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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“It happened to the Clerys workers, has happened to many others since and will continue in cases of liquidation and insolvency. Why did the Government not take this opportunity? The Debenhams Bill, for example, which was on Committee Stage in the previous Dáil, is effectively frozen. It would ensure preferential creditor status for workers in any liquidation. As well as recognising collective agreements in relation to redundancy, it would treat redundancy payments as a debt that would be paid out first, rather than at the very end of the process. Will the Minister commit to moving that Bill forward? It is there and could be moved. He could amend it in whatever way he saw fit on the next Stage. The workers are keenly watching this. They would love to have a legacy arising from the battle they waged for 400 days.”
“They were, it must be said, also let down by their trade union. They had to organise themselves. They were let down by the Government too. It could have done more to keep those jobs. Many of those stores were extremely profitable, including the one in Blanchardstown. The Government could have fought might and main to see that those workers either got their owed redundancy and, if not, that the laws were changed in order that this would never happen to any other group of workers again. Unfortunately, that opportunity was not taken. We had Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and other political parties calling down to the picket lines at those times, I remember, to get their pictures taken with local workers, but they have never done anything to change the situation.”
“I welcome the Bill in that it seeks to transpose a worker's rights into law. It is something that will assist workers and we can support it. It was, however, an opportunity to go much further. The fact that this right was not transposed into law in the first place speaks volumes about the priority that successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments have given to workers facing insolvency. A court case had to be taken for the Government to bring this in. The Bill should have been an opportunity to bring in legislation that would protect workers in other situations such as that faced by the Debenhams workers. I am sure that everybody here knows the battle that was waged by those workers. During the pandemic they were laid off by their employer. An opportunist liquidation happened using the pandemic as an opportune time.”
“They are accessing services after a huge amount of work was done to get those services. We are just asking that they be allowed to maintain that. We are not asking the Minister to give them an amnesty or anything like that. It is important. There is already a rules-based system where we are meant to take children's needs into account.”
“I will not go on about this but I want to clarify something for the Dáil record. By raising a case, I am not asking the Minister to break any rule. The IPAS residents I mentioned are being transferred to another place. It is not breaking a rule for them not to transfer to that place. They could transfer to another place. We already have a rule that children's developmental and health needs, etc., will be taken into account. They have not committed any crimes. If they are in the hotel, presumably they have not got a deportation order so I do not know why the Minister raised that. If they are being transferred to Mayo, they hardly have a deportation order. It was very confused things the Minister said. The case I mentioned is just an example. The people in question are living in an area where their children are going to school.”
“I ask the Minister to intervene to make sure this family, for example, is able to stay in Dublin even if they have to move to other IPAS accommodation until they find their own accommodation, be it out in Finglas or wherever, to allow them to stay in Dublin and to continue getting the services. This is an example of the best interests of the child in practical application. We should adopt these amendments. It really is very unfair for the Department to issue people with letters to move hundreds of miles away within a week, when they have been in an area for several years and made links there, developed there and have children in schools there. We all know the crisis there is in autism and special education in particular. I hope the Minister will take this on board.”
“In the case of the family who contacted me, they have a child who is autistic. They have a child linked to essential services in Blanchardstown. They have a child in preschool, which is like hens' teeth as it is absolutely impossible for somebody who has special needs to get into a preschool that caters for those needs where they get the therapeutic services necessary for their development. I ask the Minister to intervene to see that the best interests of this child are protected and that they are not moved to an area 200 km away where, I am absolutely certain, they will not have treatment services for their autism lined up or services necessary for their language skills.”
“On this practical application of the best interests of children, I agree with the definitions. The child's developmental needs and vulnerability are some of the items that are listed in this amendment. I want to give the Minister an example, and this needs to be carried through to how we treat people in IPAS accommodation, not just those applying for accommodation. I have been contacted by IPAS residents in the Crown Plaza hotel in Blanchardstown. They have lived there for a number of years. They were told in a letter dated 13 February, but I do not know whether they received it then, that they must move this Friday, 20 February. That is less than a week's notice. They have to move to Breaffy Woods in Castlebar, more than 200 km away. These people have children in local schools and preschools.”
