I thank Deputy Lawlor for tabling the Bill, which would represent significant improvements on the current situation whereby workers have no right at all to remote working. What Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael legislated for was a right for employers to refuse reasonable remote working requests. I was on the enterprise committee at the time when the Government Bill went through. ICTU came in and told us the Government's law was utterly pointless. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael knew exactly what they were doing in bringing in t…

There are about 20 Northside Home Care healthcare assistants in the Gallery. These workers are on strike today. Some of them have worked for 25 years and are only paid €15.04 an hour. Others are on minimum wage. They get approximately 30% less than others doing the same job. They provide vital care for about 500 people on a daily basis. The reason for this ultimately is the HSE has arbitrarily excluded them from being treated as section 39 workers. When this was raised with the Taoiseach when they were on strike in…

This is an incredibly serious piece of legislation. It is a frontal assault on human rights. It is a Bill for the detention of children. It is a Bill which undermines the right to legal representation. It is a Bill which attempts to effectively telescope the process of asylum in order to deny asylum seekers their rights. I do not think that such an assault on human rights will stay with one group, in that the implementation of this denial of human rights for asylum seekers, as part of a scape-goating strategy, will…

The Minister's response is quite revealing. We are saying this is a Bill for the detention of children. He is saying not to worry, he will recognise the rights of children and there is nothing to be worried about. Then we have amendments before us that propose the best interests of the child should be a primary consideration in the carrying out of this procedure in terms of asylum, and we have amendments that propose this Part will be interpreted in line with the guarantees for minors set out in Article 23, but the…

The Minister is not going to accept it today on Committee Stage. As part of the Minister's consideration, I ask him to consider that he cannot logically say that we do not need it because it is already binding on us because of Article 23 itself, and then on the other hand say it is here in relation to this particular part. The fact that it is there in relation to the Eurodac regulation and screening illustrates that it is there. Someone decided there is a need for it to be there in order for that to apply. Yet, as …

For years, we have been told that the Government's climate targets are legally binding, and the implication was that, therefore, heaven and earth would be moved in order to meet those targets. Then, in January, we heard from the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, that the Government is not going to meet the targets, and it did not announce any measures or have any plan to announce any measures to actually close the gap and meet those targets. The contrast between what the Taoiseach said when he went to COP 30 in Bra…

I think the answer is interconnection.

You just did.

The energy transition is not happening, is it? A total of 80% of our energy comes from fossil fuels. It is not because ordinary people are not making efforts to make changes in their lives, put on solar panels and retrofit their houses and so on. The central reason is that data centre usage of electricity has ballooned by more than 400% in the past ten years and it is on a trajectory to rise even faster. Even though renewable capacity is being added to the grid, all of that is being swallowed up by big tech. That i…

Income tax, but all the other stuff.

No.

The Taoiseach knows I am not.

The Taoiseach knows I am not.

"Disingenuous".

How many in data centres?

I was talking to the Taoiseach about data.

That is the whole point of data. Data centres can be anywhere.

Exactly.

It is 20%.

I want to ask about the school building and refurbishment projects in Dublin 24 that are included in the national development plan, NDP, sectoral investment plan. As far as I know, there are 105 projects listed for the tranche for 2026 and 2027. Only one of those is in Dublin 24 and there are zero in Tallaght despite plenty of schools having a very desperate need. I know Government backbenchers are giving out about the number of projects in Galway. Ten of the projects are in Galway, which is 10% of the projects, wh…