never come. The National Transport Authority, NTA, is not listening to communities. The residents are so furious that they are going to have a protest in Finglas on Monday. They will be protesting outside the Dáil the week after.”
“In a sample of 393 adults, which is a large sample, the authors found in respect of the impact that 30% of people had severe depression and that 26% had severe anxiety. Suicidal ideation experienced after a property was affected by defective concrete was present in over one third of the sample, 35%. Adjusting for previous trauma history, they found that living with defective concrete accentuates and exacerbates these mental health issues, including severe anxiety, suicidal ideation and depression. These are very serious conditions and issues that are affecting people. We must implement policies to ensure mitigation as soon as possible, that we give proper 100% redress and that we do not leave people living in such psychological distress.”
“It highlights that the use of defective concrete in the construction of homes has caused not only widespread property deterioration and economic shock but also psychological distress for thousands of families. This is a recently published research paper. It points out that no actual research has been undertaken into the prevalence of mental health conditions affecting those who are living with defective concrete crises. The authors wanted to understand the prevalence of depression, anxiety, traumatic stress and, indeed, suicidal ideation among a sample of the population. The findings are stark and point to the need for the redress scheme to be done properly to ensure those affected have supports.”
“It has been identified that the guidelines under the NSAI standards have not been updated to acknowledge this and that the scheme itself does not acknowledge this. Will the Minister come back on this? It is fundamental to how this issue is going to be genuinely addressed. The other issue I want to talk about is the mental health impact of this crisis on people who are living through it. It is something I have spoken about before in relation to housing on a broader level. People in insecure and substandard homes are living through chronic stress. It is similar to, and in many ways significantly heightened by, living in a home affected by defective concrete. I would encourage the Minister to read an academic paper on this written by Oisin Keenan, Jamie Murphy, Paul Dunlop, Eileen Doherty, Rachel McHugh and Karen Kirby.”
“The assumption or theory was that freeze thaw from mica was causing the problems in the housing, whereas it is actually caused by an internal sulfate attack by pyrrhotite. As was pointed out, this is very important because if we do not have the proper identification of what is causing the problem, we will not be able to solve it. Importantly, we will not enable those who are living in the homes to solve it. The concern is that this will be a part solution and that really we are burying - literally - the problem, which is going to emerge in years to come. It is papering over the cracks rather than fundamentally addressing the structural issue that is making the houses crumble and fall apart. It is not the freeze thaw from mica, as most people believe, but something else going on.”
“As I have said previously in the Dáil, ultimately it is those who are affected by and living through this who need to be listened to. Deputy Ward has raised this issue and we have listened to people in the audiovisual room who are living through this. I have also heard accounts through my office. It is quite clear that as currently constructed, the proposals to deal with this are not adequate. They are not adequate in providing the redress that people need, both financially and in terms of the process itself. There are still substantial issues. In particular, I want to raise the issue of what is the fundamental problem. We heard a very good presentation on the issue of pyrrhotite.”
“It is deeply disappointing that the Bill was just published today. That did not give us sufficient time to go through it. While we did go through it in the housing committee, I do not think it is good practice to issue legislation on the day it is to be debated in the Dáil. I ask the Minister to reconsider how legislation is put through in the future. It is not sufficient time for us to go through it. While we want to progress legislation and solutions for people, in particular in situations like this where people are living in life-or-death situations, we really need to respect the process, the committee and us as elected representatives. I want to express my disappointment and ask the Minister to consider how legislation is brought through such that sufficient time is given.”
“Even though it will be an illegal eviction, how do we stop it? That is the point. This was and is their home. This requires a significant change in the culture of how we treat housing and how landlords understand their role. They are not investment assets; they are people's homes. The State has an obligation to ensure, particularly when sourcing social housing from the private rental sector, that people are living in decent conditions. It will require significant investment and change in how we treat and understand housing and the role landlords play, both private and social. We have to do this because it is costing the State massive amounts in our health services and education. Children who are sick are out of school. There is a compounding of disadvantage and inequality. Substandard housing conditions have this knock-on effect.”
“These are homes; they are not just places where people stay temporarily. That is the very significant societal change that has happened in the past 30 years. The private rental sector used to be a place where people went for a few years, particularly students and young professionals, and moved on. The sector now provides people's homes for life. There is nowhere else to go. This lunchtime I was out meeting a family who are being evicted from the private rental sector in my constituency. They have lived in their home for 12 years and have adult children in the house. The mother said she does not know where she will go. They are being evicted because the landlord is looking at March and saying he or she wants them out before March so when the changes come in, higher rents can be charged.”