“Under this provision, 16-year-olds could very easily be detained because somebody assumes they are an adult due to the fact they do not know or do not have proof of their age. As everybody has said, it is a slippery slope. I am sure the Minister is aware that all of the children's rights agencies have asked for this to be explicitly ruled out of the Bill, but he is leaving it in. He has told us he will come back with further measures down the line. As others have said, when accommodation, proper care facilities or whatever cannot be found, children will end up in Garda stations or other detention centres that the State might develop in the years ahead. We have seen with Irish citizens, never mind people coming in from other countries, that people have to go to Garda stations because otherwise they would be on the streets.”
“I would like to hear some examples of what the best interests might be because I struggle to see an example of when it would be in the best interests of a child to be detained. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has said that children should never be detained because of their or their parents' migration status. We all know it is not a good idea to put children in prison or detention. There is a presumption of adulthood in the Bill, whereby a Garda, an official or whoever would be able to guess a person's age and presume that they are an adult. We do not have a great track record with regard to differentiating the ages of people of different races, nationalities and so on. The Bill states that reasonable grounds must be shown, but what are reasonable grounds? It is a broad term.”
“We have definitely come a long way since the Minister took over this position. It is not just him as it is a trend happening throughout the EU and western governments. Fair play to the far right for the impact they are having because we are actually talking about unaccompanied children potentially being detained. There are other things in the Bill in relation to children I will come back in on but we need to send a message out that this is in the Bill because it is a lowering of human rights standards, as the ombudsman has said.”
“We should mark in the Dáil that we are talking about minors and children being detained in prison. Every day I wake up and put on social media and my jaw drops to the floor at the stuff that is happening in the world, especially in the US with ICE and so on, but there are things in this Bill we should mark as being in exactly the same trend. One of them is for the first time explicitly allowing the possibility of children being detained for their own good, apparently. Detaining children never serves the good of anyone. The Ombudsman for Children has called this legislation a lowering of human rights and asked that there be an explicit prohibition on children being detained. Instead, it is being put in as a possible option. The UN committee for children would also state the same.”
“I also want to make a point about the statutory declaration that these companies have to give. They can just get it from one of their other companies, and then they do not really sell on the property. I do not doubt that many of the new tenants who are going to be put into these evicted properties will be HAP tenants, which means the State will be paying the increase in the rent. There seems to be absolutely no interest from this Government in dealing with the vulture funds and investment funds that are eking out massive profits off the back of evictions and misery in suburbs, towns and counties throughout the State.”
“Yes. It is just factual and it is in the newspapers anyway. This is all from articles I have researched. Be Lettings and Vestry buy and sell from each other. It is unbelievable stuff. One effect of such house flipping in Dublin 15, in my own constituency, is that a three-bedroom, two-bathroom semi-detached house in Dublin 15 that was bought in November 2019 for €287,000 was sold in January 2025 for approximately €400,000. The transaction involved the same two companies that own each other. What is the Minister going to do about this? Seriously. As I said in a previous debate, I have to ring the sheriff to try to get these evictions put back. I cannot be the only TD in the House doing this. There must be other TDs doing the same. It is not my job to try to reorganise accommodation for people. If anything, it is the Minister's job.”
“I would love to hear what the attitude of the Minister, Deputy Browne, to this is. In 2023 The Ditch highlighted that Vestry controls 850 homes and is making €20 million in profits. Richard Moyles, one of the shareholders, has many other links. Silk Shadow Limited, one of the minority owners of this company, was bailed out by NAMA in 2011. Its €22 million loans were bailed out by NAMA and the taxpayer. It is now back in business and raking it in on the back of evictions yet again. Moyles is also a director of Be Lettings, which has a portfolio of homes and apartments and-----”
“Vestry has numerous cases at the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, where it is evicting families on a regular basis. Dublin City Council offered to buy a property from Vestry but Vestry declined the market rate. It has a vacant apartment next door to one particular family, whose case was highlighted in an article, but it has no interest in letting that family remain or rent in the neighbouring property. This is because they want to get a new tenant in at a higher rate, thanks to the Government's new laws that actually encourage this, and make so much more money. That is also the case with the Palestinian family in my constituency. This family is currently paying €1,600 but there is no doubt that Vestry will get another potential €1,000 on top of that. The community action tenants union, CATU, has a Vestry hotline. This is how bad it is.”
