Sinéad Gibney
Dublin Rathdown · Social Democrats · Ireland
“Unfortunately, those are still not entirely clear. Although the Windsor Framework did look to enshrine that policy of no diminution of rights and the non-divergence of rights on either side of the Border, that has not been clear in how it is going to play out.”
“I want to raise one specific sector. Within my portfolio, the culture sector is a good example of where we could see a much better offering in the joining together of the two economic activities. For example, we have a very vibrant production sector for film and television.”
“The other word that is important to bring into any economic discussion and fiscal discussion around a united Ireland is "holistic" because, unfortunately at times, I see the Government looking at the economy as a discrete part of society and neglecting things that fall outside of economic discussion, economic imperatives, and policymaking…”
“There are ways that we can see how our governance of this jurisdiction can be improved simply by the opportunities that will be presented by opening up constitutional change and the discussions that we are all going to have about how we govern ourselves right now and how we may govern an entire island of Ireland.”
“When the Minister of State referred to office roles in Brussels, was he describing roles in NATO headquarters? The international forces the Minister of State is describing are exactly like the coalition that invaded Iraq.”
“I look forward to coming back to the topic of the triple lock in a few questions' time. I have read with extreme concern the reports over the past week on the lack of support provided by the Department of Defence to Women of Honour, whose members are participating in the Defence Forces tribunal.”
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“I urge her to work with us and bring this to Committee Stage so that we can work through those legal and policy difficulties, those subtle nuances, and arrive together at legislation that finally addresses this issue. Here is the issue: it comes back to choice. I respect anybody's choice to take a three-day waiting period, but I do not respect the imposition of that three-day waiting period on me or anybody else who chooses to move ahead. Women know their bodies. They know what they are doing. They know when they make the choice to terminate a pregnancy exactly what they are doing. All that these measures represent is the hangover of an infantilistic and misogynistic approach to women's health that prevailed in this country for many decades. Indeed, in some areas, it still prevails. Women know.”
“During the campaign, it was clear that the voices that spoke most clearly to the public were the voices of those women who had suffered fatal foetal abnormalities and their experience was one of the reasons that many people chose to repeal the eighth amendment. We, as a State, built into that legislation a mechanism for review. Indeed, I contributed to that very review in my previous role. Within that review, there are clear recommendations as to what needs to be done to implement the repeal of the eighth amendment, yet this Government has failed to bring forward that legislation. So we have done exactly that. The Minister spoke about the principles that needed to be addressed. She spoke about legal and policy difficulties. She also mentioned subtle nuances.”
“I thank Deputy Whitmore for her impassioned contribution. I thank the Minister for being here. Just shy of eight years ago, we celebrated the repeal of the eighth amendment. I use the word "celebrated" in a measured way, because although this is a grave and serious issue, it was an issue on which views on both sides of the campaign to repeal the eighth amendment were deeply held. I respect the views of those who campaigned against the repeal of the eighth amendment. We celebrated because it was a milestone for women's rights and gender equality in this country. It was a tough campaign. I was chased down a street in suburban Dublin being told that I had blood on my hands.”
“It is politicising the entire process at a time when we have an active inter-state case based on the third article of the ECHR - we had two successful inter-state cases before that - and when we know the ECHR is what underpins the Good Friday Agreement and peace on this island. I asked the Minister of State about this last week and he dismissed it but I want to, again, be reassured of this Government's commitment to the ECHR and the European Court of Human Rights and that it will not pursue the Chișinău process and deviate from it.”
“I will touch on something I raised last week, which was dismissed as not being relevant to the post-European Council statements, even though there was a relevant post-European Council statement on this matter. It is the Irish attack on the European Convention on Human Rights. Only couple of years ago, the Government criticised the UK for its attack on the ECHR, yet only a few months ago, the Government joined in that attack. The European Convention on Human Rights has done nothing but bring good for all the states that signed up to it. This Government, along with others, is happy to start hacking away at it, in an attack on the separation of powers, which I think is just incredible, and judicial independence.”
“Ireland is one of only 27 members of this Union and we could be a vital voice, that same voice we heard in John Hume, one that talks about peace, solidarity, cohesion and democracy. I was at the launch of the European Movement Ireland survey yesterday. The values of the EU were captured in that survey as being democracy, equality, rule of law and human rights. It is my opinion that we have drifted far from those values in the pursuit of appeasing big business through deregulation across the EU and increased militarisation and military spending. If it upsets the Minister of State that I come into the Dáil Chamber and say that, then I am sorry but he will have to deal with it.”
