Ruth Coppinger
Dublin West · People Before Profit-Solidarity · Ireland
“Next Wednesday, the trial continues of the Ulm five, including the Irish citizen, Daniel Tatlow-Devally. A delegation of TDs and Senators, including me, will attend the trial in Stuttgart next week.”
“This man said of one woman that he would attach her to a concrete block. He said of another that he would set fire to her. Should this person be getting a pay off from the Army? No, of course, he should not. He should have been put on trial.”
“I have very little time left, but I want to put on record that the woman in question was abused by an Army officer using military equipment and surveillance technology, which is extremely scary. She made a complaint, which has never been pursued.”
“When is the victims of crime Act 2017 going to apply the Army? The Women of Honour have pushed for change so that if there is abuse within the Army there will, we hope, be mechanisms to deal with that, but what about women who are abused by Army personnel who are not in the Army?”
“This officer was involved in a GoFundMe campaign, where rapists' names were used as a joke by the various men who contributed to it. I do not think rape is funny and the Army should not either. That GoFundMe campaign was left up for a long time. Why is the Army a law unto itself in relation to gender-based violence?”
“The victim's belief is that the military prosecutor has evidence of a very dangerous man but for some reason, the Army does not seem to be concerned because it has not prosecuted him on those charges. Why would the Army not want to prosecute somebody? Are we at war or something? Why is it so secretive?”
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“She asked me to particularly mention that after the horrific rape she suffered, she could not touch or hug her children. She felt that she was contaminated and that her body was defiled. She did not want it to make contact with any other innocent person. That is horrific and is the outcome of being sexually assaulted. That was used against her in court because she had said it in therapy. She was asked: "What kind of mother are you if you cannot touch your own children?". Things like the morning-after pill, which she mentioned in therapy, were also brought up. The Minister has never told anyone where it has been shown that there is any evidential value in these notes. Why do we need this great system?”
“Some 13% chose not to report to the police because they wanted to take part in counselling. Some 12% of the 1,000 people they interviewed were advised not to speak to a therapist because their private records could be subpoenaed. Some 20% wanted to speak with a counsellor but felt like they could not because their private records would be subpoenaed. The suicide ideation rate was off the charts. Some 13% had thoughts of suicide, particularly in relation to their therapy notes and other things like that, but particularly their therapy notes being accessed. This is a significant issue for people. I really do not think the Minister is taking it on board. I want to mention one other case. Paula Doyle has spoken about this in public and at the committee.”
“Rather than decreasing submissions from defences for records, they have actually increased in Canada. From 2015 to 2019, the years before the implementation of the system in 2020, some 19% of victims had their records asked for. From 2020 to 2024, some 29% of victims had their counselling records accessed. It did nothing to decrease the demand from defences for notes. There is no proof that what the Government is proposing to bring in will work. I want to give the House more figures from Canada, where there is an ombudsperson for victims. They have done huge research into the role of the judicial process on this counselling notes issue. They surveyed 1,000 victims from 2024 to 2025. I will briefly give the House some idea of the massive psychological damage that something like this counselling notes issue can cause.”
“Let us look at Canada where this system is in place. The Minister's hope and claim is that when we have these hearings and a judge will decide, there will hardly ever be any demand for these notes. It is not true. They have this system in Canada. They introduced it in 2020. I will give the House the figures for Canada, where the system is more robust. I have not seen the wording of what the Minister is proposing. What is relevant? How is a judge going to decide? Has the Minister any more information? He says he is going to back with some on Committee Stage. He should not have come back with such flimsy stuff a year after this was raised. A defence can ask for counselling records and it automatically goes to a hearing. That is what happens in Canada.”
“A number of survivors want me to say that they are annoyed that the Minister continually uses the word "distress" to describe the impact of this. It is a lot more than distress; it is psychological damage. I really fear that he does not get the psychological harm that is done to people as a result of this. They are not damsels in distress. It is a lot more than that. The Minister is bringing in a law on the basis of minimising the damage and he really does not understand it. I also want to make an extremely important point. The Minister is bringing in a mandatory disclosure hearing and taking any agency away from the victim and passing total agency over to a judge. I know the Minister has great faith in judges, but I do not think the general population has the same absolute faith that he has.”