“I welcome this Sinn Féin motion, particularly because it focuses on vulture funds, investment funds, cuckoo funds or whatever you want to call them. We are talking about large-scale property ownership where they buy a property and sell it on or rent it at a massive profit. Tomorrow yet another family in my constituency is facing the sheriff. They have gone through all of the court process to try to save the home they have rented for ten years. They are actually a Palestinian family, which is ironic. Many Palestinians are facing homelessness, in my experience, having escaped occupation or genocide. This family has lived and worked in the area for a long time. Their property is owned by the Vestry group. It is a complex web of companies all with their fingers in the Irish home market, or should we say the Irish homeless market.”
“We all know that appeals very rarely go in favour of the parents or the student. Help with school refusal, anxiety and ADHD in mainstream schools is very important. It is very important that SNAs are maintained in schools. Shifting the focus away or on to the primary care needs of children, which is what the Minister is doing, will gut SNAs from so many schools. We need this put onto the agenda. We need to stop pitting schools, mainstream and special schools, against each other. It will not work.”
“We absolutely have to have the SNA cull, or sorry review, put onto the Dáil agenda this week. Every single TD has been plagued by a deluge of representations on this. Fair play to parents, pupils and staff in the school in Dublin who yesterday called out the Government and got it to pause it. However, it has not dropped it; it has just paused it. It has to be discussed in the Dáil. What we have from the Taoiseach is that suddenly students progress. God forbid a special needs assistant, SNA, should be left in a school-----”
“We have already had issues where people in Tyrrelstown could not get their children to school in Hansfield. They had to organise car pools. Will the Minister speak to TFI and Dublin Bus about that matter? We cannot lose the connectivity people in that area have - they need more - in order to get to work and to get their kids to school.”
“I accept the Minister's acknowledgement of the position. However, as a Minister who represents the area, he has to deliver for people. Who else is going to be able to do that? The 40E is going to be replaced by the 262. I have already had two representations about that. The 262 route will terminate before Hollystown. As a result, people in Hollystown will not have a direct route into the city centre. That has to be addressed. I have been contacted by a huge group of parents who have been told that when the 40E route is replaced, the new route will no longer cross the bridge into Cabra. It will turn onto the Ballyboggan Road instead. This means that people cannot get their children to school in St. Dominic's or in the Navan Road area. That has to be addressed.”
“It is the only route to the town centre in Blanchardstown. Parking charges are being proposed for the centre, but people do not even have a reliable bus service to get there. In a moment, I will talk about Hollystown and changes to BusConnects.”
“I have received many representations from people about the odyssey of the 39 bus route. Every time there is a new development, it is added to the same route without new or distinct routes being created. There needs to be change. I want to focus on the Tyrrelstown-Hollystown area because that is where much if the additional building has taken place. Public transport in the area is particularly atrocious. For a female worker from Tyrrelstown trying to get to her job in Dublin Port every morning, there is no connection to the N4 route at Rosemount Business Park and buses do not arrive early enough to allow her to get to work. Many people report having to get taxis to work. One day in particular, it cost the woman in question €67 to get from Tyrrelstown to work. The 238 is a ghost bus.”
“I ask the Minister for an update on infrastructure projects for the Dublin West constituency. The focus of my question is public transport, because of the litany of woes I hear about from constituents daily who, because of the other investment we have had, do not have access to the Luas or a metro. We have one of the largest populations in the city. People are suffering daily in their lives trying to get to work and get their children to school. What investment in public transport in particular will be provided?”
“It is unbelievable that he cannot sit and listen. I get little enough time to raise this topic. Elephants have half the lifespan in Dublin Zoo. Matriarchy and family are very important for elephants. These two sister elephants were split up. We should not be spending money sending children to zoos. Any money for conserving species and biodiversity would be better spent out in the wild where there are very good programmes under way, rather than diverting it to Victorian concepts like zoos. Many other issues with animals have been reported. The NPWS does not have zoology expertise. It is also very close in relations to the management of Dublin Zoo. The Minister of State should meet zoo keepers and give them more funding and more space and time to deal with the animals, but we really should be phasing out zoos.”
