These are not landlords.

A total of 91% per cent of them are not landlords.

Fine Gael's manifesto for the last election states: Fine Gael will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. We will unequivocally support Ukraine. I presume Fianna Fáil's manifesto said something similar. The Government supports them as long as it can use them to drive an agenda of militarisation and undermining of neutrality. However, when it comes to Ukrainian people who have fled Putin's imperialist invasion to this country, the Government is happy to use them as a scapegoat, to impose cuts on them and to hav…

The Deputy can look at the figures. It does not make any sense for landlords to use this scheme. I am not saying we will not find the odd case here or there. It does not make any sense because people can make more money in other ways. They can make up to €1,166 a month tax-free from the rent-a-room scheme. They can get €600 from this, and they are going to be able to get €400 in the future. The vast majority, 71% are people living in host homes so they do not have a whole property to go. If they have a whole proper…

On 5 March, the Fianna Fáil Minister of State, Deputy Robert Troy, told the Dáil that: Ireland's position on the use of force where there is no UN mandate or authorisation is well established and known. For fear that anyone is in any doubt, let me be clear: it is wrong and it is illegal. He said that the use of force without UN mandate or authorisation is wrong and illegal, which is absolutely correct. How can the Taoiseach square that with his support for the coalition of the willing in Ukraine? How can he square …

This resolution is very revealing about the Government's approach. Earlier, we had a resolution that introduced inadequate measures, small cuts in excise on petrol and diesel but no price caps, no guarantee, no security for people into the future and nothing to ensure there is not profiteering. Those measures are time limited until the end of May and could be wiped away by the end of the week. Prices could go back down to €2 per litre and then go back up again by the end of the week. It is something but it is also …

If the Minister of State wants, I will get to him before we finish. The ESRI said that for the bottom 10% the budget would see a cut of about 2.5% in income-----

The ESRI did not say that. I will get the Minister of State the exact figures by the time I finish. The Government's budget - people can check it online - hit disabled people and the lowest income groups the hardest. Let me say what the Government should have done and what we are in favour of doing. We should cap prices. We should give people certainty: €1.75, as was contained in our Bill, for petrol and diesel. Only a price cap can give certainty and security to car-dependent households. The way you do that is you…

You do not search the planes. You refuse to search the planes.

Over the past week, a lot of people have been watching Louis Theroux’s exposé of the online manosphere, where manfluencers peddle misogyny, racism, homophobia and transphobia, which is then force-fed to young men via toxic social media algorithms. Like the big tech companies and the depraved billionaires who profit from these toxic algorithms, the only value system the manfluencers have is money, maximising engagement and clicks by making the most extreme content they can think of and then monetising the attention …

It feels in many ways like Groundhog Day talking again about a cost-of-living crisis. Of course, this cost-of-living crisis comes on top of a cost-of-living crisis that had not gone away, despite what the Government pretended at the time of the budget. The result is people again choosing between heating or eating, with fuel prices spiralling and people in crisis situations. What lies behind it is a US and Israeli criminal and imperialist attack on Iran, which the Government refuses to condemn and to say is in breac…

Across Dublin City Council letters are dropping for council tenants and HAP tenants telling them the people least able to afford to pay are going to see massive rent increases of 30% on average. Dublin city renters are getting organised. I saw there was a big meeting last night, a big meeting the week before and a big meeting the week before that. Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin is involved in organising those people. The same is happening in South Dublin County Council in advance of a planned rent rise. The question is wheth…

Can the Minister of State tell me whether, in the national framework the Government is going to work towards, rents are going to come down for any council tenants or are they just going to rise? That is the simple question. The Delivering Homes, Building Communities document is extremely worrying because it suggests moving away from a differential rent-based system in which people's rent is based on their income and what they can afford to pay, which is an extremely fair system. Instead the document refers to the H…

I am not against a streamlined system in principle but I do not think any council tenants are going to believe the Minister of State that the Government is going to streamline this downwards to the lowest levels. Instead, everyone will hear that it is going to streamline this to the highest possible levels. That will mean even more rent increases for people who simply cannot afford to pay. I am telling the Minister of State that council tenants are getting organised in a very significant way. In Dublin City Council…

Will you promise me you will go lower?

No, I am interrupting you though.

You tell me if you are going to go lower.

I am just asking the question.

I would ask the Minister of State whether the Government is going to reduce them.

"Death and destruction from the sky, all day long" was what Pete Hegseth, Secretary of War, said with glee from a podium. The man is a psychopath. He comes across as a psychopath. It is like he has styled himself on a film villain. He represents a psychopathic regime in a psychopathic system. Who is this death and destruction being rained down on? Well over 1,000 Iranians have now been killed. Although it has gotten shockingly little attention, we know that in one bombing of a school, over 160 young schoolgirls and…