“A former woman garda could not get justice against the boys' club in the gardaí. That is what happened. The Minister spoke about "balance". There is no balance. Sexual violence is nearly an unprosecuted crime. That is the reality. There is so much of it that does not even get talked about or reported and then there is the level that is prosecuted. What about that balance? We need to rebalance in favour of victims and survivors. The Minister is from a barrister background and I fear that he is imbued in the status quo of the Judiciary. I really feel that because he has been told again and again about this issue. It is a rarefied place where there is routine victim blaming. It is male dominated and very privileged. The Judiciary is privileged - I am sorry - and the Minister does not seem to get it.”
“There are also things that are bad in the Bill, such as the proposal to introduce pepper spray into overcrowded prisons and so on. I want to mention the counselling notes first. This week, Margaret Loftus stood outside a court and told us that the legal system had done as much damage to her as the violence she faced. It is yet another survivor telling us this. One of the big reasons that people do not bother reporting or prosecuting, and that attrition rates are so low in terms of these trials, are practices like this - people having to have their private thoughts used against them. Every woman in the country is wondering what is the point of prosecuting a case in this country, particularly when they see the likes of what happened this week. Margaret Loftus, who was a garda, could not even get justice.”
“The Psychology Society of Ireland and all of the therapist groups have called for a ban on this completely, as have many others who I will mention again. I am going to begin with the counselling notes and I will mention other things that are in the Bill. I think it is a shame. Somebody said that the Minister was giving out. We did not say he had to put everything into one law. He can pass laws. Some of these things should not be together and should be distinct. There should be a Bill to outlaw victim blaming and all the abuse and misogynistic practices that are going on in the courts. The counselling notes issue should be dealt with separately. It is too big an issue. It should not be put in with other things that are good in the Bill and that people want to vote for.”
“Sarah Grace has campaigned on this for many years and has played a leading role in highlighting this in the last number of years. I know the Minister met Ciara Mangan and Donna McCarthy as well. The Minister has spoken to survivors, but I am afraid he has not listened to what they had to say. I also want to mention the therapists who have played a key role in the past year in particular on this issue. Barbara Kelly is a psychotherapist and set up an organisation, Therapists Against Harm, on foot of what has happened. Therapists are no longer willing to go along with this abuse of their clients. While one of the previous speakers talked about welcoming this, this is not welcomed by any of the professional bodies.”
“I welcome the survivors, therapists and campaigners who have come to the Dáil today, including those who have campaigned on the issue of an amnesty for same-sex relations crime in the past. I do not know if they are still here. The issue in this Bill that has dominated is that of the use of counselling notes. There are many survivors here today. I cannot mention them all but will mention a few. Some of those who played a role are here. I will mention Hazel Behan, the only survivor who got to testify in front of the justice committee. That was the Minister's pre-legislative scrutiny. Paula Doyle is here today and has also played a key role in talking to TDs and Senators. I want to mention others who the Minister met.”
“The key point is that we now have very right-wing TDs in the Government who are anti-choice. The Minister should not be appeasing that bloc. The priority should be the health needs of women and pregnant people in this country.”
“That is no problem; I am just clarifying it. It was very undemocratic of TDs who had not debated that Bill - I had not debated it because I was not in the previous Dáil - just to block it. It should have been allowed to go forward for debate. My understanding is that all the provisions in the Bill were measures the citizens' assembly had proposed but that the politicians on the relevant committee, of which I was a member, were not willing to put forward. They were perfectly normal measures that the broad population agreed with but politicians were not willing to implement. The three-day wait requirement was put in the legislation to appease Simon Coveney and people like him. That is the reality. I was here and I remember it. It was not indicated at the committee or anywhere else.”
“Consensus seems only to be necessary when it comes to the health, lives and choices of women. The Bill the Minister referenced was actually put forward in the previous Dáil by former Deputy, Bríd Smith.”
“It is more difficult to find a doctor providing this service in rural areas, with some counties having one and others none. This is forcing women abroad again. It is taking them past the 12-week limit, with many ending up having to travel abroad.”
“To be frank, we should not really need consensus for an individual to get healthcare. It should not be up to men, predominantly, in the Dáil, or the State in general, to prevent women or pregnant people from accessing something for which the whole country voted. The Minister is right that we had telemedicine during the pandemic, and the sky did not fall in. In fact, telemedicine for abortion care has been shown to be exactly the same as visiting a doctor, and that was shown before the referendum as well. The Irish Family Planning Association, WHO, the independent O'Shea report in 2023 and the UN are among the endless list of bodies that have said this wait is not necessary. It is also very unfair. Rural Deputies and others who think it must be kept are actually just penalising women and pregnant people in their areas.”