“We see this compounding of inequalities and disadvantage. Some wonder why we see explosions of people's anger and frustration. Can the Minister of State imagine what it must be like to live in those conditions? It is similar in the private rental sector. The issue of substandard accommodation, mould and dampness in this country is a crisis we are not giving sufficient attention to. It is something serious we have ignored. We have ignored it because they are renters. They are either private renters or social housing renters and they have been treated as second-class citizens. It is not okay that we allow this to continue. We need major change and major investment. The State has to do it. There is no getting around this. We have to reconfigure how the private rental sector is organised, seen and treated.”
“She has letters, and I have seen them, from Temple Street in which the consultants state her child - her baby - is sick because of the housing conditions they are living in. She showed me the photographs from her home of the dampness and mould on the pillowcases and bed. There are only two bedrooms. They are in a situation of overcrowding. She has to sleep on the couch because one of the rooms is not safe to live in. She talked about the mould's impact on her mental health. She feels every day the house is making her and her children sicker and sicker. Another mother has children with complex needs related to autism and disabilities. She deals with the impacts of stress and trying to deal with, support and find services for disability while living in substandard conditions. Poor housing impacts their health.”
“People who cannot afford to do up their home are living in the worst conditions and then live with worse health impacts. This costs the State down the line in extra health costs. I will talk about two people from Ballymun I met in my clinic this week, both of whom are in social housing. They are examples of the impact of substandard accommodation on people. One mother with three children has severe damp and mould in the house. These are not old houses. These are houses built in the past 20 or 30 years. She and her three children have been on steroids for the past two weeks because of bronchitis-related illnesses. Her youngest boy attends the respiratory clinic in Crumlin and Temple Street hospitals and is regularly put on rounds of steroids and antibiotics.”
“It has to be deeply frustrating, as I know it is, for those people who are living in substandard accommodation to be told the Government is making a shift to a green society, a just transition, while they are very much left behind. I want to talk about the idea that housing is a human right, which is accepted internationally. Indeed, the Irish State accepts it although it does not apply it. The housing plan did not reference housing being a human right once, which is deeply disappointing. Central to housing being a human right is the quality of accommodation and that it be of a standard that ensures people live a healthy life. Much of our social housing and private rental housing, and indeed homeownership, is substandard. There is a large social class element here, involving working-class areas and disadvantaged communities.”
“There is a huge inequality between those living in substandard accommodation who cannot even invest in their own homes because they do not have the finances to do so and those who do. It is very difficult for those in the private rental sector or social housing to listen to all of these advertisements about grants, to see the investment and money going into solar panels and retrofitting homes, and to be encouraged to invest in solar and green measures in order to reap benefits while they are in the private sector and unable to invest in their homes because it is up to the landlord or in social housing, where it is up to the local authority.”
“This results from Government policy over the last 30 to 40 years, which shifted from providing public housing to sourcing housing from the private rental sector through various State subsidies. The Governments of the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s - we are talking about three decades - particularly those led by Fianna Fáil but Fine Gael was also in there at different points, made this shift to getting social housing from the private rental sector without making any moves to ensure that housing was up to standard. We shifted to providing social housing, much of which is for very vulnerable people including families and children, through a sector that has had serious problems with substandard accommodation for many decades and which still does.”
“I thank Deputy Murphy and People Before Profit for bringing forward this Bill. When we look at housing conditions in the private rental sector, we see that there is an absolute tsunami of situations where people are living in substandard accommodation. I have met people living in the private rental sector who are living with mould and damp. As the Minister of State will know, this is significant because dampness and mould, but particularly mould, have huge health implications, particularly for people who have underlying health issues, young children, babies and older people. This is important now because there are more people than ever living in the private rental sector. We have never had as many people in this country living in the private rental sector.”
“That has given the Government a unique political mandate to stand out from all other countries and say we will take action against Israel because the people of Ireland understand occupation, famine and mass genocide and we cannot stand by and let this happen in our name. It is absolutely pathetic that Government members stand up in the Dáil and say the Opposition never congratulates them on doing more than any other country. They speak words but where is the action? The Government could be sanctioning Israel and implementing the occupied territories Bill. It should use the mandate the people have given it. It knows that the Occupied Territories Bill has overwhelming support in this country and it should implement it in full anois, now. Saoirse don Phalaistín.”