“I am the people of Ireland and I am frightened by the level of militarisation the EU is pursuing. The fact that the multi-annual financial framework has pivoted towards rewarding arms manufacturers over small and medium businesses and that the countries that will benefit most from that are the largest countries in Europe that have those weapons industries is so far removed from the social cohesion and promotion of democracy this Union was started for. Of course, I am afraid and fearful, and it is absolutely right that we call it out. This Government's version of EU membership is to blindly follow that, to go with the EPP and Renew Europe groupings' vision of what this EU should be. Instead, we could be a vital voice.”
“I want to emphasise first that this is for me a really heartbreaking moment, whereby what started as a peace project in post-war Europe - the European Union was called something different then - to end and prevent conflict between European nations and to prevent wider global conflict is at a point where we are now approaching essentially a European defence union and the level of militarisation in the European Union - the Minister of State shakes his head at me and at other speakers-----”
“He sometimes cuts it fine, so I hope he will be here shortly. I welcome the opportunity to make these statements to celebrate Europe Day because I am a proud European. It is important to remember and celebrate the very positive influence European Union membership had has on Irish society, as did, prior to European Union membership, co-operation with European member states post war and post conflict.”
“Right now, we are starting to see that in the existing fuel crisis, it is once again going to be the case that they are looking for people to avail of flexible and remote working arrangements, or at least the State will. Once again, however, the employer has all the cards to play here and the employee has none. In the public sector, there is more room for negotiation and collective bargaining because there is greater trade union recognition but because of the voluntarist system, that simply does not exist for others. The Bill addresses the specific area of flexible and remote work-life balance in the context of that power imbalance. I look forward to debating it in the House.”
“Of course, this disproportionately affects women and others who take on the additional care burden. I am a single mum. I raised my daughter alone and it would have been really nice to have flexible working arrangements available to me when I was dealing with many of the challenges of balancing that care and work. It also affects people with disabilities who have been able to take up employment since Covid in ways they were not able to do before. As we have seen, many companies right now are simply saying, “Come back to work. That is our decision. We are not consulting with you.” They do not have to because, in this country, we have a voluntarist system under which they do not have to recognise trade unions. Ultimately, that is what this Bill boils down to. During Covid, it suited employers to deal with it in that way.”
“It deals with the legislation that is necessary to do that, as well as the ways in which existing legislation will be altered. In summary, what the proposed Bill does is bring legislation into line with the reality that we are all in right now. Since Covid, remote and flexible working has been transformational in the lives of many people. People in Ireland make decisions about their lives based on flexible and remote working. However, right now, there is an imbalance. For example, it is easier to access in the public sector than in the private sector, and in many cases, it is done in informal ways. As we see in so many areas of employment, the imbalance of power between the employer and the employee means there is nothing that people can do to protect it, build around it and feel secure within the arrangement.”
“That means it provides significant protection to the hundreds of thousands of employees who are currently in flexible working arrangements, many of whom have entered into those arrangements in informal ways and ways that are simply not protected by law. It also protects them from penalisation. I have worked in the corporate sector and the private sector, as well as in the public sector, and I have also run my own business. It is the reality that there are people who will not approach their employer because of the fear of penalisation for even asking for flexible and remote working arrangements. This legislation looks to protect that as well. The Bill looks to provide balance and give workers who are engaged in flexible and remote working the exact same rights that workers who are not in those arrangements enjoy.”
“The Bill deals with the objective proof required to refuse a request for flexible working. Those reasons relate to the unreasonable burden for the employer to a point where corrective action would have to be taken, the detrimental impacts on the work of the employee and the pre-existing structural plans made by the employer, which are contrary to flexible working. It makes the case that the employer has to put forward much stronger. This Bill also rewrites the process of consideration of a request, which removes ambiguity and reduces the maximum potential time for consideration. The Bill ensures that changing and cancelling is done on the same objective grounds that I have discussed.”
“Most of all, I thank my team, particularly my parliamentary assistant, for the work they have done in bringing this Bill to the House. The justification for this Bill is that it brings about significant reforms to the area of flexible working, which affects a huge part of the population now. As we have heard in recent contributions, both in committee and here in the Chamber, the current legislation does not deal with the issue. There is a mechanism by which the right to request remote working is dealt with but, unfortunately, it is just not working and the numbers tell the tale. Only 70 workers have achieved flexible working through formal processes in the courts. That is obviously nowhere near the nearly 1 million people who have different arrangements of flexible and remote working.”
