There is something called international law. I will quote to the Minister what the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, said: "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." Does the Minister agree with the Minister of State, Deputy Troy? All the triple lock does is ensure that we can only send troops where there is a UN mandate or authorisation. That is all it does.…

Will it say that we will only send troops abroad in accordance with the articles of the UN Charter? The articles of the UN Charter are very clear. The Minister can send troops abroad in self-defence, which is not covered by the triple lock, or she can do it with a UN-authorised mission, which is precisely what the triple lock states. The triple lock enshrines in Irish law international law. It states that we can only send troops in accordance with international law. The only reason to get rid of it is if the Minist…

I think the Minister is deliberately being a bit disingenuous by saying that, okay, this is agreed by legislation. She does not recognise the European referendums that enshrined this. We have the Seville declaration. It is part of international law. The Minister does not recognise that the people voted on this. That is forgetting about the recent presidential election where neutrality dominated the campaign. That is forgetting about all the opinion polls that show that people support neutrality and support the trip…

I do not think they should be in the Mediterranean.

I welcome the supports for ordinary people in this motion, but they do not go far enough. People are really suffering. They cannot afford food, rent, or childcare. There are 500,000 people who are in arrears on their electricity and gas bills. We need more than once-off cost-of-living payments and temporary excise cuts. We need a radical transformation of how this country is run. Instead of the Ireland for the rich we currently have, we need an Ireland where people come before profit. We are not going to get that f…

An Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, report in April predicted that approximately 7% of Irish jobs could be lost to AI in the short to medium term. That equates to approximately 200,000 jobs. The Central Bank estimated earlier this year that almost 900,000 jobs are at risk of being replaced by AI. That is just direct job losses. In reality, the impact will be a lot worse than that because many of the jobs that are lost will be higher paid roles in ICT and finance. Over 20,000 tech jobs have been lost in…

The Government is making it worse.

Does the Taoiseach want a medal?

And do what Trump says. Is that the moral thing?

It is hard to think of community infrastructure more important than our postal services. It, therefore, makes no sense whatsoever that the sorting office for Dublin 16 is being moved out of Dublin 16, from Edmondstown to Lucan. It will be a disaster for workers who have built their lives around the fact that they live near where they work, and it will result in massively worsened postal services because the letters and packets will get stuck on the M50. The routes will not get finished and, potentially, people will…

Nine days ago, hundreds of people marched to Lough Neagh to protest the ecocide of our largest lake. Last year, the EPA published research on 35 lakes in the South. Two thirds are classed as at risk under the water framework directive. Seven important Irish lakes are found to be at high risk of Lough Neagh-type toxic algae blooms, including loughs Derg, Ramor, Sheelin, Sillan, Muckno and Naglack. Lady's Island in Wexford where toxic blue-green algae have all but killed the lake was not included in the research. The…

I thank Deputy Stanley for this excellent and important motion. I will start with a quote from the Fianna Fáil Minister of State, Deputy Troy: 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. Does the Minister of State, Deputy Murnane O'Connor, agree with the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, on that? I will repeat the quote, if the Minister of State wants: Ireland's…

This is from 5 March. Is this the Government's position or not? The Minister of State, Deputy Troy, said: 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 was summing up a debate on the Middle East on 5 March. There is a problem with the Government, if that is its position. What does the triple lock do? It means that we cannot send troops except where there is a…

I support the Sinn Féin amendment and I have concerns about the Government amendment. I have concerns about the whole Bill, to be honest. I will start on the Sinn Féin stuff, to which the Minister responded by saying this is about real terrorism, it is about brown people or republicans. That is the type of terrorism he is dealing with here, not any of that fine state terrorism we see carried out by the US and Israel. Today, we have video of an Irish citizen being terrorised by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the security minister…

I have just received notice of what will be proposed for a massive increase in council rent in South Dublin County Council. It is looking to increase the basic rate of council rent by 25%. It will mean thousands of euro extra per year for many families at a time of a cost-of-living crisis that people simply will not be able to afford. It is not just South Dublin County Council. We have seen this in Dublin City Council where rents have been increased by almost 30% - there is huge resistance and opposition to that - …

The Minister's speech really encapsulates the cynicism of the Government on the issue of Palestine. The written copies of her speech include, in two places, references to the start and end of media clips. It is the first time I have seen that. It encapsulates the Government's approach. One of the clips includes the Minister talking about all the good stuff the Government is going to do at a European level and how hopeful she is about the things happening at EU level. The clip ends with a statement that the Governme…

I thank the Social Democrats for bringing forward this Bill, which People Before Profit supports. It really is the bare minimum the Government should be doing to implement the recommendations of its own official review of the abortion law. The review recommended decriminalising abortion, reviewing the treatment of fatal foetal anomalies in order that women in this terrible situation are not forced to travel and abolishing the patronising and medically useless three-day wait. The Bill mostly does all of that. There …

Fianna Fáil's former leader and Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has engaged in disgusting racism in Dublin Central, saying we have “too many” immigrants and saying, "The ones I worry about are the Africans", and that, "We can’t be taking in people from the Congo and all these places." He said he worries about the next generation of Muslims. Bertie Ahern doing it makes the agenda very blatant: scapegoat immigrants and divide ordinary people. Why? So that nobody blames Bertie Ahern, Fianna Fáil and the landlords and develop…

On Bertie Ahern, I will just say this. What people say when they do not think they are being recorded is actually more valuable than what they say when they know they are being recorded. It suggests a dirty game used on doorsteps by Fianna Fáil to divide and rule ordinary people, and to have them not blaming the people the Taoiseach represents - the developers, the landlords, the people who get rich from the housing crisis. Instead, it is better to blame the people from Congo or wherever else. Regarding the council…

The other thing is the Department. The Department pulled the plug on Oliver Bond. It is the Department-----