“I do not know whether there is any other law that imposes a three-day wait on any medical treatment. I do not know whether it applies when getting Viagra or rhinoplasty surgery. Forcing women to wait for a health treatment that is extremely time sensitive and very geographically difficult to access, where that wait is medically unnecessary, damaging and patronising and puts extra pressure on our health services, has to stop. Does the Minister agree with that?”
“Now Trump is emboldened to attack Greenland. He is a misogynist who has promoted the sexual assault of women and the demeaning of female journalists. He is a known rapist. He was convicted in a civil trial. I know women's lives do not matter much but do children matter because he is obviously a paedophile as well? He is listed in the Epstein files. He is pictured with very young girls constantly. He spied on the dressing rooms at teen pageants. Does any of this matter at all? Will we continue to talk about bread on the table and allow a dangerous demagogue like this to operate on the world?”
“A huge amount of resources went from the Department of the Taoiseach last year into trying to strategise and manage the visit to the White House for St. Patrick's Day. I am wondering what the hell level will be needed this year for the Taoiseach to manage such a visit if it goes ahead because we have a demagogue, dangerously unleashed at this point. I was never a fan of the shamrock at the White House. There are other ways of meeting important people without giving that photo opportunity to somebody like Donald Trump. What is the Taoiseach's red line? Trump is a racist who has unleashed ICE to kill people, to strike fear into people of colour, who cannot go into the US right now. He is a tyrant who has invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its leader. That leader will be on trial on 17 March, if the Taoiseach is planning to go.”
“The only change is that, instead of the person waiving their right, it will now be passed over to a judge for a disclosure hearing on whether the counselling notes should be allowed. This does not take away the chilling effect of your notes being accessed. It forces the victim to choose between proceeding with a trial or proceeding with therapy. It is absolutely disgusting that any law that allows this exists. The Government has had ample opportunity to outlaw it completely.”
“I will try not to be. How does the Government justify ploughing ahead next Thursday with a Bill that still allows the counselling notes of victims of sexual assault, rape and child sexual abuse to be accessed in trials despite all it has been told in recent months and years about how damaging and traumatising that is? I refer to the Criminal Law and Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026. This provision should never have been contained in this Bill because it is such an important issue. It has been thrown in with pepper spray, street furniture and a million other things in order to get it passed. On 22 December, the Minister said that he was going to look at further amendments but the Bill has appeared with no further amendments. People are still going to have to choose between therapy and trial.”
“It is bad enough encouraging fascism, racism and misogyny but now let us send a message to Musk. It does not seem like the Taoiseach is going to do anything about it in the face of - and I will finish of this - his love of AI and multinational corporations. It should not make him silent about child abuse.”
“Since we began this debate 67,700 images of a sexual nature of children have been created by AI. I have spoken many times in this Dáil on the issue of abuse and how these social media companies are child groomers and endanger women and children by encouraging misogyny. However, we now have an app that actively allows people to participate in child abuse. What is the Taoiseach going to do about it? His Minister, Deputy Patrick O’Donovan, said it is up to the individual users - it is not the fault of Grok at all. It is an absolutely unbelievable statement. That was an excellent question from one of the Government’s backbenchers: is the Government officially going to continue supporting X? I have decided I am not going to participate any longer in this abuse.”
“The Government announced sanctions against Iran but none against Israel, which has been carrying out a genocide for over two years. This lickspittle boot-licking subservience to US and western imperialism is not going to do the Taoiseach any good. It has not worked for Machado trying to hand her Noble prize back and it will not work for the Taoiseach either.”
“"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." That is from Orwell's 1984 . I am wondering if that is what happened with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in relation to what Donald Trump is doing in general, and has done in Venezuela. On Truth Social, he announced that he is now the de facto leader of Venezuela. They swooped in, kidnapped a leader and his wife, by the way, killing 130 people in the process, which the Taoiseach seems to have been silent on. The Minister for foreign affairs put out a statement that the fate of Greenland should be decided by Greenland but the Government does not seem to apply that to Venezuela, and we seem to be selective about who is dictator.”
“They should not be beyond any questioning. We still need questions answered about why George Nkencho was killed five years ago. His family deserve that and they should not face the full rigours of the State closing ranks and not being accountable. That garda stayed working for those five years. He was not put on leave - nothing whatsoever - when clearly George should not have been shot twice in the back as he was reaching for his door. Two of the shots were into his back. Was there racism at play that day? We will never know, it seems, unless we have a full, open and independent inquiry. There will be an inquest in the new year. I hope it will lead to the calling of an independent inquiry because it is completely unfair that a family who lost their son get no answers when for anybody else who ends up being killed, there is a trial.”