“Some €100 was spent to buy a doll and stuff like that. The chimps are heavily medicated. An elephant report was sent to the Department of agriculture but there has been no response on the confinement of the elephants and the climate not being suitable. That is what the OPW is funding.”
“That is my problem. It has been consistently raised on the floor of the Dáil that nobody is properly inspecting Dublin Zoo in an independent way. The Minister of State talked about the South American house and play areas. The director also had his house renovated during that Covid period while making appeals to the public for funds. My issue is animal welfare. There is a dog-fighter working as an elephant consultant in Dublin Zoo. The chimps are obese and agoraphobic. They are afraid to go outside and are pushed out for the public. They have nothing to do. It is extremely bad for animals to be in confined spaces. One former zookeeper who I met - there have been whistle-blowers about the zoo - told me they were sent to Smyth's Toys Superstore to buy a few toys to keep the chimps occupied.”
“I want to ask about capital grant funding of €2.8 million that was given to Dublin Zoo by the OPW in 2025. That is part of a ten-year programme so there will be more funding in subsequent years. There is no scrutiny of Dublin Zoo. Who is going to monitor how this money is spent and what it is spent on? The zoo can also raise funds from the public through charity appeals and charging people at the gates. Wild Lights is an abomination that is very bad for animals. Who is going to monitor this money?”
“If our universities do not have proper safeguards in place to deal with the sharing of images of students in these situations, what hope is there for us? Will the Minister of State take this up with the head of UCD and ask her to meet with this woman - I would be happy to meet with UCD - who is certainly the victim in this case?”
“Never mind AI, they are way behind with laws that have been in place for a number of years. The head of UCD should meet this victim, as I think the Minister of State would agree, to discuss the consequences. She does not want anything like this to happen to any student again. Clearly, UCD is not learning any lessons if it is not willing to do that. I should also add that this student has suffered incredibly from the original rape, which she did not want to report because she knew she would probably not be believed. This sort of reaction by the UCD authorities does not bode well for anybody who wants to come forward in these situations. I felt it was important to raise that on the floor of the Dáil.”
“I have written to UCD school of medicine and management about this and the lack of culture. Apart from the meeting with some class representatives, the way the victim put it to me was that they have had more warnings about littering the library than about the consequences of resharing images like this. On one occasion, the university newspaper was threatened if it took up the story. I am particularly concerned about what the safeguarding policies are. Safeguarding policies seem to be just about harassment. If someone is being harassed, they can contact the university but in this case the person does not know who is harassing them. The Garda has not been able to find the original source of this image due to the clever use of technology. Our institutions are way behind.”
“In January 2026, it was circulated to a group of medical students at St. Vincent's. This has to be registered because UCD is the biggest university in this State. It has tens of thousands of students in its charge. It does not seem to have due regard for safeguarding in respect of image-based sexual abuse or how to react. There was no compassion or real sympathy shown to the victim in this case by the school of medicine either. It is unbelievable that trainee doctors are circulating images like this, but that is unfortunately where we are. The student who was raped in this incident and did not report the rape experienced further repercussions in her own life arising from that rape, which I will go into at another time. Again, those were never dealt with with any sense of compassion by UCD.”
“I cannot blame UCD for the circulation of that image in the first instance, but I can blame it when it was subsequently shared on two further occasions. The first time was to the email addresses. The university contacted An Garda Síochána but did not make any contact with this young woman for about a week or a week and a half. That is absolutely outrageous. It also never had a proper meeting with the victim of this image-based sexual abuse. Students who received this image subsequently were not warned. There was no huge meeting to explain the dire consequences of sharing image-based sexual abuse. No information was provided to students about safeguarding or risk assessment. In November 2025, the image was circulated to student group chats, accompanied by violent and misogynistic threats.”