“I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to provide an entitlement to employees to request certain flexible working arrangements, to make certain provision for amending or terminating any such arrangements that have been agreed with an employer, to give further effect to Directive (EU) 2019/1158 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on work-life balance for parents and carers and to provide for related matters. This is the first Bill I have brought forward myself. I was privileged to bring forward on Second Stage a Bill that Senator Alice-Mary Higgins had worked on. As I came into this job to be a legislator, this is a really exciting moment for me. I thank the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers, OPLA, for its work on this project and the assistance it provided to me.”
“He is trying to say he does not have anything to do with this when we know that independent local radio is being crushed. Meanwhile, the online sector, which is pumping out misinformation that local radio is trying to combat, which has taken all the ad revenue and which the Minister's Government is failing to regulate, is cleaning up.”
“That interference, which is how I would describe it, or attempted interference, on the Minister's part was very different from this situation. His is a Government that has been in power for many terms now and it has built and established a statutory body to regulate this sector, so it is beyond me that he can say he has nothing to do with it. It is the Minister who is trying to have his cake and eat it by saying that this regulator can just be established and then let run. It is not interference to examine and engage with his agency on a disproportionate levy on radio of 2.8%, compared with TV at 1.2%, online services at 1.25% and streaming at 0.5%. This is an industry that, as I have said, is already under pressure. The Minister is the one who is trying to have his cake and eat it.”
“I do not believe it is enough to simply say that the regulator has the right to impose the levy and therefore it can. It is disproportionate compared with the others. Not only that but Deputy O'Donovan is the Minister for the media, and this goes beyond just asking the regulator about it. What is the Minister doing to support the radio sector in this complex situation?”
“I am heartened to hear that the Minister has at least spoken to Coimisiún na Meán about this but I do not believe that explaining to it that it needs to communicate to its stakeholders is enough in this regard. I also do not believe that the argument of an independent regulator is reason enough for the Minister to wash his hands of this issue. As he has said, local radio is a crucial part of the fabric of Irish society. The services that local radio offers to community cohesion, democratic participation, entertainment and culture within this country are so valued by so many members of Irish society, yet this is an industry and a sector that are under great pressure and have been for many years now as we have seen change of ownership and the pressure of disruption from the tech sector.”
“I would like to hear if the Minister has any response to the recent radio broadcast levy, which has gone up nearly 70% since 2024, and if he or his Department has any plans to support local radio with this very steep levy increase.”
“We can make Russians complicit in Putin's war and regime pay this bill. We can kick-start the rebuilding fund and then we must use the lessons learned from assessing reparations here to ensure that Palestinians get the justice they deserve by establishing a similar claims commission with justice and long-term security at its heart.”
“We must also learn from historical example that placing a massive reparation burden on a post-war state only sparks destabilisation and hatred. A nuclear-capable Russian state embroiled in domestic chaos is a fundamental danger to itself and the world. The nations of the world, but particularly those in Europe, must ensure that the end of Putin's war and dictatorship allows for the Russian people to exercise their right to self-determination and to construct a new government based on human rights. We can make Russia pay for its crimes right now and ensure that it is not the average citizen, who opposes Putin's war and dictatorship, who pays Putin's bills but the cronies and criminals who oppress their own people. The step to join this commission is, as I said, welcome, but there is so much more work to do.”
“We need to recognise that peace and justice are a universal mission and the practical steps to achieving this should not be segregated by continent. This proposal in its current form will not rebuild hospitals or schools, or fund widows' pensions. If we are to rebuild Ukraine, it must be a collective and international effort. We can legislate at the national and European levels to release seized Russian assets to Ukraine. We should use the estimated more than €200 billion of frozen Russian assets in the EU banks to give an immediate and serious peace dividend to Ukraine. The use of these assets would ensure that Russians complicit in the invasion of Ukraine, those oligarchs who sought to profit from war, will not be able to use their illegal acts for personal gain.”