“I would not have the same confidence at all because there is no democratic forum minorities can feed into. That is something the Nkencho family have called for but is not operating in the area at all. Of course we need a Garda that will respond to calls on gender-based violence, antisocial behaviour and when people are victims of a crime but when gardaí end up killing somebody or carrying out any miscarriage of justice, who holds them to account? If a gang member, a well-known criminal, was killed by anybody else, there would be an investigation and a trial. It seems when a garda kills someone, there is no investigation that everybody can see and ask questions about, is held in full public view and there is no trial. There should be a trial of the gardaí who carried out that killing that day. Why is there a difference applied to gardaí?”
“Not only that, GSOC, as it then was, and the DPP refused to reveal what happened that day. As a result, the family have been left with no answers. They still do not know why George was killed. The Minister stated previously that gardaí should not operate with their arms tied behind their backs. We also need safeguards for situations where gardaí shoot people. All of the rules were breached that day on 30 December 2020; of that there is absolutely no question. It is indefensible how the family have been treated. I want to raise police accountability. Of course we need policing. We need a police force that is accountable, democratic and answerable to the communities it serves, including minorities. My party colleague from Dublin West said the Garda is doing a great job in Blanchardstown. Blanchardstown is a very diverse community.”
“We are talking now about giving gardaí biometric analysis tools, body cameras, tasers and more rights to use pepper spray, which is in related legislation that will accompany this Bill. What about the actions of gardaí on that particular day? It is alleged in the media that a taser was used on George, yet he was still able to rise up and attack those gardaí. The key issue is this. Five years on, that family, who lost their son, had to endure a horrific torrent of abuse generated by the far right, which kicked into overdrive when it happened. The abuse happened around Covid, when everybody was online. Within minutes, as is scientifically proven, those involved spread all sorts of lies about George being a criminal, stabbing somebody and attacking them with a machete. The Garda subsequently stated that none of this was true.”
“Whatever happened that day - and, obviously, somebody has to face up to a crime - those who died should be alive. There is no question about that. The penalty for an assault cannot be death. Gardaí followed George in their car, adding to the distress involved. When they got to his house, the armed unit arrived very quickly. I do not know why the armed unit would be need to arrest a young man on his own doorstep. Why was it necessary to inflame the situation? It was not the local gardaí who were at the forefront. We keep being told that gardaí are well capable of dealing with mental health issues, but their abilities were certainly not brought into play that day.”
“What should have happened was that George should have been questioned and charged if there was a crime to answer for. He should still be alive today. Instead, he was dead within about 20 minutes. George was the first person of colour killed by An Garda Síochána in Ireland, which is extremely significant. He was also a person with known mental health issues. Gardaí had been to the house in relation to George. There were gardaí present who were well aware of the issues that he had. Fundamentally, what happened was the result of a nervous breakdown, ironically arising from the killing of one of his best friends by racists in Tyrrelstown. Two people from the same football team ended up dead. It is quite unbelievable. If this were fiction, it would be seen to be unbelievable.”
“Beyond anything else, it is debatable whether this technology is even useful for what it is intended to do. It does not dissuade criminality, for example, nor does it put people off carrying out criminal attacks or anything like that. It is a move towards more surveillance by the State. I want to refer further to the racial aspect of policing and the tools that gardaí already have. We are coming up to the fifth anniversary of the killing of George Nkencho, a constituent of mine, by gardaí. George was a young man who lived in the Clonee-Littlepace area, which is very close to where I live. He went to the shops in Hartstown. Something happened there, and there was an altercation with a member of staff. Allegedly, an assault took place, which was terrible and which should not have happened.”
“A key point is that gardaí are systemically biased against minorities. All of the studies carried out have shown this, even those that the Garda has compiled. The Irish Network Against Racism, INAR, report found that 83% of non-white people believed they had been racially profiled. In a 2022 survey,59% of Travellers indicated that they believed they were stopped because of their ethnicity. An internal survey by the Garda found that 100% of the gardaí surveyed had negative views of Travellers and 30% had negative views of black Africans. Is the Minister at all concerned about those figures? Has he ever discussed them with gardaí? He is bringing in this technology knowing that these biases exist. As gardaí are the ones who will be reviewing the results the technology will produce, surely these racist views can come into play.”