“One of the most frustrating aspects of this is that the Irish people have shown leadership where the Government has failed. No other country has seen the level of protests, mobilisation and community action there has been in every one of our cities, towns and villages. We have seen Irish people take action on a daily basis in support of and in solidarity with Palestine. The Irish people gave the Government a mandate no other government in the world has been given, which was to take the strongest possible action to sanction Israel. The Government has squandered that mandate and refused to listen to the Irish people on our unique position as a former colonised country and one that has gone through famine. The Irish people feel the pain of Gaza in a way unlike any other country because of what we have gone through in our history.”
“I also think that the cut in the accommodation period will lead to Ukrainian people being made homeless, as a result of the Government's shift to be seen as hard on immigration. There has been a lot of discussion on this and we have called out the Government, including Simon Harris, Micheál Martin and others, for taking this anti-immigrant shift. It is not just playing into the far right; it is also playing into and feeding a rising racism by suggesting that, somehow, immigrants are to blame for the housing situation and other issues when they are absolutely not and it is the Government deflecting from its responsibility.”
“Significantly, 91% of the hosts had a positive experience, 83% of them said they had played a role in helping their guests to integrate, and 70% of the hosts said their guests had successfully integrated into the community. However, half of the hosts said they were struggling with financial costs and many of them also said the hosting they were doing was in their home or was not in a property that would be rented out, so hosting is not taking from the rental market. The Irish Red Cross has called on the Government not to cut the payment but to explore the expansion of the ARP to provide accommodation for other displaced groups because it provides accommodation that would not necessarily be available otherwise because it is people taking others into their homes on the basis of solidarity.”
“It is a another side to the anti-immigrant sentiment we are also seeing. There is a quiet majority in Ireland who are absolutely supportive of us being a welcoming country and giving care and support. Indeed, they are a very active group. However, our Government cut that payment and, unfortunately, it will worsen the housing crisis. Some have claimed that the payment is adding to the housing crisis. In fact, cutting it will add to the housing crisis. Where will the 35,000 Ukrainians who were hosted go if the funding to host is cut? Irish Red Cross research on hosts has shown that over half of hosts said the recognition payment was a key factor in them being able to continue their host placement. The research also showed the reason the majority of hosts were motivated to do so was due to solidarity with displaced Ukrainians.”
“When we look at what happened, we see that Ukrainians are coming to seek refuge from a war where up to 100,000 of their fellow citizens have been killed. Looking at those refugees coming here from Ukraine, the majority are women and children. Almost 30% of Ukrainian refugees are children. They are in schools across the country and have become part of our communities. People have welcomed them and massive work has been done in schools and communities to welcome the people of Ukraine and their children and to integrate their children. It does require resources and the Government has to a certain extent put those in, but it is not sufficient. We do see positive stories across the country of people welcoming refugees and doing that positive community and integration work.”
“The investment in weapons creates a necessity for the creation of a war and for those weapons to be used because otherwise, why are you investing in them? Why are you creating them? Why are you putting billions in? We need to question this, question where we are going and what war is Europe and Ireland in particular going to be part of on an active basis. We need to protect our neutrality and, in particular, the triple lock. To finish, I want to talk about the issue of our welcome for the people of Ukraine and those fleeing the ongoing war. It was deeply disappointing to see the cut in support for the hosts of Ukrainian refugees - the accommodation recognition payment, ARP, funding. We need to correct the idea that Ukrainians are coming to Ireland to scam the system.”
“In my remaining time, I want to talk about neutrality, the importance of Irish neutrality and of us being a country that questions the drive to war and - to quote Catherine Connolly, who was elected President - the "military-industrial complex" at a European level. A lot of people threw that phrase around as if it was some kind of joke or something that was not serious. This is very serious. I have set it out there. Billions are going into military but what is going into social services? The reason President Catherine Connolly made those points was that we have seen in the US an imperial war machine being built up over time. A point Noam Chomsky has made over and over is that if you create a military industrial complex where the economy is built around investment in weapons, you have to use those weapons. They have to be used somewhere.”
“It is absolutely a legitimate position to take that we are completely supportive of the European project, the European Union, cohesion, commonality and working together in a common infrastructure and institutions but also to hold a critical position on militarisation and, as I will argue when we look at the evidence, preparation for war in Europe and for an increased involvement of the European Union in that. We know throughout history that when the drums are banged for war and the talk is about war, a war inevitably happens. If we want to talk about peace and make peace happen, we need to invest in that as well.”