“I will not be too graphic, but I want to bring home the levels of misogyny that we have in our society. A finger was pointing toward her vagina. She was clearly unconscious or asleep. The image was first shared in that email but subsequently, due to the inaction of UCD school of medicine and the leadership of UCD in general, it was shared on a WhatsApp group of students. I could not even repeat in the Dáil the comments that accompanied it. I felt nauseated after reading them. I will say, however, that there were further rape threats and further threats to use objects to violently rape this person. This person was told she should take her own life. She was called all sorts of names and comments were made about her appearance and so on. My issue is this. It was horrific that this happened.”
“I will share time with Deputy Healy. I agree that AI is opening up a new frontier for misogyny and abuse. I also raise tonight that the image-based sexual abuse laws we have are not being implemented. I am very concerned about the institutions that we have and how they deal with non-consensual imagery being shared, particularly institutions that deal with young people. I will highlight this by starting with the case of a medical student in UCD who, in mid-2025, had a nude, bruised and unconscious image of herself shared and circulated to a significant number of UCD staff email addresses. This image was procured after she was raped by a student, a rape that she chose not to report - most women and victims do not report. The picture showed her bruised and undressed.”
“The Minister can decide if an NGO can give information to an applicant, can direct the appeals body to prioritise an appeal and can remove the chief inspector if this is deemed to be in the interests of the Government or national security. The Bill will also include provisions to prevent those given refugee status from applying for family reunification for three years. This Bill has been heavily criticised by multiple NGOs. They have noted that it gives huge powers to gardaí to detain people, including the ability to arrest those who have been given deportation orders by the State, without a warrant. This Bill is meant, in no uncertain terms, to give the Garda and the State extra powers around immigration similar to those being used in the US. It treats all people, including children, exercising their right to seek asylum with suspicion.”
“The Bill limits the power of applicants to appeal decisions. There is a limit of a week to put in an appeal and there are no more guaranteed oral hearings. It will be up to the tribunal. It has been noted that age assessment under the Bill is not defined or explicitly laid out. This leads to much ambiguity about how assessments should be undertaken. The Minister is being given a wide range of powers. In the International Protection Act 2015, the chief international protection officer is independent in the performance of his or her functions. In the Bill, the equivalent of the international protection officer is simply the determining authority, which is defined as the Minister.”
“This is similar to what is happening in the US. They can also be detained if there is a fear that they will abscond after a decision against them staying in the country being made, and they can be detained without a warrant too. Sections of this Bill allow gardaí to search a person without a warrant and to detain them. This power also applies to children, which is the most horrific part of it, where the gardaí believe they need to determine their identity. As a result, we could see children being detained. We have also seen children who may have been born in Ireland being deported. Third parties will not be allowed to interfere in the duties of the officers undertaking these acts. If, therefore, people are taken away - and as we have seen in the US - nobody can inquire about them or go to assist them.”
“The key things to highlight in this Bill that are really dangerous, at a time when the case of an Irish person being held in an ICE detention centre has been highlighted, which is obviously horrific, is that our Government is moving in a similar direction. We have not set up ICE detention centres and we have not got ICE on the street, but there are some trends emerging. For example, under this Bill, people making applications for asylum will need to show up to so-called screening centres where their applications will be screened. They will fill out the forms there and so on. Failure to do so under this Bill will allow gardaí to arrest and detain them. Refugees could be imprisoned and detained for not showing up. They might not know that they were supposed to show up. There could be all sorts of reasons for them not showing up.”
“Immigrants in general, people who have migrated into this country who are working here, are also badly treated in the sense that they show up disproportionately in the homeless figures or are at risk of poverty compared with Irish people. I see that in my constituency, where many of those being evicted are migrants, people who have been working and living here for a long time but who do not have the same support systems and are stuck in the private rented sector. This Bill is meant to clamp down on asylum seeking. It has been introduced when the number of asylum seekers decreased hugely from 2024 to 2025. There were only 669 successful requests for family reunification in 2025. That is less than 1% of all immigration.”
“This is the State's attempt to blame a small minority of refugees for things like the housing crisis. Recently, the Tánaiste, Deputy Simon Harris, stated it much more vocally and publicly than would have been the case heretofore when he made a comment to the effect that a significant number of people in emergency accommodation have no right to housing in this country. I would not call it a dog whistle, because it was fairly blatant. Asylum seekers generally are abhorrently treated. Four hundred refugees were told in December that there was no accommodation for them, and they were basically forced to live on the streets in a climate where racism and hostility are rife and in circumstances where the far right in this country is growing.”