“There have been seven wrongful arrests in the US as a result of the use of facial recognition technology. That is something fundamental to the system. As we have seen, AI is trained with images of people from the global north, the majority of whom are white. The bias is impossible to take out of the system. We have seen many other examples where AI is male dominated. It follows the cultural practices of the people who control it and those who create it. The Irish State does not have a good track record with this technology. For example, similar technology is used to scan and verify biometric data on people's public services cards. According to the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, one third of applications need to be checked by a human in order to ensure everything is correct.”
“I will speak first on the technology and then on the racial aspect. This technology involves the use of AI to scan images or videos of a person. These are then matched with details on a database that can be used to find suspects of a crime or a missing person. The Metropolitan Police has used this technology. According to its statistics, 63.6% of identity checks using the technology were incorrect. In 2023, 65% of all identity checks were incorrect when the technology was used. In some studies, women with coloured skin were 100 times more likely to be misidentified than white males. In the US, Asian and black Americans were 100 times more likely to be misidentified than white Americans. Those are real statistics. They are a cause for concern.”
“I am opposed to this legislation on the basis of the potential for it to be used to convict people mistakenly, particularly people of colour, working-class young people and minorities. We have a lot of grounds to say that. The Bill is part of an increasingly repressive turn in policing and follows a pattern that already exists here, in Europe, in the US and in other countries worldwide. We have seen examples of that in relation to the Palestine solidarity movement, with of the use of pepper spray and the way activists have been arrested. The key reason is that there is absolutely no accountability on the part of the Garda. If the Minister is going to tell me that Fiosrú holds gardaí accountable, my answer is that it does not. The potential for this technology to be used against minorities is immense.”
“That is the experience of loads of people throughout rural Ireland. I have testimony from a farmer in County Waterford as well about how they arrived unannounced on horseback or on foot. There are complaints about the Comeragh harriers. I could go on but I only have 15 seconds left. There is similar testimony from rural Galway. People in rural Ireland do not support fox hunting. The Minister of State has interests in tourism and maybe he is gaining financially from this, but there are very few people doing so in rural Ireland. There are other pursuits that could be encouraged to replace it.”
“They can make up any excuse they like, that they are representing rural Ireland or whatever else but the reality is there. That was why I called for a free vote, to at least allow TDs, who have given the general public the impression that they will uphold what they said they stood for, to express that. This is not a rural-urban issue. In conclusion, these are some of the comments from rural people who have contacted me. I mentioned Frankie Ward. Randal Plunkett is also here. I welcome the people who have attended - we have a packed Gallery - because we can see what an issue this is. Randal Plunkett, who runs the Dunsany nature reserve, has talked about the battle he has had getting these fox hunters to agree to keep off his land. They completely ignored him, he has gone to the police and nothing happens.”
“One of the issues I raised on the grant was in the context of allowing hill farmers, who may be more open, obviously, to their sheep being taken, to have grants to help protect their sheep. The Minister of State is in government now, so that would have been something he could have helped with. There is a whole load of people who are going to come to the House tonight and press a button against this Bill. Some 80% of people are opposed to blood sports. Some 80% of people are opposed to fox hunting if you exclude the do-not-knows. It they are included, 73% were opposed to it in the last poll. They are from all around the country, rural and urban Ireland. We have a problem in this House. Three of the big parties are going to come in here and vote the exact opposite of what most of the population wants.”
“It is my time to speak now. I know the Minister of State finds that hard. The other issue is why we are talking about this now. The reason is that I get Private Members' time one and half times a year. That is why we are talking about it now. It is not a plot to make anyone look bad. It was either now or some time later. The reason it was put forward now was that it became a big issue in the Presidential election and I really thought a number of people would have caught up. On the thing about a grant, we had a briefing here last week. People from rural areas were there. We had a number of people here, such as Frankie Ward who has produced booklets talking about how this can be integrated into farming life. He has done surveys among sheep farmers and has talked about ways to protect livestock.”
“To talk about fox hunting is a nice distraction for the Government, making it out that it is the big bad people from Dublin coming here taking all of their livelihoods away. I recognise that people do have livelihoods involved in this. I am absolutely open to discussion but I think there are alternatives.”
“It included people in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael but it just so happens that a lot of TDs in Sinn Féin gave people the impression that the party was against fox hunting and against blood sports. Sinn Féin did not have its Ard-Fheis in the autumn. I understand it had to postpone it. That was a good reason to allow a free vote tonight as the party did not have time to change its position. However, everybody who voted last year - most people, certainly - would have expected that Sinn Féin was in line with this Bill. Regarding the hostility to rural life that is being talked about, there is a sell-out coming up on Mercosur and other EU issues. This Government is going to sell out the people it drums up in rural areas.”