“We need to support Ukraine and we need to use this model as a blueprint to ensure Trump and his board of ethnic cleansing do not get to pave over Palestine. A reparations commission should be formed to give real power to the establishment of a strong and secure Palestinian state and to end the illegal and despicable occupation of stolen land by Israel. The failure of European governments to uphold international law in Palestine needs to be corrected. The destruction of Ukraine and Palestine are fundamentally connected by regimes that seek to impose militarist powers through unilateral action. Europe, as a wealthy continent, should be a leader in the provision of post-war funding to build sustainable futures for Palestinians and Ukrainians.”
“The Government at the very least should be looking to use this money to finance the Irish contribution to the commission, which would ensure that further pressure is put on Russia to come to the table because of Putin's reliance on these oligarchs. The nations of Europe in this initiative are coming together in a truly historic way. To rebuild a country and support a peace process of this scale is a real achievement. It must be built on to ensure that Europe is a force for peace in the world. This commission should lay the groundwork for a similar Palestinian reparations commission. When European governments freeze assets of one occupier but maintain preferential trade deals with another, it makes us all hypocrites.”
“In our own history, we have received a peace dividend in the aftermath of the Troubles, as did much of the rest of Europe in the wake of World War Two. Ireland has also participated in international aid measures to countries across the globe and continues to do so. We need to remember this history, step up to the occasion and ensure that Europe is ready to assist when this war ends. In a briefing circulated by the Government Whip, we are told that Ireland's contribution to the administrative costs of the commission will be less than €1 million per year. Currently, Irish institutions are in possession of roughly €2 billion in frozen Russian assets.”
“I have other concerns that this new commission may sideline the primacy of Ukraine in negotiations as the assessment of claims may differ from what is needed or desired by the Ukrainian state to build positively into the future. I hope the Minister of State accepts that I am putting these forward as concerns but it in no way undermines our support for the motion. Ireland must be a leader on this action to ensure Europe does not just signal intent and support but actually takes a meaningful role in supporting Ukrainians. There is currently massive co-operation between European countries and Ukraine in terms of arms deals and military support but there is huge further potential for humanitarian assistance and transitional support.”
“The reparations commission will evaluate and produce a cost Russia is liable for but will Russia ever engage with its liability, other than to reject it outright? Russia is a rogue state that rejects any application of international law, so why would we expect it to suddenly accept a massive reparations bill? Russia will reject this commission's findings so we must ensure the rebuilding of Ukraine actually takes place through alternative means at the same time as the work of the commission continues. Instead of just drawing up a large bill for Russia, we need to ensure that our solidarity is felt by every day Ukrainians.”
“The Ukraine reparations commission that this Government proposes we join is a very welcome idea. It is a means of showing solidarity with Ukraine and I fully accept that but I believe we can go further than just showing solidarity. I want to speak to this concept of solidarity because it is so crucial. What does solidarity mean? It is real and serious action. It is acting with justice in mind and taking meaningful steps to help the people who we mean to help. We will always stand with and support Ukraine in its mission to preserve its sovereignty. This reparations commission will work over several years to evaluate the collective damage done by Russia to Ukraine throughout the invasion. This is welcome but I have concerns that it may be an expensive, academic exercise if we do not take more action.”
“It really struck me that, until Deputy Kerrane spoke this morning, I did not see the voice of the child present in this debate. Thankfully, it has appeared since then. The voice and rights of the child should be what this debate is channelled through. It is what any amendments, motions, law and policy should be done through. We know from research and, indeed, from lived experience that when we centre and foreground the rights and voice of the child, everybody else's rights are met. That is what we have to keep focused on in any of this.”
“One of the issues with our family court system is that so much of this ends up in the courts. If we better resourced and informed the public on the structures that should be available to them or are sometimes and intermittently available them to prevent them from ever entering the courts system and, instead, assisting them, as the Minister suggested, with finding solutions around maintenance and custody that can be done outside the court system, it would relieve the pressure on the courts system. It would provide families with less adversarial solutions to the crises that they find themselves in. All of this and all the changes that we heard suggested today must be backed up with consistent funding. The Family Courts Act should assist in resolving many of these issues, but only if it is matched with funding.”
“I welcome this debate, and the motion put forward by Deputy Gogarty. I have provided two points within the amendment which I have tabled to the motion. The first one is around a bench book, which essentially is a manual for judges to help them with the specifics of family law. The Minister spoke about the unique nature of family law and how difficult it can be. That is essentially what this is. On the Minister's comments around the separation of powers, that is not the intention of this amendment. Of course, I recognise the role of the Judicial Council in providing those bench books. I would never be suggesting that the Government would write such a bench book. All I am suggesting is that it be provided for. The second point in the amendment is one that I wish to emphasise, which is the establishment and maintenance of a family helpline.”