“Since entering office, the Minister has employed this tough man image whereby he will virtue signal to people on the far right or people who have racist views that he is getting tough on immigration, including with his chartered flights and now with this Bill. That is part of a wider fear-mongering campaign that is being undertaken by the Government and that has a significant effect on the consciousness of people. The ESRI has found that people overestimate the foreign-born population and severely overestimate the number of asylum seekers here. They also underestimate the number of immigrants coming here for work by a shocking 30%. This means that when people see someone of colour or from a migrant background, they assume they are not legal or are either an asylum seeker or refugee. That is borne out by research the ESRI has done.”
“This Bill has been introduced n line with the trend that we are seeing internationally where there has been an attack on the rights of migrants, immigrants of all kinds and, in particular, asylum seekers and refugees. Last year, 4,700 deportation orders were issued by this State, which was an increase of 96% on the previous year. The number almost doubled. TDs from many different parties in here jumping up and down about deportations last year. Fifty of those deportation orders were for people from Palestine and Sudan, which we all know are areas where massive genocides are taking place.”
“In a letter I have seen since, however, the Garda Commissioner said in reply to Senator Paul Daly that matters such as those to which I refer cannot be taken into account in the award of the medal and nor can general misconduct where a member's courage and heroism are such that they clearly entitle him or her to the award. In other words, it does not matter what bad deeds people do, how much gender violence they commit, they can still get a medal for bravery.”
“There were 60 complaints of sexual abuse or misconduct against members of An Garda Síochána in the past three years. There are 18 active investigations. We saw what happened with Margaret Loftus. I raised with the Taoiseach the case of a Scott medal being awarded to former detective Noel McMahon, who was named at the Morris tribunal in connection with all sorts of corruption, who assaulted his wife, Sheenagh, with a firearm and who got her children taken from her by lying and using his position. The Taoiseach said that I had a point, that the man in question should not have got the medal and that he would have had issues with it as well.”
“Four days paid leave are also available if workers need to address needs at their homes as a result of their children not being able to go to school or damage to their home and property. After four days, businesses can declare force majeure and get Government assistance. There is an example of it being done.”
“The Minister of State summed it up. It is a matter for agreement between employers and employees so it is up to individual employers. He also mentioned guidelines. Guidelines are not legislative protection. We also have a large number of migrant workers. We have unorganised workers or non-unionised workers who do not have the power to say "No" to their employers. I will finish by highlighting what has been done in Spain to show the Minister of State how climate leave might work. Climate leave legislation was passed in Valencia. It provides for four days paid leave if extreme weather makes it impossible to travel to work, with the possibility of this being extended.”
“In some cases, according to a Unite survey, a third of people were not able to work from home during the most recent major storm. This is about a demand. The Government needs to give workers rights - not to ask their employers but rights - to be able to protect themselves in extreme weather events. They should have actual leave that exists and not use their own leave or whatever. It is extremely important that this is built upon.”
“We are living in an extreme weather event right now in that there has been flooding all over the country. These events are becoming much more normal and routine. What is not normalised are what protections there are for workers. It was very moving to be at a press event organised by Unite last week to hear the parents of Matthew Campbell, an electrician who died in a storm in the North of Ireland. We are seeing the impact on homes but there is also a massive impact on workers. In summary, workers have no rights in law to say no, if their employer presses them to go to work because there is no such thing as climate leave. Workers reported being docked pay, having to take unpaid leave and having to use annual leave.”
“They would be so in any case because it tends to be women heading up the one-parent families that are the most impoverished in this country. The same arises with disabled people. I am shocked by just how little focus the Government has given to them. We need the trade union movement in this country to act on this issue. The unions' leadership has been completely silent as the massive cost-of-living crisis has engulfed workers. It is as though that crisis is finished. It is not finished. Just because the Government is no longer giving targeted supports does not mean people are okay. They are not okay. I would like to see the trade union membership fighting for bigger pay increases and taking on and challenging the status quo that deems that workers should pay higher costs again and again.”