“The only people who are splitting the left is people who do not agree that animal rights is a priority issue for the left. People who are serious about a progressive left would want to question why they cannot convince their party conference to get rid of fox hunting. They really should be able to push how important that is. Deputy Carthy talked about regulation. The problem is it is regulated and as we can see it is a free for all in reality because there is so much of it happening. I will finish that point by saying that TDs were mentioned because a number of TDs have told people when they were going to vote last year that they were against blood sports and fox hunting. People are absolutely entitled to contact those TDs and ask them to vote with us tonight. To say we are somehow targeting TDs, people should get a grip here.”
“Deputy Cronin talked about her personal beliefs colliding with her party, about how she has to go in and vote for this because united Ireland is her priority and she is involved in a collective struggle. First, there was a suggestion that I am splitting the left by raising stuff. I am going to come in and raise issues to do with anyone who is oppressed or animals that are being brutally treated. I cannot wait around for Sinn Féin to change its policy; I am sorry. If I had waited for that, we would not have had repeal. I was bringing repeal Bills in here. Sinn Féin was sitting socially conservatively on issues. I cannot wait for it to catch up. That is not why I was elected. I was elected to push things forward, not sit and wait for the rest to catch up.”
“It was also said that people do not go out with a cruel intent. It does not matter about their intent. If the end object is that a fox will be caught and killed in a prolonged way, it is cruel. Drag hunting is an alternative Sinn Féin might argue for at its Ard-Fheis. I do not agree with this thin end of the wedge argument. We are dealing with one issue. We are dealing with fox hunting. Members vote on that and on that alone and they should leave the deliberate misrepresentation out of it. Deputy Kenny said he has had a groundswell of support. The groundswell of support has come from people in favour of the Bill. Let us be clear about that. There has been massive social media support and from the number of people who have got behind this in the seven months since I raised this on First Stage.”
“I want to raise some of the alternatives to fox hunting because I did not get a chance to mention them. To be clear, drag hunting is something with which I have absolutely no issue. It allows people to go out on horses or with their dogs. They follow an artificial scent across agreed routes. Clean boot hunting is another one that is being done in the UK. What this Bill does not deal with is a number of things. It does not deal with shooting. Somebody can shoot a fox. The Bill does not mention it. When you are drafting a Bill, if something does not get mentioned, it means it is not in it. We heard issues from Sinn Féin and that it was its members' position at its Ard-Fheis, that they have had a debate. Gun clubs were mentioned continually. This is nothing to do with gun clubs; this is about fox hunting.”
“I also do not agree with pubs, post offices and all of those things being lost in rural areas but those are the policies that are led by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael with whom the Minister of State is in government.”
“I do not agree with the lack of infrastructure and I do not agree with the housing crisis, which is making it very difficult for people to have homes-----”
“I actually do not live in a city. I live in a suburb. I spent my childhoods in the country. It is how I feel when the Deputy starts talking about women, women's rights and women's bodies. I just have to sit and listen to it. However, when I want to talk about rural areas, all of a sudden I do not have a right. Just cop on. We are here as national TDs for national issues. We can raise whatever we like. Rural life is in crisis because of the FDI economic model that this Government has encouraged from day one. I refer to centralisation. I do not agree with everything being centralised around Dublin or around Leinster. I do not agree with Dublin Airport's passenger cap being just lifted, for example. We should be decentralising.”
“We will leave aside the dripping misogyny that we have had to sit and listen to for the past few minutes from somebody who is sitting in the Department of agriculture talking about Deputy Whitmore and about myself. However, I will deal with the issues the Government and the other parties have raised. It is very clear that they are trying to make a culture war out of something that is very simple. It is about cruelty to the fox. None of the speakers who spoke against the Bill have even bothered to deal with whether or not they think it is cruel to the fox. All of the other extraneous issues have been talked about. I absolutely agree that rural life is in crisis. They may be surprised to think that. However, it is in crisis for a lot of reasons.”
“I will also mention a fact that is not stated, which is the research showing the link between cruelty to animals and cruelty to humans. If the Government allows this type of barbarism, people become inured to inflicting harm on others. For example, in school shootings in the US, some 43% of the shooters had abused animals. There are many more examples. In 2017, 89% of women who had companion animals and were in an abusive relationship reported that the abuser had abused the animals as well. It is a well known fact that if someone abuses animals he or she is inured to abusing humans. I do not have time to talk about the Whip system now but I will when summing up. It is absolutely outrageous that this is being used to prevent the popular will.”