“They have no power to push back against multinational corporations, which at a whim can decide they want people to work two, three, four or five days in the office. That is the issue. Workers have no strength and the legislation does not help that in any way whatsoever. We could be leaders in this. That is what kills me most. The Government tries to tell us we are leaders in the technology space. We could be leaders in this, by tapping into this technology and setting the trend for what we should be doing in facilitating remote working to deal with crises right now.”
“Essentially, what I am hearing is that the Government responded, it built a solution that is working and that there is nothing to see here. I am saying it is not working. I looked at the report by the Department. Although its conclusion states everything is working, which is what we heard again today numerous times, a few pages earlier it talks about the toothless tiger critique and states: "The qualitative findings clarify that this is not a vague or general complaint, but a specific and targeted critique of the perceived power imbalance within the current framework." That is my issue. It is laid upon a situation where we do not have collective bargaining so people are not coming forward to exercise their right to request remote working.”
“I literally just got a ping on my phone while I was sitting here, which was a headline published by thejournal.ie two hours ago about Aer Lingus calling its staff back four days per week. The Minister of State's numbers do not paint the actual picture. The 94%, which is a great result, applies to 70 application since 2024. Awareness raising is not the only answer. There are a lot more reasons people are not using this system. It is not simply because they do not know about it.”
“I thank the Minister of State. I apologise. I forgot to thank Deputy Conway-Walsh for facilitating my going first. I heard similar words from the Minister of State's colleague a short while ago when we were discussing the strengthening of workers' rights under the Sinn Féin motion and it rings hollow, I am afraid. What we know about and what we have seen is just headline after headline about people being called back into the workplace. People are dealing with a cost-of-living crisis and now a fuel crisis and there are ways we can respond to that as a society. During the Covid-19 pandemic, remote working became something that worked for people. Yet, since then, we have seen it rolled back again and again.”
“It is absolutely insane that you cannot rely on the security of trade union membership and what collective action can bring to you in the workplace and that, literally, in one company, it can change from one thing to the other. We must address the power imbalance we currently have and we must force employers to come to the table. This motion does exactly that by outlining those key issues that need to be addressed: collective bargaining, union access, living wage and remote working.”
“We need that system where the living wage is where our minimum wage is at and where people can access remote working and flexible working arrangements and that they can do so with the power of collective action, that they can sit at a table and expect their employer will meet them at that table. Right now, they can choose to collectively unite and to collectively act but when they go to that table, the voluntary system means the employer simply does not have to come to it and say, "No thanks". I have heard of companies where one plant will recognise unions and another plant does not and that is just as a result of historical legacy issues where in one company issues are dealt with by human resources while in other it is dealt with by proper industrial relations mechanisms. That is ridiculous.”
“Some of them has hardly met and that does not create a situation where workers feel in any way empowered or in any way that they have a fair shout in terms of dealing with their employers. The vision we need to seek is of a social democratic society where unions are properly recognised, where people can sign up for their trade union, where they do not have to hide and furtively discuss the idea of organising within their workplaces, and where access to the workplace is provided to unions which allows people to organise and to bargain collectively for better pay and working conditions.”
“When we talk about just transition of the climate, we need to tack on to that the digital just transition that we should be considering. There will be such a level of job displacement that we need to see this as the crisis it is. The other thing we need to call out is the resistance the Government has to the improvements we have seen in jobs and working conditions that have come through from the EU. Although we eventually transpose those things, we do so kicking and screaming. In terms of the current obligations we are trying to meet as Union members, I have heard Government representatives say the JLCs fulfil our commitments to collective bargaining, which is absolute nonsense. The JLCs are working in some cases. I absolutely can see that. There are ways in which they are good but they are not good across the board.”
“ICTU has been out and about recently talking about quality work and quality jobs. The gig economy has started what we know is coming across multiple sectors in terms of automation, AI and the precarity of work they drive. When we say we have full employment, it masks the fact that much of that employment is poor quality. It is employment which does not allow people to advance in life or move out of their parents' home; it does not give them security or allow them to make decisions about living their lives and fulfilling their potential. It keeps them down, as so many of these mechanisms do. AI will keep coming at us. We do not have the social structures in place as it stands with this voluntarist system to combat that, deal with it and treat it in the just-transition way we need to think about.”
