We are days away from the announcement of budget 2027 and it looks like everything will be leaked in advance, or will the Tánaiste be able to keep a few morsels in his back pocket for budget day? Later today, the Labour Party will publish its alternative budget. We will set out our plans for a future we can all afford. To take on the cost-of-living crisis, our plan is unapologetically and relentlessly focused on three key issues: energy, incomes and child poverty. By taxing wealth sensibly and putting windfall taxe…

We will have overspends in health this year. We have had overspends in education this year, and we will have overspends in other Departments as well. The principal reason for the overspends in health and some other key spending Departments is that this Government and its immediate predecessor decided to engage in fictional, fraudulent budgeting. I will give an example. Last year, the Minister for education made it very clear to the Department of public expenditure that she was at least €600 million short in respect…

It does, though.

I will be sharing some time with my party colleague Deputy Conor Sheehan. Here we go again. We are in the same situation we were in just a couple of short years ago after Vladimir Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine. We are here again dealing with the same set of circumstances as a consequence of Donald Trump's misadventure in and on Iran. Anyone who has been awake for the last five years will know that an energy crisis is only really a crisis for the end user, the consumer, the regular citizen and the small busine…

Has the Tánaiste carried out an impact assessment in terms of the Exchequer related to his proposed saving and investment accounts proposition, and where that is at? I expect we will hear more about this and the details around the proposal in next week's budget, but at this point will he confirm that an assessment of the impact on the Exchequer has taken place, and if he is prepared to publish that assessment?

I expect then, from what the Tánaiste is saying, we will see more details next week in the budget but that a lot of the tax-related matters will be addressed in the context of the Finance Bill that we will be dealing with in early November. Figures published by the IBEC group, Financial Services Ireland, would suggest that there will be a conservative 10% adult uptake. It applies a €30,000 tax-free annual allowance so that is probably a threshold that has been inserted into the media and with which we are familiar.…

There is probably never a good time to launch an initiative like this given with what is happening with the US Treasury at the moment. In addition, given the kind of investment that will take place because of the products available such as bonds, exchange-traded funds, ETFs, shares and so on, it may not be the best time ever to do it. I will be straight with the Minister. I do not see this in the scheme of things as being a priority. It is something that will happen. It has to happen. I understand why people will w…

Energy costs are the absolute top priority for people across the country. The October budget in a couple of weeks’ time will be all about the cost of living. It has been a busy few weeks for the Tánaiste and his Cabinet colleagues. Two weeks to the budget and Simon’s sieve gets leakier by the day. There will be indexation of income tax bands and credits for PAYE workers but nothing to address the hit they took last year when working people were made to pay for tax cuts for diners and developers. There will be a fiv…

We know the decisions taken in last year's budget, where PAYE workers were simply ignored by this Government, have made things much more difficult for ordinary working families throughout the country to absorb even small increases in food and energy prices. The Government needs to make up for that in this budget. The Tánaiste knows that himself. In my view, that is a decision that will haunt this Government and its relationship with PAYE workers for the duration of its term. We know that energy costs will absolutel…

Hear, hear.

I will be sharing time with my colleague, Deputy Eoghan Kenny. I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this Bill this evening. I know it is very much anchored in Sinn Féin's position that it has opposed the imposition of carbon taxes over a number of years. It is also very much anchored in the consistent position it has enunciated over many years in relation to local property tax, USC and so on. We in the Labour Party take a different view. Our view is based on how we can best provide the supports required for people who wil…

The last public sector pay deal expired in June and, to date, the Minister, Deputy Chambers, has not created conditions to allow talks on a potential successor pay agreement. The Government is sleepwalking into public sector strikes and public sector action that will take place over the next few weeks. When will the Government set down a meaningful frame to allow for public sector trade unions to engage on a potential successor public pay deal? We have yet to have a debate on this issue and the last deal expired in…

The spectre of Michael Shine has hung over the town of Drogheda and the wider region for decades. Today is an important day for the hundreds of victims and survivors of this disgraced, convicted sex offender and former doctor. There is now a way forward through the recommendations of the scoping report published an hour ago. This is a day when we can say we are a step further along the road of truth and accountability and that we are a little closer to laying this ghost to rest. Over 15 years ago, I made my very fi…

A light must be shone into the environment that allowed a prolific paedophile to operate within our public health service, with impunity and unchallenged for over 30 years. Questions have to be asked of the former North Eastern Health Board, the order that ran the Lourdes hospital, the Garda, the Medical Council, the DPP and other agencies which knew very well what was going on. The dogs in the street in Drogheda knew what Shine was doing to young boys and men and that is why a statutory inquiry is of critical impo…

Will the Tánaiste commit providing stable and predictable core funding to the Dignity4Patients group to ensure it can continue to support men through this process?

I thank the Tánaiste for his personal interest in this over the years and that of the Taoiseach as well. I acknowledge the work the Minister, Deputy McEntee, has done in representing her constituents over the years who have been affected by the actions of this despicable man, who was convicted a number of years ago of a number of criminal offences but, as I have repeatedly said, a spell in jail does not justice make.

We need to shine a light into the dark recesses of our society and into the agencies and organisations that allowed the actions of this prolific paedophile to continue unchallenged for over 30 years. I was very moved when I read the report this morning and the initial passage where Lorcan Staines said that "a further State response is required." That line is the line for which we have all been waiting for 30 years after a number of failed attempts and State-backed initiatives to address many of these issues. There …

I note Deputy Gould's emotive and emotional remarks and his tour of recent Irish history, but the focus of this debate and this society need to be on the present and on preparing for the future. I mean it most sincerely that there is an onus on us and a responsibility on all of us who believe that uniting Ireland is the best way in which we can serve the material interests of our people to ditch the sloganeering, be less reliant on the four green fieldisms and to have less of a focus on what I might describe as the…

As my colleague, Deputy Bacik, said, today is for you and about you. I hope that today marks an important milestone for you and a step on the road to a form of healing that has been denied to you all for far too long. If survivors in the Gallery will indulge me for a moment, it is serendipitous that on the day on which an apology is formally made to you in the Dáil for the wrongs the State has done to you, a report has gone to Cabinet in respect of a scoping exercise into the conduct of Michael Shine. It is importa…

Another week has gone by and there is still no sign of the report on Aughinish Alumina from the Minister's Department. It is now over three months since The Irish Times published its investigation on 24 March. It is a month since Deputy Bacik asked the Taoiseach to bring forward a solution to protect jobs and to put in place a ban on exports to Russia. It is eight days since President Zelenskyy delivered a hard truth, which is that every tonne of raw materials that ends up in Russia is used in the war against Ukrai…