“Youth unemployment is a canary in a coalmine. If we do not watch out for it and start to recognise it is coming in other areas, then we are setting ourselves up for failure. I will be bringing legislation shortly to strengthen the right to request and to access remote and flexible working arrangements. It is not working as it is. We need legislation that allows people to put that question to their employer and directs that the employer cannot just pull out of thin air something they feel is an appropriate answer but has a categorised set of responses. We also need that to kick in from people's first day in their job. At the moment, it only kicks in six months after they start. There is bogus self-employment, in-work poverty, the cost-of-living crisis we are all facing and the reduction in quality.”
“They are the little tip of the iceberg we will see emerge in the coming weeks, months and years, which will devastate sectors of the workforce across society. Anything that is text-based - lawyers, journalists and accountants - is under threat because data models can take the information and do a lot of the tasks we do. We will see labour displacement through this industrial revolution - the fourth industrial revolution, the AI revolution - at a pace and scale we have never seen before as a species. In this country, we have no power as workers to combat that or deal with it as the challenge it is. There are many other crises and challenges facing our workforce. When I ask about youth unemployment, I get back that we have more people in jobs in Ireland than ever before and we have full employment.”
“People will ask why they should bother signing up to a union because when it goes to the negotiating table, it has no power to drive the employer to that table. Unions face a huge issue with recruitment and membership will always remain low if we have this voluntarist model. Despite that, speaking at the launch of the data chapter of the Communications Workers' Union was one of the most exciting moments I have had as a TD because it felt to me like the momentum we know from trade union movements of old, where people recognised that collective bargaining and collective action are crucial. There is a power imbalance which can only be addressed by solidarity and by speaking and acting together. That is what we need to do. Those Covalen workers trained the AI agents which are now taking their jobs.”
“In so many decisions it makes, policies it designs and laws it enacts, it thinks about business and how the market can solve our problems, to the detriment of all other interests in society. That is how it chooses to address this and that is why we persistently keep this voluntarist model we all know does not work. We have heard a lot about the Covalen workers today. I joined those workers on their strike in Sandyford in my constituency a number of months back, when 300 jobs were under threat - never mind the 700 now under threat. They are part of the Communications Workers' Union. I then attended the digital and tech workers alliance chapter of that union. It is so hard for unions to recruit.”
“The voluntarist system does not work. I have worked in the private sector and the public sector and I have owned my own business, so I understand why the voluntarist system cannot work. It is because if a company is driven by profit, it does not ever choose to recognise workers' rights over shareholders' interests. It will never be something it will choose to do or volunteer to do. What the voluntarist system tries to do will never work because the power imbalance is too out of kilter. I was at an event recently and heard a European commentator describe von der Leyen's approach on this European Union Administration as uncritically pro-business. That is an absolutely perfect term to capture the attitude of this Government: uncritically pro-business.”
“I wish everybody in this House a happy May Day this Friday. I particularly extend that to the staff in Leinster House who work so hard to allow us as representatives to do our jobs and work so hard. Of course, many of the staff here are union members. I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion, which succinctly captures the four key issues we need to address and strengthen workers' rights in this country: recognising collective bargaining, giving unions access to the workplace so they can recruit and organise, matching the minimum wage with the living wage, and finally dealing with remote and flexible working in a way that works, not in a way that simply pays lip service to it. We are an outlier in Europe in not recognising unions. That is a problematic issue in many areas I have dealt with in my portfolio dealing with employment.”
“This Government has been talking about short-term lets since 2022 and the regulations that were required. I may not share the same position as Deputy Collins on it but I do share his concerns about fresh delays arising today out of Cabinet disagreement over it. This is in the context where, in some counties, there are 25 times as many short-term lets as there are properties available on the private rental market. We need a debate about this issue and it to be resolved and clarity around it immediately.”
“I want to know what Fianna Fáil's position is on the digital omnibus specifically and whether it is supporting the digital omnibus. Within that, there is a move back towards self-regulation by the tech sector, and the removal of the high-risk systems we are all seeking in relation to tech regulation, particularly in light of the European digital identity wallet. Finally, and crucially, I want to understand Ireland’s position on the ECHR and why, after criticising the UK for attacking the ECHR, we have followed in its footsteps and chosen to commit to the Chisinau process. Why and for what reason? How can we square that with our own human rights record and our ambition to be on the UN Human Rights Council?”